SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MONKEY EYES

 "Monkey Eyes" by Erle Stanley Gardner  (first published as a two-part novelette in Argosy Allstory Weekly, July 27-August 3, 1929; reprinteded in The Human Zero"  The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh, 1981, and in Cults!  An Anthology of Secret Societies, Sects, and the Supernatural, edited by Greenberg & Waugh, 1983)

There's a reason why Erle Stanley Gardner only wrote seven science fiction stories in his long career.  Not that he wasn't good at it; he just wasn't good enough.  Gardner's considerable talents lay more in the mystery, crime, and adventure fields than in science fiction.  His science fiction stories date from 1928 and 1932, just before the prolific writer hit it big with his first Perry Mason novel.

"Monkey Eyes" concerns a secret cult hidden deep in the jungles of India and a race of possibly very intelligent primates, which Gardner calls "monkeys," for the sake of convenience and possibly because pulp magazine readers of the day either did not know or care about the difference.

Phil Nickers, former army aviator and current private detective, has come to India to investigate the deaths of Harley Kent and his daughter, Audrey  -- but Audrey may not be dead because charred b ody was never officially identified/.  While visiting a Colonel Crayson, Nickers meets up with the man who had hired him anonymously, Arthur Forbes.  Harley Kent had been a good friend of Forbes and Audrey Kent had been his fiancee.   Dining with Crayson was also Murasingh, a somewhat mysteriuous educated native posing as a sportsman and adventurer, and a man with a dangerous, albeit sub rosa, reputation. Forbes suspects that Murasingh had something to do with Audrey's death.   Completing the quintet at dinner was Crayson's newly-arrived niece, Jean.  Privately Forbes tells Nickers that Jean Crayson and Audrey Kent shared many physical similarities:  both had "blond hir, blue eyes, a milky skin, red lips, and a full, rounded figure."  Both also had unusually round eyes, sometimes described as "monkey eyes."

While walking the grounds that night, Nickers and Forbes take a look at the plane Murasingh had arrived in.  The plane was guarded by a native with a very nasty-looking blade.  the pairt heard a strange noise from within the plane and found it came from a vicious-looking monkey seated in the pilot's chair.  The monkey was wearing a collar, "solid gold, hand-carved, set with rubies of the finest pigeon blood.," with words carved in Sanskrit on it.  Murasingh, angered that Nickers and Forbes had seen the monkey, told the two that the beast was a pet. 

The following day, Murasingh took off on one of his mysterious flights.  Nickers and Forbes followed him in a small plane, not realizing the Nurasingh had just kidnapped Jean Crayson.  Murasingh discovered he was being followed and attacked Nickers' plane with machine gun fire.  The bullets hit the plane's gas tank and Nickers was forced to land the plane in the Indian jungle.  By coincidence, they land near a secret, centuries-old city inhabited by a powerful caste of priests dedicated to the monkey god Hanuman.  For hundreds of years these priests have dedicated themselves to helping the large group of monkeys in the area reach a higher level of evolution through reincarnation.  This, they consider, is their sacred duty and the proests consider themselves more as servants to the monkeys than as worshippers of them.

And, son of a gun, there in the ancient city is Audrey Kent, whi had been brought there as a prisoner by Murasingh after he staged her murder.  Audrey, with her monkey eyes, is slated to be wed to one of the more advanced of the monkeys, in the hope of eventually pushing the beasts closer to humanity.  Evidently a similar fate is in store for Jean Crayson, whose drugged body had also been brought to the city by Murasingh.  Nickers and Forbes  are captured nd will be executed before Audrey's "wedding" will take place.  They manage to escape via an elaborate game of "monkey see, monkey do," involving hundreds of the beasts.  Now all they have to do is rescue the women and make their way back to civilization -- something that is not as easy as it sounds.

"Monkey Eyes" is a fast-paced, if unbelievable, pulpish tale, marked by Gardner's usual twisted -- in the best sense of the word -- plotting.  For those willing to suspend disbelief, it provides a pleasnt hour or two's reading.  there are worse ways to spend your time.