Better Detective Work Through Pretend Chemistry

 

When Rex Allen began starring in B-movies as a singing cowboy, he did several things to help differentiate him from Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. One of those things was to wear his guns backwards--with the gun butts sticking forward atop the holster. 

It's nice that the artists who drew his inevitable comic book adventures for Dell Comics got this particular detail correct. This includes Mike Arens, who drew the Rex Allen story "The Ghost" for Western Roundup #3 (July-September 1953). The writer of this story is unknown.

The story begins with Rex getting knocked out by stage robbers. When he wakes up, the local sheriff briefly thinks he might be one of the robbers, who had also murdered one of the passengers. Fortunately, Rex is able to prove that he 's a good guy. In fact, he's been deputized by the U.S. Marshall to stop the robbers--a gang headed up someone known only as The Ghost.

Rex meets with the city council, several of whom (including the mayor) don't like the idea of an outsider messing around with their business. Rex, though, explains that he saw one of the crooks at the stage robbery and can soon get a line on the gang.

Soon after, a couple of the gang try to capture Rex to find out what he knows. He manages to capture them. And the kidnapping attempt confirms a suspicion he had--one of the city council members is the Ghost. It's the only way the crooks could have found out so swiftly that he had seen the face of one of the gang. He hadn't really seen any of the crooks--that was a fib, of course. But if you can't fib to bad guys, who can you fib too?

I like this story, but there is a minor flaw in the plot here. Rex is assuming that the Ghost is on the council. That someone connected with the gang is on the council is now certain. Rex's trick was clever enough to establish that. But, for all Rex knew at this point, the mole on the council was in the Ghost's pay rather than the Ghost himself.

This isn't a fatal flaw, of course. Rex could have come to the same conclusion but have simply taken a chance that the mole was indeed the Ghost when he impliments the next part of that plan.

He meets with the council again and tells them that there's new chemical--one that will turn red if placed on the palm of a hand that has recently been blood stained--even if the stains are days old and the person has washed his hands. 

Of course, Rex is now not only assuming the Ghost is a member of the council but also personally took part in the last robbery and personally got blood on his hands. There's no denying it--Rex is definitely playing a long shot.

But long shots sometimes pay off. The chemical turns red in the mayor's hand, who quickly confesses when the council immediately threatens to lynch him. Gee whiz, for politicians, these guys act pretty quickly and decisively!

It turns out that Rex was telling yet another fib. He used water to test everyone else and a chemical that turns red when exposed to open air when testing the mayor. 

As a detective story, "The Ghost" is a little weak. In addition to the points I've already mentioned, Rex never clearly explains how he came to suspect the mayor at all. Though, to be fair, the mayor was the most adament in claiming that they didn't need Rex's help to catch the Ghost. 

Still, the art is fun and the story is enjoyable. If we look at the plot as consisting of Rex indeed playing a few long shots instead of making solid deductions, the whole thing works.  In fact, I enjoyed hanging out with Rex Allen sufficiently enought to watch one of his movies and review it in tomorrow's post.

Next week, we'll visit with the stupidest time traveler in history.