(Smash Comics 011, 1940)
If there's one thing that Kent Thurston, aka the Invisible Hood, has in spades, it's wealthy friends who are having crime problems. In this case, the friend is financier John Barr and the problem is the Green Ghost, a costumed thief who has been popping up all over the local area to rob the rich, even when they're being extra sneaky about what they're doing.
Sure enough, the Green Ghost shows up to rob Barr of the wad of cash he's packing for business purposes, and his powers are not limited to money-sensing, as Barr's attorney Ward proves when he empties his pistol into him to absolutely no effect.
Not to worry, though, because Barr's next business deal is super-duper secret: he's going next door to buy a big gem, for cash, and only Barr, his neighbour, his neighbour's secretary Jack Gray, Kent Thurston and Ward know about it, and you know that old saying: five people can absolutely keep a secret. But despite all of these amazing precautions wouldn't you know it, the Green Ghost shows up again and not only steals the gem but kidnaps Barr as a hostage! I'm beginning to think that doing business deals for cash in private homes is a bad idea for some reason!
Barr proves to be unusually plucky for a financier and manages to subdue the Green Ghost all on his own, at which point he learns the annoying secret: there are, in fact, two Green Ghosts! It's a pretty good gag, and if they hadn't kidnapped a guy and then revealed all their secrets to him I'd say that they were another mark in the "smart villains" column. As it stands, they're going to have to do a murder at minimum to get things back on track.
It is at this point that the Invisible Hood steps in and unmasks the Green Ghosts as 1. Barr's attorney Ward and 2. his neighbour's secretary Jack Gray, who have been using their rich guy-adjacent status to get the skinny on all the secret deals these guys have been doing to avoid paying taxes, and since the bulletproof thing was in retrospect a clear setup to boost the Green Ghost's reputation they are easily apprehended by a gun-toting invisible man.
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