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1-13 of 13
- Con artist and private eye China Smith works out of a bar in Singapore, roaming Asia in search of beautiful women (who like his tough style) and quick money. His nemeses are the friendly British Inspector and the scheming "empress."
- The taxi driver is returning home with eyestrain at midnight, till the car collides with something and shuts off in nowhere. After checking, he realizes that blood has flowed from under his car while he is stuck in his cab and not able to face the truth.
- Louise Reardon is a wheelchair-bound woman with no enemies but she is lured to a window as a sniper's target. The obvious suspect is Joe Scully, an ex-con who is her nurse and in her will. But Louise, barely alive, hires Gunn to clear him.
- A man is killed by a sniper with a crossbow. Gunn has a client with a criminal record, an upper-crust clientele sensitive to scandal, and a collection of weapons that used to include a crossbow. It was stolen and the client, Copeland (Henry Daniell), wants Gunn to find the killer before the police find Copeland. There are three more killings, including one at the house of a judge whose groundskeeper Karl (George Kennedy) controls a large unfriendly dog. Question: how did the killer get past the dog?
- Smith takes a job for Leora, a new singer at Julio Frontera's night club. She wants her suitcases, left on a yacht she fled. Smith cons Frontera out of a dinner jacket and boards the yacht as a party guest. He's caught by the owner, Endicott,and a mercenary steward named Choy. He escapes without the suitcases, but Choy has agreed to help him if he comes back later that night. There are two betrayals and some waving of guns because the suitcases might contain gold. The show ends with Smith and a tippling piano player called "Cutty" singing a duet about wished-for fortunes--"A Ship with a Golden Keel."
- Peaceable Smith mugs a sailor. He rifles the man's wallet, then gives it to Inspector Hobson as found property. The inspector tells him a cautionary tale of another Singapore rapscallion, a river pirate who drove Straits Settlement Rubber almost to ruin; the firm survived only because a businessman, Wu Chow, bought into it. But the elusive pirate found it wise to retire from Hobson's jurisdiction--Smith take note! Straits Settlement, though, wants Smith to deal with a new problem. The company needs Wu Chow's vote for "the S and M merger" but he's paralyzed by fear. Smith knows how "The Collector" frightens wealthy Chinese in Singapore, who pay to protect their relatives in Red China. But Wu Chow has no relatives there. Hobson's story of the pirate and his phantom sampan explain the situation. The Collector inadvertently dispenses justice. Hobson proves to be a very good shot.
- In Macao, a pawnbroker finds a hunched-over woman draped in black rifling a display case full of costume jewelry. She kills him. The nervous Mr. Qoit of Great Eastern Underwriters hires Smith on another case. He wants Smith to recover the Manchu Necklace, thirty emeralds set in gold, stolen from the touring actress Kate Orleans. Smith finds that Kate is conducting her own search. He also finds that much of the Macao underworld believes he masterminded the theft. He thinks he might find the real thief by offering to buy the necklace. Kate's disappointed lover Franz believes the rumor and visits Smith with a gun--he ruined himself to buy the necklace for Kate. Qoit believes the rumor too and swears out a warrant for Smith. Meanwhile, the only trace of the necklace is the loose emerald Smith found mixed with the costume jewelry in the pawnbroker's shop.
- Chinese thugs break into the Macao warehouse of the Concord Sugar Company, knock the night watchman unconscious--and leave. The company wants to know why burglars don't steal. Carol, who owns the company in partnership with her uncle Edgar, hires Smith. Her uncle has been coming and going furtively. She wants to know if he is being blackmailed. Smith has a novel way of finding out. He throws knives at Edgar. He reasons that a blackmailer will try to keep his victim alive and therefore reveal himself. And Smith is paid to let Edgar live. The money comes from a reporter for the Macao Weekly Mail, "one of those professionally anti-American papers with a foreign sponsor." Soon Smith has three puzzles to solve: What does lovely Gretchen, a blackjack dealer, have to do with a Communist newspaper? Why is the newspaper ready with a headline story about something that hasn't happened yet? What is Edgar hiding from his niece?
- The Mokuhana has been impounded in Saigon for smuggling. The owner, Countess Van Idall, brings Smith from Hong Kong to apply his deviousness to getting the vessel back. She also hires a lawyer named Nordam to bail out the crew because she needs the captain, Babcock, to testify in her favor. But Smith finds out that Nordam is also Delaht of Colonial Steamship Lines. He has schemed to acquire the Mokuhana at half its market value. Smith finds proof of this in the ship's log, but it will do no good in Delaht's home court. The solution is a bit of piracy. It impresses the Countess, who wants to reward him with a permanent berth as a captain.
- A frightened rumor spreads among "the coolies and rickshaw boys" of Hong Kong: the dragon walks. A remittance girl named Marnee hires Smith to protect her frightened fiance, Justin Kobol. Kobol leaves his home to hide with her on Red Dragon Hill, an artists' colony but at the foot of the hill sits a cryptic legless storyteller who tells Smith that "the young man's shadow arrived before him, asking many questions." A man called Mr. Ronald has come back to Hong Kong after an absence of twelve years and Kobol's father has been murdered. A crime and a treasure from twelve years ago have wakened the dragon.
- Babykins, the parrot from Ton King, is the celebrated partner of dancer Ming Toy. He pulls the strings that cause parts of her costume to fall away. Her troupe arrives in Singapore from Malacca, a town where jewels are missing. Ming Toy's manager Tony hires Smith to recover Babykins, irreplaceable and stolen. But bird in hand, Smith finds Ming Toy performing with an identical parrot. And her dressing room contains a photograph of the man who supposedly stole Babykins. Smith switches birds "as an experiment" and watches the human beings with curiosity. Before long there is death real and faked in a walk-in safe, gunfire and the unsafe operation of heavy equipment, a parrot's vengeance, and a honeymoon present for Ming Toy.
- A charter pilot is waylaid in an alley and told his wife will die if he fails to obey orders. The following day he boards an airplane that is to carry a wheelchair-bound dignitary and his nurse to Taiwan. Also on board are a wealthy businessman and his secretary. But Smith got there first. In fact, posing as the pilot, he managed to search all the passengers. Someone anonymously hired him to prevent trouble on the plane. His first assignment is to find out what his assignment is--what he's supposed to guard against. That question is answered when the pilot heads for Red China. Smith's next assignment, then, is to get the plane to Taiwan. He'd also like to know who his client is.
- Smith is sentimental about lost loves. So when Marine Pvt. Kip Adamson hires him to find a woman he lost in the evacuation of Tsin Tao five years ago, Smith wheedles information out of an obstinate Irish nun, Sister Brigid, and his own cynical sometime companion, Countess Steffi Von Idall. He also helps the private evade Mannion of the shore patrol. But mysteries start to pile up--the woman may be dead and Smith's client may know it. There comes a devious nun to the rescue.