ECOND STORY
"The Six Strangest Sleuths"
Credits:
Editor: Jack Schiff
Plotter,scripter: Edmond Hamilton
Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff
Inker: Charles Paris
Letterer:
Feature Characters
Batman and Robin
Supporting Character
Commissioner Gordon (next appearance in Detective Comics #234)
Villains
Jay Jandron, Vern Shively and other crooks (first and only appearance for all to date)
Other Characters
Victor Voice, Scortini and his assistant, Leo the Mighty, The India Rubberman, Carey, and Forbes (first and only appearance to date)
Citizens and police of Gotham City
Synopsis
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson attend a benefit show for the Vaudeville Relief Fund, featuring some of vaudeville's biggest stars. But the magic show of Scortini is used, unintended by the magician, as a disruption during which crooks rob the box office.
The thieves escape even though Batman and Robin appear, and the money is divided up amoung the minions of gangster Jay Jandron.
To get the money back, the six vaudevillians--Scortini, quick-changeman Elmo, strongman Leo the Mighty, tightrope walker Carey,
ventriloquist Victor Voice, and the India Rubberman, all go to work as Batman's and Robin's assistants. They use their talents in various helpful ways, for instance, when Leo grabs the bumper of a suspects car and lifts it off the ground to prevent him from taking off-- and track down one of the crooks, Vern Shively, stringing a mike with a mike with the aid of rubberman and having the tighrope walker keep a watch outside his third story window. Shively is shadowed and, after he leads them to others in the gang, is nabbed by Leo and replaced by Forbes the quick-change man. Forbes is found out, but Batman deduces their foes' destination, a moored yacht which Leo begins hauling in, a handful at a time.
The heroes and their vaudville allies storm the boat, overwhelm Jandron and his gang, and nab him and his croines in various inventive ways (such as when the rubberman jumps out of a connecting tube to grab Jandron). The money is recovered, and Batman gives the credit for the caper to his six strange sleuths.