by Lin Carter
“What was that stuff you had hidden in your class ring, Mister Scorchy?” inquired the little newsboy a bit later, while they paused to take a breather.
Scorchy grinned from ear to ear.
“Dunno what the chemists w’d call it, kid, but it works on the eyes like tear gas does,” he confided, chuckling at the memory of the ghastly expression of consternation and alarm that had been visible on the features of Number Nine, once he had received the full contents of the plastic spoon right in the kisser.
The two escaped prisoners continued their surreptitious search of the mansion. They came upon a room filled with long benches and electrical apparatus. The various instruments and meters and gauges meant little or nothing to such as Scorchy Muldoon — although, more than likely, Menlo Parker’s eyes would have popped with surprise, if he had been there to enjoy the sight.
“This must be where they do whatever the heck it is that they do with all them components they steal,” murmured Scorchy to his small sidekick. “Don’t touch nothin’!” he added.
More rooms were filled with cots and card tables. This must be the sleeping quarters of the Vulture’s gang, thought Scorchy to himself. They sure were lucky that everybody else seemed to be away at the time.
But where was the Vulture?
Well, where would the boss and kingpin of the Blue Men gang be at this hour, except sound asleep in bed. And where would the Vulture make his nightly roost, if not in the master bedroom?
Scorchy had a hunch that, in old Victorian houses such as this one, that would be on the second floor. Approaching a staircase with fine carved oak banisters and balustrades, he signaled Joey Weston’s attention, and ascended the stair. Unfortunately, some of the old steps creaked underfoot, and at every creak, Scorchy froze and cursed silently. But he continued the ascent, anyway, emboldened by the solid and reassuring weight of the revolver he held in one capable fist, and the one Joey Weston bore. The third crook’s gun Scorchy had thrust into the rear pocket of his borrowed jeans.
Reaching the second floor of the old house without mishap or giving alarm, Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston proceeded to search the rooms one by one. They padded silently from door to door, trying each in turn and peering inside briefly so as to ascertain its contents.
“This must be where the Vulture makes his plans,” murmured the bantamweight boxer to his companion, peering into a small room where a rolltop desk adorned with a telephone and a neat array of papers met his gaze.
Switching on the gooseneck lamp atop the desk, Scorchy searched quickly through the papers. To his disappointment, he found them either too enigmatic in phrasing or in the use of abbreviations, or completely in some sort of code he could not at once identify, to make any of them out.
There was one item, however, that caught Scorchy’s eye: a small notebook buried beneath sheaves of paper. He fished it out and thumbed quickly through it. Unfortunately, it was entirely written in mathematical equations, and Scorchy had never been any good at all with math.
In fact, it would be perfectly accurate to say that mathematics were extremely low on Scorchy Muldoon’s list of favorite things — at about the same level as jumping off the roofs of very tall buildings, or being bitten by king cobras.
Still and all, it looked as though it might be rather important, so Scorchy stuffed the small notebook into the seat pocket of his jeans, reflecting philosophically that, while he couldn’t make anything out of it, it was more than likely that other minds could.
“Bet Menlo or the Chief can read this stuff easy as pie,” said Scorchy to himself as he secreted the notebook in his pants.
Just then there came an unexpected sound from behind him ... as someone cleared his throat. And, in the next instant of time:
“I have a gun, Mr. Muldoon, so please make no sudden moves. In fact, make no moves at all, except to place your revolver very gently upon the top of the desk,” said a harsh croaking voice.
CHAPTER 21 — The Vulture Is Snared
Scorchy groaned inwardly, but put down the revolver as per instructions.
“Thought you wuz asleep,” he remarked sourly.
The Vulture chuckled.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Muldoon, I was. But did it never occur to you that the hallway, the stairs, and in particular this office of mine might be ‘bugged,’ as you would term it, as for the same very good reason that our ‘guest room’ is also monitored on hidden microphones?”
“Sure sorry to have ruined yer nap,” growled Scorchy insincerely.
“I am very sure that you are,” croaked the Vulture. “Now, moving with extreme caution — for I have a very sensitive trigger finger, I assure you — step well away from my desk, so that your weapon (purloined, as I hazard a guess, from one of my own people) is well out of reach of what might indelicately be termed ‘a swift grab.’ Carefully, now!”
Scorchy cursed silently to himself, but did exactly as told. He wasn’t as much anxious about his own safety as he was about that of little Joey Weston who stood behind him. The boy had shrunk into the shadows when the Vulture had unexpectedly surprised them.
Before the world was an instant older, as things turned out, the tables were, as the saying has it, completely reversed.
“Drop it or I’ll shoot!” shrilled the game little newsboy from the shadows behind Scorchy.
The Vulture’s eyes widened, but he made no move to comply with the order. That is, not until Joey leveled the revolver that had been tucked into the top of his baggy, ill-fitting jeans and fired. In the close confines of the little room, the gunshot boomed deafeningly. The bullet sizzled past the Vulture’s head, missing him by three or four inches, and shattered the plaster on the farther wall. Echoes bounced and gobbled, filling the Vulture’s office with noise.
The Vulture, if possible, went even whiter than was usual for him. He licked dry thin lips with an even dryer tongue. Also, he felt like a fool, for it had never occurred to him, for all his giant intellect, to take the scared-faced and skinny little boy into account, not realizing that while Scorchy had carried one of the pistols in his hand and the other stuck in his jeans pocket, the small boy had been lugging the other.
This oversight was one which the Vulture bitterly regretted.
“Drop it, I said!” repeated Joey Weston, and again he leveled his pistol. Surprisingly, his hand was steady as a rock.
The Vulture briefly considered snapping off a shot at the youngster, counting on the strong chance that the newsboy — even if he did fire — would miss. But this he considered only very briefly, before dismissing it from his mind.
If there was anything in life that the Vulture prized most highly, it was his own skin.
Gently, he placed his weapon on a small table that stood nearby.
“Good work, kid!” chirped Scorchy, scooping the second pistol from his pocket and using it to wave the Vulture a safe distance away from the table. Then he instructed Joey Weston to retrieve the Vulture’s gun, and, while Joey kept their adversary covered, he tied the master crook’s hands behind him with strips of cloth torn from the window curtains.
“Looks like the whole gang’s out on a job, ’cept for those three we caught earlier,” said Scorchy to his small comrade. “Guess we better git while the gettin’s good!”
“What about him, Mister Scorchy?” queried Joey Weston, with a nod in the direction of their silent captive.
“Him?” chuckled Scorchy, in fine spirits. “We gonna take this bird along with us, of course! Oboyoboyoboy, won’t th’ Chief be proud of us when he hears we done captured the boss-crook of this whole gang!”
The two reached the ground floor without mishap, nudging their speechless captive along the way with the muzzles of their pistols. Scorchy had a strong hunch that at almost any minute, the Blue Men would be returning to their base, and was anxious to put some miles between the two of them and their prisoner and the old house before that could possibly occur. They would be outmanned and outgunned, in that eventual
ity, something like six to one, and Scorchy had always favored better odds than that.
The front door unlatched without any problem and they went out into the front yard. It was quite dark by this time, and the moon was obscured by a heavy cover of clouds.
Strolling around to the side, where the driveway was, Scorchy was relieved to discover a parked car.
“We’re in luck, kid!” he chortled.
And they were, indeed. In fact, more good luck swiftly followed, for the keys to the car were still stuck in the ignition.
“Pretty sloppy gang you got, Vulch’,” grinned Scorchy jubilantly. “Real careless with their keys. Git in.”
They forced the Vulture to enter the rear of the car at gunpoint and made the gaunt man lie down on the floor. Then Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston climbed in the front. While the boy knelt on the seat and kept his eye — and his pistol — on the recumbent figure of their captive, Scorchy got the car started and backed it out into the driveway. He managed to knock over only two trash cans in the process, and gave a wilted tree only a slight nudge.
They drove off down the long, tree-lined carriage drive and onto a dirt road. There were no streetlights this far out in the country, and none of the houses nearby seemed tenanted. Or, if they were, their inhabitants had turned off the lights and retired for the night.
“Where we goin’, Mister Scorchy?” asked Joey Weston in a little while. Scorchy shrugged cheerfully.
“Danged if I know, kid!” he admitted, wrestling with the wheel: the stolen car seemed determined to mire its wheels into the deep ruts of the road.
“I know we got cops planted all over the place, keepin’ an eye on the Vulture’s base, but where the heck they are beats me — so I guess I’ll just git into the nearest town and hunts us up a cop, or a phone, or mebbe both.”
This the feisty little bantamweight boxer proceeded to do, and with alacrity.
Now, it must be admitted by the recorder of this humble narrative, that driving a car was not one of the many things that Scorchy did very well. While he was a great guy to have at your side in any kind of a tight spot, and second to none in a good lively free-for-all, he was just about the worst driver you ever saw or heard of. The other Omega men used to joke about this (preferably when Scorchy was not within earshot), and the joke usually ran that if Scorchy was behind the wheel, and if there was a pedestrian with two square miles, Scorchy would find the poor fellow unerringly, by pure instinct, and give him the scare of his lifetime.
This was also true, it seemed, of inanimate objects, such as telephone poles, roadside mailboxes, garbage cans and fence posts, for as they made their wavering and unsteady progress towards the lights of a small town visible in the murk, Muldoon and vehicle left a sorry, scraped, and battered collection of these in his weaving wake.
More than a few startled locals, shocked wide awake when Scorchy’s car banged into their cans and sent them flying like rockets in all directions, must have phoned the town constable.
I say this, because no sooner had Scorchy entered the outskirts of the nearest village, and had only careened into a luckless fire hydrant or two, or maybe three, than the constable brought them to a screeching halt with a lifted palm and a shrill, if slightly breathless, whistle.
Cautiously, the town constable approached the car, now neatly parked directly in the center of the main street, only at right angles to the curb.
“Howdy, pal!” Scorchy greeted him cheerfully as he approached the car. “Boy, are we glad to see you!”
“Is that right, sir?” inquired the officer rather stiffly. He wore a walrus mustache and was hefting a nightstick rather in the manner of a Doctor Van Helsing, armed with a sharpened stake, getting close to Dracula’s coffin.
“May I see your license and registration, sir?” asked the constable with stiff politeness. Scorchy grinned.
“You sure could, pal, but I ain’t got ’em on me.”
“Is that so,” said the walrus mustache thoughtfully. “Do you have any identification on you at all, sir?”
“Nope, not a scrap!” confessed Scorchy.
The eyes positioned above the walrus mustache turned just a trifle frosty.
“I see ... well, sir ... this is your car, isn’t it, sir? I mean ter say, the vehicle is yer own property?”
Scorchy shook his head. The whole situation amused him highly. Wait till he told the cop who he was and who he had taken prisoner — what a hero’s welcome would promptly be forthcoming!
“Nope, it ain’t my car,” he said cheerfully.
Instead of the hero’s welcome he had expected, Scorchy and Joey Weston and the Vulture spent the rest of the night in the local slammer.
The British take a rather dim view, it would seem, of careless driving, even on country roads.
CHAPTER 22 — The Raid
Well, to be completely accurate about the matter, Scorchy and Joey Weston did not actually spend the entire night in the town gaol; as soon as the constable learned the identity of his prisoners (and, even more importantly, the identity of their prisoner), he hastened to put through a call to New Scotland Yard.
The good news that Scorchy Muldoon and little Joey Weston had managed a successful escape from the Old House was, of course, relayed within instants. Val Petrie called Prince Zarkon with this happy information.
And also the excellent news that the Vulture had been taken prisoner during the escape.
“Where are they now?” inquired Zarkon.
“Well, they happen to be in the local gaol,” confessed Petrie. “The nearest town to the Old House is called Fenchurch St. Paul. It’s some forty miles outside London. Seems your man got arrested for dangerous driving —”
“That certainly sounds like Scorchy,” replied Zarkon with a smile. “We’re on our way.”
This call was within mere moments relayed to the mobile unit where Val Petrie’s men were keeping a lookout on the Old House. Still and all, it was almost dawn before Petrie’s lieutenants got all the paperwork done, the charges dismissed, and Scorchy and the newsboy went free.
The Vulture, of course, remained in his cell under guard.
Menlo Parker had accompanied Petrie’s officer to the gaol in order to identify Scorchy Muldoon and Joey Weston. The waspish little scientist was enormously relieved to discover that Scorchy and the boy were alive and unharmed by their ordeal.
“Thanks for springin’ me outa the clink, Menlo,” said Scorchy feelingly.
“Not at all,” snapped Menlo with a nasty grin. “Just like you to get yourself arrested for bein’ a dangerous driver.” Scorchy was too good-humored to take offense at this slander on his automotive skills from Menlo, although he would have been ready to jump on Nick Naldini had the lanky vaudevillian been the source of the remark. He turned to Petrie’s lieutenant.
“And I sure am glad to see you birds,” he chirped. His high spirits only moderately dampened at having been ignominiously locked up for a couple of hours in the local cooler. “Where’s yer boss, that Petrie gink?”
“On his way, sir,” said the senior officer a bit frostily: like most of the men on his team, the regard he felt for young Val Petrie was close to veneration. And no one particularly cares to hear the object of one’s veneration referred to as a “gink.”
“So what’s happening now?”
What was presently forward was the long delayed mass assault on the Vulture’s Roost. Armed officers from Scotland Yard were already on the premises and were forcing an entry into the Old House from several sides simultaneously.
“With the slightest luck, we might capture the entire gang red-handed,” said the officer. Then he informed Scorchy of the raid on the Japanese storage building that the Blue Men had conducted earlier that same evening.
“So that’s why they wuz all gone, huh? Well, I figgered it wuz somethin’ like that,” said Scorchy.
The officer glanced at his watch and frowned.
“Timing their return to their headquarters as b
est we can, based on previous time-estimates from their other raids, they should have arrived at the Old House at least twenty minutes ago,” the officer said worriedly. “I hope they haven’t already flown the henhouse, as you Yanks would put it.”
“We call it ‘flew the coop,’ but it don’t matter none,” said Scorchy. “Any idea where my boss is, and the rest of my buddies?”
“Prince Zarkon and the rest of the Omega men are on their way to Fenchurch St. Paul as well,” reported the officer. “I should think that they would arrive in time to join in the search of the Vulture’s headquarters, if not in the main assault.”
Scorchy was spoiling for a good lusty fight.
“How’s my chances of gettin’ in on the fun?” he demanded zestfully. The Yard officer smiled slightly.
“I should think they would be excellent, sir. At least, I have no orders to the contrary, and can think of no good reason to deny you a chance to, ah, ‘take a poke’ at some of the men who captured and stripped you.”
“Swell!” said Scorchy with enthusiasm, rubbing his palms together briskly. He headed for the nearest police car, then paused to inquire about something that had been puzzling him ever so slightly.
“Hey, by the way, pal, you had all them guys watchin’ the place around the clock — how come nobody saw us makin’ our getaway?”
The officer looked faintly puzzled.
“Why, we did, of course. That is, we saw a single small car drive away from the house and in the direction of the town. But there was nothing about the fact to alarm or alert us, although, of course, we made report of the action. No ... the only thing about it that was even slightly out of the way, was that the vehicle was driven by an extremely poor driver, or perhaps by a person who happened to be heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time ...”
