A dramatic pulp fiction cover

I am following this old/new "tradition" of uploading a Detective Tales cover every month and commenting on it just for kicks. This cover is from December 1937 and is brilliantly dramatic. A bit more extravagant than the November image, the villain looking much more like a stereotype. We have again the squared jaw hero, the blonde femme fatale, who is an unknowing damsel in distress. (Are they the same characters as in the previous cover? They could be.)The danger they are facing is double: the hero is shooting away with his revolver, while the badguyis about to plunge the blade of his cane-sword. And they are trying (I think) to get the hero on a train.

As it is often the case, y favourite character here is of course the villain. With the goatee, the dark suit, he looks like the devil. He is overly elegant, but an elegance that is also old fashioned, what with the monocle and the top hat. He looks slightly ridiculous in an unsettling, troubling way. And there is the sword-cane. Why are swordsticks so popular a weapon for villains, especially from this time period? I have a few hypothesis: it is a blade, which emphasises here latent impotence, which seems even more blatant as he is ready to cooly execute a beautiful woman. The weapon is also a concealed weapon, an arm of treachery and back stab. I hope there is a story with this cover. Because whatever I can imagine cannot be half as good as what I see.