Forgotten Stories: "GAY FALCON" by Michael Arlen (1940, 1945)

We take time out from our regularly scheduled review of EQMM covers and contents to present this story of interest from the March 1945 issue of that mag. "Gay Falcon," according to their acknowledgments page, originally appeared in Town & Country magazine in 1940. 

It's interesting to note that whoever wrote the following Intro for EQMM had an odd notion of what makes a character hardboiled." Maybe my reading of the story was overly colored by George Sanders' movie version, but the guy depicted here seemed very close to the "charming and romantic rogue" of the films.

I haven't seen the movie version, but it appears they based it loosely on the plot of this story. The characters' names were changed, including that of our hero, who becomes "Gay Laurence," and his last name from the story becomes a nickname, ala The Saint. Of course, the film character was based more on Simon Templar than "Gay Falcon" anyway.