Miss America Magazine #4
Case of the Crystal Unicorn
Madeline Joyce is about to end a day of shopping when she spots a crowd in front of a Main Avenue shop and decides to check it out for herself. The shop turns out hold a bunch of hand blown glass statues and she decides to go in and try to find something for her Uncle Jim's den. Inside she overhears one of the salesmen telling Mrs. Van Emery Lucre that the sculpture she is interest in is a display only and not for sale but tells her that one can be specially made for her in a few days time. When Madeline removes a peacock statue out of a display case, she notes that it is cold inside the case. One of the clerks spots her pulling the statue out of the display case and he demands that she put it back as it was sold to Mrs. Ritzbilt. Madeline puts it back and then asks what they have that would be suitable for a man's den. The clerk shows her a glass sculpture of a stag, which is proceeds to sell to her right away for $25.00 when Mrs. Ritzbilt enters the store. This strikes Madeline as suspicious as she did not have to wait for her carving like the other customers. She watches as the clerk tells Mrs. Ritzbilt that her carving still needs some final touches before they can give it to her.
Finding it all strange but returns home without giving it much thought. Later she gives the glass elk to her Uncle Jim, but the days events still bother her and she decides to go for a walk. Finding herself walking to the glass shop she is surprised to witness an exterior elevator open and a shipping car pull up. She watches in secret as a bunch of men move items into the shop in the dark of night, making her more suspicious than ever. When a large case suddenly is carried into the vehicle, Madeline decides to investigate as Miss America. Changing into her costume, she follows after the delivery car as it drives to the docks. There she watches as the men attempt to dump something into the water and decides to see what that is. Fighting the men off, Miss America watches as the crate almost falls into the water but saves it, at the expense of letting the men get away. When a police officer arrives on the scene they both open the crate and discover a dead body inside. While the officer is trying to identify the corpse, Miss America spots something one of the crooks dropped and picks it up. Miss America then identifies the dead man as Detective Timmons and then flies off to investigate things further.
Returning to the glass blowing shop, she arrives just as the men driving the delivery truck have returned to report back to their bosses. Spying on them, she overhears them talk about how they are going to deal with her interference in their schemes. The leader of the gang points out to his men that the police have nothing on them and that if Miss America comes snooping around he has a way of dealing with her. After appeasing his men, he dismisses them so that he can prepare planning or the Ritzbilt heist the following night. With this information, Miss America refers to what she picked up from the docks: A black book containing cryptic notes that identify who their robbery targets are in some sort of code. She then flies to police headquarters where she goes through the late Detective Timmon's notes to figure out a clue at deciphering them. She gets the chief of police to admit that there have been a string of robberies recently that they are trying to keep a low profile on. Realizing that the glass statues somehow play a part in these thefts, Miss America flies off to check the various purchasers of glass statues as Madeline Joyce.
She eventually realizes that the next target is the Ritzbilt house where the glass peacock from earlier has been brought. When Miss America arrives on the scene the glass statue begins emitting a knockout gas. She is captured by one of the men from the glass blowing store and brought back to their hideout. Bound up, she learns from their leader how their operation works, wherein they use ice to contain the knockout gas which eventually thaws out in the victim’s home knocking everyone out and making it easy to loot their homes. Telling her that her bonds contract in the cold, the leader turns on the freezers in the hideout so she is crushed to death and leaves her to die. Miss America spots a blow torch and uses it to burn through her bonds, freeing herself. Chasing after the crooks, she makes their getaway car crash into a lamp post where it catches fire leaving the crooks to beg for help. Miss America gleefully rescues them, confident that they are trading in one hot seat for another.
Recurring Characters
Miss America
James Barnett
