Because the story grew out of my personal conviction that San-Francisco-in-the-fog still belongs to Dashiell Hammett, I have inserted quite a few clues pointing to the identity of Jimmy Wright.
First, the plot was frankly adapted from Hammett’s masterly Continental Op story, The Scorched Face; even DKA’s client (Golden Gate Trust) was borrowed from it, as were the first names of other characters.
Next, the detective on stakeout was obviously that old Continental hand, Dick Foley. Besides retaining his first name, I described him essentially as Hammett did in Red Harvest. (It was in Red Harvest, you’ll remember, that Foley suspected the Continental Op of murder and was sent away with the remark, “I’ve got enough to do without having to watch you.”)
As for Jimmy Wright himself, his physical description, reiterated throughout Beyond the Shadow, is that of the Continental Op. His slang is the Op’s slang, not that of Kearny’s age: “private tin” for private investigator; “bird” for a man (instead of a girl); and “let’s dust” instead of today’s hipper “let’s split.”
To those who may claim I have cheated in giving him any name at all (we know the Continental Op was nameless in Hammett’s tales), I would like to point out that the name itself is the clinching proof of his identity. As evidence I submit the editorial remarks of Ellery Queen which preceded Who Killed Bob Teal? in the July 1947 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (also included in the Dashiell Hammett original paperback titled Dead Yellow Women, 1947):
“One night Dashiell Hammett and your Editor were sitting in Lüchow’s Restaurant on 14th Street. We had sampled various liquids… Ah, those amber fluids — they set the tongue to padding. Anyway, about this character known as the Continental Op: who was he, really? And Dash gave us the lowdown. The Continental „Op is based on a real-life person — James (Jimmy) Wright, Assistant Superintendent, in the good old days, of Pinkerton’s Baltimore Agency, under whom Dashiell Hammett actually worked…”
Q.E.D.
Joe Gores
The Munich Courier
by Robert Edward Eckels{© 1971 by Robert Edward Eckels.}
A new approach to the spy story — counterespionage by means of “pure deduction”… Now see if you can spot the crucial clue…
The rain started in earnest just as I left the train station and to cap it off there wasn’t an Army car waiting for me. I hadn’t really expected one although Giddings had assured me that of course there would be one. But then Giddings worked out of a nice warm office in Berlin and it tended to give him an overly optimistic viewpoint.
“It’s really the Army’s job more than ours,” he had said, his ever-present pencil clasped between his two hands as he swiveled back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling. Giddings had opted for the C.I.A. when he was graduated from an Ivy League college, but he affected the same rising-young-executive mannerisms as his classmates who’d chosen Madison Avenue or Wall Street. “An Army courier traveling north from Munich was murdered on a train and some passports he was carrying were stolen,” he went on. “But the Army’s criminal investigation people haven’t been able to come up with anything solid so far. Since we have at least a peripheral interest because some of those missing passports are going to turn up in the hands of agents trying to infiltrate the U.S., I volunteered your services.”
He brought his eyes down to mine and smiled ingenuously. “After all, you did prove yourself a pretty good detective in that Murphy affair behind the Iron Curtain. And when I mentioned you to General Cole he was most enthusiastic about giving you a crack at it.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said drily. Despite General Cole’s enthusiasm I had no illusions about the kind of reception I’d get from the men in the field. It’s only in television, movies and books that investigative agencies welcome outsiders coming in to tell them their business. Nevertheless, Giddings was my boss, and where he said go I went.
Now, with fine rain soaking into my topcoat and no Army car to meet me, I found nothing to convince me I was wrong. Still, a job was a job. I shrugged, turned up the collar of my coat, and ducked out to compete with the rest of the passengers for a cab.
The lieutenant who came in answer to my call from, the guard post at the main gate to the U.S. Army post just outside town was properly apologetic. He was also very young and very sincere. So he just might have really believed that the whole thing had resulted from a mixup in dates. I didn’t contradict him and he took me straight to the post adjutant.
Who was something else again. He was a short barrel-shaped man named Donovan — a captain and well aware of the fact that he was growing old in grade. His graying hair was cropped Prussian short, and his eyes were small and bitter. He glared at me sourly from behind his desk. “So you’re the man from Berlin,” he said. There was no welcome in his voice.
I nodded. Besides Donovan and myself there were two others in the room: a tall sleepy-eyed man in civilian clothes named Hurley who was a sergeant in the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and a uniformed corporal named Lassiter.
“Well,” Donovan went on, “I don’t know what you expect to accomplish.” He shot an angry glance at Hurley. “The C.I.D. has been raking the thing over for the past three weeks. With no luck.”
Lassiter smiled nervously, but Hurley’s face didn’t change.
Donovan waited another moment, then turned back to me. “Are you acquainted with the facts in the case?” he said.
“Only in general,” I said. “They told me in Berlin that you’d fill me in on the details here.”
Donovan nodded curtly. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the passport situation or not,” he said. “Military personnel don’t travel on passports, of course. But their dependents do, and so do U.S. civilian employees of the Army.
“Now, German law requires that all aliens residing more or less permanently in Germany have their passports stamped each month at a police station. To spare our civilians this inconvenience the Status of Forces agreement exempts anyone with a properly validated passport that identifies him as an Army dependent or employee. Unfortunately, the validation is good for only eighteen months. Don’t ask me why, because the normal overseas tour for a career soldier or civilian employee is three years.”
“So,” I said, “the passports have to be revalidated at least once during each tour of duty.”
“Right,” Donovan said. “And the only place it can be done is at Army Headquarters at Heidelberg.” He smiled wryly. “Originally each post would send its own courier to Heidelberg whenever it had a batch of passports needing revalidation. But then we got organization.
“A system was set up whereby the courier from Munich would take the train up once a month. And at each stop he would meet a local courier who’d turn over his passports to be taken on to Heidelberg for revalidation. On the return trip the process would be reversed.”
Donovan paused and made a slight negative gesture with his hand. “Like so many things that don’t work out, it seemed a good idea in theory. It saved the expense involved in each post sending a man all the way to Heidelberg, and Headquarters didn’t get its work piecemeal.”