CHAPTER 11

Before the Picaroon's fingers had quite tightened around Comstock's throat, Pat called out, "Perhaps there is some good reason why your exploits have not been emblazoned for all to read!"

The strong fingers slowly opened and the madman turned towards Pat.

Taking the cue, Comstock said hurriedly, "Yes, maybe your crimes have not been particularly spectacular!" Some place in Bowdler's huge library Comstock had run across a book devoted to the exploits of a super criminal. Rummaging through his memory, Comstock said, "I've got it! I know just the thing that the Picaroon can do that will insure his infamy becoming noticed."

As Pat began to speak, the Picaroon's head swivelled back and forth between her and Comstock. His steel grey eyes were no longer menacing, Comstock was pleased to note.

"How about," Pat suggested, "how about stealing...."

"One of the R.A.'s cars," Comstock interjected.

"Just what I was going to say. And then with the aid of the car, he can...."

"Go to the fountainhead, beard The Grandfather in his retreat."

"And make sure that his most fantastic and fabulous crime will become known to every living creature in our world by...."

"Snipping off The Grandfather's beard!" Comstock finished. Then he waited, his teeth pressed together on his bottom lip.

"But," the Picaroon said, in a rather bemused fashion, "that would be blasphemy."

"But think of the effrontery of it!" Pat said, leaning forward hopefully, paying no attention to the bonds that held her.

"Think of the shock of such an action! Every law-abiding citizen would rise up in wrath. Then the hue and cry would be such that no longer would the Picaroon work long hard hours through the night without ever getting the fame which is his due." Comstock could hardly believe that even this lunatic would fall for what they were suggesting.

"What a colossal feat ..." the Picaroon said, almost to himself, "Why didn't _I_ think of it?"

His long legs carried him around the room, as unthinkingly, he strode up and down over the various bundles that were strewn around the floor.

A thought struck the man who called himself the Picaroon. "Where could we steal an R.A.'s car?"

This, of course, was the crux of Comstock's plan. Looking as unconcerned as he could, Comstock said, "Why, it just happens that Pat and I know where there is an abandoned car."

"An abandoned car?" The Picaroon grinned delightedly, snapped his fingers and said, "Then come, the night is young and there is dirty work to be done!" Running to Pat's side he released her. She rose, rubbed her fingers to restore the circulation and then untied Comstock.

Comstock eyed her torn dress, the involuntary deshabille that revealed more of her firm young b.....s than he thought any other man in the world should be in a position to observe and said to the Picaroon, "Remember, this is a most dangerous adventure on which we are about to embark. We are wanted as badly by the R.A.'s as you will be once you have snipped off The Grandfather's beard! We'd best wear some disguise."

"Then," the Picaroon said, "You two are really not police spies at all, are you?"

"Wait and see what the R.A.'s do to us if they catch us," Pat said grimly, while she rooted through a rag bag of old clothes trying to find some sort of garment with which to clothe herself.

"How exciting," the Picaroon said, slapping his hands together in delight, "and to think I was just about to crown my criminal career by murdering this man."

Comstock tried not to think about how close his demise had been and watched fascinatedly while Pat dropped her torn dress to the floor and donned a shapeless gown.

But when he saw the Picaroon was busy searching for male clothes he turned away from the delectable sight of Pat's n..e body and took the clothes that the Picaroon gave him. A floppy hat had a big enough brim so that in the dark Comstock's face would be hidden. A tight pair of trousers and a too big jacket of a different color than the things he had been wearing would have to suffice as a disguise. All Comstock could do really, was hope and pray that they would be able to get, with the Picaroon's aid, near enough to Bowdler's house so that while the Picaroon was busy trying to understand the mechanics of the abandoned car, he and Pat could make a run for it through the force field at the proper time.

* * * * *

The trip through the darkened city was a revelation to both Pat and Comstock. In Comstock's earlier, law-abiding incarnation, there had never been a night that found him in bed later than the curfew at ten. To find that the streets were completely deserted at two, or three o'clock in the morning came as no surprise, since he knew that all lawful souls would, of course, be asleep at that time.

But he had not been an alcoholic for a long enough period to find out that the bars stayed open long after midnight. The only people that there was the slightest chance of trouble with, were the roisterers who staggered out of the saloons from time to time, and here the danger was slight, for as soon as an inebriate hove into view the Picaroon would wink mightily, link arms with Pat on one side and with Comstock on the other and the trio would mimic drunkenness and sing bawdy songs till the real drunks were gone.

"What," Comstock asked, "are the chances of bumping into an R.A.?"

"Aha!" The Picaroon placed his long forefinger next to his nose. "You are attempting to tear aside the veil that hides the Picaroon's methods!"

"Fiddle faddle," Pat said nastily, "answer him!"

Coming to a halt on a silent street corner under a lamp post that cast a spotlight down around his piratical figure, the Picaroon said, "At night, after curfew, when all law-abiding citizens sleep...." He lowered his voice to a shadow of a whisper forcing Pat and Comstock to place their ears near his mouth, "you realize, don't you, both of you, that I am giving away my most cherished secret, the modus operandi that allows me to operate and so flout the law?"

They nodded.

"Then let it be known, but just to us, that I have found when all the other law-abiding citizens sleep, why, so do the R.A.'s."

Twirling in a mad pirouette, the Picaroon threw back his head and laughed. "From curfew to dawn, there is no law!"

Clapping a hand over the Picaroon's mouth, Comstock snapped, "Shut up! You'll rouse the dead with all that noise!"

A little sobered the Picaroon said, "Now you have my most valued secret, see that you guard it with your lives!" Putting his finger to his lips he added, "Hisssst...."

Pat asked, "What is it?"

"Nothing," the Picaroon said, "I just like to say hisssst...."

Shrugging behind the Picaroon's back, Comstock gestured to Pat to pay no mind to their mad guide. Aloud, he asked, "Do you know your way to 14 Anthony Comstock Road?"

"I know all the ways," the Picaroon said, and again taking the lead, walked with exaggerated steps, on tip toe, as though fearing to wake the sleeping world.

It was a long trip on foot and dawn was breaking as they came in sight of some landmarks that Comstock remembered. If his mental picture of the terrain was correct, the car in which Grundy, Helen and he had made their escape from the Fathers should be downhill from where he and Pat and the Picaroon were now standing.

He conveyed this information to the others and this time he took the lead with Pat behind him and the Picaroon still walking on tip toe bringing up the rear.

As they went downhill Comstock could see his goal. Bowdler's house lay still and quiet, the refuge for which he yearned. But it might just as well have been on the other side of his world for all the good it was as long as the force field surrounded it.

Waiting till the Picaroon's attention was on the car in the distance, Comstock pointed at the house and whispered to Pat, "That's it."

She nodded.

Then they reached the car and the Picaroon's almost idiot glee reached its apogee as he poked at the thing under the hood that made the "car" move.

Comstock didn't have the vaguest idea of whether or not the car could run. When he and Grundy and Helen had abandoned it, it had simply gone careening downhill and finally stopped. Why it stopped, or whether it would ever go again was an impenetrable question to Comstock.

But he didn't allow his lack of knowledge to stand in his way. Becoming dictatorial he told the Picaroon to stop fooling about with the mechanism and to watch and try to learn how to make the car go.

Then with the Picaroon standing at attention, Comstock got into the car, and went through the complex series of actions which in Grundy's case had served to animate the vehicle.

There was a muttering rumble from the "car" and it surged internally. However the rock which had halted its forward progress in the first place, still served to prevent it from proceeding.

* * * * *

The Picaroon snapped into action, and going to the rear of the "car" he pushed as the wheels of the vehicle began to spin to no avail at all.

At this point, Comstock, anxious to stall things as long as he could, since there was no chance of entering Bowdler's house till the sun was overhead, tried to turn off the motor. Instead he threw the motor into reverse and the car instantly backed up, carrying the Picaroon along with it.

He dangled from the rear of the car trying to muscle himself up out of the danger of the wheels while he yelled at the top of his lungs for Comstock to stop whatever he was doing.

Pat sat on the side of the road being of no help to Comstock at all, since she was busy being convulsed by giggles. The sight of the long-legged madman, his no longer jaunty cape entangled in his thrashing limbs, while Comstock wildly snapped things on and off on the control board, and the unguided car veered and yawed as it ran backwards up the steep hill was a little more than she could stand.

When the car had backed almost to the crest of the hill, Comstock found the key which turned the ignition on and off and managed to bring the "car" to a halt.

The Picaroon was in a towering fury. "Poltroon!" he roared at Comstock who was red-faced with embarrassment and anxiety. "How dare you treat a criminal figure of my stature in a manner more befitting some low comedy person like you?"

Dropping from the rear of the "car" the Picaroon raced around towards the driving wheel where Comstock sat helplessly trying to deduce what had gone wrong with his method of driving the "car".

The Picaroon's right hand darted out of sight under his cape and when it came back into view, Comstock was horrified to see that a steel blade perhaps ten inches long had become integral to the maniac's right hand.

"Blood!" the Picaroon stated almost calmly, "blood is the only thing that will erase this stain that you have placed on my criminal escutcheon."

With that he darted the sharp point of the knife straight at what would have been Comstock's Adam's apple, had not a beginning double chin covered it with fat.

There is no doubt that Comstock would have died at the wheel of the car, with a slit throat had not Pat, seeing the direction that the madman's mind was taking, picked up a rock and smashed it down on the Picaroon's head just in the only too well known nick of time.

Breath whooshed out of Comstock's lungs as he saw the knife blade falter, and then saw the Picaroon's head come careening down. Wide-eyed he watched as the man's unconscious body tumbled to the ground.

As soon as the Picaroon landed, Pat was at his side and her questing hand first took the knife from his flaccid grip and then she examined the rest of the arsenal that hung from the man's belt hidden till now by the all-encompassing cloth of his ridiculous cape.

The plethora of weapons clinked and clanked as she placed them to one side. She said, "When you get your breath, come and take some of these for yourself, dear."

* * * * *

Comstock found that if he didn't pay too much attention to the way his knees wobbled that he could navigate. Getting out of the car was hardest. Once he was on firm ground again he found that the various alarums and excursions through which he had lived had served to, if not make him callous to danger, at least make him bounce back a little faster than he had at the beginning of his departure from his normal way of life.

Holding his right forefinger on his left pulse for a moment he wondered why his poor weak heart had not long ago surrendered beneath the various assaults that had been made on it. But when he found that his pulse seemed to be practically normal he forgot about his heart until kneeling down next to Pat he smelled the fragrance of her hair. This time he did not have to take his pulse. He could feel his heart pounding.

She looked sideways at him and smiled gently. They were both kneeling next to the prostrate Picaroon. Their mouths were on a level. This made their kissing almost automatic.

The kiss might have lasted even longer than it did had not the Picaroon stirred. Pat broke away from Comstock's embrace and said, "We'd best tie him up so that we don't have any more trouble with him."

"By all means," Comstock said muzzily, his mind still concerned with the nearness of her.

It was only when she rose and went to the car looking for something with which to bind their captive that Comstock was able to think, shake his head and force his addled brain into action again.

Then using the cape as a blanket, Comstock swathed the madman in its folds. Next, when Pat returned with some rope they wound it around and around the man till he was completely bound.

Then, and only then, did Comstock turn and look across the distance that separated them from Bowdler's house and safety. The sun was well up now, which was good in that it shortened their waiting time, but was bad since it meant that the R.A.'s would be out on patrol in full force.

Pat, standing at his side, voiced his thoughts when she said, "Isn't there some way that we could signal to your friends so that we need not wait out here till noon?"

"The big danger to be avoided is that the R.A.'s may see us and so suspect the house."

Below them, the Picaroon rolled his head back and forth angrily. This was the only part of him that he could move. He said, "So you _were_ spies!" He spat. "I should have known. Always should the master criminal work alone. All the text books I have read make that point. It serves me right for not being a lone mink ... or wolf or whatever the earth word is."

Comstock paid no attention to his grumbling as he tried to assay the situation. They could not endanger the safety of the house by just walking into view of one of the windows and waving to capture the attention of Grundy or Helen.

If an R.A. were to see that...

Since that was impossible, what were their chances of being unobserved for ... looking up at the sun he tried to estimate how long it would be before noon. Perhaps two hours yet.

Putting his arm around Pat's waist he said, "Let's get as close to the force field as we can so that when it is lifted we can just make a dash for the house."

"And take a chance of being seen by an R.A.?"

That was right. When Bowdler told him to come back to the house at noon or midnight, he had had no way of knowing just how badly the R.A.'s would be wanting to get hold of Pat and Comstock. It hardly seemed possible to Comstock that so little time had passed since he had left the house and safety the day before to go hunting for an unknown girl.

He gulped as he realized what the tenor of his thinking meant. He said plaintively, "You mean we'll have to wait till midnight before we dare go to the house?"

She nodded.

Then, as one person they turned and looked down at the Picaroon. It would be unfair to keep the poor lunatic tied up the way he was for at least fourteen more hours...

The Picaroon was mumbling to himself, "You are who you are, if you think you are..."

Blinking thoughtfully, Comstock turned to Pat and said, "You know, that's a very interesting question. I'd like to think about it for a while."

"While you're thinking about it, darling, devote a little of your brain power to figuring out where we're going to get food and water to last us till midnight..."

The madman's words pounded at Comstock's brain washing away the reality of what the girl had said. "But how do you know you are?" That was a very interesting question.

Still squatting on his heels, Comstock looked unseeingly off into the distance and wondered what in the name of The Grandfather the answer to the lunatic's question could be.

He was something or someone called Comstock, he was sure of that. But how could he know he was Comstock, for sure, that is?

He was so engrossed that he did not even hear the Picaroon's mad giggle as the man said to Pat, "See ... see what my little question did to him? That's what happened to the first four doctors who examined me!" He laughed again. "That was when the Fathers decided that I was a madman and that my only cure was to become a criminal."

Worry made itself visible on Pat's face as she turned from looking at Comstock who was completely withdrawn inside himself. She looked down at their captive and asked, "Who were you before you became the Picaroon?"

The harsh piratical face lost its Harlequinesque self-derision as the man said, "I was the last philosopher."