Speed Saunders and the Hilton Diamond, 4: Wait... what?

 

Speed has stopped by for a casual chat with Darnell The Fence of Stolen Goods.

Smooth, Speed; really smooth.

Darnell is less than cooperative.

You don't get to be as well known of a fence as Darnell without a cool composure.

From this interaction, Speed deduced that the European Diamond Merchant did, in fact, dump the diamond he stole from Jim's dad at Darnell's.

Headquarters! That's where Speed is from, you know.

At Headquarters we learn some very important information from the Chief Coroner.

Specifically, that "Hilton" isn't the name of the hotel, it's the name of Jim's FATHER (and presumably of Jim).  Okay, the hotel COULD be named "Hilton", but the diamond is called the Hilton Diamond because it was stolen from Jim Hilton's father, Mr. Hilton.

Oh, we also learned that Mr. Hilton had been drugged with chloral.  By which the coroner doesn't mean the organic compound trichloroacetaldehyde, but rather the result of its union with water, chloral hydrate, commonly used as a hypnotic or sedative agent since 1869.

You can tell because it looks like a person zonked out on the ground after wiping out while ice-skating.

Speed's assumption that the chloral hydrate was administered BEFORE Mr. Hilton was shot is correct.

What about the normal shading of the face, doc? Because that appears to have been greatly maximized.

One supposes Speed might have gotten this information over the phone but perhaps he wanted to show Jim Headquarters, which is, after all, where Speed is from.

Then they dash BACK to the hotel that may or may not be named "Hilton".

"Given the speed at which I operate, I have a hunch my intial search was cursory and shoddy!"

Sure enough, Speed finds something that the previous investigation did not reveal.

Do you think maybe Mr. Hilton LIVED at the hotel? That's a thing that used to happen in those days, before they invented condos.

Surely, if Jim was able to tell at a glance his father's coffee cups, he'll be able to identify whether this is his father's diamond bag. And, yes, traditionally, jewelers DID use small leather pouches for carrying jewels. Probably a medieval thing.

Drumroll, please...

MH: Mr. Hilton

Hm. So the pouches belongs to... someone else?  Another diamond merchant?  Elias Brent, we can assume? But this line of reasoning is cut short by the arrival of a stranger in the doorway!

"Wuh-ellll,  ya got trouble my friends, right here in Saunders City!
Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for CHLORAL!"

I'm glad he introduced himself or I might have thought THIS one was Nikola Tesla.   This dandy fresh off the Rock Island Line is here as a Useful Male Informant.  I don't believe I caught his name, but I don't believe he dropped it.  Surely Mr. Secretary will provide us useful information!

... Wait. 
Wait.
I... what? WTH?

Brent didn't TAKE the diamond from Hilton; HE BROUGHT IT TO HIM.

...

Let me try to understand. 

Brent had a diamond in his possession worth between $10 million and $25 million (in today's dollars), which he brings FROM Europe TO Saunders City to Hilton's room (which may or may not be at the Hilton).  Then, um... Hilton goes DOWN to Brent's room on the floor below-- BRINGING TWO OF HIS OWN COFFEE CUPS-- and they ... have coffee in Brent's room (411)?  Then they... go back UP to 511, where, um... Hilton zonks out, chloralized by the coffee, giving Brent the opportunity to shoot him in the head and put the gun in the corpse's hand (because you could totally get away with that stuff in the day).   Then he left and used tweezers (every diamong merchant has them) to turn the inside key and lock the door.

Okay, MAYBE all this simply happened in Room 511 and... and Brent TOOK THE CUPS to his room afterwards because he knew the chloral in one of them could be detected if found by the police.  Sure, I can believe that but...

if he HAD the diamond, what was the point of KILLING HILTON?!  And then selling a $10-25 million diamond to a cruddy local fence for what, five thousand bucks?  And if Hilton has never had the diamond, WHY CALL IT THE HILTON DIAMOND?!* This makes no sense at all.

NO, SPEED, IT IS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE AND NOW MATTER HOW LONG YOU STARE AT ME IT WON'T CHANGE THAT.

Speed prepares to arrest everyone within a one-mile radius.

"Don't I need to, you know, be some sort of officer to get a warrant from Headquarters?"
"Of course not, Jim. Just tell them I sent you; I'm from there.

Tomorrow: Speed gets to the bottom of this mystery. Kind of. Without a warrant.

*This does, I suppose, lend credence to those scholars who believe that the Hotel is ALSO named "Hilton".

Speed Saunders and the Hilton Diamond 2: Getting the 411!

When last we left Speed (and his new tagalong, "Jim", Son of Corpse), he was following up on a hunch (as he often does).

"Later"?  Is this the Hunch Following or AFTER the Hunch Following?  Even a veteran of Speed Saunders stories such as I has trouble holding on as the plot roars along at breakneck Speed.

Pause for a moment to appreciate the worldliness of Speed Saunders, who recognizes by sight the Biggest Diamond Merchant in Europe, Elias Brent.  As well as the natural Ace Investigator skills his sidekick is quickly acquiring. 

"HAVE HIS STOMACH PUMPED!"  

"Let's not rush things, Jim..."

I guess it helps that Brent is DRESSED European; the bowler, the wing collar, the cravate, the carnation, the dress gloves.  If he had a mustache I'd assume he was Nikola Tesla, just coming back to his hotel from feeding the pigeons.

Also, Nik didn't have a scar (thanks to those big rubber shoes he worn in the lab).

You know what used to be VERY easy back in the day, before credit cards? Lodging under an assumed name. It happens all the time in old movies.

A diagonal scar? I thought he just had well-defined cheekbones. Well, such is Golden Age art.

Turns out Mr. Brent is posing as... MR. BRANDON. Whatever that means.

Note this part of the panel very well:

You see, Room 411 is located directly BELOW Room 511; it's a plot point and this panel foreshadows that.  Such is Golden Age art!

Next we get one of my favorite Speed Saunders quotes, one that I use myself all the time:

"I'm from Headquarters."

Headquarters? Headquarters of what? It doesn't matter; of EVERYTHING.  Whatever the relevant authority is, Speed is from its Headquarters.  

Speed and Jim go to 411 for some information.

For those who keep track of such things; this bellhop may be the only black person in a Speed Saunders story.  

Where Speed discovers the most non-descript generic coffee cups imaginable.

Which Jim somehow manages to immediately and unquestionably identify as belonging to his father.  Maybe that's his dad's lipstick? 

I think "generic" undersells it; these are the very instantiations of the Platonic Ideal of Coffee Cup.

This story, by the way, is in the exact period when melamine cups and dishes were being popularized among American consumers.  Jim's dad was HIP.

Before we, the readers, can even think of asking, "Who on earth TRAVELS with their own coffee cups?!", Speed focuses on some... napkins? Wax paper? Receipts?  Proto-postit notes?  Lipstick blotters? Who can tell?

WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR, SPEED, TELL US QUICKLY BEFORE--

SUDDENLY A SHOT RINGS OUT!

Okay, fine; NOW I can tell it's a scar.

Thus did the Biggest Diamond Merchant in Europe, Elias Brent (whom we are apparently now calling by his pseudonym, "Brandon") shoot both Speed and Jim to death, may they rest in peace.  Don't mess with the Antwerp mafia!

Tomorrow: We pay our final respects to Speed Saunders (and his sidekick, Jim).

Speed Saunders and the Hilton Diamond, 1: A Locked Room Mystery

 Meanwhile, in Detective #18, we find:

We join this episode of Speed Saunders, already in progress!

Yes, this is the first panel.  Speed has work to do and can't wait around for you to catch up.

Who is the corpse? Who's the non-chalant blond kid?  Does getting a chemical report involve stomach-pumping?  Who knows! It's Speed Saunders, just run with it...

So, the blond kid nonchalantly staring at the corpse is the corpse's son.  But, because English has no clear way to distinguish between an appositive and a vocative, it's perfectly ambiguous whether Jim is name of the corpse or of the corpse's son. Or both.

Something big and dangerous, Speed? Like.... a bear? Do you think the diamond merchant was shot by a bear?  Or maybe a talking gorilla, like the one you fought before?  Curious to see where this hunch takes you!

Turns out, this is a "locked room" mystery.

"He entertained someone?"
"Sorry to have to break it to you, kid, but... 
your father was a veritable strumpet."

"Your father was not ready for bed." He looks pretty ready to me, Speed. He's wearing a robe and lying in bed.  But if he did commit suicide, would he really "get ready for bed" first?  Pretty sure that's not a thing suicides do. "Must remember to set the alarm before I shoot myself; wouldn't want to oversleep!"

Speed, however, is not some methodical fanciful fop like Hercule Poirot; Speed is an active action-oriented fop.  As such, Speed does not have time or patience for "locked room" mysteries and so dismisses THAT part IMMEDIATELY.

There was a time when you needed a key to lock a door from the inside, as weird as that now seems.  That's the time Speed lives in.

Jim -- or is it Jim Junior? -- is disconsolate.  Having lost his father, in his despair he naturally chooses Speed as a role model and immediately starts to look like him.

In mere moments, Jim Junior's transformation into Speed Junior is nearly complete.

Speed Junior would later become a founding member of the Teen Ace Investigators, along with Slap Bradley, Denise Colt, and Coco, Maid of Disguise.

Speed has a hunch!  Let's see how THAT turns out...

One Undone

Now that our long national nightmare is over and Chip Zdarsky is no longer writing Batman, I thought I'd check back in again on the title, now that Matt Fraction, a writer I have good impressions of, is writing it.

I have read that his team's immediate intent to do to "one and dones" (or,  as we used to call them, "stories") rather than The Next Arc That Will Push Batman To His Limits And Change Him Forever And Everything You Think You Know About Him And Gotham City.  Of that, I certainly wholeheartedly approve and this first issues is exactly that. Bully.

However, I am less approving of the execution of the idea.

Some of the problem lies with the stupid situations bequeathed by Zdarsky: Alfred is still dead, Jim Gordon has been busted to beat cop, and Vandal Savage has taken over both Bruce Wayne's and Jim Gordon's lives because he's now living in Wayne Manor and serving as Gotham City's Police commissioner.  These developments that feel like lunchtime schoolyard improvisations ("Yeah, well, now MY villain is the police commissioner, so there!") and wouldn't pass the Laugh Test on the Batman '66 television show.

It's substantially LESS credible than the Commissioner Nora Clavicle story, which really says a lot.

It has zero basis in Vandal Savage as a character.  Granted,  he's always been a sonic screwdriver; not a 'real character' with his own motivations (there is no way you don't get over your emotional need to Rule The World after 50,000 years), but a simple plot device to create very specific challenges. 

You know how you can tell Frankenstein's Monster isn't a "real" person?  Because you can see the stitches. So, too, Zdarsky's use of Savage is so transparently ad hoc as to be uncanny (in the bad way).  "I want ONE villain who can cause BOTH Batman and Jim Gordon to suffer peripety. Can't be a bat-villain; can't be too strongly associated with another hero's rogues gallery; needs to be one of those powerful, generic, schemers. Ah! Vandal Savage! No one will get upset about misusing Vandal Savage because no one cares about him!"

You'd think DC might have jumped at the change to retcon away Zdarky's silliness with renumbering of Batman at #1; alas.  I wouldn't expect Fraction himself to reboot all this nonsense away overnight, and I think it likely he has plans to undo it all at some point. Meanwhile...

Fraction's commitment to one-and-done seems to have boxed him into an unfortunate need to have Batman undergo a character arc within one issue.  To do so, however, has him mischaracterizing Batman on each end of the story.

Batman starts as a cynical ****, which is absurd considering how many criminal reformations he has personally bankrolled.

Apparently Batman is one of those absolutists who never recovered from reading Aristotle.

By the end, he's unmasked and is chilling with a newly neotonized Killer Croc.  
Am I the only person who misses when "Killer Croc" was just a gangster with a skin condition?  

Anyway, these extremes of characterization are, well, too extreme.  Batman as Bipolarman has already worn out its welcome.

Speaking of Batman being crazy, he seems to have created an AI version of Alfred who follows him around acting as a virtual sounding board that only he can see and hear.

Except for butterflies, 'cuz they're magical.

No, AI-fred. You asked Batman a literal question ("where are we going") and he replied not with a literal answer ("to the vivarium") but with a figurative one ("playing a hunch").  That's the exact opposite of being "literal", which, I suppose is also exactly the kind of mistake you'd expect an AI to make (but certainly not an accomplished writer like Matt Fraction!).

This is too ludicrous for Fraction to have introduced without comment, so I can only assume that it's a Zdarskyism.  It sure is wacky, but I guess it gives Batman someone to talk to without Robin by his side.

An AI assistant for Batman;
what could possibly go wrong?

Fraction is committed to helping us understand what Batman is doing and how.

TOO committed.

The story is littered with these tech-splanation boxes that remind me of "The Batwave" from "The Batman" cartoon.

 I never DID figure out what the Batwave was.

To me, they seem more interruptive than helpful.  But maybe because I'm such a studied expert on Batman Stuff, that when I see Batman issue commands into a communicator and then the Batmobile obeys the commands, I am brilliant enough to deduce that he's using a voice-command connection to control the Batmobile.

Or maybe I just have four Brother AIs in my house.

It doesn't help that Fraction uses these to explain obvious tech we've seen before while ignoring the techn-ephant in the living room:

"Please state the nature of the butlering emergency..."

I will forgive Fraction's heavy-handed use of THE BUTTERFLY as a metaphor for change, because comics, after all, are not generally a subtle medium.  What I will not forgive however is the lazy use of television news to delivery exposition:

Looks like someone never recovered from reading Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Well, as long as the overt Millerisms end there it should--

Balls nasty. Licken Chegs in danger.

Ouch. Yeah, I don't know whether that's a knowing parody or an unknowing pastiche, but what I DO know is that I don't want to see any more of it. 

Miller did ONE thing that was wholly positive which everyone does and should imitate (even though almost no one remembers that Miller is the writer who did it):
MILLER made Alfred a dead-pan snarker, thus completely revitalizing the character.

So, there are definitely some hiccups in the #1 of this new "Batman" character. But I am still optimistic that Fraction will do the character more justice than his predecessor.  Am I wrong to think so...?

"SLOW DANCE WITH DEATH" with SPEED SAUNDERS, Ace Investigator

It begins, as it often does, with American eccentric SPEED SAUNDERS reading in his personal library. 

“Let’s see what quandary Slam Bradley has found his way into this month…!”

WHEN SUDDENLY A—

BREAKS OUT.

OH NO, it’s 

• His granddaughter-or-niece-or-something who spells her name wrong & her sweaty husband, the one who smells like Aqua Velva; 
• Speed’s blond contact from Chinatown; 
• the Useful Female Informant he had sex with at 2AM in the plaza during the Adventure in Little Africa; 
• the blue-haired homeless guy he brought in for an all-nighter once when there were no cases to work on; and 
• the guy who inspects his home for compliance with Neighborhood Action Plans!

ONE of them must be The Killer.

Speed gets "in the zone" which is what he call it when he's ace investigating, because he's an American eccentric.

Carter Hall, digger of things.

Sierra Kirk, indiscriminate plaza piece.

Minato Morita, suspiciously helpful, means of income unknown.

Fuifui, supposed homeless person.

Hiro Suzuki, easily bribed N.A.P. inspector.

Shayera Hall, thing who is frequently dug.

The first suspect to be eliminated was Hiro Suzuki, the N.A.P. inspector.

It turned out he wasn’t there for the party. He had simply come to inspect the home, coincidently at the same time.  Oops.

Speed quickly began a stealth interrogation of the remaining guests through charming repartee about their tastes and habits.

Speed: <Discuss Interests>; <Ask: Taste in Food; Taste in Venues>.

“Really, Fuifui? You seem surprisingly FIT for a homeless man who eats only junk food…”

Speeds notices that Fuifui has a Bad Relationship with his Chinatown contact.  How did THAT happen?  Jealousy? Was that the connection?

The Face of Judgement looms AWFULLY close to Fuifui as the others look on with relief.

HIs younger-indeterminate-female-relative and her odd-smelling husband (whom Speed really likes because he’s an expert on ancient foreign objects were the final guests to leave. Meanwhile, Speed made a call, on a hunch.

"Yes, doctor, stand by. Some STOMACH-PUMPING may be required. Hm, what? No, one of the guests brought Fruitcake."

Clearing his head by jumping on a box repeatedly, as is his habit, and, realizing that his theory, no matter how counter-intuitive, MUST be correct…

"I must... LEAP!  To a conclusion."

he put on his skiing outfit and made some wienies to prepare for the final confrontation.

"♬OH... AN... Australian went yodeling, on a mountaintop high…♬"

The Moment of Truth arrived. Hero versus...

Hiro.

“Yes, Mr. Saunders? You wanted to talk about your Neighborhood Action Plan inspection fine?”

“No, Hiro.  Actually, I had simply deduced something. That if YOU weren’t the killer….”

“then I HAD to be.”

-FIN-

"I dunno, Grim, sometimes it's almost as if Reality were like putty in my hands!"

"So, one time I found this kid on a sled... oh, you heard about that?
Oh, ha hah, right, of course you did..."