Vaudevillian Goes West, Part 1

 

cover art by Paul Stahr

Read/Watch 'em In Order #142

Each time I've written about one of Philip Ketchum's Bretwalda stories, I search to see if the issue of Argosy in which is was originally printed is available online, so I can link to it in the post. While doing so, I noticed one issue contained the first part of a serial about an aging former Vaudeville comedian who moves West and has a series of adventures there. That's something I just gotta read.

The character is named Henry Harrison Conroy and his adventures are chronicled by W.C. Tuttle, one of the most popular Western scribes of the pulp era. Henry appeared in nearly two dozen short stories, novellas and serials through the 1930s and 1940s. I'm supposed to know about the pulps, so I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know about him. 

Anyway, I found the first story and like it so much that I'm going to cover them on the blog as well. I'll still finish up the last four Bretwalda stories as well as part of the In Order posts, but they will be interspersed with Henry's adventures.

"Henry Goes Arizona" (Argosy, February 23, 1935) is the premiere tale in the series. Henry is 55 years old and sports a huge, red nose. He's putting on weight, balding and coming to the end of his career as a vaudeville comedian. Things look bleak for him.

Until he gets a telegram informing him that he's inherited a cattle ranch in Arizona. Henry briefly assumes he's rich, but when arrives in Tonto City, he discovers the ranch is deeply in debt. He also learns his uncle (the ranch's previous owner) was murdered. And perhaps that's just as well, since Jim Conroy had been ruthlessly working to put the small ranchers in the area out of business.

Henry, though, is a different sort of Conroy. He wonders about the lack of financial records and where cash from recent cattle sales have gone. He hires the man who was initially suspected of killing his uncle because he's a good judge of character. He knows young Danny Regan is innocent and he doesn't trust the current ranch's foreman. 

He also befriends an elderly lawyer named "Judge" Cornelius Van Treece. The Judge drinks too much, but he's a sharp attorney and soon proves to be a solid ally of Henry's.

And Henry will need allies. There's an attempt on his life. Danny is framed for yet another murder. Inexplicably, the body of the murdered man is stolen. Other odd things happen in and around Tonto City.

The plot is a solid, well-contructed Western/Mystery hybrid. Henry is a witty and clever protagonist. Tuttle seeds the story with many truly funny moments and several great supporting characters. His prose is simply fun to read.

An example:

"Frijole Bill" Cullison had been the cook and housekeeper for the J Bar C many years. Frijole was sixty years of age and admitted forty. He was five feet three inches tall, would not weigh over a hundred pounds, made his own whiskey from prunes, and would fight a wild cat. He wore a pair of huge mustaches, which gave him the appearance, as Slim Pickins said, of a walrus disappointed in love.

In the end, Henry demonstates Sherlockian skills as he puts together the available clues, recovers stolen money, and proves who murdered whom. He's an unusual and appealing hero and--since his adventures are reprinted in afforable ebooks by Altus Press--I'll be able to enjoy them all.

You can read this story online HERE