Borgias in the Big City -- Midnight in Smash Comics #60 (AUG 1945)

Smash Comics #60 (AUG 1945)

The eerie looking splash page leaves you with the impression this case will require Midnight to investigate the deaths of two famous radio stars.

We begin inside the offices of (UXAM?) radio, where a leisurely Dave Clark is enduring a harangue from his boss on how the station, "needs some publicity!"  Dave points out that they're already the most popular station in the country thanks to signature stars: the Swooner and the Thrush.  The boss man can't be bothered by such facts, however.  He's certain that unless the station comes up with some new marketing gimmick, the public will soon forget all about these two. Dave promises he'll take care of everything.  Moments later, Dave spots the two typically-squabbling stars in an amorous embrace.  He asks what's going on, and is told that the duo is "in love!"  And with this, Dave has his "hook."

Dave pitches the idea of a studio wedding, replete with big name bands and a syrupy love duet sung betwixt the two love-birds.  The boss loves it...though the couple, themselves, aren't so sure.

Yet misgivings are not restricted merely to the ceremonial of the wedding.  The Thrush's publicity agent shows up and makes known his vociferous opposition to her marrying away at all!  Nevertheless, he gets rolled like a marble and it's full-steam ahead for the studio wedding extravaganza!  When the news breaks the public responds, for the most part, exactly as Dave had predicted....with two notable exceptions.

On the evening of the big event, the theatre house is packed.  The Swooner begins to sing when he's inexplicably attacked by Hotfoot.  When the Swooner labels his furried tormentor an "awful beast," Sniffer jumps in threatening a little gun play.

Threatening to shoot a man during a live broadcast for insulting your bear?
Nah, Sniffer. That doesn't sound like overkill to me.

While Dave is being incomprehensibly nonchalant about his housemate planting a long-gun into another guy's neck, here comes the crotchety old uncle and the mystery woman both more-than-willing to kill someone to prevent this wedding.

Though you never really see what happens with these two, they're apparently quite ineffectual as the next panel features the minister pronouncing the Swooner and the Thrush, "husband and wife."  Later when the happy couple enters their awaiting car to be whisked off to their honeymoon, they find a box of sandwiches thoughtfully left for them to snack on.  Unfortunately...

Okay, I'll admit it.  I did NOT see that coming.

Next we get some text-light scenes of Dave swinging into action as Midnight.  And--in case you were getting bored with Midnight as just a plain-jane-vanilla-masked-detective-skilled-at-fisticuffs...

Midnight:  man of uncommon courage and inhuman olfactory prowess

Both the old uncle and the young woman show up outside and make laudatory statements regarding the double-homicide.  Sniffer immediately decides the woman is guilty.  Midnight opts to pursue the old man, who's hopped into a waiting car and headed off to his old spooky-looking domicile.

When he tries knocking on the front door, a sword of Damocles booby trap nearly skewers our hero.  Plan B, then is a Spiderman-esque scaling the side of the building to bust in through a window (no mean feat in a business suit and brogues).

Midnight busts in on the pistol-packing old cuss, just as Gabby enters from another direction announcing that, "the rest of the gang is downstairs."  When the disgruntled uncle-d takes a pot shot at the monk, Midnight makes his move.

Once disarmed, the old man seems suddenly grieved at his niece's death.  Midnight notes that her assumption of room temperature didn't seem to bother the guy too much earlier.  While this is kind of an obvious point and one you'd think we'd get more pursuit of, our hero immediately follows up with the odd-sounding question:  "Have you any other relatives?"

As it turns out, he old guy did.  There was a nephew on his wife's side named Marvin.  We're left to surmise that there must've been a little familial animosity there, however, for while the Thrush was welcomed at her uncle's home, Marvin never was.

When Hotfoot begins growling at a curtain, that's all it takes for the defender of Big City to wrap this whole caper up.  A quick right to the drapes and that's all she wrote.

On the final page we get a surprisingly solid wrap-up of how Midnight figured this out, as well as some good news--though the Swooner was cut down by the death sandwich, it turned out that the Thrush didn't eat enough for it to be fatal.