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The Dr. Huxton Rymer Story by Josie Packman This article first appeared in THE COLLECTORS' DIGEST Vol. 33 issue 392, Aug. 1979, to Vol. 34 issue 397, Jan. 1980. This is the story of a vivid personality created so perfectly by one of our best Blake authors, Mr. G. H. Teed, that the great Doctor always seemed to have been a real living person. A man pulled in two directions — the great Surgeon striving to help his fellow men with his wonderful command of the new surgery he himself had helped to create, and the quite equally great criminal, using his twisted but brilliant brains to plan the outrageous crimes related in the Sexton Blake Saga. The story of his decline and fall covers a period of some twenty years, but his real character emerged in the early stories of his adventures and battles with Sexton Blake.  Dr. Rymer came of a good family and had been sent to Vienna for his medical and surgical training early in the century. At that time in history Vienna was the "Mecca of Medicine", nowhere else could a young doctor of Rymer's ability have learned his trade as a surgeon. He was the first to discover and practice, the delicate hip operation which was to revolutionise modern surgery. His discoveries were sensational and given to the world through the Franz Joseph Hospital in Vienna where his services were sought by Royalty and commoner alike.Then, suddenly and mysteriously, the Master disappeared, he was seen no more by the pupils who carried on his teachings. Why had this man deserted his chosen profession? Was there a kink in his brain which caused him to relinquish all that he had worked so hard for? From a brilliant surgeon he evolved slowly but surely into a no less brilliant criminal, destined to end his career in disgrace and imprisonment. The seeds of good and evil were implanted in this man at birth — who could say from which parent he inherited them — or was it from his ancestors, for "the sins of the fathers are visited on their children unto the third and fourth generation". Yet in spite of these criminal instincts Rymer could still immerse himself in medicine. In the story called "The Sacred Sphere", U.J. No. 529, we first hear of his treatise on "The Emanations of Radium in Relation to their action on Cancer and the Curative Power Thereof". A description of Rymer where — on board a deserted ship on a raw cold December day — he was so engrossed in his writings that he noticed nothing of his sordid surroundings. Several times in the many stories about Dr. Rymer written in future years, this profound treatise was mentioned but eventually in the late 1920's this theme was dropped by the author and Rymer became a skilled operator in anything he undertook. In the meantime many fine stories of Rymer adventures were published, quite a number of them in the famous Double Numbers of the Union Jack. Altogether there were 76 tales in which Dr. Rymer appeared, more than some so-called best-selling authors produce in a lifetime. These are the ones published in the Union Jack and Sexton Blake Library and one solitary tale in the Boys' Friend Library. To get a real picture of the doctor we need to divide these tales into three sections, as follows: The first section covers the period from 1913, No. 488 of the Union Jack to No. 692 in early 1917. The second section began in 1922 when the author — Mr. Teed — returned from his war service and world wide wanderings to start writing for the Sexton Blake Saga again. In my opinion this section lasted until the end of the first series of the Sexton Blake Library in 1925 and correspondingly with the same period in the Union Jack. The third section covers the remaining years until the death of Mr. Teed in 1938 and were among the more modern and sophisticated tales. Not that they were any better than the early ones, but were brought up-to-date and written in gangsterish style as apparently ordered by the then editor. Before beginning with Rymer's first meeting with Sexton Blake, I feel impelled to mention the tale of Dr. Rymer which appeared in 1916, in No. 11 of the new Sexton Blake Library and shows his characteristics to advantage. It is a strange and haunting story of the grim battles in war-torn France and particularly of the happenings in a small Field Hospital back of Nancy run by a surgeon of the greatest genius. "Lt. Col. of the Army of France" is his rank and on his breast there is attached the ribbon of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. U. Col. de Loulay is the name by which the French Government knows him and the name by which the lesser surgeons speak of his wonderful surgery with bated breath. No more brilliant handler of the knife is there in all the French lines than de Loulay. Yet little do any of his associates dream that de Loulay hides the identity of Dr. Huxton Rymer, once the most brilliant surgeon of Europe. Yes so it is. Yes after many of the adventures of which I am about to tell you, Rymer had ended up in France and joined the French Army and in so doing had nearly won back his self-respect and had worked hard for the lives of broken and wounded men who had arrived at the small hospital, without thought of anything else, his criminal career forgotten amongst the horrors of the Great War, and the knowledge that he held in his hands the relief of suffering for so many of those men. But even in this environment temptation looms and once more the Dr. has to fight against the evil in him. This is a sad story and involves the loss of the last son of a French nobleman, an almost lost inheritance and stolen jewels. It is also one of the few tales in which Rymer joins forces with Baron de Beauremon another of Teed's creations. No other Rymer adventures appeared in the Sexton Blake Library until 1922. |