EXTRACTS: The Modesty Blaise Companion Expanded Edition © 2018 The Book Palace (425 PAGES in Full edition)

E X P A N D E D E D I T I O N T H E M O D E S T Y B L A I S E C O M P A N I STORY No. 6 DRAWN BY JIM HOLDAWAY START DATE OF STORY 20th April 1965 (Tuesday) END DATE OF STORY 18th September 1965 (Saturday) Walter Dee the millionaire philanthropist, “Uncle Happy” to the media, has set up an island holiday camp for deprived children off the California coast as cover and headquarters for the prostitution racket he runs with Lucy, his beautiful but vicious wife. Modesty, on holiday in San Diego, meets and has a liaison with Steve Taylor, apparently an underwater photographer but in truth an F.B.I undercover agent keeping tabs on Dee. With nothing apparently happening on the island Steve suggests a break in Las Vegas. In a casino Modesty notices a man who seems to be watching Steve and he tells her it is Dee. That night Steve is abducted and taken out into the desert to be murdered. Modesty follows and saves him but her ability to deal with hit men and his reluctance to reveal his F.B.I. connections lead to tensions between them and they part. Willie Garvin joins Modesty in Las Vegas. He is looking into the death of one of his former girlfriends, Marj Lanier who drowned in a sailing accident while staying on Dee’s island. Marj was an excellent swimmer and sailor and her father cannot believe it her death was accidental and has asked Willie to investigate it for him. Modesty and Willie return to San Diego and join up with Steve. He has now had top level clearance on them from both the F.B.I and the C.I.A. With Steve acting as back up they make a night time visit to the island but Dee has been warned and is waiting for them. They are captured. Dee admits to murdering Marj because she had accidentally found out about his rackets. Steve is also captured before he can report back to the F.B.I. As a piece of entertainment, Lucy Dee contrives a fight to the death between Willie and Steve under the threat of killing Modesty. They fake the fight and Willie throws Steve off a cliff into the sea, apparently killing him but allowing him to swim to the mainland for help. Lucy sets up another fight between Modesty and Dee’s top gunman but it all goes wrong when Modesty outdraws and kills him. In the confusion that follows Modesty and Willie escape. In the battle that follows they rout Dee’s gang. Steve returns with reinforcements from the F.B.I. to arrest Dee but rather than face prison, he first kills Lucy and then commits suicide. The F.B.I. deals with the prostitution racket, Willie reports the truth to Marj’s father and Modesty and Steve resume their holiday. 211