The Queen City Murder Case — William Bogart

The tall fur-clad brunette at the auction rooms somehow reminded Johnny Saxon of an over-anxious burlesque queen. Certainly she did not look like a connoisseur of antiques. So it was with fascinated curiosity that the New York private detective observed her almost terrified determination to obtain possession of an old spinet desk, and, when that ramshackle article appeared upon the block, mischievously bid it up to an outrageous price. Developments were quick and startling. When Johnny next saw Jeannette Evans at her apartment, the brunette was dead. And Johnny himself was ticketed as Police Suspect Number One for her murder.
Johnny and his man Friday, Moe martin, had come to Cincinnati on vacation. Pretty Nancy O'Neil, an old flame of Johnny's quickly appealed to the detective to undertake the case of her married sister, Bess Sherman, threatened y an anonymous blackmailer. Then came the incident at the auction rooms. Johnny could hardly have foreseen how closely the terror of Jeannette Evans and the predicament of Bess Sherman were to be related, or have guessed the role to be played in the double mystery by the ruthless Lifer: just escaped from the Ohio State Penitentiary.