Lady, That's My Skull — Carl Shannon

The affair of the painted skull started on March 24th. On that day Martin Adams, a lawyer-investigator by profession but with the sentimental heart of a perennial college man, passed the loan shop where the skull was on display, noticed the letters of his own fraternity on the trophy, and bought it for ten dollars.

At once things began to happen. Martin was held up, and then slugged. The skull, after revealing the fingerprints of a gangster supposedly dead for years, disappeared. A twenty-thousand-dollar necklace was found in the purse of Adams' pretty secretary. And as if things weren't looking black enough for Martin, the skull turned up again-in the drawer of a murdered man's desk!