Mike Barnett, Man Against Crime #6

Mike Barnett's evening takes an unexpected turn when he spots a young woman who looks exactly like Gloria Tuttle, the daughter of his old friend Ambrose—except she claims not to know him. When the girl turns up at Fowler College insisting she does know Mike after all, a discrepancy nags at the detective: a pawn shop receipt bearing Gloria's name suggests she's hiding something serious from her family. Confronted with the evidence, Gloria finally breaks down and reveals a dangerous secret that began weeks earlier with a hit-and-run accident and a stranger's fateful offer to help.

Mike Barnett nabs a pickpocket, but the accused criminal's courtroom protest throws an unexpected wrench into the case—claiming he was drugged during his arrest. Meanwhile, another crook makes the mistake of breaking into a jewelry store right under the nose of Newt the Sleuth, the private detective, who witnesses the whole heist and suddenly finds himself in a tense confrontation he didn't bargain for.

Mike Barnett boards a riverboat seeking relief from the summer heat, only to witness a murder—a knife thrown from the shadows that kills a passenger. Wrongly accused by panicked passengers, Barnett clears his name and agrees to hunt the real killer before the ship docks, uncovering a tangled history between a sailor and a woman connected to the victim. As Barnett closes in on the truth, he finds himself dodging another knife attack below decks.

When a man applying for a butler position at Mrs. Van Witherly's estate claims to have worked for the wealthy Bignigs and presents initialed silverware as proof of his employment, Mike Barnett must determine whether the evidence is genuine or part of a con. A humorous twist on detective work and household credentials, "Positive Proof!" shows that sometimes the most convincing proof can tell a very different story than the one being sold.

When Colonel Corn and Korny Kobb make a bet over riddles, the quick-witted Korny challenges the Colonel to answer an impossible question—then springs his own clever twist that leaves Colonel Corn outmaneuvered and literally feeling the consequences. This four-page humor piece from 1952 is pure slapstick wordplay, where a battle of wits becomes a battle of pratfalls.

When his doctor prescribes knitting as a cure for his frayed nerves, Hy takes the advice seriously—but his reasoning about keeping the project secret leads him and Lowe down an increasingly absurd logical path. This 1952 humor piece plays out the comedy of two men debating the practicality of a simple remedy in Mike Barnett, Man Against Crime.