The Vanishing Act Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  The small horde of people chanted and shuffled in a kind of weird dance, a grotesque shuffle, awkward and strange. At first glance an observer would not have been sure why the shuffling dance seemed so peculiar. Then he would have seen—all the people in the vast room were crippled in some way.

  Crippled, and with thick, shaggy hair that hung down almost to their shoulders.

  They chanted in some strange language, moaned, and shuffled.

  But their eyes were all focused on the great, flat stone.

  They were waiting.

  The fire burned high, the flames licking up, the flickering light creating giant shadows against the encrusted stone walls.

  And he appeared.

  A puff of thick white smoke and a man stood on the flat stone. A figure on the ancient altar-like stone. Perhaps a man, perhaps not. A monster, certainly.

  One thick puff of smoke and the figure stood above all the chanting people. There was a great, low moan of joy.

  The figure raised its hands.

  Silence.

  The figure stood there—a long, satanic face with thick, V-shaped eyebrows, a shock of thick white hair. A sardonic face of normal size—on the body of a child. The figure, the man, was less than five feet tall and very think but his head, shaped like the head of the Devil himself, was full sized and his eyes glowed with power.

  In the silence the shaggy-haired people waited.

  The satanic-faced man turned to face the fire. He flicked his wrist, passed his hand before the fire. Thin smoke billowed out from the flames. In the room no one moved or spoke as the fumes spread through the room.

  They came out of the fire, out of the flames themselves.

  A winged monster with the head of an eagle, the body of a lion.

  A squat, ape-like figure with the feet of a hawk.

  A slavering creature with the yawning mouth of a shark.

  A coiled snake, a giant snake, with plumes on its head.

  They came from the fire and seemed to hover above the vast stone room.

  There was a great moan of pain and yet of joy, and all the people except the satanic man on the stone altar fell on their faces.

  All but the sardonic leader—and one man far off in the shadows of a corner.

  This one man, a limping hunchback, let his eyes take in the whole scene; then, silently, he limped away and out through a stone archway. He limped on down a dark corridor until he reached a door. He went through the door and along another corridor.

  In this second corridor he changed. He straightened up, his limp became less pronounced, and he moved at a quick trot. He reached another door, opened it, and went up a curving flight of stone steps. At the top two shaggy-haired men watched him as he approached.

  The man who had come up from below drew a small pistol and aimed it at each of the shaggy-haired men in turn. The pistol sounded twice—short, spitting sounds. Both his targets fell without a sound, not dead but instantly asleep.

  The man jumped over them and entered an elevator. The elevator moved upward. When it stopped the man stepped out with his pistol ready. He shot down three more shaggy-haired guards. He ran, now, to one more door, climbed more stairs, and, at the top, pressed a button.

  A slab of rock above him moved open. He climbed up and out into the ruins of a building. He ran through the ruins and came out onto the street of a city. He turned left and ducked into a doorway. Then he took a tiny, flat metal case from its hiding place inside the doorway.

  He opened the case and pressed a button.

  "Overseas direct, Waverly New York. Come in, New York!"

  The man hunched over the flat metal case. He did not see the limping figures converging on the doorway where he waited. He did not see the tiny man with the white hair and satanic face who stood watching from just inside the ruined building.

  "Go ahead, Agent Morgan," a voice said from the flat tin box.

  "Code One, Confidential for Waverly," the man snapped.

  There was another silence.

  The limping figures reached the doorway.

  The man looked up then and saw them.

  * * *

  ALEXANDER WAVERLY spoke into his microphone as Illya, Solo and the two Interpol men watched.

  "Go ahead, Morgan. Morgan?"

  A silence, and then, from the distant voice, suddenly filled with fear and panic, "End of the world! End of the world! Red at low noon! Red at—"

  And screams, screams, screams—and silence.

  In the New York office the five men looked at each other.

  From the overseas radio—only silence, the screams gone.

  ACT II: COME KILL WITH ME

  THE LONDON MORGUE was damp and gloomy. No light came down into its dim recesses from the great city outside. The attendant drew out the body. The CID man, Taylor, turned away at the sight, coughing, walking a few feet from the corpse of Alec Morgan.

  "Good God!" Napoleon Solo said, his face ashen for once as he looked at the remains of his fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent.

  Beyond a small, quick swallow of his throat, Illya betrayed no sign of what the grisly sight meant to him. The small Russian had lived all his life with violent death, with men less human than monsters. He had learned to show no feeling while he dedicated his life to the destruction of such men.

  With a sharp motion, Illya stepped to the body of Alec Morgan. The sharp motion was to tell Solo to come with him. Together the two men looked down at the corpse. Every bone had been broken, hacked, torn as if by wild beasts. Alec Morgan had been, literally, beaten to death and torn limb from limb.

  But it was the face of the dead U.N.C.L.E. agent that made Illya and Solo stare in horror. The face was twisted into a mask of terror. The eyes bulged in ultimate horror. It was not pain, there was no sign of pain. Illya looked and was sure of that.

  "It's not pain. He looks—" Illya began.

  "As if he'd seen the most terrifying thing he could imagine," Solo finished.

  Illya nodded. "As if he saw his worst fear. And, Napoleon, I would venture that he was not conscious when this was done to him."

  Taylor, the CID man, came back. Pale and almost green, the Scotland Yard chief inspector nodded slowly to Illya.

  "Funny, but that was what our people thought," Taylor said. "The medical people said most of this was done after he was at least unconscious, perhaps already dead."

  "He was unconscious when he saw whatever made his face look like that," Solo said.

  Illya nodded, turned away. "Well, I don't see what else we can do here. We better look at what he had with him when you found him."

  "In my office," Taylor said.

  But, an hour later, they had learned nothing. The miniature tape recorder had been smashed. There were no papers and no clues as to what had happened to Morgan, or where he had been. In Taylor's office, Illya stared at nothing while Solo listened to the chief inspector talk about Morlock The Great.

  "He's a weird creature," Taylor said. "Little more than a midget. But those eyes! I've seen him do things myself that I swear aren't tricks, but we've never proven a thing. He's flirted with half a dozen international organizations, all suspected of various types of criminal activity. But this Things To Come Brotherhood seems to be his main activity."

  "Just what do you know about them?" Illya said, his eyes hard beneath his lowered brow.

  "A harmless cult of fanatics, we thought," Taylor said. "A bit crazier than some others, but without any potential danger to anyone. Or so we thought. They were small enough, just a small group of poor, half-demented, physically handicapped people. Then, about a year ago, they seemed to begin growing.

  "They started chapters all over the world. The main chapter is still here in England, however. They are all unknown little people, all crippled in some way. They go around wearing their hair in great, shaggy mops, almost in their eyes. Some of them seem to bleach it or dye it white! We started to check them not long ago, and while we haven't found a single one with a criminal record,
at least a third seem to have been in mental institutions of some kind at one time."

  "A third?" Solo said. "Insane?"

  Taylor shook his head. "No, not insane. At least not that we can prove. Merely disturbed, neurotics. There's no law against being mentally sick. If there were, ninety percent of the fanatics and cultists would be behind bars. It's not unusual for cult members to have a history of mental trouble. They are almost always poor misfits who join the cult in search for some hope."

  "And just what is the hope of The Things To Come Brotherhood?" Illya asked.

  Taylor laughed. "To survive. Yes, that's right. They appear to believe that when all the rest of us have blown ourselves to oblivion, they will survive and live happily ever after!"

  "Just survive?" Solo said. "On what do they base this, if I'm not asking too much logic?"

  "We don't really know," Taylor said. "Cults are like that. They usually have some sort of God-figure—idol, if you prefer—who they think will treat them specially. It seems that our morlocks simply believe that they are ordained to survive. Sort of a prophecy, I think."

  Illya sat alert, his sharp eyes narrowed beneath the shock of blond hair. "Morlocks?"

  "That is what they call themselves," Taylor said. "That was how we first got onto the fact that Morlock The Great had something to do with them. Now we think he may be the leader."

  "But you can't prove it?" Solo said.

  Taylor sighed. "My dear chap, we can't prove anything. These shaggy little people just go around saying they will inherit The Things To Come. That's how they get their name. They hold open meetings, talk and talk about how they must prepare for their time, and keep rather quietly to themselves."

  "On the surface," Solo said drily. "The one we ran into in California wasn't keeping quietly to himself."

  "And the message said the Cult has something to do with all these peculiar attacks that aren't attacks," Illya said.

  "And Alec Morgan is dead." Solo said. "He was working on the Cult."

  Illya rubbed his chin. "End of the world, and Red at low moon," he mused. "It has to mean something. Morgan was trying to tell us something. A message of some kind, Napoleon."

  There was a silence in the office of Chief Inspector Taylor. Both Solo and Illya were hearing those word again screamed across the miles of ocean from London to the New York office of Waverly. Chief Inspector Taylor seemed to have something else on his mind. The CID man hesitated, and then spoke carefully.

  "It's just a thought, mind you," Taylor said, "but if those words are intended as a message, it's not likely that Morgan was referring to the actual end of the world?"

  "Maybe trying to tell us how important it all was?" Solo said.

  Illya disagreed. "I don't think he would be wasting his last words on a warning, Napoleon. I think the Inspector may be right. Morgan wasn't talking about the actual end of the world. No, it was a message of some kind. Something that would help us."

  "Then," Taylor said, "Perhaps my little hunch may help. If I was surrounded by enemies, the first thing I'd want to tell you is something that would lead you to the right place for the job."

  "It sounds logical," Solo said.

  "A place?" Illya said.

  Taylor nodded slowly. "The End of the World is a pub, a public house. A tavern to you. And it's in the area where Morgan was found."

  "A pub!" Solo cried. "Why not?"

  "And 'Red At Low Noon' sounds like a password!" Illya said.

  Taylor nodded. "It has that sound to me."

  The two agents looked at each other. Solo shrugged. He stood up and stretched in the silent office. Then he checked his U.N.C.L.E. Special.

  "Well, it's worth a try. We don't have anything else to go on right now, and I hate sitting around," Solo said.

  "At least we can have a beer," Illya said.

  Taylor said. "Do you want some help?"

  Solo shook his head. "Not just yet. If they are up to some big trouble, they probably know your men."

  "This will most likely be nothing," Illya said. "I think what you can do is check our Morlock The Great. Find out where he is. If this turns out to be nothing, he's our last lead."

  "All right," Taylor agreed.

  Solo stowed away his U.N.C.L.E. Special and smiled. "Well, shall we go to The End Of The World?"

  "It might be interesting," Illya grinned. "I always wanted to be an explorer."

  TWO

  THE AREA was a vast complex of shabby old buildings, warehouses, and the ruins of war still standing like scars on the city. In many places the ruins had been cleared, and small, new houses put up for the poorer citizens of London. But it was an old and shabby area, the home of men who lived on the edge of life—petty criminals, the poor, the ragged hangers-on of the city.

  The End of the World was a large pub, ablaze with light in the center of vast black buildings. There were ruins around the public house, and warehouses, and the dark buildings where both men and rats lived in uneasy peace. In such a world liquor is a way of life, and a stream of people went in and out of the pub.

  Barely noticed by the patrons of The End of the World, two men limped down the street. One was small and dark, his dark hair thick and shaggy. He limped on his left leg and wore shabby old clothes that had not been cleaned for months. There was a black patch over his left eye, and a thick, black mustache on his upper lip.

  "I'll go inside," the disguised Illya said. "I'm somewhat better at acting and fake accents, if I do say so."

  The second man nodded. The second man was, of course, Napoleon Solo, but no one would have known that. He was hidden under a thick beard and old, shabby clothes. He limped also, as if his right leg was twisted. He was also, to anyone who might be watching, quite drunk.

  "Check," Solo said. "I'll lean on that lamppost over there, where I can watch the door and the street. Keep your radio-ring open. If there's any danger, I can warn you."

  Illya set his new transmitter-receiver ring, checked the rest of his hidden equipment and his U.N.C.L.E. Special, and left Solo leaning, apparently drunk, against the lamppost. The disguised Russian limped across the dark London street and into the glare and noise of The End of the World.

  Through the smoke and noise Illya limped up to the bar and ordered a whisky. His eyes, under his lowered brow, searched the room and the faces at the tables and lined up at the bar.

  At first he saws nothing unusual. Then, as he ordered his second whisky, he saw two small, limping men with shaggy hair come into the bar from a back room.

  The bartender saw the two men at the same time. He wiped his hands and walked to them. At the far end of the bar they all leaned their heads together and whispered. Illya watched them covertly. The barman, then was involved somehow with the Cult. Probably the two men were members, morlocks; they looked like it.

  Illya bent over his drink, his left hand just under his lips. He spoke softly, barely moving his lips. "Sonny, this is Bubba. I have two potential bandits. The barman seems to be involved."

  Illya sipped his drink, leaned his head down, looked around quickly. He was unobserved. A faint whisper came from his ring. Illya mumbled to himself, half-aloud, to cover the faint voice of Solo from his ring. "All clear her. Nothing unusual. Will stand by. Sonny over and out."

  Illya clicked off and resumed his drinking and his scrutiny of the two shaggy men and the barman. As he looked at them again, he saw that they were now looking at him. The two shaggy men were walking toward him. The barman was also walking toward him, but behind the bar.

  The bartender reached Illya first, and Illya suddenly leaned across the bar toward him.

  "What do you think of 'Red at low noon?' Funny isn't it?" Illya said to the barman.

  The barman's hand froze in midair in the process of picking up a glass. The two shaggy men had reached Illya now. They stood on each side of him. The barman nodded toward Illya.

  "He thinks 'Red at low noon' is funny," the barman said.

  "Does he?" one of the shagg
y men said.

  "What is 'Red at low noon?' " the second shaggy man said.

  "What are words?" Illya said.

  "You think 'Red at low noon' is just words?"

  "Words to pass," Illya said.

  There was a silence as the three of them looked at him. Then one of the shaggy ones motioned the barman away. The barman went. The shaggy man watched Illya.

  "From what section?"

  "Santa Carla, California," Illya said.

  "So?" the second man said. Suddenly he thrust out his hand. Illya did not flinch, did not flicker an eyelid beneath his disguise. The man smiled. "Welcome, morlock. We need more word on Santa Carla. Come."

  The two men turned without another word and limped through the smoke and noise toward the door. Illya finished his drink casually, and followed. So far it looked like he and been right, "Red at low noon" was indeed a password. At the door the two men motioned him to hurry. He stepped out into the dark night.

  The two men walked ahead to the left, past where Solo was under the lamppost. But Solo was not under the lamppost.

  Illya raised his ring to his lips. "Sonny, this is Bubba. I have made contact. Sonny? Come in, Sonny. This is Bubba. Come in, Sonny."

  There was only silence. The dim circle of light beneath the feeble lamppost was empty. The ring radio was silent. Illya looked up to see where the two men were.

  He saw them standing in the road directly ahead of him. They seemed to be waiting for him. They were not alone.

  As if from out of the earth itself men came limping into the dim light of the street. Many men, all limping, all shaggy-haired.

  Illya looked around quickly.

  He fingered the U.N.C.L.E. Special in his shoulder holster.

  Then he dropped his hand to his side. They were all around him now. Too many of them.

  He bent to his radio ring. "Sonny, this is Bubba. Mayday! Mayday!"

  There was no answer, and suddenly, there was a great puff of smoke directly in front of him.