History
The attorney of Josiah Harrow, a wealthy eccentric, Matthew Clinton was aware of a clause on Harrow’s will dividing the estate up among his surviving relatives. At some point, Clinton thus entered into an alliance with Harrow’s son-in-law Manuel Perez after Josiah’s death, with the intention of murdering Harrow’s other heirs and framing Josiah’s brother for the crimes.
He played the part of the deceased’s loyal legal counsel well, admonishing Jim Slade for upsetting the other assembled heirs with talk of a murderer on the loose. He also took steps to make sure they all remained on the grounds of the manor with a false telegraph from Philip Avery, claiming he would be late and asking for the reading of the will to be postponed. As a result, his and Perez’s would-be victims stayed close by and would have been picked off one by one if not for the interference of Captain America and Bucky.
In the end, the two heroes caught and unmasked Perez as the masked murderer and also narrowly avoided being shot by Clinton. He claimed that he had been aiming at Perez to avenge his victims, but Cap managed to discern the truth, that Clinton and Perez had been killing Harrow’s heirs so the estate would be divided among them alone. Tying up the conspirators, Cap revealed the truth to the surviving heirs, Lucy Harrow and Josiah’s brother, before he and Bucky returned to nearby Camp Lehigh.[1]