Description

First in a new series of crime-adventure tales featuring an enigmantic crime fighter straight from the pulp novels of yesteryear.

Beautiful young women are disappearing. One is a young girl Peggy Malone had recently befriended. When that girl telephones for help, Peggy and her husband, Jimmy go to meet her, but what they find is a corpse. Now, gangland must face the wrath of -- The Black Ghost!

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Murder In The Rain

Chapter Two
Haunted Night

Chapter Three
City Lights

Chapter Four
The Monster's Lair

Chapter Five
Harvest of Death

Footnotes

Chapter One

Murder In The Rain

Torrential rain pounded the windshield of the little coupe as it sped through the night, the sound of the wipers swishing the raindrops to the sides, clearing the driver's vision enough to see the graveled roadway ahead of him. The monsoons were deluging the countryside these days, and weary drivers had to be alert for flooded areas in their path.

Two people sat in the front seat of the powerful little coupe. The driver, tall, athletic, powerful arms controlling the steering wheel, as if he was a part of the machinery itself. Dressed all in black, from shoes to long-sleeved shirt, a small cape covered his shoulders like a black shroud.

His blond hair and blue eyes contrasted greatly with his attire.

His companion, the beautiful Peggy Sue, sat rigidly forward, as if watching for something ahead of them. She was tall, slender, with golden blond hair and lovely blue eyes. Once, an orphan in a Foster Home, she had been led to Charlotte in search of a friend she had met in the last Foster Home where she had lived. In the Queen's town, she had found murder and mystery, and was captured by the murder gang who had killed her friend. It was in this setting that she had met the driver of the little coupe, Jimmy Malone. Befriended by the young blond-headed man, and rescued by the mysteries Compere, whom the gangland had called the Black Ghost, Peggy had fallen in love with young Jimmy Malone, and they were married after her adventure in Charlotte.

In the Black Ghost's action packed rescue of Peggy, she had learned that young Jimmy Malone was the mysterious Compere. He had been trained by a super spy known only as Red Finger and his wife Flower, after they had become too old to aid their country any more. Living on a retirement, they had saved their money, and when they passed away, left all of their money to their young protégé, the Black Ghost, to serve in his fight against the evil that plagued the land.

"Slow down, Jimmy," the young girl said, "it should be just up the road a ways." Her voice was packed with fear and tension.

Obeying his wife, Jimmy slowed the coupe to almost a crawl, and his eyes searched through the heavy rain for the structure they were looking for.

Glancing at her watch, with its radium glow, she commented, "We're on time. She should be waiting for us at the road house."

The roadhouse, Jimmy knew, was an old Texaco service station that still maintained a pay telephone booth on the outside. Coming around a sudden curve in the road, Jimmy saw the famous Texaco sign even before Peggy grasped his arm and spoke into his ear, "This is the place, darling," she said.

Jimmy tooled the car to a stop near the garage of the old station, and turned off the headlamps. The place looked ominous, dark and dangerous. Sensing his uneasiness, Peggy said, "Maybe she's hiding under some cover from the rain."

"Perhaps," Jimmy said, "but be careful, dear. My gut tells me there's something wrong with this set up."

Taking a flashlight from the glove compartment, Jimmy cautioned Peggy to remain in the car. Stepping out, he swished the light beam around the garage, and then he walked to the overhanging ceiling that once protected customers while they filled their cars with gasoline. Spotting an out-of-place color among a stack of old tires, Jimmy swung his flashlight full upon the blackness of the rubber.

He saw at once that what had attracted his attention was a woman's red skirt. Approaching closer, he now spotted a pair of women's high-heeled shoes, and stockings that ran up a pair of shapely legs. Rushing forward, he swung the tires away from the body, as he heard Peggy coming from the parked car.

He tried to stop her advance, as he knew what they would find, but the girl swung around his protecting arms. A gasp came from her lips, and Jimmy kneeled down beside the still warm body of the girl. Blood had covered her upper chest, staining the white blouse she had worn with the red skirt.

"Is this Carol?" Jimmy asked his wife, though he knew the answer before she voiced it.

"Yes." Peggy said, tears running down her face. "When she disappeared a week ago, I felt then that she might have ran into trouble, but when she telephoned me last night, I had hopes she was all right."

"Did she tell you anything?" Jimmy asked. "Besides meeting her here tonight."

"Only that she needed help, but couldn't call the police. I told her that I might know someone who could help her."

"Compere," Jimmy stated. "And he will still do something, even if it is only vengeance for her murder."

The sudden crack of a shoe against tin brought Jimmy into quick action. "A trap!" he said. "Stay in the darkness!" Swiftly switching his flashlight off, Jimmy rushed Peggy to the protecting wall of the service station. A black cloth was pulled from his shirt and pulled over his head. The mask of the Black Ghost. The cape swished back and two black shoulder holsters were revealed with twin handles of heavy automatics. Jimmy peeled off a weird laugh that floated into the darkness, and his hands suddenly flashed in a lightning-like motion, and the automatics appeared, as if by magic, in his strong hands.

Shadows moved in the darkness, and Jimmy's well-trained eyes spotted the movement. One gun flamed, the bullet to the left of one figure. "A warning," whispered a strange laugh that met the advancing shadows. With the warning, Jimmy moved Peggy to another spot. Just in time, as twin flames sparked from the darkness, and bullets splintered the rotten wood of the old Texaco station.

Jimmy pressed on a plunger connected to his sleeve and a sudden scream, as if from a Banshee wailed out, and a strange bulbous thing raced from his sleeve. It was like a face, but ghostly, and it screamed as it rocketed away from the darkened wall. The two gunmen in the darkness fired at the screaming creature, their nerves on edge.

Jimmy's two automatics were aimed at the flashes from the two guns, and when he pulled the triggers, he heard screams of pain from the two gunmen, and knew that his aim had been accurate.

He heard footsteps rush off into the darkness of the rain, and guided Peggy back to their little coupe. The starter whirred into life, and the coupe shot into the night, away from the abandoned service station.

"They knew that Carol had contacted somebody," Jimmy told Peggy, "and they were waiting to see who showed up."

"Poor Carol," Peggy cried.

"We'll call the police from the first telephone we can locate," Jimmy told Peggy.

"Won't they remove the body?" Peggy asked.

"I doubt it. Whoever the gunmen were, they probably don't have brains to think out situations. The police will find the body of the missing girl, and maybe a blood trail. The gangsters will not want to wait around."

"And what about us?" Peggy asked.

"Tomorrow, we'll take a drive in the country, darling. I think we might find some fascinating homes in the area."

"Do you think Carol was being held somewhere around here?" she wanted to know.

"I'm sure of it. She didn't walk far in those high heels, not on this gravel, and in this rain." Jimmy was quiet for a second, then: "The other missing girls. The ones the newspapers have been writing about. I think we might find where they are being held, as well."

"Why didn't Carol just escape?" Peggy asked.

"I think she wanted to help the others," Jimmy guessed. "A mass escape would have been spotted at once. But if she could stay around, and make contact with the outside world, then she could get help for them all."

"Up there," Peggy suddenly shouted. "A telephone booth."

Jimmy had also spotted the little chain store, and knew a telephone would be available. Pulling to the curb outside the store, Jimmy went to the phone booth and dialed the police station. In short but accurate words, he described the location of the recent gun battle and the murdered girl. He hung up before the police could question him.

With the facemask of the Black Ghost back in its secret pocket, Jimmy looked like a regular customer of the chain store, and brought no suspicion upon himself or the car. Climbing back into the car, he reached over and held Peggy's hand for a minute, then started the car. "Let's go home, dear," he said. "Tomorrow, we'll start to search for the clues that will lead to the ending of this little mystery."

The next morning, a little coupe rolled along the rugged roadway, avoiding washed out ravines and missing gravel from the heavy rains of the preceding night. Coming upon the Texaco service station, the couple inside the coupe spotted several police cars and the familiar yellow ribbons that sealed off the crime scene. Stopping the car, a tall young man with wavy blond hair got out and approached the old building. A cop met him before he could get very close. "You need something, sir," the cop asked.

"I thought my wife and I could use a soda," Jimmy Malone said. "Something happen here?"

"Police business," the policeman smiled. "The soda machine is empty, has been for several months.

"Okay, officer, thanks," Jimmy said.

"See anything, darling?" Peggy wanted to know.

"They've removed the body, but there's all kinds of blood still where she was. They're looking for more evidence," Jimmy concluded.

"They may be looking at the area, the same as we are, darling," she advised.

"I don't think so. The police work from routine procedures. After the initial Blue Coat investigation, the plainclothes detectives will be assigned, and that could take days. Even longer for them to come to the same conclusion as we did, and figure the girl had to be held in this area. After all, darling," Jimmy told her, "they do not know if someone dumped her here, or if she was alive when she came to this place."

"But you told them last night, Jimmy, so they should have listened to you."

"I was merely a voice on the telephone, dear," he told her. "However, they were highly interested when I told them she was one of the missing girls!"

"Yes," Peggy said, "and there are already detectives on the case, because they questioned me when Carol came up missing."

"Ten girls are missing, which we are aware of. There could be more. Young runaways not reported in this particular case," Jimmy said, "missing from Iowa or Kansas. Or anywhere. We only know about the cases from this area. The detectives assigned to the case are looking for missing persons. Now that murder is involved, the homicide division will be involved. Then will come the canvassing of the area in which she was killed. Before then, we must work fast, or we may step on the toes of the police investigation.

"While we drive," Jimmy said, "why don't you tell me again, how you met Carol Baldwin, and why would she have called you instead of someone else. Maybe you missed something last night."

"As you know," Peggy began, "all of the missing women were in their early twenties, some maybe even younger. The newspapers said that each of them were models, or trying to break into the field. Carol was one of the want to be's, and we met in a small cafe on the strip one day. The cafe was crowded, and she asked if she could join me at my table. She looked hungry, but only ordered a hamburger and a diet soda.

"She was very talkative and told me that she was starting work at one of the agencies the next week, but right now was trying to find temporary work to keep her on her feet until the modeling job started. I gave her our telephone number, and told her to call me if she didn't get something soon, and we could let her stay with us - just temporarily.

"When we finished eating, I paid for her meal, and she was happy that we had met, and promised to call me, regardless of the situation.

"I had forgotten about her, until the call for help yesterday. My only guess is that our telephone number was the only one she knew. That, and I had offered her help should she need it."

Jimmy thought over her words for a few minutes, and then nodded his head. "I think that's it," he said. "She probably didn't know who else to contact, and remembered the number you gave her.

"One thing I'm wondering about, though, is the temporary job she was looking for. Darling, if we don't find anything today, you might go around the same neighborhood where you met Carol for lunch, and see if there was somewhere in the vicinity advertising for temporary work. Somehow, between her modeling job, and a temporary position, she crossed paths with a criminal element that we only suspect right now.

"My stepfather is on the police force, as you know. I think that maybe I can get him to look at the backgrounds of the other girls, and see if there is any connection in that area. Somewhere, something has to cross, and when we find it, we'll find our killers."

"Look, Jimmy," Peggy suddenly exclaimed, "there's a large house in back of all those trees over there!"

Jimmy glanced down at the mileage reading and shook his head. "Five miles from the Texaco. It doesn't seem right. I don't think Carol walked much more than a half-mile last night.

"Wait a minute," he said, "there's a rise just ahead of us. Let me check something out."

Stopping the car on the rise, Jimmy got out and looked out across the wooded area, then motioned for Peggy to join him.

"There," he pointed, "the Texaco is straight down there, through the trees. We may have been on the road for five miles, but it has been a winding road. From here, we're so close, we can see the policemen at their task."

Stepping down the slight incline a ways, Jimmy studied the ground carefully. Finally, with a smile on his lips, he returned to the car. "A distinct trail," he stated, "caused by high heel shoes.

"We've found one of our clues!"

"What now, darling?" Peggy asked.

"Tonight, that house in the woods is going to receive a caller. I have an idea, they'll see a ghost tonight!" A grim smile spread across Jimmy's lips. And his deep blue eyes turned a momentary shade of steel gray. "Retribution will begin tonight," he promised.

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