Tales of the Shadowmen 1: The Modern Babylon

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  The older man sighed and puffed smoke from his pipe. “I always seem to get on better with villains than with respectable people–like magistrates! And speaking of villains… How do you propose to set about finding this Willie Santana?”

  “I already started. Apart from being a killer, a kidnapper, a robber and a hood, Willie’s just your average American tourist. He’s on the loose in Gay Paree with his pockets full of dollars and he ain’t gonna be hitting the monuments and museums. He’ll turn up somewhere where there’s drinks and dames–somewhere just like this.”

  “Do you realize how many places just like this there are in Montmartre alone?”

  “So I see a lotta strip shows and drink a lotta Bourbon–a tough job but someone’s gotta do it. Unless I get lucky…” He tensed. “Jules, I think I just got lucky.”

  A tall man in evening dress had just lurched into the club, a bedraggled girl on each arm. He was loose-limbed and gangling with a long, comical face.

  The American sprang to his feet and strode across the floor to meet him.

  “Willie! Long time no see!”

  The tall men flung off the two girls, freeing his arms. “Lemmy! I shoulda smelled the stink of Fed when I came through the door.”

  “Let’s not be unfriendly, Willie. I came all the way to Paris to escort you back to the States. I hope you haven’t spent all that ransom money.” His hand moved inside his coat as he spoke, but suddenly there was a gun in the gangling man’s hand. A big gun.

  “I see you changed your tailor, Willie.”

  “I changed my gun as well. I don’t make the same mistake twice. This is a .45, Lemmy. It’ll blow you apart. This is it, G-man.”

  Something spun across the room and struck the tall man on the shoulder. It was a heavy champagne bottle. He staggered a little as he fired and the shot went wide, shattering a wall-mirror. Women screamed. Before Santana could raise the gun, the other sprang forward and struck. There was an audible crack and the gangling man crumpled to the floor.

  His attacker looked down at him. “Waddya know, I busted his jaw again!” He looked back at the table. “Thanks, Jules.”

  “De rien.” The pipe-smoker snapped his fingers and two men in raincoats came through the door. “Lucas, Torrence, escort Monsieur Santana to Headquarters, by way of the Infirmary. Take his gun with you. Oh, and find out where he was staying and get a warrant to search the premises.” He turned to the thick-set man. “Sorry about all this, Fred, it’s all over.” He turned to the younger man who was rubbing his knuckles. “I am sorry to cut short your stay in Paris, Lemmy, but we don’t tolerate people like that here. Let’s celebrate your success. Fred, some champagne. Real champagne, mind…”

  We found the loot in the mattress at Willie’s hotel and he’s currently residing in the Tombs, waiting for a trip to the hot seat. So that was my trip to Gay Paree, short and sweet. And I’m telling you mugs, I learned one thing. That big French cop just ain’t nearly as sleepy as he looks…

  Guy d’Armen’s Doc Ardan, a 1928 proto-Doc Savage whom no one would have remembered had it not been for a 1973 anthology devoted to the Golden Age of French science fiction, has gained a new lease on life thanks to our 2004 translation of City of Gold and Lepers. Win Scott Eckert, the very soul of the New Wold Newton Meteoritic Society, latched onto the character to depict what might have happened 20 years later…

  Win Scott Eckert: The Vanishing Devil

  Prologue: New York, 1949

  In an empty penthouse suite on the 86th floor of the grandest skyscraper in New York, the telephone rang five times before the line clicked over. Inside a cherry-paneled box in the telephone alcove, a mechanical arm lifted the receiver. A pre-recorded vinyl disk was inserted against one needle, while a fresh wax cylinder was inserted and aligned with another.

  A voice began reciting, “This is the Doctor. Please speak–”

  “Doctor Ardan! This is Louise–”

  “–into the receiver loudly and clearly enunciate your words. State the nature of your business and how we may contact you. Your message will be recorded and immediately conveyed to the Doctor or one of his associates. Thank you. Begin speaking now.”

  “Doctor Ardan–Francis! This is Louise Ducharme. My daughter, Justine, has disappeared!”

  Sussex, 1949

  Doctor Francis Ardan reflected that the Great Detective was quite spry for a man of 95 years. The tall, lean, grey-eyed man moved freely about the cottage, filling leather-bound footlockers with books, clothing and other personal items.

  Ardan had been in London for a scientific conference and had taken the opportunity to visit his old mentor. Or rather, one of his former mentors who had participated in the strange training program devised for him by his father. The program had been instituted from Doc’s birth and was designed to create a superman capable of tracking down and defeating evil all over the world.

  There had been many others involved in his preparation for the fight against the criminal element. Professor Kennedy, who had instructed him in scientific detection. The sallow Frenchman, M. Senak, who had taught him the trick of temporarily paralyzing an attacker by pinching the nerves where neck met shoulder. Wentworth, who, along with Indian fakirs, had coached him in adding or subtracting six inches from his height. The list went on. Of all, though, Ardan reserved his highest admiration for the hawk-nosed man bounding about the Sussex cottage.

  Now, observing the elderly Detective, and considering his mastery of disguise, Ardan wondered if the excessive wrinkles and liver spots weren’t a sham. However, by unspoken agreement, Ardan had never pried into the Detective’s beekeeping activities, even when he was a boy brimming with curiosity. In turn, his former instructor in the fine art of detection and deduction had never inquired into Ardan’s synthesis of the African Kavuru elixir received from their mutual cousin.

  As the Detective packed the trunks, Ardan finished relating details how he and a masked vigilante called the Yellow Jacket had disrupted the annual assassin’s auction being held in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

  “And you?” the bronze man asked, finishing his story. “Where are you off to this time, sir?”

  “Tibet, Ardan.” The Detective tossed a copy of The British Bee Journal in a bag and sat down on the divan, curling his legs under him like a cat. “An extended stay. I’m afraid you arrived just on the eve of our departure. Russell is up in the City, finalizing our legal and financial arrangements with M.”

  “I’m sorry for dropping in unannounced, sir. The neuroscience conference in London ended earlier than expected.”

  “Not at all, not at all. You know you are always welcome here, my dear Francis.” The older man’s grey eyes twinkled.

  “It’s been a long time since I went by ‘Francis Ardan.’ ” In fact, it was the name he had used a boy, when he had spent summers being coached by various experts on the Continent while living with his great aunt Michelle Ardan; here in England learning the fine art of detection from the Master, as well as Thorndyke and Blake; and later still when adventuring in Asia in the 1920s. “The only ones who still call me that are you and Lupin.”

  The Great Detective’s eyebrow arched at the mention of the notorious thief, with whom he had finally made his peace some years before, but the ringing telephone cut off his retort.

  “Hallo? Yes? Yes, Violet, tonight will be fine. Yes, we depart at first light tomorrow. Very well. Yes, goodbye.” He wrapped his mouse-colored dressing gown around him, curled up again, and started to fill his clay pipe with a foul smelling shag. “My niece, Violet, you know. Recently widowed, she was married to one of M’s men. She’s letting the cottage in our absence with her son, Clive. Dickson will keep an eye on them for M while we’re gone.”

  The Great Detective lit the pipe, inhaled deeply and continued to speak when the telephone rang again.

  “Confound it,” he said, borrowing a phrase, “what does she want now?”

  On the other end of the line, a mechanical voice intoned
, “Important message for the Doctor. Important message for the Doctor. Important message–”

  Bemused, he handed the receiver to Ardan. “Apparently this is for you.”

  Ardan took the telephone. “This is the Doctor.”

  As Ardan spoke, an audible click indicated that his voice had been recognized, and over a trans-Atlantic hiss, a tinny message recorded on a wax cylinder in New York began to play back.

  “Doctor Ardan–Francis! This is Louise Ducharme. My daughter, Justine, has disappeared from her laboratory above Le Chateau Mireille club! All the doors and windows were locked from the inside, and there’s no trace of her! If you get this message, please come to Paris immediately. I’ve been instructed not to contact the authorities, but I am desperate. I’ve tried your friend, Captain Morane, but he’s away on a case. You’re my last hope. Please help me. I’m staying at–wait. That smell. Like ozone… What is that blue light–?” There was a sound of a high-pitched whine, followed by the dull thud of the phone hitting the carpeted floor, after which the message ended abruptly and the line clicked off.

  “That’s quite ingenious,” the Detective said as Ardan hung up the telephone. “How did the machine know to ring you here?”

  But Doc didn’t answer the question. Instead, he asked, “Would you contact M, or his successor if necessary? I need a favor.”

  Doc Ardan was not sure he would ever become accustomed to jet travel. His first supersonic flight over a year ago was marked by the eerie silence associated with faster-than-sound flight. This craft was not supersonic, but was close enough.

  The RAF pilot, Major Roger Gunn, had shown him around the two-seater plane, a de Havilland DH 113 Vampire NF Mark 10, before takeoff. The British military were testing this prototype, which had a maximum speed of 545 mph at 30,000 feet, and a range of 1,200 miles. Although the dual tail craft was a night fighter, Doc’s reputation and years of fighting wrongs across the globe had led the British government– and it had been said occasionally that M was the British government–to place the Vampire and her pilot at Ardan’s disposal for the hop to Paris.

  Periodically through the short flight, Major Gunn had attempted to break the monotony by drawing Doc into conversation, regaling him with anecdotes of his recent holiday at the estate of the 14th Earl of Marnock.

  “The Lord of the Manor is a real gentleman, that he is. And of course the estate, Greensleeves, is kept up impeccably. But that boy of his, Brett, is a bit of a wild one. Oxford lad. Turn in the Service would do him good. Do you know the family, sir?”

  “No,” Doc replied.

  Gunn was quiet for a bit, and then tried again, telling Doc about his plans to eventually retire and move his family to Kenya.

  “Even at three months old, I can already tell that my boy James is going to be a real strapper. Do you have any children, Doctor?”

  This time, Doc didn’t even reply, but Gunn wasn’t offended. Doc’s mind was clearly elsewhere and the two lapsed into a companionable silence.

  As they entered French airspace, Major Gunn reduced thrust to the DH Goblin 3 turbojet engine, and the Vampire began to descend. Nearing Villacoublay airfield, Ardan and Gunn simultaneously noticed several dark blobs materialize in the sky above them. The plane descended, and the blobs tumbled down along with them, finally coalescing into what appeared to be large chunks of dirt, rock and pavement flying through the sky.

  “Taking evasive action!” the RAF man said as he swung the fighter around in a tight arc. The hunks of rock missed the jet by an uncomfortable margin and continued speeding downward to rain on the ground.

  “Damn. What the hell was that? They came out of nowhere!”

  “Yes,” Ardan agreed. “They certainly did.”

  As the plane approached the military airfield, both occupants noticed what appeared to be giant gaping holes in the runway. The plane pulled up and began to circle for a new landing approach.

  “I’m being directed to a different runway,” Gunn explained to Doc. “Seems there’s construction or some such on our original landing strip.”

  As the plane began its second approach, several large dark spots appeared in the new runway. From this distance, they looked like small potholes on an upcoming stretch of highway, but both men knew that the dark spots would prove significantly more dangerous to their small craft if they tried to land.

  “Aborting,” Gunn said as the thrust increased once more and the Vampire pulled up–right into the path of more tumbling chunks of concrete and debris. Swinging violently aside, Gunn and Ardan’s plane barely avoided being pummeled as the pavement flew past them.

  However, one large mass of rock remained directly in their flight path. Gunn reacted instantly, firing the Vampire’s four 20mm nose cannon and blasting the chunk into tiny fragments though which the plane blazed.

  “I suggest landing as soon as possible,” Ardan said. “We’re not going to be able to avoid this flying debris forever, and if the intakes get clogged...”

  “I’m way ahead of you, sir.” Gunn brought the plane around fast and headed for the nearest undamaged runway, this time landing at Villacoublay without incident.

  As the fighter slowed and taxied toward a cluster of outbuildings, an official French police vehicle came alongside. The plane stopped and Gunn popped the canopy. Ardan exited the plane at the same time that a middle-aged man in an overcoat and fedora exited the car.

  “Doctor Francis Ardan?” the policeman inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “I am Inspector Maigret of the Sûreté.” Maigret displayed his identification to the bronze man. “I must speak with you immediately. In private. Will you come with me, please?”

  Doc dryly thanked Major Gunn for the interesting flight and entered the Inspector’s vehicle. Maigret promptly sped away, dodging the gaping fissures in the pavement which looked as if they had been smoothly dug out of the ground, as if with an ice cream scoop.

  “Doctor, do you have any idea how these giant craters in the runway came to be?” the Inspector asked.

  “It appears that the rubble we were dodging as we tried to land came from the holes,” Doc replied.

  “But how is this possible?” asked Maigret with disbelief.

  Instead, Doc responded with questions of his own. “What is this about, Inspector? Why did you meet me at the airfield?”

  In reply, Maigret handed Ardan a slip of paper. “I received this very strange note this morning. It did not come by normal post. I had momentarily turned away, studying a case file, and when I turned back, the note was spiraling down through the air to land upon my desk. When I noticed this, I went to my office door and checked the hall, but there was no one. My office is situated such that I surely would have seen a messenger, and yet as I say there was nobody. This would have been extraordinary enough, but the contents of the note were even more peculiar, especially given what we both have just witnessed.” He gestured that Ardan should read the note, and drove on.

  My dear Inspector Maigret [the note began]–

  Please excuse the unusual nature of this missive’s delivery, but I implore you to treat it with the utmost seriousness. You will note the impending arrival this a.m. at Villacoublay airfield of Doctor Francis Ardan of New York City. He will arrive via RAF jet, and though he shall encounter some small difficulties upon landing, I trust he shall arrive intact. It is not my intent to discourage the good Doctor’s advent in Paris. Far from it. Rather, this morning’s unique exhibition should demonstrate to you both my utter power over this situation, and the futility of any opposition.

  You shall meet the Doctor’s plane immediately upon his arrival. You shall not notify your colleagues or anyone else of the contents of this message, with the exception of Doctor Ardan. You shall immediately escort Doctor Ardan to the clinic on the Rue Mouffetard–you know the clinic to which I refer–and leave him there.

  Do not deviate from these instructions in the slightest. The fate of two brilliant women depends on it. I would very much reg
ret depriving the world of their future scientific contributions. Ardan understands.

  Doctor Natas

  The stone-walled chamber was smoke-filled, scented with a hint of jasmine incense. The lavish Oriental decor reminded Louise Ducharme of her time in Shanghai, China, when she was a researcher at the School of Medicine.

  “Welcome to my humble clinic, Doctors.” A man with the face of a devil, resplendent in his silk robes, emerged and ensconced himself in what was essentially a small throne. He fixed his diabolical gaze on mother and daughter, Louise and Justine Ducharme.

  Louise visibly blanched.

  “Yes, Doctor Ducharme, it is I,” came the sibilant reply. “It has been a long time. But not so long, I see, that you forget your former opponent. I am honored.” He turned to the younger woman.

  “Doctor Ducharme–I shall call you Justine, in order to distinguish from your honored mother–Justine, I will come straight to the point. You are a recognized expert in theoretical physics, specifically the disassembly, transmission and reassembly of solid objects. Your experiments with Professor Rushton are legendary among my scientists, and I expect great things from him. But you are in Paris, and he is not. Thus, your presence here.”

  “Professor Rushton!” Justine exclaimed. “But that research is classified!”

  “My dear, nothing is hidden, nor remains hidden, if I wish it to be revealed. You, Mademoiselle, have knowledge which I require, expertise in the area of accurately directing and controlling the integrity of the matter transmission over large distances. You shall be escorted to my laboratory, where you will consult with several other professionals in my service. They will brief you on the precise information which we require from you. Your mother is here to ensure your cooperation. That is all.”