(Thrilling Comics 004, 1940)
Things get hairy when businessman Ogden Phillips invites a selection of acquaintances to his country home for a seance, only to immediately be kidnapped by a terrifyingly earless phantasm once the lights go out. Bad news for Phillips (victim) and his guests (suspects) and even Police Inspector Dougherty (keeps getting bonked on the head), but great for me because these early Woman in Red comics are structured like whodunnit mysteries (which I love) but the first couple were a bit shy on suspects and thus fell a bit short of the mark.
Our suspect list is shortened slightly by the murder of Phillips' former fiance Gladys Arnold, followed by the kidnapping of guest Myra Loomis. At this point the only party guests left walking around are Messrs. Breen and Caswell.
The Woman in Red is also present, of course, having been sent in under cover as Peggy Allen. And for a change of pace, this time she's not a nurse but a maid!
The Woman in Red of course ultimately triumphs, despite briefly being captured and held in the secret tunnels that run throughout the estate, and reveals that the Spirit Killer is actually... Ogden Phillips! It turns out that he had fallen in love with Myra Loomis and that they had planned to take the ransom money and run away together. This is a wild plan, but even assuming that it is the only way for them to get the money (house already mortgaged, bank account near empty, etc) the fact that Phillips is so quick to murder and attempt to murder is such an unnecessary escalation - Gladys Arnold is killed because she knows about the romance between Phillips and Loomis and thus might put two and two together, but a simpler solution would have been to not invite her to the kidnapping - really cratered his chances of getting away with it.
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