by Lin Carter
“You’re really very kind,” said Cathleen McCullen, with heartfelt feeling. “No, I must call Scotland Yard, and stay around here.”
“I thought you’d be after doin’ that, miss,” declared the driver devoutly. Then, rolling his eyes, he intoned in a sepulchral whisper those famous words —
“ ‘The weed o’ crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay.’ May the good Lord take a likin’ to ya, miss! You’re sure, now, that you wouldn’t be after likin’ fer me to stick around? Just say the word —”
“Thank you, but, no,” said Miss Cathleen McCullen bravely.
Stepping out of the cab, she watched it drive away with whatever feelings in her heart I give my Dear Reader perfect liberty to imagine for himself.
Then, straightening her spine, she stepped to the phone booth and dropped a coin therein.
“Give me New Scotland Yard. I wish to report a crime,” said Miss Cathleen McCullen firmly.
Once the van had driven around to the rear of the house, it pulled up. Blankets were tossed over the bare skin of Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston, for who knows what eyes might have been observing the scene from the other side of the Thames, which was quite narrow at this point.
Scorchy padded barefoot across the drive and up to the rear steps, his clear blue eyes missing little. There was a powerful speedboat pulled up to the little dock behind this particular house.
He and the boy, their ankles taped closely, hobbled therein, led by the man who had driven the van and by the man who had remained in the rear to undress and bind them.
They vanished into the house.
Val Petrie was just leaving his offices at New Scotland Yard when Cathleen McCullen called. Something made the duty officer thumb the “hold” button at the gate.
Stopped thereby, young Petrie frowned, picked up the phone, and listened intently. A short, redheaded man, called Aloysius, an American tourist, living somewhere in Piccadilly, with a young American boy, perhaps twelve …
Val Petrie had done his homework scrupulously. He knew well Scorchy Muldoon’s real name, and that the boy, Joey Weston, was about twelve. He also knew that the pub in question was very near the fleabag hotel where Zarkon and the Omega team were staying.
His gray eyes flashed with fire!
Cutting into the call, Petrie said: “Miss McCullen? Can you give us the address of the house into which the two were taken? Yes, yes” — scribbling rapidly. “We’ll have a few patrol cars in that vicinity in no time. I want you to stay out of sight! Is there a pub or coffee shop nearby — there is? Go to it. We’ll find you.”
The waitress indicated that she understood, and hung up the phone. There was a small coffee shop down the road and she headed in that direction.
Once the line was cleared, Val Petrie rang a number.
“Henderson? This is Petrie. Two of the Omega men have been captured, probably by the Vulture’s men. Call up the flying squad and have them ready for an assault.” He rang off, then dialed another number. It was that of the Hotel Royal Imperial in Piccadilly.
“This is Petrie,” he said when Doc Jenkins answered the phone. “Let me speak to Prince Zarkon — quick, man.”
CHAPTER 15 — The House in Hammersmith
The two men from the van escorted Scorchy Muldoon and young Joey Weston across the yard and up the back steps of the house. The Thames flowed directly behind the yard, where a concrete wall stood. There was a small dock which extended into the river, and Scorchy noticed a motorboat moored to the end of the dock.
Inside, the house seemed almost empty. There was a rickety kitchen table and a couple of wooden chairs and a telephone. Nothing else. The living room, from what little of it Scorchy could see through the open door, seemed equally unfurnished.
The men made Scorchy and Joey sit down on the kitchen chairs. While one man held his gun on them, the other picked up the phone.
“This is Number Six speaking. Tell the Vulture we took Muldoon and the kid to the new place in Hammersmith. No, of course we weren’t followed. What are our instructions — do we scrag ’em and dump the bodies in the river, or what?”
He listened intently to the voice at the other end of the wire.
But no more intently than was Joey Weston, who clung to the man’s expression with a beating heart.
Zarkon and the others had departed from the fleabag which had the nerve to call itself the Hotel “Royal Imperial” immediately after receiving the call from the Yard that had informed them of Scorchy’s abduction. Leaving Doc Jenkins behind to monitor the phone, in case there was further information from Scotland Yard, he and his men took to the streets in two rented cars.
The Vulture’s men had, of course, been completely accurate in guessing that the Omega men carried miniature devices and weapons concealed on their persons. Among these instruments was a tiny radio signaling device. In Scorchy’s case, this was hidden in the buckle of his belt.
They had been clever enough to remove Scorchy’s clothes. But what they had not thought of was the simple fact that they should have dumped the garments somewhere, rather than carrying them along with them in the van. For, once triggered, the signaling device continued to operate whether Scorchy was wearing it or not.
While Ace Harrigan drove the lead car through the London streets, Zarkon studied a small box. This monitored the strength and direction of Scorchy’s signal.
“Looks like they’re heading almost due west,” murmured Zarkon to Ace Harrigan.
“Why don’t we call the Yard and tip them off,” suggested the pilot. Zarkon was strongly tempted, but he shook his head.
“We’ll wait until we have more detailed information to report,” he said tonelessly.
The two cars negotiated the London streets in pursuit of the van, making better time than had Cathleen McCullen in her cab. They reached the vicinity of the house in Hammersmith just before the spunky Irish girl did.
Parking their cars out of sight of the house, they looked it over from places of concealment. Shades were drawn in every window; the front lawn was long untended; the house looked unlived in.
A short while later, Doc Jenkins relayed Petrie’s recent call.
“We’re already here on the scene,” said Zarkon into the radiophone. “Doc, call Petrie back and tell him to station his men in a cordon around the block, but to stay out of sight of the house.”
“Are we going in, or are we going to wait for the reinforcements to arrive?” inquired Nick Naldini.
“We’re going in,” said Zarkon. “Or, rather, I am.”
In a few terse words he gave his men their instructions.
Keeping himself well concealed in the rank shrubbery that grew wild and unattended about the small property, Prince Zarkon circled the house and approached it from the rear, where a concrete walk and a small, low wall overlooked the tranquilly flowing water of the Thames.
At need, the Master of Men could move as silently as ever did an Algonquian brave through leaves and bushes. He employed that skill upon this occasion.
Insofar as was presently known, there were only two members of the Vulture’s gang in the Hammersmith house, and one would be busy guarding the captives, leaving only one on lookout. Since one man can hardly watch all four sides of a house at the same time, it seemed likely to Zarkon that he could enter the premises undiscovered.
Of course, there was an unknown factor which entered into the problem at hand. While it had been only the two men who had abducted Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston, there might be half a dozen more in the house. And there was another factor to take into his calculations, thought Zarkon grimly: with the electronic know-how the Vulture sported, he might have rigged any one of a dozen detection gadgets to guard against unwelcome intrusion.
To counter this last possibility, Zarkon unlimbered a small device from his breast pocket and switched it on. This was a jamming gadget that broadcast on a wide band, effectively “blanketing” all frequencies. He could enter the house withou
t giving any alarm, using this instrument.
The only drawback to it was that it was effective only at close range.
Zarkon entered the house through a rear window and vanished from view.
When Val Petrie arrived on the scene with Scotland Yard’s flying squad and was apprised of the developments, he looked grim.
“I wish he had waited for us to arrive,” he remarked. “I’d rather it was my men who took the chances, not Zarkon.”
Ace Harrigan chuckled.
“The Chief’s been taking this kind of chance for a long time, and he knows what he’s doing,” said the aviator.
Petrie chewed his lower lip, studying the front of the house through binoculars. No sound of activity came from within the stucco structure.
The ugly phrase “silent as the grave” occurred to Petrie. He firmly put the thought out of his mind.
An officer touched his elbow, drawing his attention from the house.
“Sir, this is the young woman who followed the kidnappers here by cab,” he murmured. Petrie studied the Irish girl briefly, then grinned.
“It was brave of you, very brave,” he said admiringly. “If more bystanders were as quick thinking as you are, miss, it would make our work at the Yard a lot easier.”
Miss Cathleen McCullen turned pink with pleasure at his words.
“Someone’s coming!” snapped Menlo Parker, hefting his pistol. The Omega team rarely went about armed, but on this occasion, Zarkon had issued all of them pistols.
They were flat and streamlined, the guns, and of a markedly peculiar design.
The front door of the house opened.
Zarkon stepped out and waved to the hidden watchers. Then he strolled across to where Petrie stood in the shadows.
“The house is completely empty,” he said tonelessly.
“Empty — but ...” burst Petrie incredulously.
“There’s no one at all inside, alive or dead.”
The Omega men stared at each other. The house had been under continuous surveillance from the moment the van had arrived with its captives. The van was still parked in the rear, with Scorchy’s clothes still heaped in the rear along with little Joey Weston’s garments. Which meant the men and their prisoners had not left the premises by that means.
Zarkon studied the Thames. There was a small dock built of planking which extended into the water. If any boat had been moored there, it was nowhere in sight.
Petrie had the same idea.
“While we were watching the front, they could have left by the back door and taken a boat,” he mused.
He went out on the dock and sniffed.
“Fresh petrol,” he said crisply. “They did leave by boat!”
Turning to one of his officers, he snapped:
“Wescot, alert the river patrol — any small boat in the vicinity is to be watched but not intercepted. And call a couple helicopters. We can search the Thames best by air.”
While waiting for the choppers to arrive, Zarkon and his men went over the house carefully, finding no clues. The telephone had been unplugged and taken along with the crooks. Experts from the Yard would want to comb the house for fingerprints, but that would come later.
Nick retrieved Scorchy’s clothing and Joey’s garments, his sallow, saturnine face gloomy. Zarkon touched him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry about Scorchy, Nick,” said the Omega Man. “He’s been in these tight spots before and knows how to take care of himself.”
“Sure, I know that, Chief,” said the vaudevillian in sepulchral tones.
A few minutes after this, two big police helicopters landed in the street in front of the house. They all piled aboard, except for Miss Cathleen McCullen. One of the constables drove her back to the pub in Piccadilly.
The river patrol boats were out, searching the Thames in both directions. Unfortunately, for their chances of success in spotting the craft in question, it was a lovely day and many boats were on the river.
The helicopters searched from aloft; keen eyes scrutinized every craft within a couple of miles with strong binoculars.
It all came to nothing.
Scorchy and Joey and their captors seemed to have vanished into thin air!
CHAPTER 16 — The Disappearing Trick
Once the search of the Thames had proven fruitless, they left Hammersmith and returned to central London. Nobody felt particularly cheerful about the way things had turned out.
“These Blue Guys seem to be calling their own shots at every turn, Chief,” grumbled Menlo Parker disgustedly.
“It does seem that way,” replied Prince Zarkon.
“How are we going to rescue Scorchy and the kid, if we don’t even know where they are?” demanded Nick Naldini, irritably. It chafed him sorely that the feisty little bantamweight boxer was in durance vile, and there wasn’t anything Nick could do about it.
“What do you think the Vulture means to do with our boys, Chief?” inquired Ace Harrigan.
“He obviously doesn’t intend to kill them, or they’d have been slain hours ago,” commented Zarkon. “He plans to use Scorchy and the boy in some manner.”
“You mean ... like bait for a trap?” hazarded Menlo Parker.
Zarkon nodded somberly.
“Exactly. After all, it isn’t Scorchy that the Vulture wants, and certainly not Joey. It’s me that he wants. He must feel that with me captured or slain, Omega will simply fall apart, and he can continue with his nefarious schemes unopposed.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” sighed Naldini. “But I sure wish we could do something, instead of just hanging around waiting for something to happen!”
“It’s just a matter of time,” said Zarkon.
He had been on the telephone to New Scotland Yard. Fingerprints had been found in the house in Hammersmith: the prints of two small-time crooks wanted in several counties. No other clues worth mentioning had turned up, although the Yard’s technical experts had scoured every inch of the property.
And there was more bad news, or, at least, no good news. Val Petrie reported that the forensic experts had gone over the video tapes of the raid on the Cumberland Towers hotel, discovering nothing more that was worth noting down.
“Nothing but dead ends,” groaned Doc Jenkins, cracking his huge knuckles moodily. The inactivity and worry about the missing pair were getting on everyone’s nerves, it seemed.
“It’s just about time our luck changed, dang it all!” griped Menlo Parker peevishly.
“I quite agree, Menlo,” said Zarkon.
Although none of them were particularly hungry, they went out to have a meal at the side-street pub that had become their mealtime hangout. The pretty Irish waitress, Miss Cathleen McCullen, was just going off duty for it was the end of her shift. As the Omega men trooped in, leaving Ace behind to mind the phone, she was seated at the bar busily counting her tips.
She perked up as they came in.
“Please, sir,” she said anxiously to Prince Zarkon. “Is there any news about your missing friend, Aloysius, or the little boy?”
Zarkon informed her that there was no news at all. In brief words, he explained what had happened at the house in Hammersmith after she had left, and how the river patrol and the Scotland Yard helicopters had searched the Thames without result.
The waitress sighed, then brightened.
“I’m sure that the likes of Aloysius will be all right,” said Cathleen bravely. “You can’t keep a good Irish boy down for long, you know!”
She left for home.
They ate their meal in silence.
“We do have that one lead left, you know, Chief,” Menlo piped up. “I mean the Old House down in the country. Are the cops still keeping an eye open down there?”
“So Val Petrie says. However, there has been no activity there at all,” replied Zarkon. “If the motorboat turns up at the Old House, with Scorchy and Joey, we’re all prepared. Until then, we simply wait.”
“But, Chief —” prote
sted Nick Naldini.
“I know your feelings, Nick,” said Zarkon gravely. “But we must be patient, and give the Vulture time to set up his trap, if that’s what he has in mind, using Scorchy and the boy for bait.”
When the Vulture’s men received instructions from their mysterious leader, they wasted no time in bundling Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston aboard the small craft moored at the end of the pier. They draped raincoats over their two captives, so as not to attract any attention.
Soon, the motorboat moved away from the rickety little wooden dock and merged with the rest of the river traffic.
As the cabin was roofed, it was easy for the two men to conceal their captives from view.
Scorchy had been working on his bonds all the while: in fact, ever since the two crooks had tied his wrists behind his back with strips of electricians’ tape. The pint-sized boxer may not have looked like it, but steely strength was packed into the sinews of his wiry frame.
As yet, he had only managed to loosen the tough tape a trifle. But he kept at it.
To create a small diversion, Scorchy held his breath and let his face go purple, uttering strangling, gargling sounds behind the tape stuck across his mouth.
Number Six, who was at the wheel, glanced back to see what the gargling noise was, then nudged his partner.
“Better get the tape off his mouth before he croaks on us,” he muttered. The other looked dubious.
“Suppose he yells for help?”
Number Six glanced around searchingly. The river traffic had dwindled to a trickle and most of the other boats had fallen behind.
“There ain’t nobody near enough to hear,” he said. “Do what I told you.”
Once his mouth was free of the sticky tape, Scorchy spat and cleared his throat.
“Thanks, pal,” he said feelingly. Then, curiously: “How come you guys aren’t blue? I thought your gang was always blue ...”
