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"Slam Bradley: "In Atlantic City"": Slam receives a telegram from a hotel's manager in Atlantic City, urgently asking him to come. But the two detectives, Slam and Shorty, are not fast enough, and by the time they find the manager, he has drowned. Soon they discover that three more drowned peopl

Quote1 My dear friends -- the real Emil Rogello was murdered last week by this man, Leon Petrokoff. He was recently released from an insane asylum as cured. For some reason he imagined Rogello his enemy ... I was quite sure he would come back to repeat his attempt if given the chance. I wish to thank you all for your kindness to come. Quote2
Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise

Detective Comics #7 is an issue of the series Detective Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 1937.

Synopsis for Slam Bradley: "In Atlantic City"

Slam receives a telegram from a hotel's manager in Atlantic City, urgently asking him to come. But the two detectives, Slam and Shorty, are not fast enough, and by the time they find the manager, he has drowned. Soon they discover that three more drowned people were found on a beach recently. To get to the bottom of this mystery Slam and Shorty don life-guard's uniforms and keep their watch near the beach. And while looking for trouble, each of them finds a girl to save from it, Ethel and Selma.

They discover the drownings were committed by a man in a diving suit, who dragged the victims down to an underwater cavern. Slam and Shorty follow the culprit when he grabs Ethel, finding he is no match for Slam's fighting strength. The police are waiting at the shore. Slam is rewarded with a kiss from both Ethel 'and Selma, leaving Shorty to do nothing but watch.

Appearing in Slam Bradley: "In Atlantic City"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Former hotel employee (Unnamed) (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • George Grayson (Single appearance; dies)
  • Ethel Mann (Single appearance)
  • Selma (Single appearance)
  • Gwendolyn (Single appearance)

Locations:


Synopsis for Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise: "The Premonition of Emil Rogello"

Cosmo gets a call from Emil Rogello, world famous pianist and an old friend, who felt a premonition of danger and wished for the detective to come over right away. But when Cosmo arrives, Emil is slumped over his piano with a knife in his back! A sheet of music containing a hidden message is left behind. It mentioned a mysterious figure that lurked on the balcony, but the message is cut short, likely by the writer's death. Questioning the servant, Luigi, Cosmo learns how for the past few days Emil was acting very afraid. He tells Luigi to have Emil buried in secret, not alerting any friends or family, or reporting his passing to the papers. Not yet.

With his master makeup skills, Cosmo disguises himself as the spitting image of the late Mr. Rogello. Luigi is then told to send out invitations for a dinner party to the same guests that his master last spent time with, specifying that Emil will be there to host it. The guests arrive as Cosmo studies each one carefully for any reaction. While playing one of Rogello's pieces of music on the piano, Cosmo catches the reflection of the curtains behind him parting, and dodges just in time as a thrown knife narrowly misses him! He pulls back the curtain and holds his gun on a large man. Cosmo revealed his ruse to the other guests as he marched the killer before them. Leon Petrokoff, a Russian violinist. Recently released from an insane asylum after being "cured", but then for some reason he started thinking of Emil Rogello as his enemy. Luigi contacts the police.

Appearing in Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise: "The Premonition of Emil Rogello"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Chief of Police

Antagonists:

  • Leon Petrokoff (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Emil Rogello (Single appearance; dies)
  • Luigi, manservant (Single appearance)

Locations:

Synopsis for Bruce Nelson: "The Claws of the Red Dragon (Part 7 of 8)"

As Bruce Nelson and Erick von Holtzendorff wait in Chin Lung's office, one of the guards alerts their captor to an approaching patrol officer. Quickly, Bruce and Erick are herded down to the cellar, where many of the Chinese guards already hid in silence. The patrolman raps on the door. Posing as a butler, Joseph Stucchi politely answers and invites the officer in to look around, to satisfy any curiosity. The ruse works, and after a short inspection of a beautifully furnished home with humble servants working to keep things neat and tidy, the officer leaves.

Bruce and Erick are returned to the room of Chin Lung as the other guards resume their duties. Before their eyes, Stucchi is dragged into the room, disheveled and terrified. Chin Lung accuses him of stealing the piece of the red jade dragon. The punishment for it must be death, via the "seven gates of heaven" method. A cage of bamboo and wire, about the length of an average sized person, is carried in. More Chinese men bring in seven cages, each carrying a large rat. Bruce, who has seen much in his career, is horrified by what he knows is about to transpire. Stucchi is locked inside the cage, as dividers are placed over his body, legs, feet, torso, head. The first rat is dropped in near his feet, and he screams in pain as it starts to bite into him. Before the second rat is placed, Bruce suddenly confesses that he was the one who stole the jade dragon. He tells Chin Lung that he'll return the piece, but only if they let Sigrid go first. Chin Lung goes to confer with his master, Lu Gong. When he returns, Lu Gong himself is with him, and finally Bruce is face to face with the ringleader.

The red jade dragon is the symbol of the old Mongolian empire, stolen by von Holtzendorff years ago during the boxer rebellion. It was then broken into pieces, which Lu Gong had been using his Tong to search for. Bruce again tries to barter the jade dragon for Sigrid's life, but to no avail. Lu Gong orders that he and von Holtzendorff be forced to watch the girl suffer, her fingers to be dismembered, then other parts of her, until she dies. The guards take Bruce back to the attic bedroom and secure him tightly to the cot. The clock nearby ticks down, only forty minutes remain until Sigrid is taken to be tortured to death...

Appearing in Bruce Nelson: "The Claws of the Red Dragon (Part 7 of 8)"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Erick von Holtzendorff
  • A patrol officer

Locations:

Synopsis for Gumshoe Gus: "The Mystery Play"

The chief sends Gus over to Mrs. Gottbucks home to act in a play she is putting on for charity. Playing the part of a "cultured" detective who solves crimes with his mind and not brute force, a difficult role for the crude gumshoe, for sure! He makes it through, despite the hard-of-hearing director being on his case every step of the way. The next morning's paper compares his acting to that of a mosquito dispeller, that is to say "Punk", and the boys at the police precinct have a laugh at his expense.

Appearing in Gumshoe Gus: "The Mystery Play"

Featured Characters:

  • Gumshoe Gus

Other Characters:

  • Mrs. Gottbucks (Single appearance)
  • Mr. Rainhard (Single appearance)
  • Julia (Single appearance)

Synopsis for Bart Regan, Spy: "The Colussus Disaster"

A large dirigible is shot out of the sky in a fiery wreck. Bart Regan and Sally Norris are assigned to discover the person or persons who did the shooting. Sally says she already solved the case, but the doubt in Bart's voice makes her decide not to tell him and simply go it alone. Of course, Bart still follows her in secret as she goes to an information desk, asking where she could purchase five thousand planes. From his hiding spot, Bart is starting to worry that she lost her mind, but the clerk tells her to try Skyways, Inc. A company that manufactures planes for the government.

Sally arrives at the main office of Skyways Inc. and speaks with the sales manager, Mr. Hanson. She confesses to him that she couldn't even afford one plane, she only came to share a theory she had about the dirigible crash. It was no secret that at the time of the crash, the government was considering whether to purchase planes or dirigibles. So what if a person in the business of selling airplanes wanted to make the dirigibles seem unsafe by shooting one down so that the disaster makes headlines? Sally then accuses the sales manager of being the one who fired the shot. Hanson pulls out a pistol, but fortunately, Bart had been listening and sprang in through the window behind him! Distracted, Hanson misses his shot, getting hit in the face by Sally's powder-puff, blinding him. Now that h's at their mercy, Bart and Sally have Hanson arrested. Afterwards, Bart asks Sally how she got tipped off so fast that it was Hanson. Sally shows him the headlines in one of the newspapers, making it clear as day: "Huge Dirigible Orders Cancelled, Government to Purchase Airplanes".

Appearing in Bart Regan, Spy: "The Colussus Disaster"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Mr. Hanson (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Spy Chief

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • a dirigible (Destroyed)

Synopsis for Buck Marshall: "A Report--In Detail"

While on a ride towards town, Buck hears a gun go off nearby, followed by sounds of beating hoofs that fade in the distance. No way to follow whoever it was, so Buck turns his attention to the source of the gunshot. He heads towards a ranger cabin up on the hill. Inside, the ranger is dead, slumped over a table with cards scattered all over. Upon further examination, Buck finds the bullet slug on the table, having passed straight through the victim's body.

The sheriff was with Ben Elin, of the "Double E" ranch, when Buck comes in to report the murder. The sheriff recognizes the victim's description as his friend, Bob Blackwell. He and Ben accompany Buck to the woods to try and pick up the killer's trail. Ben suggests going to see Jim Holt, who he saw heading towards the cabin this morning.

Holt, a small ranch owner, admits he had visited Blackwell today. He denies killing him, though. The sheriff and Buck agree to take Holt back to the scene of the crime. Once he sees the inside of the ranger cabin, the sheriff is convinced that Holt is guilty, but Buck isn't so sure. The bullet he found before was still on his mind. The way the tip was mushroomed, and that it had a wooden splinter stuck in it... He investigates the back of the room, where he notices a door that hadn't been used for a long time, as there was an old bureau now sitting in front of it. Looking closer, Buck sees marks along the side of the door, as though it had been jimmied. I had all come together. Buck stops the sheriff from arresting Holt. Blackwell was shot in the back from the rear doorway. The killer had to slightly open the door to stick his gun barrel through, then shot Blackwell, after which he had entered the cabin and spread some cards on the table and overturned a chair to make it look like a gambling match gone bad. Buck asks Ben Elin when he saw Holt leave the cabin. Around noon, the same time Buck heard the shot. Which meant Holt couldn't have done it, as he was at the bank by that time. Holt turns on Elin, accusing him of the murder. Before he left the cabin that morning, he saw Blackwell working on some paperwork. It was known that Elin was had wanted to graze more cattle on the government forest preserve than he was allowed. He must've shot Blackwell to keep him from filing a case against him.
Elin responds by pulling his gun on Holt, but the weapon is shot from his hand by Buck's good aim. Elin is tied up and Blackwell's murder solved.

Appearing in Buck Marshall: "A Report--In Detail"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Ben Elin (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Sheriff
  • Jim Holt (Single appearance)
  • Bob Blackwell (Appears only as a corpse)

Locations:

Synopsis for Larry Steele: "Mystery of the Wholesale Kidnappings (Part 3 of 5)"

After getting off the phone with his mother, Larry Steele rents a car to travel to the Kansas City airport. If his father had been kidnapped like the others, he needed to get back to New York. He doesn't notice the two men following him. Halfway to the city, while Larry rounds a mountain road, his car is suddenly struck by another that was pushed rolling down the mountain by the two gangsters. His vehicle plummets over the cliff! Its dumb luck that he is able to leap from the car onto a protruding branch. Than thugs are satisfied when they see Steele's car a smoking wreck at the bottom of the ravine, thinking he's dead, and so they flee the scene. They didn't see Larry clinging to the branch, he waits until he can't hear them anymore before climbing down. He searched the car that struck him for any clues to his attackers' identities. All he finds is a wine list, from a waterfront dive bar called "The Purple Dragon".

By the next evening, Larry had found transportation back to New York, where he visits his worried mother. She tells him the FBI were currently searching for any leads on his father's whereabouts. Larry finds it odd that the kidnappers haven't asked for any ransom yet. He goes to meet with the head of the federal bureau in New York, Mr. Hawkins, who he tells about the Purple Dragon. The chief agrees to let Larry go investigate, sending one of his own men, agent Hatch, with him.

Disguised as a loafer, Larry enters the Purple Dragon bar and finds a seat at the counter. In the corner of the room, he sees a face he recognized well; Hastings, Andre du Bois' butler. Two more men enter the bar, the same two that had tried to kill him yesterday. They have a seat at the same table as Hastings. Pretending to be drunk, Larry stumbles onto the next table over and listens to their conversation...

Appearing in Larry Steele: "Mystery of the Wholesale Kidnappings (Part 3 of 5)"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Hastings
  • Squinty
  • Dutch

Other Characters:

  • Tom
  • FBI
    • Mr. Hawkins (First appearance)
    • Hatch (First appearance)
  • Mrs. Steel (First appearance)

Locations:

Synopsis for Speed Saunders: "At the Rodeo"

Tex Dallas is shot during an exciting rodeo show. To find the murderer and prevent the show from closing, Speed Saunders must use his detective skill as well as riding skills.

Appearing in Speed Saunders: "At the Rodeo"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Former rodeo cowboy (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Pop Jones (Single appearance)
  • Shorty (Single appearance)
  • Tex Dallas (Single appearance; dies)

Notes



See Also


Links and References

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