by Lin Carter
“Precisely!” smiled Dr. Harding. “The twin tubes only protrude a half inch, and are so transparent that you can only notice them if they happen to catch and reflect a light source.”
They looked thoughtful. Finally, Menlo spoke up.
“Then they are wearing some kind of masks,” he said breathlessly. “Otherwise, why would they need a source of oxygen?”
“But where are the masks?” demanded Val Petrie in baffled tones. “I don’t see anything ... even if they’re transparent too, we should get a reflection once in a while, a highlight, however momentary ...”
His voice trailed off into silence.
“Well, Chief, guess that explains why the suits them Blue Guys wear look so bulky and bad fitting,” commented Menlo. “They got air tanks on, under their coats!”
“So it would seem, Menlo,” said Zarkon softly.
All the way back to their little hotel off Piccadilly Circus, Zarkon remained silent, his immobile features thoughtful. Menlo and Ace chatted about the detail Dr. Harding had discovered, but their leader was deep in thought.
In Zarkon’s magnificent brain, things were happening rather busily, for all the impassivity of his features.
Some of the pieces of this puzzle were beginning to come together ...
CHAPTER 13 — The Abduction of “Aloysius”
As things turned out, the staff of the little side-street pub off Piccadilly Circus were unaccustomed to preparing ice cream sundaes to suit the discerning American palate of small boys. But Scorchy Muldoon instructed them to add an extra scoop or two and to pour on the crushed nuts and top the construction with a red cherry.
While Joey Weston devoured this concoction with gusto, Scorchy flirted with his favorite waitress in the establishment. Her name, as it turned out, was Cathleen McCullen.
“Miss Cathleen McCullen, if you please,” added the fair colleen.
Scorchy grinned. Since the presence of the Omega men in this neighborhood was supposed to be a secret — and as the pretty waitress had not seemed to recognize them when they had their meals here — he gave his first name only.
“Aloysius,” said Scorchy.
“A fine Irish name,” said the girl, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“It is that,” agreed Scorchy. “So’s Cathleen ... me mother’s name was Cathleen,” he added.
While Scorchy had gotten so used to being called Scorchy — an appellation tacked onto him by a famous sports writer in accolade to his sizzling fists, which had fairly “scorched” the air during his prize-fighting days, it happened to be a fact that the Muldoons had christened their pride and joy with the ancient and honorable name of Aloysius.
“And what might you be doin’ here in London, Mister Aloysius?” inquired the girl pertly. “Is it business, or pleasure?”
“Sure an’ it was nothin’ but business, ’til I met the likes of you,” said Scorchy gallantly. The waitress flushed with pleasure.
While Scorchy Muldoon and Cathleen McCullen had been discreetly flirting, Joey Weston had devoured his huge sundae to the last drop, morsel and crumb, and was eager to be getting back to the hotel, anxious less he miss out on a single part of this adventure.
“Shouldn’t we be getting back, Mister Sc — I mean, Mister Aloysius?” the boy suggested. Scorchy heaved a melodramatic sigh.
“I s’pose we’d better,” he said. “Business before pleasure, like they say,” he added, with an ogle at the waitress, who giggled.
Scorchy paid the bill, added a handsome tip, and he and Joey Weston left the little pub. Through the front windows of the establishment, Miss Cathleen McCullen watched them go, eyes a trifle misty. She had taken quite a shine to the redheaded American.
As she watched them go, suddenly she stiffened. And gasped.
Two men had gotten out of a parked van and had unobtrusively approached Scorchy and Joey Weston. They showed the two their guns, and gestured to the van.
While the waitress watched with a pounding heart, the two were forced into the rear of the van. One of the two men stayed in the back with the prisoners while the other entered the cab of the vehicle and prepared to glide out into the stream of traffic.
From the pugnacious look on Scorchy’s features, and the way his capable fists had balled, Miss McCullen knew that “Aloysius” hated giving in to the intimidation of the revolvers. Doubtless he had eschewed a fight, fearing that the boy might be injured.
Whirling, Cathleen whipped off her apron and grabbed her bag from the counter.
“Bill, I got an errand to run. You won’t be needin’ me for a half an hour or so, will you?”
“Well, I —” the surprised bartender began, but by the time he had gotten those two words out, the girl was gone.
What Scorchy had supposed was quite true: the Irish waitress honestly hadn’t the slightest notion of the identity of the recent visitors to this neighborhood, other than that they were obviously American tourists.
The reason for this is simply explained. Outside of scanning the daily horoscope column and the society gossip, Miss Cathleen McCullen hardly ever gave so much as a glance at the rest of her newspaper. And her long hours precluded her from watching the evening news on television. Since Zarkon and his lieutenants shunned publicity like the bubonic plague and were seldom if ever photographed, she simply had not recognized them.
Rather unfortunately for Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston, the henchmen of the Vulture seemed somewhat better informed than was the Irish girl.
She flagged down a taxi and jumped in. The dark van had pulled into the stream of traffic and was tooling along, bumper to bumper with vehicles in front and behind.
The driver turned to look at her.
“Where would you like to go, miss?” he inquired. Cathleen McCullen indicated the van ahead.
“Follow that car,” she said tensely.
A great joy welled up in the cabdriver’s heart. A devoted and lifelong aficionado of American gangster films and hard-boiled detective novels, the words thrilled him to the core of his being.
“Miss, all me life I’ve wanted somebody to jump into me cab and say ‘foller that car!’ ” he breathed. “It will be a pleasure, I’m sure.”
They followed the other vehicle for several blocks, apparently without drawing the attention of the men in the van. This may have been because of the fact that, while taxis in Knickerbocker City are painted a fierce, eye-catching shade of canary yellow, the cabs in London bear no markings and are of a uniform and somber hue. Or it may have been because there were a dozen other taxis on the street at that particular moment, the men in the van had no reason to be suspicious as to the movements of any one of them in particular.
Peering at the blue-eyed colleen in his rearview mirror, Cathleen’s driver inquired happily:
“Do you happen to be one of them new lady constables I’ve been hearin’ about on the telly, miss?”
“No, I’m not,” snapped Cathleen. Then, urgently: “Keep your eyes on the van, if you please! They’re turning off —”
“Never you fear, miss! I got me eyes peeled, I have,” the driver assured her. And, deep within, his heart sang joyously: A Proivate Eye! Wait ’til I tell me Molly about this!
While Miss Cathleen McCullen, late of Killarney, Ireland, had no idea that the cheerfully brazen little fellow who had flirted with her on this and previous occasions was none other than Scorchy Muldoon, one of the famous Omega crime-fighting team, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest. The quick thinking and courageous girl was never one to stand idly by when friends were in trouble of any kind, and these parts of Piccadilly contain some rough neighborhoods.
If she thought about the mystery of the abduction of “Aloysius” at all, she had probably formed the opinion that robbery was the only motive.
After all, the redheaded boxer was an American tourist, and everyone knows that all American tourists are wealthy, their wallets stuffed with credit cards and traveler’s checks.
Unobtrus
ively, and moving at a moderate pace, Cathleen’s cabby followed the dark van across London. And the courageous Irish girl began to wonder, a bit desperately, if she happened to have enough cash in her purse to cover the fare. She greatly feared that she did not, since she had yet to collect her tips from the pub, her work shift being nowhere over at this hour.
With grim determination, Miss Cathleen McCullen put this problem out of her mind. One worry at a time was her motto.
In the back of the van, the man with the revolver had forced Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston to strip to the skin, which Scorchy did, swearing sulfurously and flushing crimson at the indignity.
This had been done at the orders of the Vulture. The criminal mastermind was well aware of the fact that, at all times, Zarkon and his men bore concealed on their persons a variety of small weapons and instruments of communication. When stripped bare to the buff, it seemed obvious they would have very few places to conceal such gadgets.
Just to make sure, however, the armed hoodlum ran a comb through Scorchy’s hair, and also Joey’s.
You never know, was his hard-nosed philosophy.
“Buck up, kid,” whispered Scorchy to the boy. “We’ll be gittin’ out of this fracas, nivver you fear!”
“I’m not afraid, since I’m with you, Mister Scorchy,” said the boy bravely.
“No talking,” advised the thug. He made Scorchy lay face down and began to tie his wrists behind his back, using tough electricians’ tape. Then he used another strip to seal the Irishman’s lips.
My readers are at liberty to imagine Scorchy’s emotions at this further indignity. At liberty, as well, to imagine the broiling-hot expletives that arose to his lips, only to be sealed in silence.
Once the feisty little boxer was effectively immobilized, the thug — obviously taking no chances — ordered Joey Weston to assume an identical position. Lying on his face, the naked boy had no recourse but to permit the crook to tape his wrists and ankles, and then to seal his lips with electricians’ tape.
“That’s over and done with,” sighed the Vulture’s man, wiping his brow. He had heard a lot about the resources of these Omega operatives, and only relaxed once they were completely helpless.
Scorchy Muldoon had no doubt in his mind that the two who had abducted himself and young Joey Weston off the streets of Piccadilly Circus belonged to the Blue Men’s gang. After all, who else in England would possibly have been worried about their presence here?
But one thing puzzled him mightily. These were not Blue Men. There were only two of them, not nine, as had recently been reported. And one wore an ill-fitting brown suit, while the other went garbed in gray.
Nor did they communicate in sign language, as Scorchy had expected. Instead, they talked in normal conversation.
Furthermore, he had gotten a good, clear look at them both. And neither of these crooks had blue faces, teeth, whites of the eyes, and so forth. Moreover, both bore revolvers, which none of the Blue Men had thus far sported.
Was there a second gang of crooks involved in this caper, or what?
Scorchy had no idea.
And most likely, Dear Reader, neither have you.
The van drove on, negotiating the streets of London, and heading in the opposite direction from Piccadilly Circus.
— Grimly followed by the persistent Miss Cathleen McCullen. Although, of course, Scorchy Muldoon knew it not, and neither did little Joey Weston.
CHAPTER 14 — To the Rescue
Prince Zarkon did not at once notice how late Scorchy Muldoon and Joey Weston were in getting back to the hotel after that ice cream sundae. The reason for this is easily explained.
A Scotland Yard messenger had just delivered to Zarkon’s rooms photocopies of the various papers and treatises issued, before his disgrace, by Mortimer M. Mortimer, otherwise known as “the Vulture.” Zarkon and Menlo Parker were busily engaged in scanning these documents, which seemed likely to yield a clue as to the Vulture’s direction in scientific work.
The results of their scrutiny were, at best, equivocal.
“This gink seems to have been locked into study of the nuclear binding force, Chief,” said Menlo Parker after some lengthy time. “His mathematics on the ‘strong’ and the ‘weak’ force seems exemplary. Good, tight math, and bold, innovative thinking.”
“I must agree, Menlo,” murmured Zarkon. These forces were nothing less than the two powers which held atoms and molecules together; they were high among the least understood and most mysterious forces in all the Universe, to say nothing of the electromagnetic spectrum itself.
I must add here that scientists on Val Petrie’s staff had red marked those passages or pages in the Vulture’s papers and treatises, where the brilliant but deranged and unscrupulous scientist had either pirated the work of other men, or had infringed upon their patents.
Neither Zarkon nor Menlo Parker needed these indicators, as it happened, to spot the stealing or the fraudulence.
“Does this material give you any ideas regarding the theft of those particular subelectronic components, Menlo?” asked Zarkon after they were finished with their scrutiny of the Xeroxes.
“Gotta admit, no, Chief,” confessed the waspish little scientist. “How about you?”
“A few ideas, at least,” said Zarkon, in his enigmatic way. Menlo opened his mouth to inquire further, but at that point Nick Naldini spoke up.
The lanky, long-legged ex-vaudevillian had been cooling his heels for quite some time, while Prince Zarkon and Menlo Parker scrutinized the papers. Bored and unoccupied, Nick was all too aware of the passage of time.
“Does it occur to any of you guys,” demanded Nick in his hoarse whiskey voice, “that Scorchy and the kid are taking a hellova long time in getting back from the pub?”
Zarkon was about to speak, when the phone rang.
It was New Scotland Yard, informing them of Scorchy’s abduction.
“Yes, Val, Zarkon here,” said the Prince in crisp tones. Then his visage became tense and somber. “What? Scorchy and Joey Weston abducted right here in Piccadilly, in broad daylight?”
Nick Naldini groaned and rolled up his eyes. His sallow features turned milk-white. “I knew it,” he moaned weakly. “I knew something had happened to Scorchy —”
The lanky magician sat back, or, rather, almost collapsed, in an armchair, and covered his face with long, shaking fingers.
The other Omega men exchanged a look of commiseration. Although the Italian magician and the Irish bantamweight were almost constantly at each other’s throats — either verbally or, at times, physically — their friends all knew the deep, intense love and camaraderie between the two — which either would have been instantly, and indignantly, denied, had anyone been so thoughtless as to suggest the fact.
“We’re on our way,” said Zarkon tonelessly. He hung up the phone.
The lives and well-being of the five men who fought with him at their side against supercriminals were more important to Prince Zarkon than his own existence. In every conceivable way, he had taken ten thousand precautions to ensure that their safety and security was certain.
But even guardian angels fail, at times ...
With the tenacity generally accorded only to the British bulldog, Miss Cathleen McCullen’s cabdriver had clung to the heels (so to speak) of the dark-painted van in which Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston were helpless prisoners. Cathleen’s cab had followed that particular vehicle more than halfway across London by now.
“Seems to be heading for Hammersmith-on-Thames, miss,” said the driver zestfully. And the Irish waitress felt her heart sink into her high heeled shoes. She had searched her purse, finding only three pound notes and a half handful of change.
Her driver had been extremely clever in managing his pursuit of the criminous vehicle. At times, he had turned off at an angle, only to circle a block, returning to tail the dark van. Since one London cab looks identical with another, he had not thought the driver of the fugitiv
e vehicle had noticed the chase.
Nor was he wrong.
Hammersmith-on-Thames was once an extremely fashionable part of the London suburbs. The distinguished late Victorian poet, artist, designer, and printer, William Morris, had maintained his famous Kelmscott Press at Kelmscott House, not far from here.
Since those days, irretrievably, the neighborhood had gone downhill just a bit. While Kelmscott House was now a William Morris Museum, the other private homes had been sold and resold. Today, many of them were up for rent.
After an anxious and interminable chase, the van pulled up into the driveway of a smallish and modestly appointed house whose rear fronted upon the Thames itself. It drove around to the back of the house and vanished from view.
“Keep driving on past,” ordered Miss Cathleen McCullen briefly. She had memorized the address of the house at which the van had stopped. “But pull up at the first public phone booth you see.”
“Aye, that I will, miss, and with all me heart,” crowed the mystery-reading cabdriver in devout and cheerful tones. This small adventure had made his day.
More than a few houses down the drive, he located a booth and drew up smartly before it. With a flourish, the driver indicated the booth.
“There ye go, miss!”
Cathleen hesitated, fumbling at her purse.
“Wh-what is the fare?” she asked. The driver informed her of the sum, and Cathleen swallowed a large and painful lump that seemed to have just lodged in her throat.
“I ... I don’t have that much,” she said faintly. The driver made an expansive gesture.
“Sure an’ I wouldn’t be askin’ ye a copper pence, miss,” he declared in ringing tones. “The ride’s on me!”
“But —!”
“Not at all, miss! I’ve had the time o’ me life; but I’ll be gettin’ along: unless, that is, you’ll be wantin’ me to wait?”
