“On the third morning, however. I could wait no more. I was certain, by then, that something was very wrong. I called my New York home, feeling he might have left a message there, and was rather berating myself for not having made the call earlier for that purpose, or, if no message had been received, to have left the number at which I could be reach when the message came.
“At any rate, on the third morning I called, and it was Cecil who answered. I was thunderstruck. He had arrived on the afternoon of the day I had left. I simply said I would be home that night and, of course, I was. So you see my difficulty, gentlemen.”
There was a short silence at the rather abrupt ending to the story, and then Rubin said, “I take it that Cecil was perfectly safe and sound.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I asked him about the pursuers, and he had smiled faintly and said. ‘I believe I eluded them, Mr. Wayne. Or I may even have been entirely mistaken and they did not really exist. At least. I wasn’t bothered in the least on my way home.’ ”
“So that he got home safely?”
“Yes, Mr. Rubin.”
“And the exhibition curios were intact?”
“Entirely.”
“Even the ring, Mr. Wayne?”
“Absolutely.”
Rubin threw himself back in the chair with an annoyed expression on his face, “Then, no, I don’t see your difficulty.”
“But why did he tell me he was going northwestward. He told me that distinctly. There is no question of my having misheard.”
Halsted said, “Well, he thought he was being followed, so he told you he was going to the North Dakota place. Then he decided that either he had gotten away from the pursuers, or that they didn’t exist, and he thereupon switched his plans, and went straight to New York without having time to call you again and warn you of that.”
“Don’t you think that, in that case,” said Wayne, with some heat, “he might have apologized to me. After all, he had misled me, sent me on an unnecessary chase into North Dakota, subjected me to a little over two days of uncertainty during which I not only feared for my collection, but also felt that he might be lying dead or badly injured somewhere. All this was the result of his having told me, falsely, that he was heading northwestward. And then, having arrived in New York, he might have known, since I wasn’t home, that I had flown to the North Dakota home to be with him, and he might have had the kindness to call me there and tell me he was safe. He knew the North Dakota number. But he didn’t call me, and he didn’t apologize to me or excuse himself when I got home.”
“Are you sure he knew that you were in North Dakota?” asked Halsted.
“Of course, I’m sure he knew. For one thing, I told him. I had to account for the fact that I had been away from home for three days. I said, ‘Sorry I wasn’t home when you arrived, Cecil. I had to make a quick and unexpected trip to North Dakota.’ It would have taken a heart of forged steel not to have winced at that, and not to have begun apologizing, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all.”
There was another pause at this point, and then Avalon cleared his throat in a deep rumble and said, “Mr. Wayne, you know your butler better than any of us do. How do you account for this behavior.”
“The logical feeling is that it was just callousness,” said Wayne, “but I don’t know him as a callous man. I have evolved the following thought, though: What if he had been tempted by the ring and the other curios himself? What if it was his plan to dispose of them for his own benefit? He could tell me that he was being pursued, and that would send me off on my foolish mission to North Dakota so that he would have a period of time to put away his ill-gotten gains somewhere and pretend he had been robbed. See?”
Rubin said, “Do you know Cecil to be a dishonest man?”
“I wouldn’t have said so, but anyone can yield to temptation.”
“Granted. But if he did, he resisted. You have everything. He didn’t steal anything.”
“That’s true, but his telling me he was going northwestward and then never explaining why he had changed his mind, tells me that he was up to skullduggery. Just because he was too faint-hearted to go through with it this time doesn’t excuse him. He might be bolder the next time.”
Rubin said, “Have you asked him to explain the northwestward business?”
Wayne hesitated. “I don’t like to. Suppose there is some explanation. The fact that I would ask him about it would indicate that I didn’t trust him, and that would spoil our relationship. My having waited so long makes it worse. If I ask now, it would mean I have brooded about it all year, and I’m sure he would resign in resentment. On the other hand, I can’t think what explanation he might have, and my not asking him leaves me unable to relax in his presence. I find I am always keyed up and waiting for him to try again.”
Rubin said, “Then it seems that if you don’t ask him, but convince yourself he’s guilty, your relationship is ruined. And if you do ask him and he convinces you he’s innocent, your relationship is ruined . . . What if you don’t ask him, but convince yourself he is innocent?”
“That would be fine,” said Wayne, “but how? I would love to do so. When I think of my long and close association with Alfred Pennyworth, Cecil’s uncle, I feel I owe something to the nephew—but I must have an explanation and I don’t dare ask for it.”
Drake said, “Since Tom Trumbull knows about all this—what do you say about it, Tom?”
Wayne interposed. “Tom says I should forget all about it.”
Trumbull said, “That’s right. Cecil might have been so ashamed of his needless panic that he just can’t talk about it.”
“But he did talk about it,” said Wayne, heatedly. “He casually admitted that he might have been mistaken about being pursued, and did so as soon as I got home. Why didn’t he apologize to me and express regret for the trouble he had put me to.”
“Maybe that’s what he can’t talk about,” said Trumbull.
“Ridiculous. What do I do? Wait for a deathbed confession? He’s twenty-two years younger than I am, and he’ll outlive me.”
“Then,” said Avalon, “if we’re to clear the air between you, we must find some natural explanation that would account for his having told you he was heading northwestward and that would also account for his having failed to express regret over the trouble he put you to.”
“Exactly,” said Wayne, “but to explain both at once is impossible. I defy you to.”
The silence that followed endured for quite a while until Rubin said, “And you won’t accept embarrassment as an explanation for his failure to express regret.”
“Of course not.”
“And you won’t ask him.”
“No, I won’t,” said Wayne, biting off the remark with decision.
“And you find having him in your employ under present conditions is wearisome and nerve-wracking.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you don’t want to fire him, either.”
“No. For old Alfred’s sake, I don’t.”
“In that case,” said Rubin, gloomily, “you have painted yourself into a corner, Mr. Wayne. I don’t see how you can get out of it.”
“I still say,” growled Trumbull, “that you ought to forget about it, Bruce. Pretend it never happened.”
“That’s more than I can do, Tom,” said Wayne, frowning.
“Then Manny is right,” said Trumbull. “You can’t get out of the hole you’re in.”
Rubin looked about the table. “Tom and I say Wayne can’t get out of this impasse. What about the rest of you?”
Avalon said, “What if a third party—”
“No,” said Wayne, instantly. “I won’t have anyone else discussing this with Cecil. This is strictly between him and me.”
Avalon shook his head. “Then I’m stuck, too.”
“It would appear,” said Rubin, looking about the table, “that none of the Black Widowers can help you.”
“None of the Black Widowers seated at the tabl
e,” said Gonzalo, “but we haven’t asked Henry yet. He’s our waiter, Mr. Wayne, and you’d be surprised at his ability to work things out. Henry!”
“Yes, Mr. Gonzalo,” said Henry, from his quiet post at the sideboard.
“You heard everything. What do you think Mr. Wayne ought to do?”
“I agree with Mr. Trumbull, sir. I think that Mr. Wayne should forget the matter.”
Wayne rolled his eyes upward and shook his head firmly.
“However,” Henry went on. “I have a specific reason for suggesting it, one that perhaps Mr. Wayne will agree with.”
“Good,” said Gonzalo. “What is it, Henry?”
“Mr. Pennyworth, under the impression he had told you he was flying to New York, said he would see you soon—meaning, in New York. And he hung up suddenly because his plane probably announced, at that moment, that it was ready for boarding.”
“Good Lord!” said Wayne.
“Exactly, sir. Then when Mr. Pennyworth got home and found you had been to North Dakota, he could honestly see no connection between that and anything he might have done, so that it never occurred to him to apologize for his actions. He couldn’t have asked you why you had gone to North Dakota; as a servant, it wasn’t his place to. Had you explained of your own accord, he would have understood the confusion and would undoubtedly have apologized for contributing to it, but you remained silent.”
“Good Lord!” said Wayne, a second time. Then, energetically, “I have spent over a year making myself miserable over nothing at all. There’s no question about it. Batman has made a terrible mistake.”
“Batman,” said Henry, “has, as you yourself have pointed out, the great advantage, and the occasional disadvantage, of being only human.”
Daddy’s Girl
William F. Nolan
From Robin’s Casebook . . .
It was a solo night job.
Bruce had gone to Washington to deliver a lecture on the economic affairs at a business convention, and had asked me to stay here in Gotham. My job was nailing the Tomcat, a very sharp jewel thief who was hitting all the wealthy West Side mansions in the hours past midnight, one each night, and cleaning them out. There were a lot of very angry Gotham City citizens demanding his arrest, but the police had never been able to catch sight of him let alone arrest him. Nabbing the fellow, with Batman gone, was my responsibility.
“As you know, a prowling cat tends to follow a proscribed route,” Batman had reminded me. “So all we have to do, in order to figure out where our Tomcat will prowl next, is to counter-triangulate the area of his previous robberies, feed in the fixed coordinates of his probable strike area, and we’ll have it narrowed to a one-block target.”
When Batman pulls off stuff like this he reminds me of Sherlock Holmes—but ol’ Sherlock never had a Bat-computer to work with. Ours produced a one-block area readout, mansion by mansion, so all we had to do was to set up a stakeout in that area and wait for the Tomcat to show.
“Up to you to nail this Tomcat’s tail to the fence,” he told me.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make him yowl,” I promised.
So here I was on my solo night job. I’d come in the Batmobile, but had sent it back to the Batcave; I didn’t want our catman to spot it in the area. The directional computer took it back without any problem—like sending a good horse home to the stable.
Now I was on the hunt, hugging the tree shadows along Forest Avenue, using the InfraBatscope to scan the buildings for possible Tomcat activity. A full spring moon was riding above Gotham City, painting rooftops and sidewalks with glimmering sliver. A lovely night for action.
I was glad to be out here under the sky on a hunt instead of being stuck in Washington the way Batman was. Despite all the years of crook-catching the thrill of the hunt had never diminished. On a night like this my blood raced and my whole body was on alert—every muscle tensed and ready for combat. For a true crimefighter, what else was there to live for?
That was when I saw him—the Tomcat, clawing his way up a vine toward the roof of a mansion, a big Victorian structure set well back from the street and almost buried in trees.
I muttered “Gotcha!”—heading for the mansion’s black iron fence. I was up and over, sprinting for the tall side of the house rising ahead of me like a white iceberg under the moon. I moved over the grass, shadow-quick, without sound, and he had no idea I was coming for him.
I scrambled up to the roof, reaching it just in time to spot Mr. Tomcat crouched next to a skylight, trying to jimmy the lock with a crowbar. He was a tall string-bean of a guy, all in black, sporting a black stovepipe hat and black leather gloves—and he had a sharp, beaked profile that reminded me of the Penguin. Apparently he figured nobody was home since he sure wasn’t trying to be subtle about getting inside.
I padded across the roof, smiling, sure of the game. Bagging this particular feline was going to be a cinch.
I was wrong. When I was just two feet away from him he whipped up his head, let out a venomous cat hiss, and lunged at me with the heavy crowbar—which wouldn’t have given me any trouble if my right foot hadn’t snagged on a loose shingle, throwing me off balance.
The Tomcat’s crowbar slammed into me across the chest, and I went crashing, head first, through the glass skylight. I felt myself falling through space. Then, a big crash, and darkness.
Pitch-black darkness.
What I saw next was a delicate white face floating above me—the face of a beautiful young woman with round, dark, startled eyes like the eyes of a fawn in the forest.
“Hello,” she said in a voice as soft as her eyes. “Does your body flesh hurt?”
An odd question. “My . . . body flesh?” Things were coming into focus around me. I was in a large bedroom, her bedroom most likely, since it was all pink and flouncy. And the young lady was also in pink, the kind of wide-skirted lacy Victorian dress you’d wear to a costume ball.
I tried to sit up. “Ouch!” I groaned, clutching my side. “It does hurt.”
Which is when I realized I was wearing white silk pajamas. My cape and mask and clothes were gone! This was serious, since no one in Gotham City was ever supposed to see Robin without his mask. Batman was going to be plenty sore at me for this!
“Who are you?” I asked the girl.
“Sue-Ellen,” she said softly.
“Sue-Ellen who?”
She flushed. “I don’t have a last name. Sometimes I don’t even feel like a real person. I mean, real people have last names—and Father has never told me what mine is.”
“It would be the same as his,” I pointed out.
“But I don’t know that either. I just call him Father.” She blinked at me. “What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . I’m not authorized to reveal my true identity”
Her eyes were wide. “Are you with the FBI?”
“No. But I do fight crime.”
“Is that why you were wearing a mask?” She had long blond hair framing the oval of her face; the moonlight from the window made it shine like a halo.
I adjusted the pillow, sitting up straight. “Haven’t you seen my picture in the papers?”
“I don’t ever see newspapers. Or magazines either. Father won’t allow them in the house.”
She’d caught me in full costume—and Robin had been on TV plenty of times. “You must have seen me on television?”
“We don’t have television here,” she said. Then she smiled for the first time and she was radiant. I was stunned by her pale beauty.
This surreal conversation was getting nowhere; it was time to end it. “I must leave now,” I told her. “How long have I been here?”
“About ten hours. But you can’t leave. Nobody ever leaves this house but Father. And he’s away now. Far, far away.”
“No, really,” I said, “I must go. Just get me the clothes I had on when you found me.”
She shook her head. “I want you to stay here with me. You’re the first flesh person I
’ve ever known, except for Father.”
“Look, Sue-Ellen,” I said, sliding my legs over the edge of the bed. “I really appreciate what you’ve done for me—fixing up my rib and all—but I have to leave immediately” I stood up. “Even if I have to walk out of here in a pair of silk pajamas.”
“Gork will stop you,” she declared. “I told him that you should stay.” And she snapped her fingers.
A huge seven-footer appeared in the bedroom door. He had a flat gray face and eyes without pupils and wore a seamless gray uniform. He looked strong—but I was sure I could handle him.
“I’ll have to clobber your big pal if he gets in my way” I told the girl. “Tell him to move back from the door.”
“Gork is my friend. He does what I ask. He won’t allow you to leave.”
I was in no mood to argue the point. I just lowered my head and charged. Hitting him was like slamming into a brick wall. And trying to punch him was hopeless. My blows had no effect.
Then Gork put his hands on me. Like two steel meat hooks.
“Don’t hurt him, Gork,” said Sue-Ellen. “Just put him back in bed.”
The big lug did that. And he tucked me in like a three-year-old. All without changing expression.
“You can go now,” the girl told him.
He shambled out of the room.
“He’s not human, is he?”
“Of course not,” she said. “No one in this house is human, except for me. And Father—when he’s home.”
“What is Gork?”
“Mostly, he’s made of metal. When I was very young Father got interested in the science of robotics. He’s quite brilliant, and has many interests. He began to experiment with metal people. Robots. That’s what Gork is—and he’s identical to a dozen others that Father had constructed to take care of me. But Gork is the only one I really like.” She moved very close, leaning over the bed. “May I touch your face?”
“Uh . . . sure, I guess so.”
The Further Adventures of Batman Page 23
