Feature Comics #95 (1946)

Martha Roberts opens a mirror store, and on its first day, an exceedingly vain and half-crazy local crime boss nicknamed "the Peacock" has his henchies trash the store and all its displayed stock, slaps Martha, and guns down Joe the salesclerk, then departs, leaving behind his trademark, a peacock feather, and a dire warning against talking to police. Darrel Dane goes from Doctor Roberts' house to Martha's shop, finds the wreckage, and Joe's body in the middle of the floor, and has a talk with Martha, at the end of which he's gotten a 24-hour head start before she talks to the police. No plan for the dead body in the showroom is mentioned. Darrel goes home, and then decides that this is a job for Doll Man. He visits the Peacock, holding court at his personal night club, the Golden Peacock. Doll Man publicly ridicules and embarrasses the Peacock, in front of his avaricious girlfriend Diana, then punches him silly, outfights two henchmen (Lefty and Toledo), and departs, jeering at Peacock the whole time. Peacock and his two lieutenants step into Peacock's office and review their big robbery plan, complete with a working scale model of the Second National Bank, showing all the alarms and guard stations, then the henchmen leave and Peacock pours himself a drink. That's when Doll Man speaks up, and he's of course been listening the whole time. He doesn't think too much of Peacock's plan, or of Peacock, and goads him into a fury, then swings out thru an open window and escapes. Peacock gets off one shot at him but misses. More henchmen run in, and Peacock has a new backup plan, which he tells them about. Arriving at the bank, Doll Man observes Toledo, outside on the sidewalk, next to the night-deposit hatch, peddling dancing dolls for a quarter apiece. Doll Man uses a police callbox to send in an alarm. Right then, Lefty runs out of the bank, with a satchel in one hand and a pistol in the other, chased by two cops; all three are shooting and one cop goes down flat. Toledo winds up to pitch one of his "dancing dolls" like a (disguised) grenade, which it is, but Doll Man jump-punches him. Toledo drops the doll on the pavement and is killed in the resulting explosion. Lefty is still running and shooting, but Doll Man ankle-tackles him; Lefty lands on his face. Four more henchmen pile out of a car, and shoot at Doll Man. He jumps from the sidewalk to the top of a streetlight, then throws part of the lamp at them, just before two cars full of cops screech onto the scene. These cops are packing submachine guns, and the four hoods give up right away, but Lefty has already escaped. Doll Man leaps about until he catches sight of Lefty, sees which way he's running, then hastens ahead to the Golden Peacock. Doll Man window-peeks as the Peacock pulls a drawer full of gems and currency out of a wall safe and gloats over them, but suddenly Lefty shows up, pointing a gun, and mad as hell about the way Toledo got killed. There's a short shoot-out, and Lefty is dead, with Peacock dropping a peacock feather on his body and gloating about that, too. Peacock's gold-digger girlfriend Diana runs into the room, and while she's talking to Peacock, Doll Man stealthily removes the money and jewels from the open drawer. Peacock freaks out when he finds the drawer empty. Diana makes some unfortunate remarks about that, and Peacock starts choking her, but Doll Man leaps in and punches him until he falls down, then calls the cops. Later Martha is ready to open her new store, a millinery shop.