The Spirit #15

When Flatfoot Burns is reluctantly volunteered by Miss Suzie to demonstrate household appliances at a public show, he finds himself subjected to an escalating series of dangerous contraptions—from a high-speed washing machine to a deep freezer to an industrial vacuum cleaner—each one more catastrophic than the last. As Miss Suzie cheerfully puts him through the wringer to prove her inventions work, Flatfoot has to rely on his wits to survive the chaos and comedy of the demonstration.

Ellen Dolan pleads with the Spirit to help wealthy Kurt Van Vleet, whose secretary and bodyguard are being systematically murdered by an unseen extortionist demanding a million dollars—each death arriving like clockwork at midnight, with no apparent way for the killer to breach the locked estate. As the Spirit and Commissioner Dolan set traps and search for hidden routes into the walled grounds, they must uncover how the murders are being committed before Van Vleet pays the ransom and the killer vanishes forever.