The Further Adventures of Batman

by Martin H. Greenberg

  Closeup: Jack standing, holding the book open. We have a thought balloon that reads: “My God, a book on ripper murders that goes back to the 1800s. I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

  (4) LIBRARY

  Overhead (Bird’s-Eye) View: Jack seated at a long, wooden table, stacks of books at his right elbow, his head bent over the one he picked up from the floor. Long view of him at the table is the central focus of the panel, but as we move to the edges of the panel, it darkens. The shelves of books that surround him can be made out, but they are shadowy and appear to lean toward him, as if they are living things sneaking a peek over his shoulder. There is a large yellow caption box at the top of the panel that reads: BY THE TIME THE DAY SLID INTO NIGHT, JACK HAD MADE A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY. Within the panel itself is a thought balloon coming from Jack. “Man, what a research paper this will make.”

  FROM JACK’S JOURNAL (destroyed later by James Gordon)

  (Entry written mid-September)

  Wow, have I come across something that will make old Professor Hamrick pass out. This should be the research paper to end all research papers. It’s got your true crime, it’s got your hint of the mystical, it’s got your weird legend that can tie in with all kinds of mythology and famous murders. And ultimately, what we’re talking here, is a serious high mark on the old research paper for yours truly.

  Strikes me it might be a good idea for me to synopsis what I remember from my reading here and now, so I can get down my hotter impressions, then later when I outline the paper, I can review this and transfer those impressions to my paper. And besides, have I ever denied myself what I’m excited about by not writing it down in this journal? The answer to that is, No Sir.

  I found this book and it’s called Followers of the Razor and it was written by this guy named David Webb in the early 1900s, and he had been researching it all his life. He was kind of ahead of his time on his interest in this sort of thing, but his conclusions are a little screwy to say the least. Still, it makes fascinating reading, and he has an interesting bibliography of books and articles and interviews he draws from. I looked at some of those things when I was in the library, and since the Webb book, and the most interesting of the ones he cited, The Book of Doches—which is some old English book written in the 1600s—couldn’t be checked out, I sort of borrowed them by taking them out under my coat. When I finish my paper, I’ll return them.

  Webb’s theory is that the world we know is occasionally crossed up with other worlds, or dimensions, and this is where we get our ideas about gods and monsters, and it explains some disappearances. Seems this dimension he’s referring to is populated with all sorts of horrible people and critters. He explains the disappearance of the Mary Celeste crew this way, suggests that the murders Lizzie Borden were blamed for were committed by someone, or something, from this other dimension, which possessed and used her. He claims the same for Jack the Ripper.

  But I’ll come back to that. Let me note one of his more interesting ideas, the tying of witchcraft to mathematics, geometry, and the movement of the planets and the moon.

  He talks about this character that through the centuries has been referred to as the God of Swords, the God of Blades, and during the time he was writing, as the God of the Razor. He says this thing isn’t really a god, but a powerful being from this other dimension, and for some reason, when certain mathematical symbols are drawn up, it can open the gate to this world of his, and he can escape from it to possess someone and make them do his bidding.

  There’s this crude drawing of this dude in the Webb book, and I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, or a lighted alley for that matter. But the written description Webb gives creeps me even more. He says it’s varied a bit over the centuries, but it’s pretty much like this: The God of the Razor is very tall and broad and wears a kind of top hat (a helmet in some accounts), has a metal hat band and needles or daggers for teeth, wears human skin and human heads for shoes—has little cloven feet that fit right down into the mouths.

  Anyway, these mathematical symbols can call him up if blood is involved. He also claims that there’s a blade from this other dimension that can open the gate. Says it was once a sword but was somehow broken and made into two daggers, and later on one of the daggers turned up made into a barber’s razor and the ivory sword hilt had been made into the razor’s sheath or handle. On it are written these mathematical symbols, and if the blade tastes blood, and it doesn’t kill who it cuts, then that person is possessed by the God of the Razor and the razor becomes his instrument of destruction. It sucks blood and makes whoever is possessed a berserker. (He ties this in with the Vikings and their wild madnesses in battle.)

  Let’s see, what else. Oh, Webb says Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword, was originally from the same dimension as the God of the Razor, and that it belonged to him. He claims that this is the sword that got broken and made into a razor. (I wonder what happened to the rest of the blade.) He says that eventually the razor fell into the hands of this barber in London, and that the barber accidentally cut himself with it and the God possessed him and made him commit the murders in Whitechapel.

  Webb suggests that this possessed man may actually have died or committed suicide, but not before the razor was somehow passed into other hands. He shows evidence of similar murders throughout the U.S. right after those in London, and the last murders he records in his book end right here in Gotham City in 1904.

  And get this. His final verification is that he actually saw the God of the Razor with his own eyes, and that he and a policeman managed to dispatch the old boy. which of course freed the man possessed, but also led to his death. He says they were able to defeat the God when the moonlight was affected by cloud cover, one of the few things that dilutes the monster’s strength. I guess I should add to this that he says that they did not actually kill the God, merely dismissed him to his own dimension.

  Final bit of neato material here is that the murderer Webb claims was possessed by the God of the Razor is buried right here in Gotham City in the Old Gotham Cemetery. According to Webb, the razor was put in a metal box and buried with this fellow so that it will forever be out of the hands of man.

  If Webb had thought things through, if he really believed this razor had power, he wouldn’t have mentioned that in his book. Because eventually someone is bound to try and find out if there really is a razor in that grave. Someone like me. But maybe as a writer he just couldn’t resist telling all he knew.

  Might be the razor has already been stolen from the grave. Or perhaps the book has been thought fiction or the ramblings of a madman, as they say in all the gothic horror fiction.

  But if there is a razor, think of the kind of presentation I could make. My paper on the God of Razor, and a little bit of show and tell to go with it.

  (Entry written early October)

  From the book I’ve figured out which grave the body of the possessed man and the razor is in. Webb never comes right out and says where he’s buried, but there are enough references there, that I think I’ve narrowed it down.

  I’m going to get a shovel and go back and dig that grave up. I was a little worried about how I could walk along with a shovel without being noticed, as I figure grave robbery will not be looked upon lightly, but then I realized that in this city a man with a shovel may be a bit unusual, but nothing compared with the stuff you see every day. Besides, if the cops ask I can say I’m taking it to pawn or something. Not the best story in the world, but who’s to prove otherwise.

  (Entry next day)

  When I opened the grave, I was amazed there really was a razor. That’s what I wanted to find, but I guess a part of me thought I was being silly. But when I found that box where it was supposed to be and got it back here and opened it and found the razor, I got a case of the spooks, you know. Not that I believe the razor is the door to another dimension and will let this demon into the body of whoever is cut and doesn’t die from the would, but hey, Webb th
ought that, and there really is a razor . . .

  I’m trying to figure a way around the grave robbing angle now. If I’m going to use this for show and tell, I can’t admit I went out there and dug up a grave to get it.

  Man, that razor is sharp and bright, You wouldn’t think it would be after all this time. I figured it would be rusted to almost nothing. I guess I didn’t have a hold of it good, because when I opened it, it shifted in my hand and I slid a finger onto the blade and knicked myself. Nothing bad, but I hardly touched it. It sure does sting.

  (Entry written later that day)

  Thought about the razor all day. Was terrible in class. Didn’t get a third of the notes Professor Hamrick gave. My finger hurt like hell, and still hurts. Razor and paper cuts are the worst.

  Decided to take the razor back. Couldn’t think of a satisfactory way to explain possession of it. Besides, I don’t like it. Guess Webb’s book is getting to me. I’ll still do the paper, but without show and tell. Sooner I get rid of the razor, the better.

  (Entry written later that night)

  Carried the razor with me in the box. I walked part of the way then caught the subway over to Center Station and got off since its not too far a walk to the cemetery from there. When I got off at Center, I saw all these homeless people hanging around. I’ve always felt sorry for them, especially the bag ladies. But today I got to thinking different. There’s really nothing that can be done for them. They really shouldn’t be allowed on the street. They ought to be run in, or maybe put to sleep, like a sick dog or something. Isn’t that what we do when the animal population gets out of hand? We exterminate the strays. I keep thinking of what it would be like to . . . well, we’ve all had those kind of thoughts from time to time, haven’t we?

  When I got to the cemetery the razor sang to me. It wouldn’t go back in the tomb. It cut me through the box. I rode the subway back and it sang to me all the way. I don’t think anyone else can hear it. Just me. It sings very pretty. It has suggestions. My cut finger hurts so badly right now I can hardly write; it throbs like a blister and from time to time it opens up and bleeds.

  Need to get some sleep. All for now.

  (Last entry, mid-October)

  Webb was right. I’m not myself. The singing is louder and more frequent; the songs tell me to do things I don’t think I want to do. Can’t be clear on that. I find my thoughts and his mixing together. Makes a bad jumble. Moment ago I took a sheet of paper and pulled it over my bare legs until I had a dozen paper cuts. Can’t fathom why, unless it’s the singing making me do that. The cuts hurt so good.

  There’s a full moon tonight; the singing told me that. Told me too that the razor’s edge is the mouth of the God of the Razor and that the mouth needs feeding.

  I think about the bag ladies a lot.

  THE BATCAVE (day after meeting in James Gordon’s office)

  “Excuse me sir, I’ve brought your tray.”

  Bruce Wayne looked up from the computer screen. “Thanks, Alfred, but I’m not hungry.”

  “You asked me to prepare your dinner and bring it to you, sir.”

  “I did?”

  “You did. Said you wanted to eat down here, that you had some work to do. Now please eat the clam chowder so I won’t be inclined to break the bowl over your head, Master Bruce.”

  “Put it here and I’ll get to it.”

  “Yes, put it there. That way you can appease poor old Alfred, but you’ll leave it set and it’ll get cold, then you won’t eat it. Matters not that I’ve worked my fingers to the bone—”

  “You opened a can for this.”

  “Well, yes sir, I did, but I pinched myself on the can opener. Making headway. Master Bruce?”

  “Maybe. That clay they found. I ran it through my lab, analyzed it, and I’ve been running cross checks on it, and Jim was right.”

  “Common as dirt.”

  “A little joke, Alfred?”

  “A small one, sir.”

  “But the thing is, common as dirt—clay actually—is, there really aren’t that many places in the city it could have come from. I’m going to cross-hatch information in the computer, find all the spots closest to the city where the clay might have been picked up, and try to narrow the list from there. You see, it was carried in on the murderer’s shoes.”

  “Thank you, sir. I thought perhaps he brought it in in a parcel.”

  “I don’t mean to patronize you, Alfred.”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “It’s just that to narrow this down, to take the Sherlock Holmes approach, you determine where the clay might have come from and—”

  “This last murder, sir . . . all the murders. They occurred at Center Station, did they not?”

  “Yes, but it’s the clay I’m concerned with. That’s what—”

  “The location of the murders is not too terribly far from the Old Gotham City Cemetery, sir. The murderer might well have gotten the clay on his shoes there. It seems a logical possibility to me. Or am I being too presumptuous in my untutored way to suggest such a thing? What he might have been doing there I’ve no idea. A picnic, perhaps . . . You have a very ugly look on your face, Master Wayne.”

  “That will be all, Alfred.”

  “Yes, sir, eat your clam chowder. I’ll come for the tray after awhile. Shall I serve tea in your study later?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Very good, sir.” Alfred walked to the elevator that led up to Wayne mansion.

  Bruce said to the old butler’s back. “You’re a smart aleck, Alfred, but I couldn’t do without you.”

  Alfred stepped into the elevator and clasped his hands in front of him, and just before the elevator door closed, said, “Of course not, sir.”

  BATMAN CASE FILE A-4567-C, informal notes (computer entry—October 20)

  In the late afternoon I got in contact with Jim and picked him up at his home and drove him over to the Old Gotham City Cemetery. We climbed over the wall because the gate was locked with a chain and padlock and I didn’t want to pick the lock because it looked old and I thought it might go to pieces. Jim fussed when I boosted him over the wall. He claims I pushed his face into the wall to smash his cigar. I told him it was an accident. I told him he should look at photographs they’ve taken after autopsies of smoker’s lungs. I told him the nicotine stains his mustache. He told me to go to hell.

  We looked around and found a shovel and an open grave. I couldn’t make out much about the marker, but the clay there was the kind found at the murder sites; I ran it through lab work when I got back. I bet Alfred’s guess was correct, that the murder site clay came from the cemetery. Its close proximity to the murders was just too much of a coincidence. Add to that the uncovered grave, and I thought we’d got some interesting connections.

  I got the grave marker cleaned off with some mild acid from my utility belt while Jim held the flashlight for me and cursed. Patience is not one of Jim’s virtues. I worked on the marker until I could make out a name—Rufus Jefferson.

  Jim promised to run it through his computer at the station and I came back here and did the same. What we both came up with was that Rufus Jefferson died in 1904 at the hands of a Gotham City policeman after committing the fourth of a series of murders, all of them quite like those being committed now by Subway Jack.

  Jim said that when his computer records played out, he went downstairs and checked through the old files, the ones not on the computer. He found out that Jefferson was tracked down by a Sergeant Griffith and was aided by a writer named David Webb who later wrote a book that contained his experience in the matter. The book was titled Followers of the Razor.

  I checked with the public library, as well as some of the smaller libraries in the city, and Gotham City Library said that they had a copy listed in their files, in the reserve section, but that it was missing—stolen perhaps.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  I got back on the computer and tied in with libraries across the country a
nd found that Stephen F. Austin University Library in Nacogdoches, Texas, had a copy of the book in their rare book section. I have made arrangements through Jim to have it sent to us by overnight mail.

  Maybe there’s something there that can help us, something that might explain our current murderer’s connection with that old grave and Rufus Jefferson.

  (Excerpts from later A-4567-C file entries—October)

  . . . book is fascinating, and in spite of its incredible subject matter, is convincing. Up to a point. I’m not sure I’m ready to accept a dimensional murderer, but I’ve seen some pretty strange things, and if nothing else, there may be a psychological tie-in with . . .

  . . . the librarian said that after I called she started a little investigation of her own. She says that a young man by the name of Jack Barrett checked out a lot of books in that section, and told her he was looking for material on psychopathic killers for a research paper. She said she wasn’t accusing the young man, but I might want to check him out and . . .

  . . . discreet inquiries show that Jack Barrett has been an excellent student, until this month. His professor in criminology told me in confidence that he had been acting strangely, and suddenly started cutting classes. He thought it might be problems at home or with a girl . . .

  . . . University has provided Jack Barrett’s address, and I plan to notify Jim so we can follow and check out . . .

  JAMES W. GORDON (one week later)

  I have a feeling we’re both right and wrong about this Barrett guy, but can’t explain it. There’s been something funny about this case, right from the start.

  We stationed men outside Barrett’s apartment and we’ve been following him around all week. Batman’s working the rooftops a lot. When Barrett goes out, Batman moves across the tops of the buildings like a shadow, like a spider . . . well, like a bat.

  What we got here is a guy that doesn’t do much. He’s quit the University, and about all he does is walk to the subway entrance and ride the subways all day. He goes over to Center Station and stands around and looks at people, especially the bag ladies.