The Sting of the Silver Manticore

by P. J. Lozito

  J eyed the volumes thoughtfully. Now he knew his man: this Klaw yob wrote Psychic Angles. Surely, he must be a distant relation to that devil-may-care F.B.I. man in the States. As he browsed, a crumbling American boys shilling shocker jumped out at him.

  “‘My Story. By the Silver Manticore, as told to Ned Buntline,’ ” he read. “’First of two exciting parts’.”

  “Crime goes in cycles, young man,” a rumble came from behind J.

  He wheeled, ready to act. The .25 Beretta rested at his armpit holster reassuringly. Rarely was J caught unaware; before him stood a tall stooped man. He looked close to ninety and surely one of Mycroft’s schoolmates.

  “Mr. Klaw?”

  “I am Maurice Klaw,” the old man allowed, “and good day to you, youngster.”

  A scent spray appeared from somewhere and he applied verbena to his high, yellow forehead. Klaw’s beard was of indefinite color. He considered J through gold-rimmed pince-nez, outlined by shaggy brows. Long-toed continental boots completed the unkempt look. J stepped forward to shake hands with this figure from out of a drawing in Punch. Klaw’s grip was surprisingly still firm.

  “Cycles?” the younger man pondered.

  “I am a student of the science of cycles. You come from Glencoe, eh?” said Klaw.

  “Raised there, yes,” smiled J. “But born in Wattenscheid. How did you know?”

  “I know my dialects,” declared Klaw. “How may I help Sir Miles, Commander? At a pleasant dinner with him at the Blades club to he told me to expect you. I hope to be of some assistance.”

  “I should tell you we don’t use his Christian name anymore, just the initial.”

  “I see. Likewise, your own name.”

  He nodded, “It will have to do until some other designation comes along. I’ve been sent to consult with you about something called the Elixir Vitae,” stated J, glad to get down to business. “I’m to take whatever you tell me to Washington, meeting with a chap named Dr. Richard Henry Wylie, Jr.”

  “Ah, Dr. Wylie. I have read his Relativity Made Easy. Seeking sunburn on a golf holiday, are you?” asked Klaw. “The Americans have two such places called Washington. One abuts the pleasant beaches of Mary-Land, I hear tell.” He drew out the name of the state, making it two words.

  “That’s the one. No time for my game, however,” smiled J again, “I’ll be working.” The old boy was sharp, came the thought. “Perhaps with Wylie, in my function as a liaison with the O.S.S. Definitely with their man, Furioli,” J added.

  In truth, J was more than eager to meet this Yank, Wylie, who was said to have quite the knack for gadgets. He had a fondness for them himself. But the only thing he knew about Wylie was that his sister was marrying a New York City newspaper publisher. Wylie might be a man of mystery, shunning the limelight, but his sister was often in the society columns.

  “Tell me, where did you command?”

  “HMS Ark Royal, sir,” answered J automatically and with some pride.

  “I see. Is it not stuffy in here? It is the rats. Venus! Bring us iced drinks,” called Klaw suddenly.

  Moments later, Miss Klaw appeared again, this time with a tray of loomi made from dried lemon rind. J was familiar with the Middle Eastern concoction. Reaching for a glass, he eyed her. As if reading J’s mind, Klaw spoke up.

  “My daughter can hear what I hear, young man. The Elixir Vitae,” Klaw contemplated. “May I enquire as to how King George knows to come to me?” asked Klaw.

  J shook his head, “For your ears only.”

  Klaw motioned for Venus to leave them.

  “Lord Grandrith lobbied His Majesty. Seems this chap, Wylie, is investigating some crimes over there that relate to the elixir. Lord Grandrith is his cousin. We’ve been instructed to fully co-operate. Fellow of ours is there now. He knew enough about you to have us consult with you, Mr. Klaw. Sir Dennis…”

  “Sir Dennis!”

  “You know him, sir?”

  “I know of him, young man. Further, I know who and what he fights.”

  Commander J considered this. “The Circle of Life is involved. My people would like to see them put out of business for once and all.”

  “I see. The Elixir Vitae,” began Klaw. “Alchemists have sought this potion for years. Universities do not teach all things! They send you to me because it comes from Egypt, the Black Land. I am an Egyptologist, though a clumsy one at that. The Greeks--who the Egyptians knew well! -- had a word for such a feculent black mud, bovpka, found there.”

  “This elixir is said to prolong life, slow down the aging process. Or restore life! I have never believed it to be real. The secret was supposed to be buried in the clandestine location of some Egyptian priest’s sarcophagus. Something to do with tana leaves. The ancient Egyptians got the secret from black men of the bush.”

  “Lord Galbraith is said to be friend to many of those African chaps,” agreed J.

  “There is a rumour that they gave the ‘jungle lord’ their own version of the elixir,” smiled Klaw.

  “He must trust those friends an awful lot,” pointed out J with a smirk.

  “More so, it requires human blood, thus the vampire.”

  “Like Snow White’s evil step-mother?”

  “Ha, ha, few know that version of the fairy tale, Commander.”

  J could only smile his cruel smile, “The University of Geneva had quite the impressive library, sir.”

  “Good! Perhaps you have read alchemist Paracelsus as well: ‘All substances are poison; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.’ Many years ago, in this very city, a series of crimes took place. For the elixir! You have heard of Saucy Jack? He killed for it.”

  “Never was caught. I gather he moved on,” supposed J. “Or stopped.”

  “The criminal never ‘stops,’ commander,” corrected Klaw. “Unless forced.”

  “Any chance he simply moved?” tried J.

  “Rarely does the criminal stray far from home! He did not get enough blood required for this elixir, and, so, died. A disfigured lunatic named Phibes also sought it. Years later, 1929 to be exact, the Chinese devil doctor, Hanoi Tsin, perfected such.”

  “Hanoi Tsin?” J had read up on Scotland Yard’s copious files on him, but he wanted the informed Klaw’s view. Hanoi Tsin’s organization was reported to be in disarray and the man himself had not been heard from for some time.

  “Dr. Hanoi Tsin, who Sir Dennis has kept in check,” began Klaw with a nod. “An essential part of the elixir is tanagste, the Tibetan blue poppy, useful in prolonging life. It grows only in a region of the Himalayas where Hanoi Tsin is said to have studied, the Rache Curan monastery. Closer to this date, a man named Janos Skorezny used the Blitzkrieg to feed his own elixir-driven habit for blood. He posed as a doctor named ‘Paul Belasco,’ drawing lifeblood from hapless victims of the Boches.

  “I might be of more assistance were I to sleep where one of these crimes took place. Make an odic negative.” Klaw tapped his forehead. “My bags can be packed in one hour if you require me to travel to the States.”

  J considered this.

  “Hanoi Tsin’s dacoits stole the notes of an Englishman named Jekyll and came into the research of an American named Maxon. Not long ago, a doctor, named Lorenz, is rumoured to have kept his wife young with it,” Klaw added.

  “Who is this Lorenz?” J probed. The name hadn’t come up before in anything he read.

  “A Hungarian botanist, operating in San Francisco. Surely financed by Hanoi Tsin; for botany among the sciences he is expert in.”

  “Must have had quite the Victory Garden,” J mused. “Hanoi Tsin attempted to wrest control of that city through an Italian associate named Luciferro.”

  “Yes, this fits in with the unfortunate Wilfred Glendin, also a botanist. I realize now the elixir exists. Or else Hanoi Tsin would not waste effort looking for it. So, you see how crimes goes in cycles, my friend?”

  “No, sir, how do you mean?”<
br />
  “The users of this elixir require dosages-- every twenty-one years: a cycle. At sometime, Hanoi Tsin will need another dose of the elixir.” Klaw looked up, “You may keep that worthless old magazine, young one.”

  J examined it closely, not realizing he still clutched it. He would need something to read on his long aeroplane flight to America.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DAKKAR

  Dr. Hanoi Tsin examined the night sky over the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, smoking opium. Many an inspiration had come to him while under that drug’s hazy blanket. Standing on the deck of the slowly cruising Neptune, he observed the stars. The captain of the submarine stood shivering nearby.

  Nineteen fifty-four was shaping up as one of New York City’s coldest winters in a long time. That meant little to Hanoi Tsin. He spent much time at the Himalayas, twenty-three thousand feet above sea level. The impressive tumo he had learned to generate fortified him against such extremes of temperature.

  “Dakkar, what is the passage of twelve years,” he asked suddenly, without turning, “To our kind?”

  “Perhaps six months, a mere nothing, in the old way, before the elixir,” reflected the turbaned Indian.

  “I feel that way as well,” stated Hanoi Tsin. “We may lay plans that take years or decades to come to fruition.”

  Dakkar searched his thoughts, going back twelve years, “Ah, it has been that long since those dogs killed Siam Khan,” the Indian exclaimed.

  “Yes, and I have been waiting patiently,” said the devil doctor.

  Lulled back into the smoke, Hanoi Tsin considered the events of the last several years and the events afterwards. He spoke slowly, “The death of FDR, the establishment of the Iron Curtain, the denotation of the A-Bomb, Dr. Jasper Kane’s discovery of the synthetic antibiotic Terramycin, the formation of the United Nations and their police arm, the Defense Enforcement Reserves, were all brought to us.”

  Silently, Dakar listened to his leader.

  Dr. Hanoi Tsin paced slowly across the deck. “None of these events measured up to my own crowning achievement—the death of the accursed Dr. Richard Wylie, Jr.”

  Dakkar finally broke his silence, “What sort of physician allowed all to address him disrespectfully as ‘Doc’?”

  Hanoi Tsin considered this. “Wylie. That was his way. I held him responsible for the death of Siam Khan.”

  “I know you thought of him as a son, not having one at the time,” stated Dakkar.

  “Yes,” agreed the devil doctor. “My adopted son in Hawaii disavows me, unfortunately. My daughter is quite unfit to carry on the great work.”

  The doctor turned his back to Dakkar, no longer searching the skies, “But 1945, as you know, brought me Lee Ying Shang. I am carefully molding his mind and body to my needs.”

  “A clever plan, Marqui.”

  “I grew tired of the lofan using the fighting systems of Asia against my operatives, besting them in combat,” affirmed Hanoi Tsin. “Many years ago, some sixty years, in fact, my Black Arrow Syndicate reported a half-caste Shaolin priest who was a living weapon.”

  “And that is what you ready your son for?” asked Dakkar.

  “The boy believes he is in jeet kune do training to be his father’s most formidable bodyguard,” smiled Hanoi Tsin. “The name-readers see good fortune.”

  “You keep him in the dark as to your real motives, then?” assumed Dakkar.

  “Quite so. I was deeply wounded by the defection of Chang Apana. First the father, then the son; he had a mind worthy of carrying on my work.”

  “I always feared that sooner or later Wylie would have turned his attention to you,” Dakkar said.

  “When I started operating in his home city, I was not wholly unsurprised the he took an interest in my affairs,” Hanoi Tsin stated.

  “Ah, two great minds,” said Dakkar soothingly. “You triumphed over Wylie. I am unclear on many of those facts, Marqui.”

  “I am happy to enlighten you. Wylie first found fame as a flyer in the Great War. So be it,” Hanoi Tsin said. “The U.S. Army Air Corps should be the instrument of his destruction. His wife and son go with him to heaven.”

  “The Man of Vengeance they called Dr. Richard Wylie, Jr.,” intoned Hanoi Tsin gravely. “He was also called the Man of Ideas. And his best idea was to be safe from his enemies living in the New York’s Empire State Building,” he nodded toward it in the distance.

  “Might I ask how you traced this dog?”

  “Simplicity itself; through the almost one-thousand six-hundred newsstands in New York City,” explained the devil doctor.

  “Newsstands?”

  “These very stands would be ‘strong-armed’ into carrying for sale a…toy. It was a simple matter for my specialists to come up with an appealing little object that made pleasant cooing sounds when touched. Its design, which originated with the natives of Central America, would be immediately attractive to Wylie’s wife.”

  “Young Wylie would naturally be overjoyed by it,” noted Dakkar correctly.

  “Of the thousands sold, only one beeped contentedly from the seventy-ninth storey of the Empire State Building,” Hanoi Tsin now waved his arm now in that general direction.

  “Seventy-ninth?” asked Dakkar. “But I thought Wylie occupied the eighty-sixth floor…”

  “He would have the public think that, friend. He dwelled some seven floors below. My technicians traced that one signal, screening out the others. Then the toys were recalled from the newsvendors who sold them, just as mysteriously as they had appeared.”

  Hanoi Tsin drew in more opium. “The next phase of this operation called for an airman I had hypnotized months before. I needed only to telephone him to start the post-hypnotic suggestion of his gaining control of the plane working.

  “It was 9:55 A.M. when the Mitchell B-25 Army bomber struck the apartments the Wylie family secretly maintained in the Empire State Building on 28 July of that year. Guided there as surely as if I myself sat there myself,” Hanoi Tsin relayed with glee. “Did you know it was named the Old John Feather Merchant?”

  With this Hanoi Tsin took a Chinese flying top from the sleeve of his yellow garment. It was made of wood and string with feathers at top and bottom. He pulled the string quickly. The feathers spun, lifting the top into the night air. The two men watched as it flew away and, soon after, descended into a watery grave.

  “All that goes up comes down. It is why I prefer your craft for travel, Dakkar.

  “That plane was the dart that felled Baldur,” he claimed.

  The doctor smiled, pleased with the mythological trapping, “My pawns report a Coast Guard medic, Donald Molony by name, had just met with Wylie. I could not determine the nature of their secret meeting, however,” declared Hanoi Tsin. “No doubt it concerned some medical advancement Wylie pioneered for them.”

  “Fog was blamed for that accident, I recall,” added Dakkar.

  “When I learned the location of Maximilian Levnitz’s Wall St. loft quarters, a similar ‘accident’ occurred the following year,” assured Hanoi Tsin.

  “Rumor said he is a distant kin to the Wylies,” nodded Dakkar. “So he too dies?”

  “You are correct. ‘Levvy,’ as the brutish scientist preferred to be known, had somehow cheated death.”

  “Ah, but Wylie, that was a success,” reassured Dakkar.

  “The timing had been right, for I had information that Wylie was booked to take a P-80 to Washington, D.C. to consult on the Atanasoff- Berry electronic brain,” affirmed Hanoi Tsin.

  “Wylie’s trivial magazine continued to publish for another four years. The contents becoming increasingly far-fetched, I have noted,” stated Dakkar.

  “Because, at that point, they were entirely fictional,” assured Hanoi Tsin. “A sloppy attempt to cover up his death by giving him more ‘adventures’. Do you notice? It is so much easier to approach the Port of New York in your craft, now, with the war over.”

  “No more dim out, Marq
ui. You have some plan there?” asked the Indian.

  “Yes. I have intercepted communiqués that William Charles Mildin, Lord Galbraith, shall soon arrive in New York. I should like to study Mildin while he is alive. It is said a witch doctor in the jungle gave him some purer form of the elixir.”

  “Purer?”

  “Blood is not an ingredient and it requires no repetition of doses. The legendary ingredient is called javuru.”

  Dakkar’s eyes widened. “This must be what the alchemist in Seattle administered to Frost.”

  “Perhaps some implement of mine can jog Lord Galbraith’s memory as to exactly how and where he got this treatment,” smiled Hanoi Tsin. “And where I might acquire this javuru.”

  “Is he a threat to us?”

  “Yes. At any rate, he may indeed have valuable information on Frost.”

  “He could lead us to Maolcrum Richards,” concluded Dakkar.

  “Perhaps I can convince Richards to join my cause,” nodded Hanoi Tsin.

  “They join you or die.”

  “You allude to Tesla,” smiled the doctor. “Unfortunate that he chose not to work for me--unfortunate for him.”

  Dakkar grew serious, “Despite your triumphs, I detect a furrow in your great brow,”

  “I can keep no secrets from you, friend. Many years ago, our colleague Dr. Moreau disposed of his rejects in that general region of Africa that Mildin is said to have been reared. There were far too many sightings of them in the Himalayas.”

  Dakkar realized the implication immediately. “If so, we may have contributed to our own possible doom.”

  “And so, it is imperative we nullify the threat of William Mildin.”

  “That threat,” said Dakkar “would be the ultimate irony.”

  Hanoi Tsin nodded, “Yes, young Mildin’s life was saved in the jungles of Gabon by beast men I am ultimately, through Moreau, responsible for having created. And now Mildin is coming here. No doubt he will make contact with Wylie’s friends and family.”

  “Ah, that is why you have summoned Fantomal.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR