Horror Wears Blue Read online

  “Your people are certain that the man was not inebriated at the time?” inquired Zarkon.

  Gideon’s voice rang with earnestness.

  “Not a chance of it, sir! The man was examined for the possible effects of alcohol or narcotics, and came off with a clean bill from the medics.”

  “His mental balance ...?”

  “A psychiatrist spoke with him at length. Higgins was in a state of shock, seems to have had the scare of a lifetime, but he’s as rational as you or I.”

  “Watching one’s bullets bounce off an unprotected human body would naturally be unsettling,” assented Zarkon. “I presume the man was a good shot? I know it is generally not the custom of your police to carry firearms —”

  “But they are trained, and periodically tested, in their use,” supplied the voice at the other end. “Higgins regularly tested in the sharpshooter category. He was a dead shot.”

  “I see,” murmured Zarkon. Gideon spoke up, a note of repressed excitement behind his measured tones.

  “That was not the only reason for Higgins’ trauma, sir,” he said. “There was one detail we suppressed. The case was bizarre enough, without releasing this additional element of sheer lunacy to the newspapers. They would have had glorious fun with it.”

  “What is it the papers did not report?”

  “Higgins got a good look at the man he shot. Not only was the fellow dressed in a blue suit — of a rather odd shade, incidentally: powder blue, it’s called — but the man was entirely blue from head to foot.”

  “ ‘Entirely blue,’ ” Zarkon repeated slowly.

  “Yes. Face, hands, throat, even his hair and his eyes. Including the whites of the eyes. And the teeth!”

  Zarkon frowned slightly.

  “Perhaps the thief was wearing some sort of transparent face mask, tinted blue,” he suggested. Gideon sounded positive on this item.

  “Higgins saw the man close up, under a strong light,” he said. “And, in anticipation of your next question, sir, Higgins has superb eyesight for a man of retirement age. He does not wear eyeglasses.”

  “I see,” said Zarkon slowly. Then, having reached a decision, he said:

  “Assistant Commissioner, do you mind if my organization takes a hand in this investigation?”

  Relief was audible in Gideon’s voice.

  “We should all be very much obliged to you, sir,” he said huskily.

  “We will arrive shortly, then,” said Zarkon, and hung up.

  Zarkon hung up the instrument and turned to Mendel Lowell Parker, who stood near. The bright eyes of the wizened little scientist were excited and inquisitive.

  “Menlo, will you summon everyone into the library? We have some work ahead of us,” said Zarkon. Menlo grinned and picked up the intercom.

  “Oboyoboyoboy!” breathed Scorchy Muldoon to his pal and major feuding partner, Nick Naldini. “Action at last!”

  “And about time, too,” agreed the former stage magician in fervent tones.

  CHAPTER 3 — Zarkon’s Challenge

  When Prince Zarkon was finished briefing his five aides on their newest mission, Menlo Parker spoke up. (His full name, of course, was Mendel Lowell Parker, but the bony little scientist had been so often compared to the famous Thomas Alva Edison of Menlo Park, New Jersey, that the obvious possibilities of a pun in his name had been seized upon years before.)

  “Say, Chief, wouldn’t this be a perfect opportunity to test out the new guns?” he inquired.

  Zarkon looked thoughtful.

  “That’s a good idea, Menlo,” he agreed quietly. “I presume that you refer to the ‘L-pistols?’ ”

  “Yep,” said the scientist.

  The rest of the Omega team didn’t know what Menlo and Prince Zarkon were talking about, but wisely refrained from asking any dumb questions. They knew their mysterious leader well, and all his quirks and habits. If Zarkon wished to impart certain information to them, he would do so of his own volitions. And if he did not, then he had a trick of seeming not to hear a question on the subject.

  They began to pack for the trip to London.

  While the rest of the Omega men were busied at this task, Zarkon placed another satellite call to Sir George Gideon at Scotland Yard. They discussed at length certain arrangements which the Crime-Crusader desired Gideon to make at his end.

  Then Prince Zarkon did something that was not only unusual and downright unprecedented, but also entirely out of character for him.

  He called a press conference.

  Naturally, the reporters flocked to Omega headquarters on the Upper West Side of Knickerbocker City. Such an opportunity to query the Man of Mystery seldom, if ever, came their way. And they were heartily intrigued by the novelty of the event.

  “I thought he never — but never — let himself or his gang be interviewed by us reporters,” muttered the man from the Daily Sentinel to his opposite number on a famous weekly newsmagazine.

  “He doesn’t,” replied the other man succinctly.

  “Then why is he doing it this time?”

  “Beats me, pal, but I suspect that we’re about to find out. ’Cause here he comes now.”

  The reporters had gathered in the living room of the headquarters of Omega, a single building which occupied an entire square block, although the street sides were faced with false facades to make the impregnable fortress-like building seem exactly the same as any other block of ordinary brownstone residences.

  It was luxuriously appointed, that large room. The flooring was covered with lush carpets, the walls lined with bookshelves wherein stood row on row of impressive tomes covering every aspect of criminology and all of the “hard” sciences.

  Here and there about the walls hung priceless paintings. They were original pictures by such famous artists as Rouault, van Gogh, Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and Joan Miró.

  Deep, comfortable sofas were drawn up before a marble fireplace. It was on these that most of the reporters were seated, fidgeting with suspense to discover what Zarkon had in mind.

  One of the tall bookcases concealed a doorway; it swung open noiselessly, on carefully counterweighted gimbals, and Zarkon entered the living room and greeted the reporters quietly.

  The man who had summoned them hither was of average height and indeterminate age. To the eye, he seemed no older than perhaps his late thirties. Tanned and fit, casually dressed in gunmetal gray slacks and jacket, with a wine-red turtleneck pullover and gray suede shoes, he certainly did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary. But he was.

  Very few men either knew or could guess his actual age, which was far more than met the eye; even fewer knew the mystery of his secret origin, or the compelling reasons which had motivated him to devote his life to a relentless battle against supercrime.

  His features impassive, his black, magnetic gaze catching every eye, he would have seemed unobtrusive and very normal, had you not known his remarkable career against criminal masterminds around the globe. These adventures had taken him and his five lieutenants to many exotic distant lands before this: now, as he was about to inform the newsmen, it would be taking them to London, which none of the men of the Omega team had visited for several years.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. I am gratified that you could attend this small press conference. Please make yourself comfortable, and if any of you would care for a cocktail, I am sure that Chandra Lal will be happy to oblige you,” said Zarkon, nodding at the tall, impressive and turbaned figure of his Hindu servant, who stood by the door, awaiting orders.

  None of the reporters was thirsty — which may seem a trifle unusual, given the known habits of reporters. The fact was, a burning curiosity had driven all thoughts of alcoholic beverages from their minds.

  Questions began popping, but Zarkon lifted one hand in a plea for silence.

  Then, in quiet, well-chosen words, he briefly informed the newsmen of his intention of flying to London that very day with his five aides, to investigate the mystery of the Blue Me
n, whose sinister appearance and amazing invulnerability had most of the free world agog.

  “We shall, of course, enjoy the fullest cooperation of New Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police in our endeavors,” said Zarkon, finishing his brief speech. “Sir George Gideon, the Assistant Commissioner of the Yard, has promised me that every facility of their organization will be at our disposal. With any luck, we expect, therefore, to have cracked the case and solved the mystery within just a few days.”

  “How do you plan to do that, Your Highness?” inquired one of the reporters with just a shade of skepticism in his voice.

  “Yeah,” drawled another reporter from a big metropolitan daily. “How do you figure to capture crooks that bullets bounce off of?”

  Zarkon smiled slightly.

  “We expect very little trouble in apprehending these oddly colored criminals,” he said. “In our considered opinion, the accounts of their invulnerability which we have all read in the popular press are wildly exaggerated.”

  “But how —”

  “Don’t you feel —”

  “Just what precautions have you —”

  But Zarkon again stilled the babble of questions with a lifted palm. He smiled politely.

  “Thank you very much for your time, gentlemen, but that is all that I have to say at the present time. I appreciate your coming here on such short notice. Now, my colleagues and myself have many things to do in preparation for our flight this afternoon. Chandra Lal, will you be good enough to show these gentlemen out?”

  With that, Zarkon turned and passed through the concealed door in the wall. The fake bookcase swung shut and locked with a click. There was nothing else for the reporters to do but leave.

  Outside on the street, hailing cabs, the man from the Daily Sentinel glanced at the man from the famous weekly newsmagazine.

  “We forgot to ask Zarkon why he called a press conference in the first place,” he said.

  “So we did, by golly! Maybe Zarkon just wanted everybody to know that he and his crew were on the Blue Men case to, you know, sort of reassure the British public that something was being done about the mystery.”

  “Maybe,” said the other reporter thoughtfully. “And maybe not. Sounds to me like the Prince was sort of challenging them Blue Men, taunting them or something like that, hoping to draw ’em out in the open.”

  “I dunno,” confessed the other man, stepping into the waiting cab. “But that wouldn’t be such a dumb idea, now would it?”

  “Nope,” agreed the other reporter cheerfully. “Trust Zarkon to know exactly what he’s doing. That guy hasn’t failed yet!”

  “No, but I guess there’s always a first time,” responded the other man. “Can I drop you off at your office?”

  “You sure can, pal,” said the other. “I just about got time to write my story and get it in the early afternoon edition.”

  They drove away, speeding to their respective typewriters.

  Not much more than an hour or so later, the first newspapers to contain an account of Zarkon’s press conference hit the streets.

  Unexpectedly, the newspaper stories carried an additional item of information which Zarkon had either inadvertently let slip, or had deliberately revealed.

  That was the time of his departure and the estimated time of his arrival at Heathrow Airport outside of London.

  This was odd. You would have figured that Zarkon wouldn’t want such information widely known.

  But, then, maybe he had good reasons for letting the information be known ...

  CHAPTER 4 — Enter the Vulture

  The small, stifling room was entirely plunged in darkness, relieved only by the light of a gooseneck lamp which cast a pool of brilliance upon the top of an old-fashioned rolltop desk. Papers and a small spiral-bound notebook were arranged with neat precision atop the desk.

  The man who leaned forward into the light to study the notebook was of extraordinary appearance: tall, gaunt, with stooped shoulders and long-fingered, bony hands, his lean figure was draped in an ill-fitting suit of sober black cloth, rather like that worn by small town undertakers in cheap movies.

  A few strands of lank, colorless hair were pasted to a bony, balding brow; hooded eyes of fathomless black peered from under beetling and hairy brows. Between them thrust forth a remarkable proboscis of a nose which made this individual strongly resemble a carrion bird of prey.

  He was homely to a degree seldom seen.

  A telephone tinkled discreetly. The gaunt, stooped man with the vulpine features put the receiver to his ear.

  “This is the Vulture speaking,” he rasped in a croaking, hoarse voice. Given his predatory appearance and hunched shoulders, the pseudonym was quite apt.

  He listened for a few moments to the voice on the other end of the wire without interrupting. Then:

  “You are quite certain, Number Two, that Prince Zarkon and the men of his Omega organization are departing for London expressly for the purpose of investigating the ‘Blue Men’ robberies?”

  The voice on the other end replied: “There is no question, Vulture; Zarkon has just given out a press release to that effect. He intends to depart in his private jetliner at one o’clock this afternoon, Knickerbocker City time. Given the reputed speed of his plane, he and his lieutenants will be arriving at Heathrow” — and here the man called Number Two gave a precise estimate, London time.

  “I see,” mused the Vulture. “Keep me informed if there are any changes in Prince Zarkon’s plans, or any late developments.”

  The gaunt man hung up the telephone, hunched brooding for a time, the harsh light from the gooseneck lamp sinking his eyes in deep pools of shadow and painting pockets of blackness beneath thrusting cheekbones. Perhaps it was only the poor lighting, but the Vulture’s skin seemed dead white, like that of some creature that has not looked upon the light of day for a considerable period of time.

  After a few moments of deep thought, the Vulture reached out with one fleshless, clawlike hand, picked up the receiver and dialed a number.

  When there came a response from the other end of the line, he said: “This is the Vulture speaking. Prince Zarkon and the Omega men are expected to arrive at Heathrow Airport this evening. Mobilize your men accordingly; we will set Plan 12 in action, modified by Alternate Z. See to it.

  Then he hung up the phone and returned to his thoughtful scrutiny of the small notebook which lay open before him on the surface of the old-fashioned rolltop desk.

  In the meantime, on the other side of the world in Knickerbocker City, the Omega men were wasting no time in preparing for their new adventure. While Scorchy Muldoon and Nick Naldini were wrestling equipment cases into the back of a nondescript, dark-painted van in the basement of Omega headquarters — quarreling virulently and trading insults all the while — Zarkon and his pilot, Ace Harrigan, were studying alternate air routes, finally choosing a “great circle” route to London which would shave a few more parcels of time off their travel period.

  They had already decided to take Skyrocket for the flight. Although more than a few aircraft in Zarkon’s private fleet were equipped with transatlantic capabilities, the rocket-assisted jetliner was the fastest craft they possessed, and could actually make the flight in less time than it would have taken the famous Concorde.

  Rolling up the air charts and thrusting them in his flight bag, Ace turned a frank and handsome visage to his enigmatic leader.

  “What d’you think’s the story with these Blue Men, anyway, Chief? I mean, are they really bulletproof?” he asked.

  Zarkon, loading one of his special pistols, glanced ironically at the crack test pilot and air ace, and came as near to making a joke as Ace Harrigan had ever heard from his lips.

  Hefting the odd-looking pistol, Zarkon said: “We’ll see.”

  It had already been decided that nearly the full complement of the Omega organization would accompany Zarkon to London on this latest adventure.

  This included Scorchy Muldoon,
the feisty little Irish bantamweight prizefighter; Nick Naldini, the saturnine and laconic former stage magician and cardsharp; Menlo Parker, the scientific wizard; Doc Jenkins, the huge, slab-sided man with the incredible memory; Ace Harrigan; and, of course, the Lord of the Unknown himself.

  Only Chandra Lal, the Rajput cook and all-around majordomo of Omega would remain behind. This was over his dignified protests, of course, but Zarkon pointed out the necessity for one of their number to remain at headquarters, if only to monitor calls and take care of little Joey Weston, the newsboy who had shared their most recent adventure with them and who had since become a resident at Omega headquarters, and an unofficial member of the team.

  Zarkon did all that could be done to see that the plucky little orphan newsboy stayed out of the sort of trouble that the men of Omega usually got into, but was frequently unsuccessful in this. And although Joey raised a plea to be allowed to accompany them to London, the leader of Omega would hear none of it, and the boy knew from experience to stop pestering and keep quiet.

  Fortunately for Zarkon’s peace of mind and ability to say “no,” that determined and adventure-loving heiress, Miss Phoenicia “Fooey” Mulligan was absent from Knickerbocker City at the time, away in Connecticut spending a few weeks in the country with friends. Had the blond girl been on the scene, Zarkon would have had three sets of pleas and three different arguments to countermand.

  It had been decided that they would take the van to the secret Omega airport on Long Island, as it would have been difficult to transport the five men and their leader, as well as their luggage and the equipment cases, in any other single vehicle.

  This van, incidentally (which bore the innocuous slogan of West Side Florists emblazoned on its sides, was stronger than an armored car, with puncture proof sponge-rubber tires, and was internally braced with steel and aluminum beams, until it packed the wallop of a tank. Zarkon had no way of guessing whether or not the mysterious mastermind behind the Blue Men had an American observer on this side of the Atlantic who might decide to interfere with Omega, but the Man from Tomorrow had not survived a life of fighting supercrime as long as this by taking any chances. They departed early that afternoon.