A trail of oil leads from the baffling and strange riddle of Ernest Shaler’s sudden disappearance right to the door of a grim, sinister conspiracy! The Phantom’s clues are a hat, a broken cufflink, and a hotel room key as he pursues a dangerous quarry!
Even though he was indeed a one-man army against crime, The Phantom Detective did not live in the world alone, nor could he completely carry on his crusade by himself. The crimefighter’s identity was known to one man. A friend of his father’s and a man influential in Richard Curtis Van Loan’s raising, Frank Havens was not only the powerful publisher of The Clarion, the city’s newspaper. He was also the only person who knew the Phantom Detective’s identity and he had also suggested Van Loan take on a case to solve that had the police baffled. Havens’ suggestion not only led his young charge to solve the case, but also to become The Phantom Detective!
The connection with Havens would also provide The Phantom Detective with a love interest and, in some stories, somewhat of a partner. Muriel Havens, Frank’s daughter, proved to be a capable ally and much more than a damsel in distress. Another character that Havens provides the connection for is tough guy and sometimes hardboiled Clarion reporter Steve Huston, who proved himself a hero as well in several stories.
By 1939, comic books had begun influencing Pulp magazine heroes to a degree and in the case of The Phantom Detective, this meant he acquired a sidekick, a teenaged boy named Chip Dorlan. Another ally that appeared several times was Jerry Lannigan, once Van Loan’s personal mechanic and pilot.
The Case of the Murdered Witness was originally published in the September 1947 issue of The Phantom Detective Magazine and is read with pulse pounding intensity by award winning voice actor Milton Bagby.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Death in the Rain
Chapter 2: Transformation
Chapter 3: Missing
Chapter 4: Clues
Chapter 5: Laughing Wolf
Chapter 6: One Shot
Chapter 7: Personal Column
Chapter 8: Identification?
Chapter 9: Checkmate
Chapter 10: Fast Action
Chapter 11: New York Office
Chapter 12: Ferndale
Chapter 13: Phantom’s Prisoner
Chapter 14: New Angle
Chapter 15: Ride by Night
Chapter 16: Gun’s Point
Chapter 17: An Order to Havens
Chapter 18: Interview
Chapter 19: Crimson Signal
Chapter 20: Code
Chapter 21: Phantom’s Order
Chapter 22: Hide-Out
Chapter 23: Corpus Delicti
