Crossover of the Week

Summer 1940

LADIES’ DAY 

Ellen Patrick (aka the Domino Lady) and her friend Diana are at a hair salon when the shop is held up by criminals led by a woman called Madame Orchid, who is looking for the owner. Ellen came to New York on the S.S. Claridon. Diana is romantically involved with a man named Kit, who “comes and goes like a ghost.” Other customers at the salon include a matronly society woman named Mrs. Claypool; Miss Dawn, a nightclub singer who’s been seeing a gang boss named Rocco; Jean Moray, and a former FBI agent who now works for a private citizen who specializes in taking down criminals like Madame Orchid and likes to stay in the shadows. The latter woman puts on makeup to appear Chinese and calls herself “Ming.” Madame Orchid seeks to collect ransom from the globetrotting cousin of the salon’s owner. Said owner is a tall, gorgeous woman with deeply tanned skin and bronze hair. Madame Orchid turns out to be Millicent MacGyver, a vengeful former employee of the salon. 

Short story by Matthew Baugh in Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady, David Boop and Kim Perisin, eds., Moonstone Books, 2020. The Domino Lady is from Lars Anderson’s stories in the “spicy” pulps. Diana is Diana Palmer, the girlfriend (and later wife) of Kit Walker, aka the Phantom and the Ghost Who Walks. The S.S. Claridon is from the movie The Last Voyage. Mrs. Claypool is from the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera. Gaye Dawn and Johnny Rocco are from the film Key Largo. Jean Moray is the assistant of scientific detective I. V. “Ivy” Frost, who appeared in stories by Donald Wandrei in the magazine Clues Detective Stories. The former FBI agent is an agent of the shadowy pulp hero, and frequently assumes the guise of a Chinese woman named Ming during her investigations. The salon’s owner is the bronze man’s cousin. Millicent MacGyver is presumably a relative of Angus MacGyver from the television series MacGyver. “Ming” became an agent of the shadowy vigilante in the novel The Invincible Shiwan Khan, which Rick Lai placed in late September 1939, so this story probably takes place in the early 1940s. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!