Aurelius Smith is an agent with the American Secret Service.
Well, was an agent for them, before the events of the first recorded adventure. When we are introduced to him, he has resigned from that organization because a very nasty and highly dangerous would-be anti-government villain that Smith has been pursuing has fled America and he was told to let him go. Smith refused and the only way to continue to hunt down this terrorist was to do so on his own. That trail will take him to the other side of the world to the Indian subcontinent and eventually a new employer. For a time then we could easily write that he is an agent with the Indian Secret Service. When he decides after a time to return to America, he will choose to set up work in New York City as a private investigator.
An interesting and telling blurb in the first full-length adventure tells us that Smith is "an American who because of his ingenuity and common-sense and skill in solving difficult problems secures a position in the Secret Service of the Indian Government and after many narrow escapes returns to American to pursue the same dangerous profession. Northern or Southern India, Ceylon, the broad sea, New York alleys and the Wild West are all alike to the lean and lanky Mr. Smith as a field for the exercise of his talents, and whether it be an Indian rajah or an East-side gunman, the criminal is usually made to pay the penalty of his crime."
Of Smith's last name, the chronicler makes the rather cryptic remark upon introducing him to us: "Smith, whose very name is a useful disguise". Make of that what you will.
Most of the cases that come to challenge Smith's ingenuity and tenacity in his later years would seem standard fair for a detective though he specializes in the extremely hard ones. 'Someone stole my ...' 'Can you locate my relative who ...' 'I am being blackmailed by ...' 'I fear my life is being threatened ...' Those are the sorts of matters that will challenge him but in each instance, the manner of theft or the style of extortion or the imminence of doom will be in a manner that would prove too much for most detectives. Smith will have to rely on his exceptional skills of observation and deduction to come up with the necessary satisfactory conclusion. We are told that Smith, when not pressed for time, liked to ponder a scene slowly but "before an audience, and always when speed was necessary, he assumed a lazy nonchalance which was most deceiving to the beholder. To the onlooker, he appeared to leap to conclusions and to note vital details with an accuracy which almost appeared to come from a sixth sense".
It is his initial set of cases/adventures taking place in India, and the one that brought him to India in the first place, that fulfill the requirements for membership in this compendium. His dogged tracking of a man set on overthrowing the American government will bring about his introduction to Sir Oliver Haultain, head of the C.I.D. in India for the British Government and de facto head of the Secret Service there. Haultain will see in Smith someone who could be very useful to him and the sorts of matters he will give Smith to resolve will pit the American against both lowlifes skulking in the shadows and high-level rulers who are even more deadly. That fact that Haultain will use Smith as bait at times seems only to endear Haultain to him more as Smith does value expediency.
Along the way he will be introduced to and will gain the friendship and devotion of a very formidable Sikh named Langa Doonh. Doonh will decide he enjoys a dual role of manservant/butler to Smith when not on a case and abled assistant while one is ongoing. Even when Smith is 'fired' by Haultain so he might return to America and a new life, Doonh will decide to stay with Smith, a de facto partnership that will prove advantageous to both. When they start work in New York, his Eastern mysticism will be a matter of frequent comment and does much to enhance the allure of Smith especially when it is learned that Doonh relaxes by going into a trance. Smith, being more than a bit of a showman, does nothing to quell that fascination.
Note that while we will read numerous references by Smith to Doonh as 'boy' , especially at the beginning, we will also read Doonh call himself that when talking with Smith. Smith is truly close friends to Doonh and the two will share a lot of close calls. When Doonh makes himself known to us we learn that he and Smith had already met some time before, off-page, in Karachi, where, Doonh was hired briefly in the city as Smith's temporary servant and where "sahib save from mugger in Hub River" - said mugger being in fact a crocodile!
When Smith starts his own investigative agency back to the States, he will take on as secretary and frequently field-assistant Beatrice Asterly, an attractive and very given actress who will find use for her theatrical skills helping on the cases. At the risk of breaking the fourth wall, the chronicler wrote about the pair, "Smith does things his own way and gets into jams from which I often think I cannot escape. He nearly got married once but I asserted my authority and tore up the script. Smith has never spoken to me about that but his secretary, Beatrice, has never forgiven me. She was the girl."
Good Lines:
- Said by Smith's temporary boss in the Indian Secret Service, "Empires are built and lost amid the shadows of assassins".