Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

by Gruber, Frank

  Oliver Quade,

  the

  Human

  Encyclopedia

  SMASHING

  DETECTIVE STORIES

  FRANK GRUBER

  Mysteriouspress.com

  NEW YORK

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Death at the Main

  Ask Me Another

  Rain, the Killer

  Death on Eagle’s Crag

  Dog Show Murder

  Death Sits Down

  Forced Landing

  State Fair Murder

  Funny Man

  Oliver Quade at the Races

  Words and Music

  Frank Gruber, Hardboiled Humor, & the Noir Revolution

  Behind the Black Mask

  Introduction

  Oliver Quade,

  the Human Encyclopedia

  Kevin Burton Smith

  The price of this magnificent volume is not twenty-five dollars as you might expect, not even fifteen or ten, but a paltry two-ninety-five. It sounds preposterous, I know, but it’s really true! All the wisdom of all the ages for only two ninety-five!”

  The “magnificent volume” in question is The Compendium of Human Knowledge, a handy dandy single volume which offered “all you will ever need to know, the answer to every question … Classified, condensed and abbreviated.”

  A variation of that huckster’s spiel lies at the heart of every story Frank Gruber wrote about Oliver Quade, the self-­proclaimed Human Encyclopedia, and one of the more intriguing sleuths to appear in the hard-boiled detective pulps of the 1930s.

  Intriguing, because in a world of steel-eyed cops and men who made trouble their business, when it came to sleuthing Quade was undeniably a rank amateur, with no more business sticking his nose into a murder investigation than the average reader. He had absolutely no franchise upon which to build a series—not even the flimsy guise of an advice columnist for the love-lorn (Frederick C. Davis’ Lora Lorne) or the shaky premise of an employment agency specializing in “odd jobs” (Alan Farley’s Mike Tyre).

  Nope, all Quade did was sell encyclopedias—hardly a magnet for murder and mayhem. But this was, after all, the pulps.

  And so, in fifteen fast-paced and pulpy stories (four published in Thrilling Detective, the remainder in Black Mask), Quade found himself thrust again and again into the midst of murder investigations, with only his overly large ego, his boundless curiosity and the most colossally bad luck in the pulps to blame. Quade, it seemed, was incapable of pitching his book and flogging his wares without someone dropping dead somewhere close by. At first he worked alone, but when Gruber moved to the more lucrative Black Mask, the stories got longer, and he gave Quade a partner: Charles Boston, who would serve as Quade’s stooge, assistant, second banana and sounding board. But the essential formula remained unchanged.

  In each and every story Quade would gain admission to somewhere he wasn’t invited, or hadn’t paid the entrance fee. It might be a dog show, a poultry exhibition, a racetrack, a State fair, an exclusive mountaintop resort, a carnival midway or an illegal cockfight. Anywhere where a crowd was gathered and where he figured he (with or without Charlie) might be able to peddle a few books. Quade would start off by loudly introducing himself as The Human Encyclopedia and then challenge the gathered crowd, daring them to stump him with a question, any question on any topic at all. Naturally, Quade, a man blessed with a photographic memory and no small amount of flimflammery, somehow knew the answer to everything. Then, having properly astounded the crowd, he would unleash the pitch, and suggest that they too, could look up the answer to any question they ever wanted to know and thus become an intellectual giant, the envy of their peers, and all for a measly $2.95.

  At this point, a body would be discovered or someone would drop dead. And the cause of death would never be from natural causes.

  Quade, the perpetually uninvited guest and eternal outsider, would promptly be deemed a suspect. Oh, sure, there was invariably a charming young lady with large, innocent eyes and a handsome figure, somewhere in the 20–22 year old age bracket, around for Quade to impress (and occasionally to protect and defend) and usually an officious police officer or two for Quade to run circles around, but the main reason Quade got into so many homicide cases was simply that he couldn’t walk away. His reputation as the world’s smartest man—if not his freedom—would be at stake, and so it would be up to Quade to find the real murderer.

  Along the way there’d be a few oddball characters (yokels were a frequent target, as were the wealthy and/or pompous), and eventually, utilizing a combination of gumption, arcane knowledge and a few scams, Quade would crack the case wide open, save the girl, and sell a few encyclopedias.

  The formula—and make no mistake, it was definitely a formula—proved extremely effective, partly because Gruber, a solid craftsman, brought a journeyman jazz musician’s talent for improvisation to the proceedings, playing infinite variations on the theme without ever quite losing the melody.

  And for a readership still reeling from the Great Depression, it must have been quite a melody, this notion of a cocky, scrappy fly-by-nighter with the bellowing voice and the gift of gab traveling from town to town, footloose and fancy-free, getting involved in all sorts of screwball shenanigans at some of the most peculiar of places, putting it to the rubes and the suits, solving crimes and racking up enough encyclopedia sales to “salt away twenty thousand or so bucks every year.”

  Even today—or perhaps especially today—that melody still lingers, and it will only take a story or two to have even modern day audiences humming along.

  Quade was pulp writer Gruber’s first series character, supposedly inspired by the author’s own scouring through an encyclopedia looking for story ideas. But the basic template of the brains-and-brawn pairing would serve him well for later series characters, including Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg, a perpetually broke con artist and sometime book salesman, and his muscle-bound partner/stooge who appeared in over a dozen novels; Simon Lash and Eddie Slocum, a book-loving private eye and his long-­suffering assistant; and Otis Beagle and Joe Peel, a couple of shifty Hollywood private eyes.

  Gruber was one of the more prolific of the writers for the pulps, and when that market dried up, he simply moved on to Hollywood and began writing for TV and film. In later years he returned to writing novels, as well as a memoir of his years in the literary trenches, appropriately titled The Pulp Jungle (1967), in which he offered up his eleven-point breakdown of what makes for a good mystery; a formula that he claimed he had perfected and that had stood him in good stead for all those years.

  The formula must have worked. In his long career, Gruber claimed to have sold over 300 stories to the pulps, mostly detective tales and Westerns, and to have placed his name on over 60 books and more than 200 TV and film scripts.

  You could look it up….

  Kevin Burton Smith is a writer and critic. He’s the editor and founder of the Thrilling Detective Web Site, and a columnist and critic for Mystery Scene.

  A Complete List of Oliver Quade Stories can be found at Kevin Burton Smith’s amusing and informative website, thrillingdetective.com. Don’t pick up a mystery tale or research a famous detective without it!

  * * *

  Short Stories

  “Brass Knuckles” (November 1936, Thrilling Detective)

  “Death at the Main” (December 1936, Thrilling Detective)

  “Murder on the Midway” (January 1937, Thrilling Detective)

  “Pictures of Death” (February 1937
, Thrilling Detective)

  “Ask Me Another” (June 1937, Black Mask)

  “Trailer Town” (August 1937, Thrilling Detective)

  “Rain, the Killer” (September 1937, Black Mask)

  “Death on Eagle’s Crag” (December 1937, Black Mask)

  “Dog Show Murder” (March 1938, Black Mask)

  “Death Sits Down” (May 1938, Black Mask)

  “Forced Landing” (October 1938, Black Mask)

  “State Fair Murder” (February 1939, Black Mask)

  “Funny Man” (May 1939, Black Mask)

  “Oliver Quade at the Races” (November 1939, Black Mask)

  “Words and Music” (March 1940, Black Mask)

  Death at the Main

  Oliver Quade had perused both the Social Register and Bradstreet’s Journal on a number of occasions and he calculated mentally that there was easily a billion dollars worth of blue blood here tonight in this big renovated barn. Reggie Ragsdale, the host, was worth a hundred million if he was worth a cent; the average fortune of the two hundred-odd other men could be estimated conservatively at five million.

  Long Island didn’t see many cocking mains. Cocking wasn’t a gentleman’s sport like horse racing and fox hunting. In fact, many of Long Island’s blue-bloods had shaken their heads when Young Ragsdale took up cock fighting. But they had eagerly accepted invitations to the Ragsdale estate to witness the great cocking main between Ragsdale’s birds and the best of the Old South, the feathered warriors of George Treadwell.

  Ragsdale had cleared out this large barn, had built tiers of seats in the form of a big bowl surrounding the cockpit. The place was ablaze with lights, and servants in uniforms scampered about with liquid refreshments for the guests.

  Oliver Quade had crashed the gate and was enjoying himself immensely. He’d heard of the cocking main quite by accident; and being a Southerner by birth and a cocking enthusiast, he’d “crashed.” He’d brought along a bagful of books, too. After a long and varied career he never knew when the opportunity might present itself to dispose of a few volumes and he wanted to be prepared for any contingency.

  He chuckled at the thought of it. Two hundred millionaires protected daily by business managers, secretaries and servants; few of them had ever been compelled—or privileged, depending upon your viewpoint—to listen to a really good book salesman. And Quade was a good book salesman, the best in the country. Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia, who traveled the country from coast to coast, selling books and salting away twenty thousand dollars every year.

  The fights had already been started when Quade bluffed the doorkeeper into letting him into the Ragsdale barn. For an hour he rubbed elbows with the Long Island aristocrats, talked with them and cheered with them while the feathered warriors in the pit fought and bled and died.

  The score stood at eight-all now, with the seventeenth and last bout of the evening to come up, which would decide the superiority of Ragsdale’s Jungle Shawls and the Whitehackles of George Treadwell. Ragsdale rose to make an announcement as the handlers carried out the birds after the sixteenth fight.

  “There’ll be a short intermission of ten minutes before the final bout, gentlemen.”

  Quade’s eyes sparkled. This was his golden chance, the one he’d waited for all evening. Perhaps they’d throw him out, but Quade had been thrown out of places before. Chuckling, he climbed upon a bench. He held out his hands in a supplicating gesture.

  “Gentlemen,” he cried out suddenly in a booming voice that surprised people who heard it issue from such a lean body, “give me your attention for a minute. I’m going to entertain you—something entirely new and different.”

  A couple of attendants looked with surprised eyes at Quade. Reggie Ragsdale, on the other side of the pit, frowned. Quade knew that he’d have to talk fast—catch the interest of the audience before Ragsdale tried to stop him. He had confidence in his oratorical powers.

  “Gentlemen,” he continued in his rich, penetrating voice. “I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I have the greatest brain in the United States, probably the greatest in the world. I know the answers to all questions; what came first, the chicken or the egg; the population of Sydney, Australia; the dates of every battle from the beginning of history; the founders of your family fortunes. Try me out, gentlemen. Any question at all—any! History, science, mathematics, general interest. You, sir, ask me a question!”

  Quade, knowing the hesitation of any audience to get started, pointed to a man close to him, whose mouth was agape.

  The man flushed, stammered. “Why, uh—I don’t know anything I want to ask—Yes, I do! At what price did N.T.&T. close today?”

  “Easy!” cried Quade. “You could read that in today’s newspaper. National Telephone and Telegraph closed today at 187 ½. A year ago today it was 153. Ask me something harder. You, sir,” he pointed. “A question; history, science, mathematics—”

  “What is the distance to the moon?”

  “From the center of the earth to the center of the moon the distance is approximately 238,857 miles. Next question!”

  The game was catching on. Quade didn’t have to point at anyone now. The audience had gathered its wits and the next question came promptly.

  “What is ambergris?”

  “Ambergris is a greasy substance spewed up by sick whales and is used in the manufacture of perfumes. It comes in lumps and is extremely valuable, a chunk of approximately thirty pounds recently found in the North Atlantic bringing $5,200. Next!”

  “How do you measure the thickness of leather?” That was evidently a wealthy shoe manufacturer, but his question didn’t phase Quade in the least.

  “By irons,” he shot back. “An iron is one seventy-second of an inch. The ordinary shoe sole is eight irons thick, although some run as thick as twelve irons and those on dancing pumps as thin as four irons—And now—”

  Quade stooped, snapped open his suitcase and extracted a thick volume from it. He held it aloft. “And now I’m going to give each and every gentleman here tonight an opportunity to learn the answers themselves to any question that may arise, today, tomorrow or any time during the year. This book has the answers to ALL questions. The Compendium of Human Knowledge, the knowledge of the ages crammed into one volume, two thousand pages. Classified, condensed and abbreviated.”

  Quade paused for a brief breath and shot a glance at Reggie Ragsdale. The young millionaire, who had assumed a tolerant, amused expression a few moments ago when he saw that Quade’s game was catching with the guests was frowning again. Entertaining the guests was all right, but selling something to them, that was different! Quade knew that he’d have to work even faster.

  He launched again into his sales talk, exhorting in a vibrant, penetrating voice that was famous throughout the country. “The price of this magnificent volume is not twenty-five dollars as you might expect, not even fifteen or ten dollars, but a paltry two ninety-five. It sounds preposterous, I know, but it’s really true. The knowledge of the ages for only two ninety-five! Yes, Mr. Ragsdale, you want to ask a question before you purchase one of these marvelous books?”

  “I don’t want to buy your confounded book!” cried Ragsdale. “I want to know how you got in here?”

  Quade chuckled. “Why, your doorkeeper let me in. I told him I was a book salesman and thought this gathering would be ideal for selling books. Really, Mr. Ragsdale, that’s exactly what I told him and he let me in. Of course, if he didn’t believe me, that’s not my fault.”

  A roar of laughter swept the audience. None doubted that Quade had actually made his entrance in that manner. His audacity appealed to the thrill-jaded aristocrats. Even Ragsdale grinned.

  “All right, you can stay. But put up your books now; they’re coming in with the birds for the last fight. After it, you can sell your books. I’ll even buy one myself.”

  Quade w
as disappointed. He’d made his pitch, built up his audience to the selling point and he didn’t like to quit before collecting. But he couldn’t very well cross Ragsdale—and sight of the handlers coming in with the birds was making the sportsmen turn to the pit. The best book in the world couldn’t compete against a couple of fighting roosters.

  Quade closed his sample case, walked down to Reggie Ragsdale’s ringside seat and prepared to watch the last fight of the evening. Ragsdale grinned at him.

  The handlers were down in the pit now. Ragsdale’s handler, Tom Dodd, carried a huge, red Jungle Shawl and Treadwell’s handler, Cleve Storm, a fierce-looking Whitehackle.

  “Treadwell must have a lot of confidence in that Whitehackle,” Quade remarked. “He’s battle-scarred. Been in at least four professional fights.”

  Ragsdale looked at Quade in surprise. “Ah, you know that cocks are at their best in their first fight?”

  “Of course,” said Quade. “I was raised down in Alabama and fought a few cocks of my own. That Whitehackle must be one of those rare ones that’s improved with every fight instead of deteriorated. Ah!”

  The referee had finished giving the handlers their instructions and Storm and Dodd retired to opposite sides of the sand-covered pit.

  The referee looked at first one handler, then another. He hesitated a moment, then cried, “Time!”

  Both handlers released their birds. There was a fluttering of wings, a rushing of air from both directions—and a sudden rumbling of voices from the audience. For the Jungle Shawl faltered in his charge—turned yellow. An unforgivable weakness in a fighting bird.

  It cost the Shawl his life, for with a squawk and flutter of wings the Whitehackle hurtled through the air and pounced on his opponent. His vicious beak hooked into the hackle of the Shawl and for a second he straddled the bird, then the two-inch steel gaffe slashed down—and the Jungle Shawl was dead!

  “Hung!” cried Tom Dodd.

  Both handlers rushed forward. Quade looked at Reggie Ragsdale. The young millionaire was rising to his feet, his lips twisted into a wry grin. Quade looked across the cockpit at George Treadwell—and gasped.