“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

– Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

So basically, I don’t do horror. Robert E. Howard is my second-favorite writer in any genre (trailing only John D. MacDonald), and I’m not really even that into his horror stuff. “Pigeons from Hell” is considered one of his best stories, but I don’t really like it. Other than a few exceptions, like the terrific Robert R. McCammon, and F. Paul Wilson, horror doesn’t work for me (no, I don’t really care for Lovecraft, either, though I’m well-versed thanks to those old Del Rey paperbacks).

But I do like several stories which are in Del Rey’s The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, such as Solomon Kane’s “Rattle of Bones.” There’s an upcoming post on “Out of the Deep,” and we are about to talk about his Conrad and Kirowan tales, which are part of the Cthulhu Mythos.

SPOILER WARNING – Look…the story I’m about to discuss is eighty-one years old. And it’s readily available. If you read my stuff here, you know I try to minimize spoilers. But you’ve had a lot of opportunities to read Robert E Howard. You have been warned.

Howard sold three stories to Weird Tales (“The Children of the Night,” “The Thing on the Roof,” and “The Haunter of the Ring”), and a fourth (“Dig me no Grave”) appeared there the year after he died.

“The Dwellers Under the Tombs” found its way into print decades later. Those five, and one fragment (“The House”)  can be found in the Del Rey Horror Stories collection. August Derleth completed the fragment as “The House in the Oaks.”

There was also a fragment (“Dagon Manor,”) which was completed by another writer. I have not seen that one.

Professor John Kirowan is the son of an Irish noble, and a Mythos scholar. He became so repulsed by what he learned studying the occult, that he quit it. He became a member of The Wanderer’s Club, which is an avenue for adventures and supernatural explorations. I think a modern writer basing some new stories out The Wanderer’s Club would be worth reading.

I am an avid reader of Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin; To me, he is very much an occult version of Hercule Poirot – and also not afraid to use a gun. Kirowan is not like Poirot, but I do feel a ‘vibe’ reading a couple of the stories. As if these plots could work with de Grandin in them.

BTW – de Grandin was actually the most popular character in Weird Tales.

 

“The Haunter of the Ring” is the third story, and the last one published while Howard was still alive. It’s told in the first person by Kirowan’s ‘Watson,’ Conrad O’Donnell, who visits the latter’s rooms and finds a mutual acquaintance; James Gordon. Gordon believes he’s being punished for the sins of an ancestor, and that his wife has tried to kill him three times. Kirowan sits back in a Sherlock Holmes-style manner and asks for the story.

He recognizes the ring that a former suitor had recently given her. It is the Ring of Thoth Amon! Fans of L. Sprague de Camp, and Marvel’s Conan, know Thoth Amon as a major villain in the ‘expanded’ Conan saga. He is mentioned in a couple early REH stories, but never actually appears in them. But his ring is a major element of the first Conan tale, “Phoenix in the Sword.”

Characters actually have the ring – it is a tangible thing, not just a legendary item which is mentioned. The very same ring that was used to nearly kill Conan, is now on the finger of Gordon’s wife! Howard has linked Conan and Kirowan, and in doing so, indirectly linked Conan into Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.

Kirowan confronts his nemesis from long ago. The man had cost him the love of his life, leading to Kirowan delving deeper into the occult to find the means to defeat him some day, though he turned his back on the dark arts.

This story gives more background on Kirowan than any of the others do. And we see his psychological combat skills, as opposed to the physical approach of Conan, or El Borak (probably my favorite REH character). While that long-ago wound will never be healed, he does get some closure on the matter, and also saves an innocent woman from falling prey to his old foe.

Kirowan has a tragic history, caused by the occult. He became a master of the occult to combat it, yet while renouncing its use. He has depth.

Howard was an Arthur Conan Doyle fan, and we can see a little Sherlock Holmes in Kirowan:

‘He sat in his customary position, chin resting on his strong, slim hands; his white face was immobile, but his dark eyes gleamed with interest.’

Holmes is known for steepling his hands together, but that description certainly could fit the sleuth of Baker Street.

‘“A ring?” Kirowan had suddenly come to life; it was as if something hard and steely had been sounded in him. “What sort of ring?”’

I’ve got a half-dozen published Holmes short stories. I could definitely tweak this just a little and it would be authentic Holmes.

The first couple times I read this, I ignored the early reference to Hungary. But then I saw that Howard was deftly laying the trail to tie it all together. It’s nicely done, leading us to his backstory.

Evelyn falls under a dark spell again and shoots Gordon. With two friends rushing to Gordon’s aid, Kirowan pulls Conrad aside and says “We are hunters, not healers!’ and they rush off to the villain’s abode. I contrast the pair with Jules de Grandin and his helper, Trowbridge. De Grandin is certainly a man of action, but both of them are doctors, and their medical knowledge often permeates the stories. Here, Conrad and Kirowan are men of action, not medicine. And it’s Kirowan’s vast reservoir of dark knowledge, not the knowledge of Asclepius, which is of use.

Kirowan is a man in control of his emotions, and he does not use his dark knowledge. But Howard plumbs his depths when he confronts a villain from his past:

‘They were not strangers; I could sense like a tangible thing the hate that lay between them.’

“Years ago, when we delved in the dark mysteries together in Budapest, I saw whither you were drifting. I drew back; I would not descend to the foul depths of forbidden occultism and diabolism to which you sank. And because I would not, you despised me, and you robbed me of the only woman I ever loved; you turned her against me by means of your vile arts, and then you degraded and debauched her, sank her into your own foul slime. I had killed you with my hand then, Yosef Vrolok – vampire by nature as well as by name that you are – but your arts protected you from physical vengeance. But you have trapped yourself at last!”

We now see a man of passion and resolution before us. Vrolok took away the love of his life, and Kirowan will exact his revenge, these many years later. And Conrad uses his knowledge and intelligence, not the physical skills Kull or Solomon Kane would have, to horribly vanquish his enemy. It was so gruesome, Conrad recounts that ‘Kirowan grasped my arm and we fled from that accursed chamber, blind with horror.’

The maiden is saved and the villain is vanquished, all due to the efforts of our protagonist, as detailed by his Watson: Or his Boswell, for you classicists. Kirowan used his keen observational and analytical skills, along with his vast knowledge of the occult, to ‘solve the case.’ And we learned of a tragedy in his background, which greatly impacted how he uses his knowledge.

 

I think this is the best story to start with, the background adding to our investment in Kirowan. Note that each story isn’t Conrad and Kirowan. Conrad is not in “Dig Me No Grave,” and it’s told in the first person by Kirowan himself. Every story is worth reading, but I’d begin with “The Haunter of the Ring” to get a taste.

At just under six thousand words, this is a well-populated story. You have Conrad and Kirowan, Gordon and Evelyn, the villain, and two friends of Evelyn who come to her place, as well. Seven people in three locales.

This story isn’t bursting with the relentless action found in a Kirby O’Donnell or Solomon Kane story. But even with the recounting of events past and present, it is still a well-paced mystery, moving from point to point. Howard was simply a very good writer.

Savage Sword of Conan (#205) turned “The Haunter of the Ring” into a Conan adventure in January of 1993.

“Dig Me No Grave,” the story after “Ring,” was the subject of Marvel’s Journey Into Mystery, Volume 2, Number 1, July 25, 1972.

I don’t find any reason to read them in order. If you like “Haunter of the Ring,” I suggest checking out “The Thing on the Roof” next. It is a quick read, at about half the length of “Ring,” and I think it’s my favorite of the series. “Children of the Night” is one of those Steve Allison-like stories where a modern day person finds himself someone else in olden times. I don’t enjoy that framing mechanism and find those stories poor. That gets my vote for the last one to read.

Way back in 2012, Josh Reynolds wrote a Black Gate piece on Conrad and Kirowan, for more info on the duo.

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.