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[Magazine 1966-­06] - The Vanishing Act Affair
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Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­06] - The Vanishing Act Affair"


Автор книги: Dennis Lynds



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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 6 страниц)

ACT IV: NOT WITH A BANG BUT A SCREAM

THROUGH THE dark English night the chase continued. Hours had passed and still the dial of Illya's gauge showed Morlock and his men driving west. The car, some ten miles ahead, was driving fast. In the helicopter, by the light of the instrument panel, Solo and Illya bent over a map.

"He's heading in the general direction of his Salisbury house," Solo said.

"Where he most surely has another atom bomb shelter," Illya pointed out.

"But how does he plan to start a war out here?" Solo said.

"The naval base at Portsmouth?" Illya said.

"Not near enough."

"Some installation at Southampton?"

"Possibly, but—" Solo began.

"He's turning off!" Illya said, his eyes on his gauge.

The dial on the gauge indicated that Morlock The Great had turned his car and was not heading sharply north. The pilot swung the helicopter in pursuit.

The first faint grey of dawn was just tinging the eastern sky when the pilot suddenly spoke.

"You say he's out to start a war?" the pilot said.

"We think so," Illya said.

"Then I think I know where he's going," the pilot said. "on your map. You see the town of Colingbrane?"

"Yes," Illya said.

"Well, it won't show on your map, but there's an IRBM missile base at Colingbrane. According to our information, the missiles are hot, are aimed at major Soviet cities!"

"Then that's it!" Solo said. "How close is Morlock?"

"A few miles from the town," Illya said, looking at both his gauge and the map.

"But how does he figure on starting anything?" the pilot said. "Those missiles don't go without a call on the hot line from the top. The base has world-wide communications and missile tracking. They can't be surprised, and they can't fire without clearance from the top. Only the general has control of the firing button."

"Foolproof?" Illya said, his voice a question.

"I'd say so," the pilot said.

"No," Illya said. "Nothing is foolproof, because there are always fools. In everything there must be a human element, no matter how small, and what one human can make almost perfect, another can always destroy by locating the tiniest flaw."

"Well—" the pilot began.

"Illya!" Solo warned, pointed down to the gauge in the blond Russian's hand.

The gauge showed that Morlock had stopped. The helicopter was closing in rapidly.

"Set down right on top of them!" Illya snapped.

The two agents prepared their weapons, leaned out the windows of the lowering helicopter. A very faint grey light revealed the black car parked below at the edge of a high fence. Beyond the fence there was nothing but houses and trees and small hills.

But the trained eyes of Solo and Illya saw that the houses inside the high fences were not houses. The trees were newly planted. The small hills were not hills but mounds covered with sod.

That was all they had time to see. As the helicopter swooped down, hovered over the car, morlocks came out into the open. Exposed, in the open, and stupidly fearless, they raised their weapons to fire.

They never fired.

Illya leaned out of the copter, dropped a small cylinder that exploded with a silent puff. The gas spread incredibly fast, and the morlocks slumped to the earth, asleep.

"Set us down," Illya said to the pilot.

The helicopter touched down just outside the fence. The fence, the two agents knew, would be electrified. They took their tools and weapons and turned to run toward the fence.

Solo instructed the pilot. "They'll have picked you up on their radar. Take off, but stay around. Let them catch you a mile or so away. Don't talk for a half an hour; that should give us time. If it doesn't, it won't matter by then."

"You are so encouraging, Napoleon," Illya said.

"A realist, my Russian friend. Come on."

The helicopter took off. Already they could see two jet fighters approaching high in the dawn sky. Solo and Illya, hidden in the grass, watched as the jets swooped in and forced the copter to land again a mile away.

Then they moved off along the fence.

The base was a friendly base, and the soldiers on guard would be their soldiers, but the soldiers would not know this, and the two U.N.C.L.E. agents did not have time to convince them. At the fence they went to work.

The fence was electrified and wired for alarm. Swiftly they attached special circuit loops to the wires they planned to cut so that no circuit would be broken. Then they shunted off the wires they would cut. Using insulated cutters and gloves, the cut just two wires, and squeezed through without touching the fence again.

Inside, they moved at a trot through the dawn light. The gauge in Illya's hand led them unerringly across the missile base, among the camouflaged silos, toward wherever Morlock The Great was working his deadly plan.

Twice they had to shoot guards with their sleep darts. The soldiers fell without a sound and the two agents moved on. The gauge led them directly to what looked like a simple English country house. There were two guards at the door. Illya and Solo crept closer.

The two guards did not move. They were dead.

"Morlock," Illya said.

"Yes, and that means he's inside," Solo said.

Without saying any more to show their thoughts that even now they could be too late, Illya and Solo entered the building and moved along the dim dawn hallways. They found deserted offices, empty halls, silent rooms.

"Even at dawn the base should be active," Illya said.

"Below?" Solo said. "That's where the control would be."

"And where Morlock is," Illya said, pointing to his gauge.

They followed the gauge until they located the heavy door that led down into the bowels of the earth where the heart of the missile base would be. The door was locked. It was an extra-heavy door, made of some strong metal. Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo looked at each other.

"Alloy steel, from the look of it," Solo said.

"Will our thermite melt it?" Illya said.

"I don't know. We may have to blow it."

"Try the thermite. We can't warn Morlock," Illya said.

Solo pressed the foil to the door over the lock, pulled the metal fuse. The white-hot glow filled the dawn hallway.

When the foil burned out there was s hole, but the door was still locked.

"Again," Illya said.

The second foil glowed in the dim dawn light of the silent corridor. The hole in the alloy steel door grew deeper, wider, and, then, was through. The door swung silently open.

Illya and solo faced a small antechamber—and a second door!

"Elevator," Illya said.

"But there has to be a stair also," Solo said. "They wouldn't have only one way down. Electrical systems can fail."

"There," Illya pointed to a flat panel that had a button beside it, an emergency stairway.

This door was much thinner and the thermite bit through with dispatch. The door opened and Illya and Solo plunged quickly down a narrow, winding staircase. At the bottom there was another steel door—but this door was open!

They went through and found themselves on a kind of balcony—a circular gallery that ran around the walls above a large room. They looked over the edge at the room below.

The sight that met their eyes made them stare in horror.

TWO

MASKS!" ILLYA barked.

The two agents quickly put on the small gas masks they carried for just such an emergency. Wearing the masks, they peered down at the scene on the floor below.

The room was the central control of the IRBM missile base. A giant illuminated plastic map covered the far end of the room. The most sophisticated tracking instruments lined the left wall—radar, DEW Line relays, telemetric relays from all across the world. A long table filled the center of the room. A row of telephones was at the right—the red telephone standing out like some malignant monster.

But it was not the room itself that chilled the U.N.C.L.E. agents. It was the men in the room—the frantic men.

At the giant map enlisted men with long pointers were tracking the moving lights that indicated the incoming enemy missiles detected by the tracking instruments. The men at the map were wild with excitement, shouting, screaming out the progress of the enemy. A mad, wild excitement mixed with a thick odor of fear.

At the tracking instruments the operators were equally excited, calling out the blips on the radar, relaying the messages of the reports from across the world. The enemy missiles were pouring in all over the world, were being tracked by the radar in the room, by the radar at other installations, by the Distant Early Warning line far up in Canada. The operators on the machines shouted their progress in mounting panic.

"A thousand miles!"

"Nine hundred!"

"Closing in on England now—five hundred miles!"

"Closing on Washington!"

"Four hundred miles!"

At the long table officers, pale and anxious, sat with their portfolios open, staring at the map and at the radar alternately like the audience at a tennis match.

There was fear on their faces, but there was also determination. Clear on the faces of all the officers was the absolute determination that, destroyed though they would be, they would do their final duty and take the enemy to destruction with them.

And at the red telephone there was one man. A man with a greater look of determination on his face than any one else in the madhouse of the room. A man wearing the uniform of a general. A man with his hand on the red telephone.

A man who, as Illya and Solo watched, heard the telephone ring.

There was a silence, sudden as death, in the control room.

The general picked up the red telephone.

"Yes sir. I know, sir. In five minutes they'll know what they started."

The general lowered the red telephone and turned to face the room, where the men at the map still followed the progress of the incoming missiles, where the radar men tracked the enemy, where the communications men received the reports from the rest of the world, where officers waited for the command to fire their own missiles.

Only—

There were no lights moving on the giant map.

There were no blips on the radar screens.

There were no messages on the instruments relaying form other bases.

The red telephone had not rung.

In the room, Illya and Solo saw, only the men were active, were moving—the instruments and the map were dark and silent.

And, unseen in a distant corner, was the small black-cloaked, satanic figure of Morlock The Great!

In the air was the diabolical powder thrown by the insane magician.

In the silent room nothing happened, but the men in the room, frantic, saw it all happening in some giant hallucination.

The general walked to the red button that would fire all his missiles into the heart of the Soviet Union.

The general took his key from his pocket to unlock the red fire button.

Illya and Solo saw that there was no time to bring the frantic soldiers from the nightmare. Taking careful aim, they both fired at once.

The sleep darts struck the general, who gasped once and collapsed on the floor.

An officer, seeing the general fall, ran forward and reached for the key.

Solo shot him in the neck. He collapsed, asleep.

In the room pandemonium broke loose.

Morlock The Great, crouched in his corner, was cursing, firing at the two agents now. Illya tossed a sleep-gas cylinder, and another. The gas filled the room.

Men fell all across the room.

One more officer made a frantic last attempt to unlock the red fire button—and fell to the floor before he could.

In the room there was now complete silence.

The men all slept.

The machines that had been silent were still silent.

The red fire button was still locked, and the red telephone stood silent.

Illya and Solo stood up on the balcony. It was over. There would be no atomic war today. But tomorrow?

"Where is he?" Solo said.

They both looked to where Morlock The Great had been firing at them. The spot was empty now. Behind the place, in the steel walls, a door stood open, a door into a black hole.

"The elevator!" Illya cried. "He was standing at the elevator. He got away!"

"Then we better get him!" Solo said.

Illya pulled out his tracking gauge. The dial showed that Morlock The Great was above them somewhere, above and moving away.

The two agents did not wait to explain to the general or his men. That could wait. When the general and his men woke up, the effects of the diabolical powder would have worn off. Then there would be time for explanations.

Now Illya and Solo had a man to catch. They raced back up the stairs and out into the bright sun of morning.

THREE

THE MISSILE base was still quiet and undisturbed. All the action below had not ruffled the surface. But already men were moving, the day shift getting ready to take over the endless job of doing nothing but wait for a disaster that, if it happened, none would be likely to survive. An endless, terrible job, where a man could not even hope for action since, when action came, it would be the end.

Illya and Solo moved as swiftly as they could and still remain unseen. They checked the dial on their tracking gauge and saw that Morlock was apparently heading straight back to his car. The magician seemed to need no help, could move unseen wherever he wished. Illya and Solo trotted toward the same spot.

Then they were seen!

But the soldiers who converged on them did not fire. It was clear at once that the soldiers knew who they were, and that they were friends.

A jeep raced up. In it was the helicopter pilot and four officers.

"The jet guys forced me down. I got a going over, but I finally convinced these boys to call 'Washington direct and we're all cleared. What happened."

Illya and Solo explained. Two of the officers ran off toward the control center. The other two waited. Illya checked his gauge.

"He's in his car, moving away fast. Come on; we'll have to borrow the jeep."

The two officers, armed, the pilot, and Illya and Solo, roared off in the jeep. The gauge of the tracking instrument showed Morlock moving fast, about four miles ahead. They passed where the black car had been. The four morlocks still lay asleep.

"He's heading for his house," solo said as he looked at the tracking gauge.

"Then we had better get there with him," Illya said.

But they did not make it. At the old gothic house five miles from Salisbury the car was parked, but there was no sign of Morlock The Great. Solo looked at Illya.

"Below? In the shelter?"

Illya shook his head, studied his dial. "No. The gauge shows that he is over there, to the left about a mile."

They all turned to look. The land was flat in that direction, and there was nothing in sight. Not a house, not a trace of a human being.

"The gauge is working. He has to be out there."

"Let's find out, then," Solo said.

The five men moved at a fast walk out toward where the gauge said they would find Morlock The Great. When they were still a half a mile from the spot, a small aircraft appeared on the flat land. Its motor was running. Before the five men could run to the spot, the small plane raced down its runway and rose into the air. Illya looked at his gauge. It showed that Morlock was in the plane.

"He's gone," Illya said.

Solo bent over his ring radio. "London Control! Come in, London Control, Sonny here. Code One!"

Instantly the ring answered. "London Control, Code One, all facilities alert."

"Morlock The Great escaped in a light plane. No destination known, but probably London. Notify police, Interpol, and organize an intercept. Alert Mr. Waverly in New York. Sonny and Bubba returning to London."

Solo clicked off, and the five men returned to the jeep. A half an hour later they were in the helicopter again, flying toward London.

* * *

IN THE RARE London sunny day, Solo and Illya approached the ruined old church that stood above the underground complex of the Cult. The tracking gauge in Illya's hand showed that, somewhere far below, Morlock The Great was still in the city. Solo looked for their friend, Paul Dabori. The hunchback was not in sight.

"He should have been here," Solo said.

"Yes, but we have more important problems," Illya said. The blond Russian nodded towards the ruins of the church. "There is something odd over there."

Illya led the way across the street and into the ruins of the old church. There was a clear space in the rubble that had not been there before. Somehow, the rubble itself seemed to have moved.

"The rubble was camouflage," Illya said. "Real rubble and bricks on a movable platform."

In the center of the clear space that had not been there before, a large slab of stone lay heavy and flat. The altar stone, but not where it had been. Where it had been was now a gaping hole in the earth.

"The stone was under the rubble," Solo said.

"It must work electronically. Much too heavy to be moved any other way."

The two agents surveyed the hole in the ground that led downward—a flight of narrow stone steps.

"This they didn't build," Illya said. "It's an old hideaway, built under the altar."

Solo took a breath. "Well, he's down there. Shall we wait for Mr. Waverly and help?"

"We missed him at Salisbury. I don't think we have time to wait," Illya said.

Solo checked his Special. "Let's go then."

The two agents started down the stairs into the ancient hideaway under the altar.

At first it was pitch dark. Then, as their eyes became accustomed, they saw that they were indeed in a very old stone room. The followed the homing signal to a blank wall. Solo felt carefully around. Four feet from the floor there was a tiny projection. The projection was metal and not at all ancient.

Solo pulled it. The wall slid silently open. The two agents looked at a shaft. Illya peered over the edge. Far below there seemed to be a dark object. Cables ran down the shaft.

"Elevator, at the bottom," Illya said.

"If we bring it up we'll alert them," Solo said.

"Then I expect we shall have to go down to it," Illya said.

With no more words, Kuryakin swung out on the cables and began to slide down. Solo followed. The two men slid carefully, breaking themselves to prevent their hands being burned raw by friction.

At the bottom they crouched on the top of the elevator car. Silently, Illya opened the roof hatch. The car below was empty. They lowered themselves in and pressed the open button. A long, darkened corridor stretched before them. One of the new concrete bomb shelter corridors.

Once again, all was silent.

They left the elevator and moved along the dim corridor. The forced air vents hummed above their heads. Illya watched his gauge, letting it lead them closer and closer to Morlock The Great.

"The left corridor," Illya said.

The turned down the left corridor.

"Now right," Illya said.

It was at the end of this right corridor that they first heard the sound. A distant rumbling like a powerful engine, and, below the rumbling a sound like the sea far off on a stormy day. Solo held up his hand. They both listened.

"What do you think it is?" Illya said.

"A motor, real powerful motors, and—" Solo said.

"And voices, a lot of voices!"

Solo nodded. The rumbling of motors, and the sound that was many voices, came no closer. But even as they listened in the dim corridor, two morlocks suddenly appeared from a door in the wall in front of them.

The morlocks, hurrying, and the two agents saw each other at the same time.

The morlocks were too slow.

Illya and Solo stepped over their bodies and went on down the corridor. They had used sleep darts and there had been no sound. But Illya stopped, looking at his gauge.

"We're going away!"

Kuryakin turned and retraced his steps. When he reached the door the two morlocks had come from he stopped again. He pointed at the door.

"In there, Napoleon. But not close."

Solo stepped past and opened the door.

A narrower, brighter corridor led downward at a sharp slant. As the two agents moved silently along this different-looking passage, the sound of engines and voices grew louder. The two agents nodded to each other. At least it was becoming clear that they were going in the right direction.

"From the sound of it," Solo whispered, "they may all be up ahead."

"We'll need the sleep-gas bombs again," Illya said.

"And a little luck. 'Dabori said there could be a hundred," Solo said.

The passage continued downward. A chill grew in the draft of air that was now coming along the passage.

"This passage connects to outside!" Solo said.

"Morlock would have an escape route, Napoleon," Illya said.

The voices seemed very close now, and the throb of powerful engines. Then, suddenly, Illya stopped again. He stared down at his gauge.

"We've passed him again," Illya said.

The blond agent returned up the passage and stopped at a spot where there was nothing at all—blank wall on either side, and smooth floor and ceiling. Illya narrowed his eyes and began to feel the walls.

"Here!" Illya whispered. "Be ready! The gauge says he's very close, right behind this wall. I feel a lever."

Illya pulled the lever and a wall slid open A very narrow opening, and on the other side only darkness. The two agents peered in.

The shouts came loud from the end of the main passage. From both ends of the passage, the morlocks were roaring in fury and rushing toward them. There was no time to hesitate.

"Inside!" Illya cried.

The two agents dashed through the small opening in the side wall—and stepped out into space.

With cries of surprise, Illya and Solo fell down through the pitch dark.

FOUR

STUNNED, the two agents lay on what seemed to be a dirt floor. Nothing moved in the dark. The only sound was the sound of motors not far away, and the rumbling sound of morlock voices.

Solo was the first to revive. He sat up and switched on his miniature ring-flashlight. They were, he saw, in a deep pit. The floor was dirt, but the sides were stone. Above, far above, the ceiling was stone, and halfway up was the black shape of the opening they had been so cleverly forced through.

Illya's voice spoke beside Solo. "Look!"

"What?"

"Shine it left, on the floor," Illya said.

Solo shined the light. In the center of the pit-like room where they lay on the dirt there was a small metal pillar, like a receptacle for burning incense.

It stood only two feet high and had a flat top. On the flat top was a tiny object.

The two men looked at the object.

"The homer," Illya said. "It's the device I attached to Morlock The Great's cuff."

There was a loud, mocking laugh.

It came from above, from the opposite side of the pit from where they had plunged down. Solo shone his lights up. As he did so light flooded the entire pit from spotlights up in the ceiling. The two agents blinked in the bright glare.

The sardonic laugh came again.

On a wide ledge halfway up the sheer stone walls they saw once again the tiny, grotesque figure of Morlock The Great. The magician stared down at them.

"You did very well, gentlemen. I underestimated you badly. But, then, you now have underestimated me. I admit I was stupid to let your plant that device on me, but you were stupid to think that I would not detect it in the end. So, now here we are."

"And without an atomic war," Solo pointed out.

Morlock laughed, his over-large head shaking on his skinny midget body. "True. I failed this time. But I have you. I will not fail next time, but for you two I fear there will be no next time. I do not intend to make the same error again—the error of leaving you alive behind me, I mean."

"We are not alone," Illya said coldly.

"U.N.C.L.E. ? Yes, they will send more men, but I think you two are the most dangerous. The others I can handle," Morlock said. "I am in no hurry, really. We are all prepared, the shelters are ready. All that has happened is that we have lost our good London shelter, and—"

"Don't be stupid, Morlock," Solo said. "You're known, and so is your plan. Every government will be after you. You won't be able—"

"So," Morlock said, "you have reported. Unfortunate. Still, it is not as bad as you hope. I'm sorry to tell you. They will not find me, and we will start again."

"Where can you hide now?" Illya said, mocked.

The grotesque figure on the ledge only laughed his sardonic laugh.

"Ah, gentlemen, where I can hide is my secret. But I admit freely, that you have caused me much trouble. Yes, much trouble. I will not let you off lightly. So, Voila!"

The grotesque magician waved his tiny hand. There was a puff of smoke on the floor and morlocks appeared as if from nowhere. Before Illya or Solo could move they were pinioned by strong hands, something was looped around one of each of their legs. Another flash of smoke, and the morlocks vanished.

"You must admire my tricks, gentlemen," Morlock said from his ledge. "I am the greatest magician."

Solo and Illya were too busy looking at what had been done to their legs. They looked at each other, puzzled. The morlocks had chained one leg of each of them—chained securely and on long chains that clanked when they moved. The morlocks had also removed all clothes but their underwear.

"Your clothes appear to be far too dangerous," Morlock said drily from his ledge. "Are the chains comfortable? As you see, you have quite free movement. So, now, Ole!"

And the tiny magician gestured again with his hand. There was another flash of flame and smoke, and the sound of water. Fast, inrushing water. Illya and Solo stood up. Water was gushing around their feet, pouring into the room.

On the ledge the insane little magician choked with demonic laughter. "A swim, eh? A nice swim. You are quite free to swim, to fight, until—But you must have guessed, yes? Until the chains reach their limit!"

The water gushed up. It had reached their waists now. Illya bent, struggled with the chain on his leg. Solo watched the tiny magician laughing on his ledge.

"You can fight, you see? Ah, that is the pleasure! To watch you struggle, and you will struggle because you are alive! No simple drowning, not for you! You will swim, and thrash, and then the chain will hold you, the water will rise, and you will go under. When the water reaches my feet—your heads will go under and you will die! Die!"

The water rose higher and higher, and the two agents were swimming now. The chain on only one leg did not prevent them from swimming on the surface of the rising water.

Morlock roared with laughter on his ledge.

In the distance, suddenly, there was the sound of firing. Doors crashed. The voices of men reached their ears above the sound of inrushing water. On the ledge the monstrous little magician listened. He seemed to be estimating. His laughter was gone. He stared down at them from his glowing, satanic eyes.

"Your friends, but they will not be in time. My men will hold them until I escape, and by then you will be under the water."

The water rose swiftly. The two agents struggled to swim, to break the chains. Morlock leaned down toward them as they floated up toward his ledge.

"You destroyed my plans! You stopped me! I will win, but you have ruined it all for now! So you will die! You will all die and we outcast and spit-upon will inherit the Earth!"

Struggling, Solo and Illya looked at each other. Their heads were nearly up to the ledge. Each man could feel the chain reaching its end, dragging now on their thrashing legs. Another few minutes and the chains would be fully extended—and then—

On the ledge the water lapped at the feet of Morlock The Great. The grotesque magician laughed once more.

"We will rule the earth!" Morlock cried, and once again his hand described an arc in the air. "Farewell, dead men, Voila!"

The tiny hand made its magic gesture.

There was a puff of bright red smoke, and—

A sheet of flame shot to the ceiling of the stone pit.

Inside the flames, his clothes a holocaust, Morlock The Great screamed and screamed.

There was the puff of smoke, and where there should have been nothing an no one, where Morlock The Great should have vanished in his puff of smoke—there was a great sheet of flame and the tiny magician, his eyes a mask of terror, turned into a human torch before the eyes of Solo and Illya struggling in the water.

With a final scream of horror and pain, Morlock The Great leaped into the water.

It did not help. The flames did not go out, and, on the surface, Morlock The Great burned like a torch.

Solo and Illya stared, struggled, fought to keep their heads above water.

Then they felt it—the water was receding.

On the ledge where Morlock The Great had played his last trick, they saw the twisted body, and gentle face, of Paul Dabori. The morlock who had come to their aid smiled down as they floated down with the receding water.

* * *

IN THE long conference room of the Cult shelter deep beneath the city of London, Solo and Illya sat in dry clothes and listened to the dry voice of Alexander Waverly. The chief was having difficulty lighting his pipe.

"You see, your friend Paul Dabori decided to slip back after you went off in chase of Morlock. It seems he decided that with all that hair he would not be recognized, especially after you all escaped."

Dabori smiled. "They never suspected I had come back down here. When Morlock came running back, there was much confusion. I followed him to his private room. When he wasn't looking, I replaced some of his special smoke powder with some of your heatfoil. I tore up the foil, and mixed it with his smoke powder. I'm afraid it fixed him."

Waverly managed to get his pipe alight. "So, when you gentlemen were, shall we say, at the end of your—uh—rope, Morlock could not resist one last disappearance, and set off his smoke act. Unfortunately, this time Dabori had mixed him something a little stronger than smoke. You saw the result, I believe."

"And I knew where the walves were for that pit," Dabori said.

Solo raised an eyebrow. "If you need work, I think we could use you, Mr. Dabori."

The hunchback shook his head. "No, I will return to my own work, I think. I want to live quietly, usefully now. Of course, first I will get a haircut!"

Solo laughed. Illya looked seriously at his Chief. Waverly, his bloodhound face impassive, puffed quietly on his pipe. All around them the London police were herding morlocks away.

"Did you get them all?" Illya said.

"We did. They had a submarine. That was the motors you heard. But they were still waiting for Morlock himself when we broke in. When they saw his body, all fight went out of them. I don't think we will have any more trouble with them. I'm afraid many of them will need mental care, though," Waverly said.


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