“Great work, Batman!” Commissioner Gordon said, but worry and foreboding overlay his pleasure and gratitude. “Do you think you can pull it off again?”
“Another Riddler threat?”
Gordon nodded and produced a photocopy.
Batman—with the Riddler’s knife slash in his cape neatly stitched, though Alfred had bitten off the thread with a most unbutlerish snarl—stepped out of the shadows to examine the latest challenge from the Riddler.
High now chuck the wain
To shade the roof.
Why not the mare, too,
In its behoof?
—Yours coolly, the Riddler
Batman felt a chill sharper than the night’s. The outmoded word wain for wagon had struck home.
Could the Riddler have pierced Batman’s identity, Bruce Wayne, or was it merest and purest coincidence?
“Are you feeling all right, Batman?”
Batman looked at Gordon’s worried face, made ghastly by the streetlight, and forced a smile. “I feel fine.”
He had to put thoughts of his own peril out of his mind. He had to fix his wits on puzzling out the threat to another Wise Man of Gotham.
With a swirl of his cape, he melted into the darkness.
Unaware of affronting Alfred, Wayne let the breakfast crepes grow cold while he rifled through the morning papers. The Riddler appeared to be targeting public figures on the order of environmentalist Glenn Dubois, whose life Batman had saved . . . together with the lives of many innocents who would have perished had the Valley Forge Club burned down. What were the latest doings of such public figures?
Wayne frowned as he scanned the pages. The words chuck and wain had suggested to him that chuck wagon might be the key to what the Riddler had in mind. Wayne perused the columns in hopes of coming across some public event involving something even faintly hitched to a chuck wagon—a rodeo, Meals on Wheels, a dude ranch, a new fast-foods eaterie . . .
BINGO!—and none of the above.
This very afternoon, Hizzoner, the Mayor, would be attending the opening of a new display at the Planetarium.
That started a whole new line of thought, and prompted a call to Dr. Amicia Sollis.
She seemed not to mind that this was getting to be a habit. She smiled across the restaurant table at him. “Yes, ‘Chuck’ is a recognized nickname for ‘Charles.’ And yes, there is such a thing as ‘Charles’s Wain.’ Though I hardly think the ‘mare’ in the rhyme would be a Charley horse.”
Wayne nodded. He thought it likely that “Mare” was a play on “mayor.” But he did not voice the thought, he merely gestured for Amicia to go on.
Which she did after taking a sip of claret to moisten her lips. “Let’s stick to ‘Charles’s Wain.’ Some say it’s named for Charlemagne, some for Charles I of England. In either case, it refers to the group of seven stars in the constellation of Ursa Major, which we in the U.S. call the Big Dipper. That group of seven stars is supposed to resemble a cart without wheels, but with a shaft horses could be hitched to.” She tilted her head. “Does that help you?”
It did.
Afternoon outside, but midnight inside.
Batman lurked in the darkness under the great starry dome. His gaze roamed the auditorium, with special attention to the section reserved for the mayoral party. Grimly, he noted that those seats were directly beneath the stars of Charles’s Wain.
An agitated huddle of Planetarium officials drew Batman’s attention. He slipped nearer to listen and caught mention of the air-conditioning system. From what they said, it was malfunctioning. Indeed, now that his attention was on the condition of the air, the place did seem stuffy.
Just then a coveralled figure bustled up to the group.
The Planetarium director heaved a sigh of relief. “It’ll be all right. The air-conditioning serviceman is here.”
Batman narrowed his eyes in thought. Air conditioning. The Riddler had signed his challenge “Yours coolly.”
“I’ll have a look at the vents on the roof.” The voice of the coveralled figure sounded familiar.
The mayor’s party arrived just then, and the officials went to greet Hizzoner. The coveralled figure stood watching until Hizzoner was seated, then made for a door marked MAINTENANCE.
Batman gave him a moment, then followed him through the door into a dimly lit space between the inner and outer shells of the great dome. The place hummed with machinery and smelled of grease. Batman caught sight of the coveralled figure already halfway up a ladder that climbed the inner shell of the dome. Batman waited at the foot of the ladder until it stopped vibrating, then climbed it in turn, careful not to shake it and give away his presence.
He reached the top in time to see the coveralled figure fit a wrench to a nut on a bolt and begin to loosen it. No doubt about it—this was the Riddler at his deadly work!
From the care with which the Riddler worked the wrench, and from the give of the whole section as the nut on the bolt loosened, Batman could tell that the Riddler had previously loosened most of that section of the dome and that it would plummet to crush the mayoral party once this last bolt came free.
“Hold it, Riddler! You’re one nut too many!”
The Riddler froze. Then, with a curse, he flung the wrench at Batman.
Batman did not flinch or duck. Instead, he made a neat one-handed catch. In almost the same motion with which he plucked the wrench out of the air, he hurled the wrench back at the Riddler.
BONNKK! The boomeranged wrench glanced off the Riddler’s skull and caromed downward with a heavy clatter.
“Seeing stars, Riddler?”
If the Riddler was, he quickly shook off his daze and pushed himself away from Batman’s—and the ladder’s—side of the dome and with a prolonged and pronounced Y-E-E-E-O-W-W-W!!!! slid and slithered down the curve of the dome to the bottom. There was a SPLAT!, then silence.
By the time Batman scrambled down the ladder the Riddler was gone.
Alfred would find the grease stains on Batman’s cape highly lamentable.
They met at the corner of First Avenue and First Street at one A.M.
Commissioner Gordon jumped a foot in the air. “Batman! I was expecting you, but not swooping down the guy wire of a crane.”
“Sorry.” Maybe he should’ve been direct instead of derricked, but it had seemed a good idea to get a bird’s-eye view of the rendezvous area beforehand and make sure they would be alone.
“Quite all right.” Gordon harrumphed. “Thanks to you, Batman, Mayor Notts is still around. He had a severe heart attack when he learned of the close call. That made it another close call. But he’ll pull through.”
“Glad I could be of help. But you didn’t summon me here so that you might deliver a bulletin on Hizzoner’s medical condition. It’s the Riddler again?”
Looking hopeful, Commissioner Gordon handed Batman a photocopy of a note in rhyme.
Have you heard the lewd word?
What does the cuckoo sing?
Is the wing on the bird—
Or the bird on the wing?
—Yours billet-doux-ly,
Yours bill-and-coo-ly,
The Riddler
Batman frowned but not too severely. Once again he needed Amicia’s expertise.
“What’s your interest in these riddles, Bruce? Are they merely an intellectual exercise?”
“That’s how it started out, Amicia. But my findings got passed along to Batman, who appears to have made good use of them.”
“You make quite a team, don’t you?” She leaned forward avidly over the avocados. “What’s Batman really like? I’d love to meet him.”
Wayne smiled. “I’m the last one to tell you what he’s really like. Commissioner Gordon has yet to introduce us. But if we do meet, I’ll be sure to mention your interest.”
Amicia flushed. “Don’t you dare!” She spooned up the last of her dessert, then touched her napkin to her mouth. “I sing for supper, the cuckoo sings for summer. The
Cuckoo Song is the oldest English song set to music.” She sang softly in a voice that did not reach the other diners.
“ ‘Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu!’ ”
She smiled. “Lhude doesn’t mean ‘lewd’; it means ‘loud.’ But the Riddler seems to be leering. The female cuckoo lays her eggs in the nests of other birds, who hatch them and rear them. That’s how ‘cuckold’ came to denote the husband of an unfaithful wife. Centuries ago, in England, people would call out ‘cuckoo!’ to warn a husband when a known adulterer came near. Somehow, the term stuck to the husband.”
Wayne leaned back. “Ah. Then I—rather, Batman—would have to look for adultery.”
“You won’t have to look far,” Amicia said. “I’m afraid the avocados were adulterated.”
Alfred woke up Wayne. “Precisely seven A.M., sir.”
Wayne opened one eye and cocked it. “How do you know—precisely?”
Alfred gestured to the French windows giving on to the terrace. “The clock tower of the Nest Egg building, sir.”
And Wayne heard the last dying note of the chimes.
He swept the covers aside and leapt to his feet. He pressed his nose to the glass and stared at the clock tower that shouldered above the clinging mists of morning. Nest Egg . . .
The Nest Egg Investment Corporation, a subsidiary of Fidelity Trust, ranked among Gotham City’s most respected institutions, financial or other. The Riddler surely would count its head among the Wise Men. Foster Cavendish, the Nest Egg’s CEO, had to fit the Wise Man profile—a citizen of standing and power. Was Cavendish involved in adultery? Was the Nest Egg clock a cuckoo clock?
“My Batman costume, Alfred.”
“But, sir. Do you really care to be seen in it? Shouldn’t you prefer to await the bespoke costumes?”
“My Batman costume, Alfred.”
“Sir, do you realize this is Easter Sunday and all will be attired in their best?”
“Alfred, my Batman costume.”
“Very good, sir.”
Batman was a creature of the night, but the canyons of Gotham City afforded shadow by day. And where that shadow did not reach, the latest model Batmobile, with its chameleon paint and dark windows, afforded cover and concealment for stakeouts. So it was that Batman found it feasible to pick up and tail Foster Cavendish without arousing Cavendish’s suspicions.
The Foster Cavendishes lived in a high-rise condominium on fashionable Eden Avenue. At half past ten A.M., Foster Cavendish emerged from the elegant front entrance and the doorman hailed a cab. Just before stepping in, Cavendish looked back and up, shifted his carry-on to his other hand, and waved. From a window near the top, a wide-sleeved arm returned the wave.
Batman followed the cab to Fitzgerald Airport and watched Cavendish pick up a ticket to Red Wing, Minnesota, then board the plane a good ten minutes before takeoff. Batman smiled.
The bird would be on the wing and away from danger at the hands of the Riddler, for the Riddler would want—as a matter of pride if not honor—to carry out his threats within the borders of Gotham City.
Then Batman thought again. A bomb set to go off while the plane was still in Gotham City’s airspace would fulfill the Riddler’s self-imposed guidelines.
Batman had no certain knowledge that the Riddler had planted a bomb on this flight—but then he had no certain knowledge that the Riddler had not planted a bomb.
Better to be safe than sorry, as his parents had been wont to tell him before their untimely deaths at the hands of a holdup man—his eyewitnessed event that had turned him into the fearsome Batman striking terror into hearts of criminals.
He darted to a pay phone, beating out a yellow-bonneted, green-gowned woman. She folded her Easter parasol and hammered his shoulders with it while he dialed 911, but when she heard the word “bomb” in his anonymous tip she shrieked—OOOOHHH!!!—and let up.
Batman, again in the Batmobile, watched the plane disgorge its passengers and crew, a pale and trembling Cavendish among them.
ULPULPULPULPULP!!! EEPWEEPWEEPWEEPWEEP!!! The bomb squad arrived in its ululating van and searched the plane with dogs and electronic sniffers.
No bomb.
But the nonevent had shaken Cavendish. After a few drinks at an airport lounge, he got himself and his carry-on into another cab and headed home.
Batman followed, weighed down with responsibility. The anonymous tip had backfired, putting Cavendish squarely back in danger of death at the Riddler’s hands. Now Batman would have to stay almost as close as Cavendish’s skin if he were to protect him from the Riddler.
While the doorman assisted Cavendish and his carry-on out of the cab and into the building, Batman scooted around to the back and let himself in through the basement door. He had counted the stories to the window Mrs. Cavendish had waved from, and knew what button to press. The freight elevator took Batman to Cavendish’s floor before the passenger elevator arrived.
With seconds to spare, Batman located the Cavendish nameplate, drew a lockpick from his belt, opened the door, and slipped inside.
He squeezed inside the hall closet, behind raincoats and boots. He had barely done so when the front door opened again, this time with the rattle of keys and a loud BANG! as it slammed shut and the THUMP! of the carry-on hitting the floor.
From a rear bedroom came a banshee wail. EEEEEE!!!
“It’s only me, honey,” Cavendish called out. “I just had a bad scare.”
“You had a bad scare? What do you think this was?”
Batman peered out cautiously and glimpsed a frizz of hennaed hair and a filmy peignoir.
“Wait till I tell you, Bathsheba. Mine was a bomb scare. I let the plane take off without me. Brrr. Boy, I could use a stiff one.”
Bathsheba’s voice turned concerned. “Poor baby. Go into the living room and I’ll pour you a tall glass.”
Batman waited until they had gone into the living room, then he stole out of the closet and prowled the apartment in search of a better hiding place, one that would allow him to keep a lookout for the Riddler.
As he stepped into the bedroom Bathsheba had come from, he stopped dead in his tracks. His senses told him of another presence.
He attuned himself and caught muffled breathing from beneath the king-size bed.
Moving softly, he drew near enough to the bed to grip the footboard, then with a sudden jerk and thrust he swung the bed in an arc. Then he pounced upon the form thus laid bare, before it could move.
“Got you, Riddler!” he gritted through clenched teeth as he tightened a chokehold on the man beneath him on the floor.
“Aarghh!” The man was trying to tell him something.
To deny being the Riddler.
Batman took his first good look at the man, eased his grip, and slowly got to his feet. The man was Housing Commissioner Sam Rubin.
Batman quickly recovered. Rubin was sitting up, gently massaging his throat where wheals showed. He looked around and started to croak something. Batman spotted a shirt and trousers on a chair. He shoved Rubin flat, tossed the clothes onto him, and swung the bed back into place.
He owed Rubin nothing, not the covering up of Rubin’s cuckolding of Foster Cavendish, not even the saving of Rubin’s life—it seemed clear now that the Riddler’s target was not Cavendish but Rubin. Batman would do whatever fell in with foiling the Riddler.
A buzzer sounded, and Batman listened to talk over the intercom. The doorman announced a postman with a special delivery package for Bathsheba Cavendish that she had to sign for, and Cavendish told the doorman to let the man in.
Batman’s heart pounded, This was it! The Riddler had signed his challenge “Billet-doux-ly”—and here came a letter carrier. It must indeed be a special delivery that brought a letter carrier on Easter Sunday.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it, dear.” That was Bathsheba.
Batman debated with himself whether to act now or to hold off until the Riddler made his move. He decided to
hold off.
The door opened.
“Why, what a lovely package!” Bathsheba called over her shoulder. “Thank you, dear. Here, you take it and open it.”
“Sign here, ma’am.”
“I didn’t send it. You must have an unknown admirer.”
“Sign here, ma’am.”
“And wouldn’t that be nice. Open it. I want to see what my secret lover sent me.”
“Sign here, ma’am.”
Before Batman could shout not to open the package, he heard paper rip.
“It’s a big chocolate Easter egg!”
“How sweet!”
He did not hear another “Sign here, ma’am.”
Evidently the Riddler had chosen not to wait.
Batman hurtled into the living room, grabbed the chocolate egg from Foster Cavendish, and dashed out of the apartment.
TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK
The egg was clutched close to his heart, which went thumpthumpthumpthumpthump.
Foster Cavendish stared at Bathsheba Cavendish. “With Batman?”
Bathsheba stood with folded arms and lifted her chin.
Oblivious to this byplay, Batman raced down the hall with the Easter egg as though heading for a touchdown. The Riddler, dressed as a letter carrier, was alone in the cage. Their eyes met as the door closed.
Batman skidded to a stop, and with one arm forced the sliding door open enough to drop the chocolate egg through; the egg fell toward the top of the descending elevator cab. Batman pulled quickly back and flattened against the wall. Even so, he found himself flung to the floor while splinters of wood and steel pierced his cape.
B-A-R-O-O-M!!!
Then SWOOSHHHH-THUDD!!! as the blast severed the steel cables and dropped the cage several floors to the basement.
A singed and battered postman limped out past the doorman and hobbled away.
A quarter hour later, Sam Rubin slipped out from under the bed and pretended to have come with the police and fire personnel now swarming the scene. Foster Cavendish was touched that Rubin had responded to the news of the explosion—not just as a Housing Commissioner concerned about damage to habitable buildings, but as an acquaintance concerned about the Cavendishes. Cavendish hadn’t realized how good a friend of the family Rubin was.
The Further Adventures of Batman Page 20