"Dick Tracy": 1938. Karpse Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jo Jo Nidle

Tracy and Weegle are fast enough to board the train before it pulls out. After the train departs, the man breaks the seal of the freight car and tosses the cigarette cases out while a truck driven by Jo Jo follows, picking them up. Jo Jo sees Tracy climbing from the roof into the car, and they open fire with a tommy gun.

In the ensuing gun battle, the man in the rail car jumps to his death while the tommy gunner, Jake, is hit. Jo Jo Nidle turns down a country road with the truck. In a rather touching story, Nidle breaks into a country home and has the occupants (with newborn baby) call the doctor for Jake. Jake dies before the doctor arrives, much to Jo Jo's dismay.

He locks the trio in a shed and steals the doctor's car. Any sentiment disappears, however, when Nidle runs the car over a cliff with Jake's body inside, hoping police will think it is Jo Jo's body inside.

Answer: In a cattle car

Brighton Spotts sees a man's arm reach out of the cattle car to open the door. In a rather amusing scene, Spotts and Junior hold up the Jo Jo Nidle gang with a .22 rifle. The crooks don't believe they are being held up.
"Holy smokes, do the kids play cops and robbers this late at night in this town?" one of the gang says.
"Go on home, kiddies--we can't play with you! Besides, it's time you were in bed," is Jo Jo's comment.
Spotts trips, his gun accidentally goes off shooting Nidle in the hand. The ensuing scuffle brings the sheriff, who is murdered by one of the gang. They put Brighton Spotts and Junior Tracy in an empty fuel tank car to suffocate, then split up.
By now the townspeople are alerted and capture all of the gang except Jo Jo, who commandeers a freight train leaving town.

Answer: Its the end of the line

Jo Jo Nidle is killed in the slower moving freight train, and the story of the railroad thieves is nearly over. All that remains is to find Brighton Spotts and Junior Tracy.

Answer: Molasses

Tracy was relieved but furious about the boys taking off on their own.
Chester Gould by 1938 has become an expert at going directly from one story to the next, while keeping the readers attention. A beautiful woman mysteriously appears at headquarters who will only speak to Tracy. She tells him he should investigate the consignee of the tank car of molasses, then leaves before she can be questioned. Dick Tracy in intrigued and decides to do what she asked.
He is led to the Smithly Dairy Feed Company in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Gould then shows the woman, whose name is Marro, enter a room with a gun and shoot a man she calls Karpse, then turn and leave by airplane.

Answer: Poison gas

Dick Tracy tries to remember his chemistry--"Molasses could be used to produce furfural. Hmm? Furfural nitril--is that liquid? Or gas?"
He and Pat find some drums and call Jim Trailer the FBI man to help. With the help of Trailer, they identify the poison gas as Furfural Iso-cyanide. Pat Patton witnesses the arrival of an airplane, which is piloted by Halone, a beautiful foreign agent. She carries one million dollars in exchange for the poison gas. She and Karpse, however, double cross the men in the factory, take the money and leave together.
Patton radios to Tracy and Trailer when the plane leaves and they follow in their plane.

Answer: She is killed by a grizzly bear.

Karpse runs in terror, convincing himself there was nothing he could do. After the crash he had wired a booby trap on the door of their crashed plane.
Tracy and Trailer open the door only to be knocked down by an explosion. Dick Tracy is knocked out, but Trailer realizes the air is now full of poisonous gas. Trying to get out of the gas without breathing, Jim Trailer and Dick Tracy fall in an abandoned mine shaft, thus staying out of the gas.
Karpse manages to hitchhike out of the area, and returns to the city. Tracy is blinded and hospitalized for several weeks, even spending some time in an iron lung.

Answer: Beats her up

Beaten and battered, Marro pleads with Karpse to kill her at one point. Now he decides the best way to hide is to look like a normal couple. He will now look for a job.

Answer: Mrs. Trueheart

Karpse adopts the name Jannings and turns out to be an excellent baker. Chester Gould's world is seldom easy on the criminal, though. The hot water heater blows up and severely scalds 'Jannings', and he lands in the same hospital as Tracy with his face bandaged. They are introduced by Mrs. Trueheart, and talk together in the hospital, Tracy unable to see and Karpse not knowing who Tracy is.
As they talk, Karpse realizes why Dick Tracy is in the hospital, and after Tracy shows him a sketch drawn by a survivor from the factory, Karpse burns it.
Jim Trailer and Pat Patton see him drop it out the window, becoming suspicious.

Answer: Two automatics.

Holding the two men up, Karpse forces them into two lockers and locks them in. A tank of ethylene gas is nearby and he begins to release the gas into the lockers.

Answer: Smoking

Karpse casually lights a cigarette and as he lowers the match, it ignites the ether on his robe which bursts into flame. He runs flaming through the hospital out into the lawn where he burns to death. Marro is captured off screen.
Tracy regains his eyesight when his blindfold is removed.