THE READING RHEUM: THE YELLOW CLAW (1915)

Though I've read two of the four Sax Rohmer detective novels starring Gaston Max, I'd never got round to the work in which he debuted: 1915's THE YELLOW CLAW, a serialized magazine-novel that was published as a book about four years after the first Fu Manchu stories, also serialized in a magazine, began in 1911. One reviewer asserted that this was the first attempt by Rohmer to start a second "Oriental mystery" franchise, perhaps to be focused on the novel's villain, the mysterious "Mister King." This online essay by William Patrick Maynard notes that Mister King did not manage to capture the reading-public's imagination as did Fu Manchu, for all that the "Yellow Claw" novel got a movie adaptation before any of the Devil-Doctor's stories did. Maynard also discusses the possibility that both villains MAY have been inspired by Rohmer's near-encounter with a real-life criminal figure-- though it's just as possible that this encounter only existed in Rohmer's imagination.

Long-time readers of Marvel Comics might look at the novel's title and think that it concerns an actual villain of that name, possibly one comparable to the Marvel Comics super-criminal. But YELLOW CLAW is merely a symbol of the murderous propensities of Mister King, who is barely seen in the novel-- appearing far less than does Fu Manchu in his series-- and, when King is seen, he's signified only by his yellow-hued hands, poised to kill in some fashion, as seen in this early scene.

Through the leaded panes of the window above the writing-table swept a silvern beam of moonlight. It poured, searchingly, upon the fur-clad figure swaying by the table; cutting through the darkness of the room like some huge scimitar, to end in a pallid pool about the woman's shadow on the center of the Persian carpet.

Coincident with her sobbing cry—NINE! boomed Big Ben; TEN!...

Two hands—with outstretched, crooked, clutching fingers—leapt from the darkness into the light of the moonbeam.

“God! Oh, God!” came a frenzied, rasping shriek—“MR. KING!”

Straight at the bare throat leapt the yellow hands; a gurgling cry rose—fell—and died away.

Gently, noiselessly, the lady of the civet fur sank upon the carpet by the table; as she fell, a dim black figure bent over her. The tearing of paper told of the note being snatched from her frozen grip; but never for a moment did the face or the form of her assailant encroach upon the moonbeam.

Batlike, this second and terrible visitant avoided the light.

This sounds like a ripping beginning to one of Rohmer's fevered pulp-nightmares, but unfortunately, as Maynard also notes, Rohmer's trying a little too hard to stay grounded in reality. Some uninteresting regular-Joe characters get implicated in this murder, an uninteresting Scotland Yard inspector investigates, and, many chapters later, Rohmer finally introduces a new hero, the Dupin-like Surete detective Gaston Max. To be sure, Max is not as beguiling here as he is in the next two novels (which I may review in due time), and I can't help feeling that Rohmer didn't really have his creative heart in  this endeavor. Not only does the villain remain offscreen for most chapters, none of his aides are any more interesting than the good guys, and at base King's just a mundane drug-dealer. Without the slight suggestion of an unearthly power in his hands, CLAW would not register as metaphenomenal in any way.

Though in essence CLAW mutates into a "Gaston Max" book rather than one starring "Mister King," Max barely shows up more than King, though Max does assume some Holmes-like disguises from time to time. There's never a climactic battle between the two antagonists, but Chapter Thirty-Eight does include a struggle between King's clutching hands and Max's pure desperation.

A short, staccato, muffled report split the heavy silence... and a little round hole appeared in the woodwork of the book-shelf before which, an instant earlier, M. Max had been standing—in the woodwork of that shelf, which had been upon a level with his head.

In one giant leap he hurled himself across the room—... as a second bullet pierced the yellow silk of the ottoman.

Close under the trap he crouched, staring up, fearful-eyed....

A yellow hand and arm—a hand and arm of great nervous strength and of the hue of old ivory, directed a pistol through the opening above him. As he leaped, the hand was depressed with a lightning movement, but, lunging suddenly upward, Max seized the barrel of the pistol, and with a powerful wrench, twisted it from the grasp of the yellow hand. It was his own Browning!

At the time—in that moment of intense nervous excitement—he ascribed his sensations to his swift bout with Death—with Death who almost had conquered; but later, even now, as he wrenched the weapon into his grasp, he wondered if physical fear could wholly account for the sickening revulsion which held him back from that rectangular opening in the bookcase. He thought that he recognized in this a kindred horror—as distinct from terror—to that which had come to him with the odor of roses through this very trap, upon the night of his first visit to the catacombs of Ho-Pin.

It was not as the fear which one has of a dangerous wild beast, but as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous, contagious....

A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it. He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into the room—the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago the murderous yellow hand had protruded.

That room was empty... empty as he had left it!

“Mille tonnerres! he has escaped me!” he cried aloud, and the words did not seem of his own choosing.

WHO had escaped? Someone—man or woman; rather some THING, which, yellow handed, had sought to murder him!

Like predecessor Fu Manchu, King gets away after his operation is broken up, and according to Maynard Rohmer only invoked King's name in one later novel. But CLAW proved a very dull read even for a Rohmer fan like myself. I can't imagine that the novel itself, even though it probably appeared in various reprintings, would have resonated strongly with any of the later comics-makers who worked on the 1956  YELLOW CLAW comic book from Atlas (later Marvel) Comics. However, in a separate essay I'll explore some possible reasons why the name might have retained some resonance, less because of the book than because of the racial myth Rohmer was indirectly invoking.