  he Dragon's Teeth
(1939)  aka he
Virgin Heiresses
When a very odd but important millionaire was
buried at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, it might have embarrassed Ellery Queen. After
all, the millionaire had been the first client of Ellery Queen, Inc. And now the client
had joined the mackerels he was deader than. The crew of his yacht was scattered, and
there was no autopsy to suggest the ways and means of his death. |
| "Expertly
told and recommended without qualm."
--
The New Yorker "Queen fans will find cause for huzzahs in this demonstration of the famous Queen analytico-deductive method." -- Will Cuppy, N.Y. Herald Tribune "There is a love story too, for Ellery Queen has taken as partner an interesting young man whose course of true love, once he's met the lovely girl, is given every chance to run very roughly and very romantically." -- Windham N.Y. Journal |
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Above left to right: Both
dust cover and hard cover for Stokes, Grosset & Dunlap editions; hard
cover for International Readers League edition (1941). Below left to right: Dust and 2 hard covers for Blakiston/Triangle books and two hard cover variations for High School Book League (Little & Ives) special edition. (Click on the covers to see the differences) * |
| The Brooklyn Eagle - "New Books in review" by Arthur Rodes,
November 29, 1939 "Ellery Queen is a bit too eager to be deceptive in The Dragon's Teeth (Stokes, $2.00), but there are occasional flashes of those expert methods of deduction practiced so ardently by this writer of the pseudonym. The name of the millionaire who hires Ellery Queen, Inc., for an undetailed job of detection to be performed at an uncertain future date is Cadmus Cole, and Cadmus itself is a downright mystical name for a a man. Upon Cadmus' death there is an apparent search for his heirs. But Mr. Queen nurtures a fine suspicion that the fellow has been murdered. To strengthen this supposition, there are succeeding efforts at murder and, ultimately, a blood bath. Ellery teams with Beau Rummell, an earnest young man, whose romantic urge is permitted to rove far and frequently because Kerrie Shawn, one of Cole heirs, is a beauteous maiden. It is also permitted to run not too smoothly." Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 9 December 1939 - "New Novels" "In setting his latest problem and solving it himself, Ellery Queen Is his usual pompous self. Those who can stomach his incredible egotism will appreciate the subtleties of his latest creations, and of the plot Cadmus Cole is a tough nut to crack But the heirs to his millions, genuine and bogus, are well handled and act logically enough Beau Rummell is the star in a mediocre cast, a likeable fellow, though Mr Queen does his best to spoil him by heavy-handed quips at his expense." |
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The Dragon's Teeth (1939)
is one of the more unusual entries in the Ellery Queen
canon. It begins with a millionaire who is already dead, a detective agency
that has never actually had a case, and a young man who decides to
impersonate Ellery Queen. From there, things become
increasingly complicated. Cadmus Cole is an eccentric millionaire who hires Ellery Queen, Inc. to carry out an unspecified assignment after his death. Six weeks later, Cole is reportedly buried at sea after suffering a heart attack aboard his yacht. His will reveals the nature of the assignment: the Queen firm must locate his two long-lost nieces, who will inherit his fortune provided they remain unmarried and agree to live together for a year at his Tarrytown estate. It sounds like a straightforward search for heirs, but the conditions of the will soon turn the inheritance into a dangerous game. The new partner of the Queen firm is Beau Rummell, an engaging young man who is part lawyer, part ditchdigger, part detective wannabe, and very much the star of the first half of the novel. Beau locates Kerrie Shawn and promptly falls in love with her. He is calling himself Ellery Queen, which becomes particularly awkward when the other heir, Margo Cole, arrives from Paris and also takes an interest in "Ellery." Soon the two women are living together at the Cole estate, while a series of increasingly dangerous "accidents" are aimed at Kerrie. When Margo is shot dead in front of Kerrie, Beau has little choice but to call in the real Ellery Queen. What follows is a curious mixture of romantic comedy, mistaken identities, attempted murder, inheritance intrigue, and traditional Queen deduction. The Queens themselves are surprisingly absent from much of the first half, leaving Beau to carry the story before Ellery finally takes center stage. The novel's tone owes much to the screwball comedies of late-1930s Hollywood. Although the story has returned from Hollywood to New York, the atmosphere has not. The chapter titles are packed with puns, the characters are larger than life, and the romantic complications often seem more important than the detective work. The result is lighter and more farcical than many of the earlier Queen novels. As Michael E. Grost observes, the book is unusual because it moves away from the traditional Queen formula and succeeds particularly well as romantic fiction. The reader simply has to accept it on its own terms. That does not mean there is no mystery. There are false identities, attempted murders, a murder committed under seemingly impossible circumstances, and even a counterfeit Ellery Queen. The ultimate clue is particularly memorable: tooth marks on a fountain pen. The murderer has left behind a physical clue that Ellery can interpret in his typically analytical fashion. One contemporary reviewer was "highly impressed" by the solution of the mystery from those tooth marks (The Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, Dec 3. 1939). |
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| Above left: Add by
Stokes for "The Dragon's Teeth" Above right: Kim Novak posing in front of a book stand with the Pocket Book edition for Ellery Queen's The Virgin Heiresses (1954) in the middle (third from the bottom). Click for the larger version. |
| Queen also enjoys playing tricks on
the reader. The names Cadmus Cole and Edmund de Carlos seem deliberately
chosen to suggest a connection, inviting the alert reader to jump to an
obvious conclusion. Queen knows exactly what the reader is thinking and
turns the apparent clue into a red herring (The Sunday
Telegraph, Sydney, Dec 3. 1939). There are further
impersonations and enough deception to make it difficult to know who is
really who. Contemporary reviewers were divided. The New Yorker found the novel "expertly told and recommended without qualm," while Will Cuppy praised Queen's famous "analytico-deductive method" (New York Herald Tribune). The Brooklyn Eagle found flashes of Queen's customary deductive skill but thought he was "a bit too eager to be deceptive" (Arthur Rodes, The Brooklyn Eagle, Nov 29. 1939). The Sydney Morning Herald was more critical, describing Queen as pompous and the cast as mediocre, although it singled out Beau Rummell as a likable character (Dec 9. 1939). The Sunday Telegraph likewise found Ellery "ingenious, entertaining, surprising and unconvincing," but praised the mystery, the confused impersonations, and particularly the ingenious solution based on tooth marks on a fountain pen (Dr. Watson Junior, Dec 3. 1939). There are also genuine problems with the plot. Some of the murderer's plans depend on remarkably convenient circumstances, while the legal arrangements surrounding Cadmus Cole's will invite considerable skepticism. The conditions requiring the two heirs to remain unmarried and live together for a year are particularly contrived. Later assessments have also pointed out legal problems concerning the will and Queen's treatment of corpus delicti. The plot therefore asks the reader to accept quite a few coincidences and legal assumptions in exchange for its elaborate twists. The novel also creates an odd continuity problem. In The Four of Hearts, Ellery had been deeply involved in Hollywood and apparently on the verge of marriage to Paula Paris. Yet in The Dragon's Teeth, Paula is not mentioned at all, and Ellery is sufficiently obscure in Hollywood that Beau can impersonate him there. One contemporary reviewer was already irritated by such inconsistencies, although he was relieved that Ellery had escaped the "noose of matrimony" (The Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, Dec 3. 1939). For all its faults, The Dragon's Teeth is an entertaining departure from the standard Queen formula. It is less about Ellery Queen the detective and more about Beau Rummell, romance, mistaken identity, and a fortune surrounded by dangerous conditions. The deductions occasionally take enormous leaps, and the legal and logical foundations can be shaky, but the novel compensates with pace, humor, romantic complications, and a genuinely inventive central mystery. It may have cavities, but there is still plenty to chew on. |
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| The Sunday
Telegraph, Sydney - "Mystery of the Week, Enigma of Ellery
Queen" by dr. Watson Junior - December 3. 1939. "Length of course 288 pages Par for solution Page 252 In his second last adventure, 'The Four of Hearts,' Mr. Ellery Queen was the idol of Hollywood and on the verge of matrimony with a photogenic ratbag, Paula Paris. Now, in his latest adventure, 'The Dragon's Teeth,' Mr. Queen is so little known to Hollywood that he is able to send an assistant undisguised there to impersonate him, and Miss Paris isn't even mentioned once. I am annoyed by these careless in consistencies, despite my satisfaction at Mr. E.Q.'s escape from the noose of matrimony that would have strangled him forever as a detective. If an author gets muddled about the life, character and history of his detective, how on earth can the earnest reader form any clear ideas about him? And my quarrel with E. Queen is that I have never been able to picture what he looks like, only when he grew a beard in "The Devil to Pay" did I feel that he was human and alive. He is the same old enigma in 'The Dragon's Teeth' — ingenious, entertaining, surprising and unconvincing. The murder which he solves is committed neatly, audaciously and safely, although it wouldn't have been possible had the hotel window been closed or the blind been drawn — neither contingency an improbable one on a honeymoon, I should imagine. Bitten-Pen Clue However, I was intrigued by the murder, the attempted murders and the confused impersonations, and highly impressed by the solution of the ' mystery from teeth-marks on a fountain-pen. The scholar will recall the clue of the bitten finger nails in Sayers' brilliant little rail way puzzle, 'One Too Many.' Mr. E. Q. is adroit enough, also, to lay intelligent traps for the too-intelligent reader. He knows that, as soon as he says that one man's name is Cadmus Cole and another's Edmund de Carlos, every keen-witted student will leap to a conclusion about their relationship. Can you detect the significance of those names now? ' He tosses out that clue, but blandly makes it a red-herring. He is also sufficiently self-assured, I was glad to note, to permit himself an embarrassing mistake for the sake of his customary double-surprise climax." |
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Elements for "The Game" The story is set in N.Y. City, Hollywood and Tarrytown (in the "Villanoy" room 1726). The story is set between June and Wednesday July 5. Cadmus Cole was missing at sea. Although no year is mentioned we learn that Cole is 66 years old and born in 1873 so it is fair to establish 1939 as the year wherein this story takes place. A little while back the Ellery Queen detective agency was founded by Beau Rummell. His father Johnny Rumell was chief inspector of the narcotics department, and Beau was born in Cherry street, New York in 1914. He wore a moustache and impersonated Ellery on two occasions, once in Hollywood and once in Tarrytown. Ellery smokes and had appendicitis. He was hospitalized in Adirondacks and was several weeks out. After this case Ellery immediately starts on a new case. Richard Queen seldom appears when official business has to be taken care of. Dr. Murphy and dr. Prouty both appear as does justice officer Sampson. NYPD: Velie, Flint and Pigott who knew Beau from childhood. No map no challenge to the reader. |
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| Above: The story was published as supplement to The Philadelphia Inquirer dated January 21, 1940. |
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The Dragon's Teeth
|
 Other articles on this book (1) Reading Ellery Queen - The Dragon's Teeth Jon Mathewson (Jan 2015) (2) St. Ellery Slays the Dragon Ho-Ling (Dec 3. 2013) (3) The Dragon’s Teeth In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel - Steve Hockensmith (Aug 5. 2013) (4) The Mystillery blog (Dec 21. 2020) |
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Page first published April 18. 1999 Version 2.0 - Last updated September 24. 2026 |
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