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White Rings. The White Rings were created by Erle Stanley Gardner (Black Barr, Major Copley Brane, Terry Clane, Bertha Cool, Ken Corning, Speed Dash, Jax Keen, Barney Killigen, Bob Larkin, Lester Leith, Señor Lobo, The Man in the Silver Mask, Perry Mason, Ed Migraine, Patent Leather Kid, Phantom Crook, Paul Pry (II), Doug Selby, Pete Wennick, Gramps Wiggins, Bob Zane, Sidney Zoom) and appeared in three stories in Argosy in 1934 and 1935, beginning with “White Rings” (Argosy, June 30, 1934).

The White Rings are Killer Vigilantes. They are an organization of three men and women who carry out an anonymous war on crime. Jax Bowman, a millionaire in his early thirties, funds them. He is assisted by “Big Jim” Grood, a hulking ex-cop who

firmly believed that there was more law in a night stick than in a court room; that fear was the only deterrent to crime; and that the hue and cry about police brutality, which had brought about something of a revolution in police methods, was responsible for the increase of crime and the systematic racketeering which corrupted the larger cities.

The third member of the Rings is Miss Rhoda Marchand, a woman with a photographic memory who clips newspapers and finds and gathers likely articles and columns and mentions that might merit the attention of the White Rings. When she gets enough of these clippings--she reads all the papers from the major cities of the U.S. every day--she brings them to Bowman's apartment, and the war begins. The Rings wear black masks, with white rings around the eyes, and in that guise attack criminals, always giving them a chance to give up but then (because the criminals will not surrender) killing them.

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