Danger Trail #3 (1950)

King Faraday flirts with a beautiful woman at a New York City cafe. His would-be romance is cut short by a man falling from a building. Instantly killed, the man's only clue to his murder is a little toy elephant. King takes the woman on a moonlit stroll, but his date leaves after he spends more time thinking about the dead man than the live woman beside him. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? The next day, one of Faraday's government friends takes him to the Great Salt Desert to witness an atomic bomb testing. The government friend, Ed, explains that this particular bomb's design was copied from blueprints captured from a secret Nazi weapons facility during World War II. This cache, however, was missing several top secret weapons documents. Colonel Nego, a ruthless Nazi officer, had appropriated these weapons plans and fled to parts unknown, plotting against America and her allies. The dead man King witnessed the previous day, a Lieutenant Matt Taylor, was an informant on Nego's trail; obviously, he got too close to his target. Ed asks King to take Taylor's place, find Nego, and stop him for good. The following day finds Faraday landing in Lisbon to meet a contact named Walt Smith. He arrives to find Smith dead from an apparent accident, a tiny toy elephant in his hand. King wires Ed with this information and heads for Bombay for the third contact: Phil Peters. Again, the contact has already been killed, tiny elephant in his hand, but, this time, the assassins are late in leaving. Faraday kills the assassin and pursues the second. The killer attacks the detective, speaking in a conspicuous German accent, and they crash through the skylight of another apartment. The would-be assassin is killed by his own knife, and his open palm reveals a tattoo of an elephant. Faraday eludes the questions of the police and the apartment's owner, Vilma Hobart. He woos Hobart and takes her to lunch. On his request to buy her a diamond necklace, she takes him to the Street of the Seven Moons toy store. Faraday notices a toy elephant and asks to buy it, but the owner refuses. He saves all to elephants for a particular client, William Winters, and is sending him a shipment of them tonight. Faraday boards the flight the shipment is on and heads off for destinations unknown. Flying over Thailand, Faraday is confronted by his neighbor, revealed to be Vilma. As a reporter, she smelled a story and decided to tail King. King talks to the pilot and discovers that Winters lives deep in the jungle and that the shipment is being parachuted down at that moment. Faraday grabs a parachute of his own and takes off after the package. King's parachute catches in the thick jungle foliage, and a gunman, who strangely speaks German, attempts to kill the trapped detective. King drops the man with a well-aimed shot and escapes his predicament. Unfortunately, he is cornered by another man who is revealed to be William Winters, better known as Colonel Nego. Nego reveals that he has used one of his weapons of terror to destroy a jungle village, converting it into a factory to produce more weapons to use against the outside world. Faraday makes an escape attempt, and the crazed Nego shoots at his own men to stop the detective. King throws a well-placed grenade into the arsenal, blowing it up. Nego is found killed in the rubble, and Faraday walks out of the jungle to find Vilma Hobart waiting for him.