BATMAN vs 3 VILLAINS of DOOM "Chapter 8"

Chapter 8

John Whiting stared at the bound, captive figure of Batman with unbelieving eyes. Then he turned to the chalk-faced clown beside him.

“Joker,” he said, “this proves that you’re the greatest of them all. I never thought I’d see this day.”

The Joker made a slight ironic bow. “I appreciate the compliment, Mr. Whiting—although I must admit it is well deserved.”

“I’ll tell the committee about it. After that, the voting of the Tommy Award to you will be a mere formality. I don’t imagine even the Penguin and the Catwoman would challenge your right to it.”

“They can hardly do so, anyway, Mr. Whiting, since both of them are in jail.”

John Whiting said, “I’m eager to be an eyewitness to Batman’s death. Why not get started right away, Joker?”

“I intend to.”

“Will you shoot him?”

“Nothing so crude.” The Joker sniffed disdainfully.

“Poison him?”

“Much too mundane.”

John Whiting’s eyes gleamed. “I know. You’re going to dissolve him in the same carbolic acid bath that destroyed Robin?”

“Not at all.”

John Whiting’s manner became deferential. “Have you thought of something more spectacular?”

The Joker clasped his long fingers together. “I’ve planned an appropriate finish for Batman. Something really worthy of such an event. He will perish in the greatest pyrotechnic display of all time. Wreathed in a coronet of lightning! Surrounded in electrical fires! Incinerated by the most grandiose form of electrocution ever conceived!”

John Whiting asked, “Is it some device you’ve built especially for the purpose? Where is it?”

“At the Hall of Wonders,” the Joker replied.

John Whiting was puzzled. “The Hall of Wonders? The scientific exhibition that’s being put on by all the electrical companies of America?”

“Precisely. The most amazing of all the exhibits is the one in which a lightning storm is artificially created. That’s the spot I’ve chosen for Batman to make his never-to-be-forgotten exit from this planet. He’ll be tied to one of the gigantic electrodes—and when the lightning starts to flash, Batman will die!”

John Whiting forced an admiring smile. “It sounds brilliant, Joker. But wouldn’t it be easier just to get rid of Batman now—while he’s helpless and your prisoner?”

The Joker touched the outspread wings of his collar with irritation.

“The Joker never does anything the easy way, Mr. Whiting. I am not one of your ordinary criminals. My genius for crime is such that I choose to perform the impossible. Who else but the Joker would have informed Batman and Robin through the Tune Parade of exactly what he proposed to do—and then have gone ahead and done it?”

“I’m not questioning your genius, Joker. But…”

The Joker’s tone sharpened. “No buts! Batman is my prisoner. I decide which way he shall die. As for you, Mr. Whiting…” the Joker’s coal-black eyes sparked malignantly “...all you have to do is inform the Committee of Ten that I am ready to accept the Tommy Award. Let them designate the place and time.”

John Whiting stood up. “I’ll inform you as soon as the arrangements have been made, Joker,” he replied somewhat coldly. “I wish I could witness Batman’s demise. But I have a lot to do in order to gather the committee together.”

“I understand perfectly,” the Joker said. “But I’ll let you know when the Batman is officially dead. Just dial the Tune Parade program this afternoon.”

“You mean there will be an official announcement?” John Whiting asked incredulously.

“In a manner of speaking. You see, I’ve arranged for the top request tune to be ‘Stormy Weather.’ Hee-hee-heee! ‘Stormy Weather’—to report that Batman died in the withering blast of an electrical storm! Don’t you think that’s an appropriate touch?”

John Whiting swallowed nervously. Sooner or later it occurred to anyone who dealt with the Joker that he was indeed a madman—and at this moment the thought came forcibly home to John Whiting. He decided the safest course was to placate him.

“That’s very ingenious, Joker,” John Whiting said. “When the request number is played, it will be the official word that Batman is dead.”

The Joker lifted his arms in exultation. “What a finish! Only I could think of such a magnificent death. What a tribute it will be, both to Batman—and to ME!”

And what of Batman himself? Helplessly bound to his chair, Batman hardly heard the pronouncement of his doom. Ordinarily, Batman would have been busily trying to devise means of escape from what appeared to be a hopeless dilemma. But his senses were too numbed with despair to be fully alert to his predicament.

From the moment Batman had seen Robin plunge through the floor to hideous death, nothing else had seemed important to him.

Not even the chances of his own survival.

Batman was still in a stunned condition when the Joker’s black limousine pulled up in front of the Hall of Wonders.

Scotty Tucker, who was driving, indicated Batman seated in the back between two of the Joker’s henchmen.

“Did you slip him a drug or something, Boss?” he asked of the Joker seated beside him in the front seat. “He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.”

The Joker chuckled. “He’s depressed, Scotty, that’s all. Wouldn’t you be depressed—facing the fate that awaits Batman?”

“I guess I would, Boss. But I never thought he’d act like this. I always thought he had more guts.”

“Batman’s always seemed brave because he’s always been on the winning side, Scotty. You can’t tell what a man’s really like when he’s a winner. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before. Someone who’s been used to having things his own way suddenly discovers that his luck has run out—permanently. And he can’t stand it.”

Batman did not look up. Head bowed, he did not seem aware of the bonds that bit deeply into his shoulders and arms or of the guns which the two men guarding him on either side held tightly pressed against him.

When the time came, he left the car meekly and followed the Joker and his men into the Hall of Wonders—the place appointed for his execution.

Inside the towering auditorium, there was a strange and awesome sight. Within high walls of protective metal netting, on an island platform, stood a giant dynamo and two fortyfoot-high electrodes. A short flight of stairs led to the oddly shaped platform on which the giant electrical apparatus was located.

“I trust,” said the Joker, “that my orders have been obeyed. There must be no chance that we will be interrupted.”

“We did everything like you said, Boss. We caused a power breakdown in the underground cable near the Verona Street station. That’s keeping the electric company’s engineers busy. And we posted signs that the exhibit is shut down for repairs—so there won’t be any visitors.”

“What about the watchmen?”

“They’re locked up in the administrative office right now, Boss.”

“Fine,” said the Joker. “Then we will proceed with the execution as scheduled. Put Batman at the top of the negative electrode over there—in an exposed position where the first bolt of artificial lightning will strike right into his body.”

Unresisting, Batman was led past the protective netting and up the stairs to the platform where the giant electrodes were situated. A ladder had already been placed in position against the high ridged cathode, or negative electrode. The zinc tower ended in a short post topped with a large round metal ball. Under the watchful guns of the Joker’s men, Batman was forced to ascend the ladder to the top level of the highest ridge of the cathode, some forty feet above the platform itself.

Batman moved like a man in a trance. At the top he stepped off the ladder and stood still, while Scotty Tucker and another of the Joker’s henchmen bound him to the post that supported the huge ball overhead.

“You got any last words, Batman?” Scotty asked when he had finished. “Now’s the time to say them.”

Batman’s eyes were distant, and sad. He merely shook his head.

Scotty and his fellow henchman began to descend the ladder, leaving Batman alone on his unprotected height.

Scotty said, “He sure is taking this lying down. Batman’s a real spineless jellyfish!”

“The Joker had his number all along,” said the other.

“Yeah. I guess he did.”

Scotty and the other henchman joined the Joker in position behind the safety of the high wire netting.

The Joker gave a signal to another henchman waiting at the controls.

“All right,” he said. “Throw the switch.”

The giant room began to hum with droning electrical power. As the dynamo fed the positive electrode, the copper tower began to spark and crackle with flashes from its increasing electrical potential. As soon as the charge built to a sufficient degree there would be a release of energy—a flash of terrible destroying lightning across from the positive electrode to the negative one. The principle was the same as that which created nature’s own lightning: a discharge of electrical energy from a cloud with a high electrical potential to another cloud or to the earth.

Nearer and nearer came the moment. In less than a minute an awesome and terrible discharge of power would rend its way through the room—and shrivel Batman to a lifeless cinder! The Joker’s white face shone in the reflected glow as the electrical charge built up. His wide lips parted over prominent square teeth and his eyes reflected the small curving, dancing, jagged flashes that began arcing about the giant positive electrode a short distance from the Batman.

Some of the crackling power in the room seemed to enter the Joker’s own body—stiffening it with excitement.

And why not? He was on the eve of the greatest moment of his career—a moment he would cherish for the rest of his nefarious life.

In seconds the Joker’s dream would be realized.

He would witness the death of Batman!

On the top ridge of the negative electrode, Batman became slowly aware of his danger. He raised his head and looked around him. For the first time he understood the terrible fate that awaited him. He struggled against his bonds.

Too late! He was held fast. The doom the Joker had prepared was now only a few heartbeats away.

The Joker’s laugh rang out. It was savage anticipatory laughter—meant to join in and be drowned out by the cataclysmic roar of the lightning.

“Hyaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Nothing happened. The Joker’s laughter continued, echoing with an empty sound in the abandoned auditorium.

All other noise had stopped.

Then the Joker’s laughter ceased. He whirled on Scotty Tucker.

“The dynamo isn’t building up energy in the electrode. What’s wrong?”

“I dunno, Boss!”

“Get up to the control booth. Find out! If that dolt up there lets anything happen to spoil my big moment…”

Scotty started up toward the control booth, climbing hand over hand up the ladder toward it.

Before he reached the booth, a flashing figure catapulted down, carrying Scotty Tucker with him.

They crashed heavily to the flooring below, Scotty on the bottom. The impact knocked him cold.

The Joker’s incredulous voice rang with alarm.

“ROBIN!”

“In person,” Robin said.

He vaulted over a table to crash feet-first into the Joker.

The Crime Clown went reeling back to the protective wire netting.

“Shoot him!” the Joker yelled. “Shoot, you fools!”

The Joker’s henchmen opened fire. Shots crashed through the air and the echoes reverberated in the huge auditorium. But Robin was a quickly moving target. Before anyone realized what was happening, he was on the platform, scaling the zinc tower to where Batman was bound.

“Don’t let him reach Batman,” the Joker shouted. “KIILL HIM!”

Up the forty-foot height of the electrode went the Boy Wonder. Batman watched him approach with unbelieving eyes. Not until he felt Robin’s hands at work on his bonds did he seem to realize this was really the Boy Wonder.

“Robin,” he whispered. “You’re alive.”

“Neither of us will be for long, Batman,” Robin said, “unless we get out of the line of fire.”

A bullet ricocheted off the zinc side of the electrode and whined off into space.

Batman said, “How did you manage to do it? I thought you were…”

Whang-Splat!

Another bullet kicked paint off the post near the spot where Batman had been bound.

“I think explanations ought to come later, don’t you, Batman?” Robin inquired.

Batman laughed, and his voice had its old thrilling note of authority. “Get back behind the tower, Robin! Quickly!”

The Joker and his henchmen kept blasting away, but for the moment Batman and Robin were safe—hidden behind the giant cathode tower.

“Around this way,” the Joker commanded his men. “We’ll get a better line of fire.”

He crossed to a better vantage point at the wire protective netting. From this angle he could see the other side of the electrode.

The Joker gave a start.

“Where are they?”

Neither Batman nor Robin were visible on the far side.

“They couldn’t have disappeared into thin air,” the Joker said.

His answer came unexpectedly—from thin air.

“Who says we can’t?”

Swinging on the Batropes, Batman and Robin plummeted directly down toward the wire netting behind which the Joker and his men were stationed.

“Now’s the time for a little action,” Batman called out.

The Joker and his men began to run.

The momentum of Batman and Robin’s plunge carried them into the top of the wire netting. The poles swayed, and then began to topple, carrying the netting with them.

“LOOK OUT!” yelled the Joker.

The entire netting came down—on top of the Joker’s men who were pinned beneath it. The Joker scrambled free. Batman and Robin landed lightly on their feet nearby.

The Joker flung his gun at Batman. The next instant Batman’s thundering fist turned him completely around in his tracks and dropped him senseless.

“Shall we wrap the others up now, Batman?” Robin asked with a grin.

Batman turned to Robin to answer, and for a moment he could not speak. He reached out to touch Robin’s arm—just touch it. There was a mistiness in his eyes.

Then he managed to match Robin’s grin. “With a pink or a blue ribbon?” he asked.

Dick Grayson did a double backflip through the air.

His small, muscular, compact body rolled up like a ball as he whirled backward heels over head, somersaulting without touching the ground.

At the final instant when Dick should have straightened to land on his feet he performed an amazing feet of gymnastics.

Instead of coming out of the backflip to land on his feet he made his body as horizontally rigid as a board. And he passed right under the leaf of a long table in the library of Wayne Manor.

As his body passed beneath the tabletop, his fingers reached up to grip the table edge and he hung suspended there.

Bruce Wayne broke into applause.

“That’s the best gymnast’s trick I’ve seen in some time,” he said. “Where did you learn it, Dick? I never taught that one to you.”

Dick stood up, smiling. “It’s something I just picked up.”

“When?”

“I can tell you the instant I mastered it, Bruce. Approximately two seconds after I jumped down so recklessly on the dummy I thought was the Joker.”

Alfred, the butler, who had been listening with Bruce Wayne, looked mildly astonished.

“Master Grayson, what a curious time to practice gymnast’s tricks!”

“I wasn’t practicing,” Dick said. “As a matter of fact, Alfred, this was a matter of life—and death. When I touched that Joker dummy, I knew I’d been tricked. I was ready for almost anything to follow. I wasn’t surprised when the floor gave way under me.”

“What did you do, Master Grayson?”

“I knew that whatever was down in that hole wasn’t there to do me any good. So I flung myself into the backflip just as I went down in it. I straightened out below the floor as it came down over me and caught hold of the edge with my fingers.

Then I hung on. There was enough of a crack at the edge of that fake flooring for me to get a grip. And the rug that the Joker used to cover the trapdoor helped too. It concealed the grip I had on the edge of the flooring.”

“How did you get out of there, Dick?” Bruce Wayne asked.

“I hung on for a few minutes until my eyes adjusted and I saw the vat of liquid below me. I didn’t know what it was, but to test it I dropped a metal buckle from my utility belt into it. The buckle disappeared with a little hiss and that gave me a good idea of what would happen to me if I happened to drop in. So I moved carefully until I found the edge of the vat with my feet. Then I circled on the rim until I found a board in the wall that could be worked loose. After that, it was easy. I made a space big enough for me—and closed it up behind me when I left.”

“And the Joker thought you’d been dissolved in the carbolic acid vat,” Bruce Wayne said quietly.

Dick shivered. “I hate to think of how nearly right he was.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Alfred said. “I don’t like to interfere, but there is something I think you should hear.”

Alfred turned on the radio. In a moment the voice of Vance Jennings, disc jockey of the Tune Parade program, came on:

“And here is your top request number for today, folks. The tune most of you have asked to hear is—‘Stormy Weather.’

As the first strains of the melody came over the radio, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson began to laugh.

Alfred permitted himself a slight frosty chuckle. “Rather fitting, don’t you think, sir? It would be quite accurate to predict ‘Stormy Weather’ for the Joker from now on!”

John Whiting turned off the radio with an angry snap of the dial. He turned to the other men gathered in the room.

“That’s the message the Joker said would mean Batman was dead,” John Whiting said.

Everyone was looking at him.

He picked up a newspaper from the table and flung it down. “But we know better! The newspapers tell the real story. The Joker and all his men have been captured. Batman and Robin are very much alive!”

As though John Whiting’s words had touched a switch, everyone transferred his gaze to the crumpled newspaper with its staring black headline: “JOKER CAPTURED!”

The effect was all that Batman and Robin could have wished for if they had been present at this meeting of the underworld’s Committee of Ten. The reaction could hardly have been improved upon. “Stunned” was an inadequate word to describe their mental state; “despair” might have been nearer to it.

John Whiting summoned their attention by slamming his fist down on the tabletop. The diamond ring on his hand glittered.

He thundered, “We’re all going to face the facts, whether we like it or not. All three of our candidates for the Tommy Award have been captured and are in prison. Therefore, I see no point in conducting this meeting any longer. Does anyone disagree?”

There was no sign of disagreement.

“Very well,” John Whiting said, “the motion is carried unanimously. There will be no Tommy Award. This meeting is adjourned and—”

A black object sprang to the table near the place where John Whiting’s hand rested.

The black object snarled, hunched its back, spat.

“A cat!” shouted someone near the table.

“A black cat!”

John Whiting stared at the hunched, snarling cat on the table—its eyes gleaming with emerald hate.

“A black cat,” he said. “That’s the symbol of…”

The sentence was finished by the tall, striking figure who appeared in the doorway.

“…the Catwoman!” she said.

To Be Continued...

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Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom

By Winston Lyon

BATMAN vs 3 VILLAINS of DOOM "Chapter 7"

Chapter 7

In the darkness of the room, broken only by the light of a single sputtering candle at a table, Batman made out the grinning apparition of the Joker. The Joker was seated opposite him at the table.

Batman struggled to get up.

“Ah, I’m glad you’re conscious, Batman,” the Joker said. “There’s no use struggling or trying to move, I assure you. You’ve been bound very securely indeed. Not even you can break out of these bonds.”

“What have you done with Robin?”

“Robin is safe and sound, I regret to say.”

“Where am I?”

“This is a room adjoining my temporary headquarters. You will be kept prisoner here for awhile, Batman.”

“Why bother to keep me prisoner, Joker? You can as easily kill me.”

“You mustn’t tempt me beyond endurance with such a pleasant prospect, Batman. After all, I’m only human. But I have good reasons for keeping you alive at least for a little while.”

“Good reasons?”

The Joker’s grin was a red malicious slash in his chalk-white face. “I promised Robin that I would only hold you as a hostage.”

“I don’t believe you, Joker.”

The Crime Clown’s upward-curved eyebrows moved still higher. “You wound me by saying that, Batman. I swear it’s true. When I held a gun to your temple as you lay unconscious, Robin agreed to let me get away provided I didn’t kill you. He even talked the police into agreeing to it.”

“I wouldn’t have allowed him to do that.”

“Probably not,” the Joker agreed. “But you’d be dead now. So everything worked out for the best.”

Batman said grimly, “You can’t fool me, Joker. You’re not keeping me alive simply because of a promise you made to Robin.”

“Why don’t you trust me, Batman?” the Joker asked in an injured tone.

“Only because I know you so well. A broken promise means nothing to you, Joker. What’s your real reason?”

The Joker’s ghastly white face seemed to shine in the candlelight.

“If I killed you now, Batman, you’d die thinking that Robin will carry on your work of fighting crime. I intend to deny you even that small comfort. Before you die, you’re going to witness the death of Robin!”

“How can you arrange that?” Batman asked. His heart beat strongly with fear. He knew the Joker never made idle threats.

“Oh, by using you to bait the trap. Robin will go anywhere, do anything, to find you again. I intend to give him the opportunity he craves.” The Joker’s eyes narrowed with evil mirth. “In fact, the last thing Robin ever sees on this earth will be you, Batman!”

Laughter bubbled in the Joker’s throat. He rocked in his chair with glee. The sound of his maniacal laughter seemed to fill the room, rebounding off the walls, deafening in its hideous din.

“Hyaaa-hahahahaha-hehehehehe!”

Meanwhile in Commissioner Gordon’s office, a tense Robin listened as Inspector O’Hara reported to the commissioner.

“I’ve had every man in the city on the lookout for the Joker and his men, Commissioner. We haven’t found anything that even resembled a clue.”

“We’ve got to find him!” Commissioner Gordon said. “Every hour that goes by means Batman’s chances of survival are growing dimmer.”

“I’ll cancel all leaves,” Inspector O’Hara said. “We’ll go through all known criminal haunts with a fine-tooth comb. If we even find one of his men, we can bring him in for questioning and...”

“We’ll never locate the Joker that way,” Robin interrupted. “He’s too clever to be caught in the ordinary fashion.”

Commissioner Gordon’s face was gray with fatigue. “How can we find him, Robin? Do you have any ideas?

Robin said, “The Tune Parade.”

Commissioner Gordon said blankly, “What about it? That’s just a musical program on the radio. Surely you don’t suspect that the disc jockey Vance Jennings has any part in this?”

“No—the Tune Parade is an honest program. Vance Jennings conducts a legitimate poll of his listeners to decide the top request tune. But how is that poll conducted, Commissioner?

“I imagine Vance Jennings counts the letters he receives. The song with the greatest number of requests is the one he plays.

“Exactly. So the Joker must be fixing the selection by having his thugs write hundreds of request letters.”

Commissioner Gordon’s face brightened with hope. “You mean the Joker makes sure, in advance, that the song clue will fit the crime?” Commissioner Gordon brought the palm of his hand down flat on the desk. “Of course! I should have thought of that. It’s the only way it could be done!”

“We may be able to trace the letters,” Robin said. “I suggest we pay a visit to the Gotham City post office. Someone there might be able to tell us from which station a large batch of letters has been mailed daily to the Tune Parade!”

Commissioner Gordon was up from his desk before Robin had finished speaking. He grabbed his hat.

“That’s the first constructive suggestion I’ve heard. Come on! We’ve no time to waste!”

Later, in separate rooms at the post office, Commissioner Gordon, Inspector O’Hara, and Robin, the Boy Wonder, questioned postmen as they returned from their rounds.

Robin was alone in a small cubicle of an office. At shortly past four o’clock, the door opened and still another postman entered. He was a surly-looking man whose gray uniform was wrinkled and stained with perspiration.

“The postmaster said you wanted to see me,” the man said to Robin.

“What part of the city do you cover, sir?”

“The Water Street station.”

Robin’s interest quickened slightly. Water Street was in a section of the city notorious for its underworld hideouts.

“Have you noticed an unusual amount of mail being sent from any particular post office box in that region?”

The surly-looking postman said: “There’s always plenty of mail. People will write letters, you know.”

“This mail would be different,” Robin said patiently. “The heavy volume would have occurred only in the last few days. Almost all of the new letters would have been addressed to the Tune Parade program on radio.”

The surly postman shifted slightly in his chair. “Funny you should mention that. The last few days I have picked up a big batch of letters like that. All mailed from a single box at Water Street and Granite Avenue.”

Robin could barely contain his excitement. But all he said was, “Thank you. I’d like to make one request. Don’t mention to anyone that we had this conversation.”

The postman shrugged. “Why should I? I don’t understand what it’s all about, anyhow.”

Robin went to the door of the small office with the postman.

“This is a routine investigation. But it is important that no word leak out. We intend to keep a special watch on that mailbox.”

“You don’t have to worry about me telling anyone. I mind my own business. Things are tough enough without trying to borrow anybody else’s trouble,” the man said sullenly.

“Well,” Robin thought, “things are bound to be unpleasant for anyone with a disposition like yours.” But he said nothing more as he watched the postman go off down the marble corridor of the post office building. Robin hurried in the other direction to inform Commissioner Gordon and Inspector O’Hara that there was no further need to question anyone.

They had found what they were looking for.

If Robin had followed the surly postman, though, he would have been surprised to note that as soon as the surly fellow left the post office building he went directly to a public telephone booth and dialed a number. After a moment, he said, “This is Frank Moro, Boss. I just finished talking with Robin, the Boy Wonder. Just like you said, he wanted to know about mail being delivered to the Tune Parade program.”

“I rather thought he’d get around to that angle about now. Good. Did you tell him the story we agreed on?”

“Right. He’s going to keep a check on the Water Street mailbox. I guess he won’t find anything mailed there from now on, eh?”

“On the contrary. Tonight at the usual time we will mail another batch of letters at that mailbox. And the man who mails them will be someone that Robin knows is working for me.”

Frank Moro said in a puzzled tone, “But, Boss, that’s just asking for trouble. I mean, if Robin follows the guy…”

Over the phone wires trilled the high hysterical laugh of—the Joker.

“That’s just what I expect him to do! The Boy Wonder will walk right into the dandy little trap I’ve prepared for him!”

Shortly before midnight, a man sidled up to the mailbox at the comer of Water Street and Granite Avenue. He was carrying a large satchel full of letters. As he emptied the letters into the box, he cast furtive glances over his shoulder to be sure no one was watching him.

Not far distant, someone was watching. Hidden behind a comer of a building, Robin, the Boy Wonder, was standing guard with Commissioner Gordon.

“Do you recognize that man, Inspector?”

“Scotty Tucker. He’s one of the Joker’s thugs.”

“Correct. And he’s mailing a lot of letters.”

“Shall I arrest him now, Robin?”

“That would be a mistake, Commissioner. Scotty would never tell you where the Joker is. He’s much too afraid of the Joker to betray him.”

“What shall we do, then?”

“Follow him. He has to return to the Joker’s headquarters. And that’s probably where Batman is being held a prisoner.”

“A good idea, Robin. I’ll detail some of my best men to shadow him and—”

“Scotty Tucker might see them and realize he’s being followed. This is one job I must handle completely alone.”

“It’s too dangerous, Robin. You can’t go up against the Joker and his men alone.”

“I’ll be careful, Commissioner. And I won’t be alone. Batman will be with me as soon as I can free him.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’d forgotten that.”

Commissioner Gordon had not forgotten. It just seemed to him that, after so much time in the Joker’s hands, there was a very good chance Batman was no longer alive.

Scotty Tucker returned toward the secret hideout of the Joker. Following a trail through narrow streets and criss-crossing alleyways, Scotty could have sworn that he was alone.

But above him, in the darkness, he was being trailed by a grim pursuing shadow.

Robin—the Boy Wonder!

At the entrance to an abandoned factory building, Scotty Tucker paused to look carefully about him. No one was in sight. Only a stray alley cat prowled the rusting debris of this long-forgotten site.

Scotty reached up to pull a loose board down beside the entrance to the factory.

There was a humming noise. The rusted metal of the overhead door slid smoothly upward to reveal a stairway leading to the second floor of the factory building where the windows were painted over with black paint.

Scotty entered the building. Moments later, the rusted overhead door slid smoothly back into position.

On the second floor landing, in a lushly furnished office, the Joker whirled as the door opened and Scotty Tucker entered.

“Well?” the Joker demanded.

Scotty shrugged. “Nothing happened, Boss. I mailed the letters like you said. But there was nobody around to see me do it. And nobody followed me here.”

The Joker snarled. “Are you sure of that, Scotty?”

“I been in this business a long time, Boss. Nobody could’ve followed me without me knowing it.”

On the wall, a small control box began to jangle softly.

“What’s that, Boss?” Scotty Tucker asked.

The Joker rubbed his hands together with satisfaction.

“So no one was following you, eh, Scotty? That alarm box doesn’t agree. It just gave a signal that someone is on the roof of this building at this very moment! I’m willing to lay odds that the intruder is none other than—Robin, the Boy Wonder!”

The Joker was right.

Robin, after some difficulty, had succeeded at last in prying up the cover to a ventilator shaft on the roof.

“Scotty Tucker went into this building,” Robin thought. “So the Joker’s hideout must be here.”

Carefully, Robin eased his body into the shaft. It was a close fit. But the Boy Wonder was able to work his way cautiously along the shaft to emerge into a narrow area that served as a kind of attic beneath the factory roof. He searched the dusty floor until he found a trapdoor.

Bending down, he listened at the trapdoor for a full minute. No sound came from below.

Using all his strength, Robin pried up the lid of the trapdoor. There was a little squeaking sound.

With the trapdoor open, Robin was able to look down into the room below.

What Robin saw in that room caused his breath to tighten in his throat.

In a chair against the wall, tightly bound and gagged, was Batman!

Robin could barely restrain himself from leaping down into the room. But a sense of caution deterred him. He made a careful survey of the room below him.

Then he saw the Joker.

There was no mistaking the Joker—even from behind. The familiar green shock of hair flowed back and down his neck, and the coattails of his maroon-colored frock coat spread out over the seat. He sat at a desk confronting the bound figure of Batman.

Suddenly Batman’s eyes turned upward to see Robin.

In that last moment, as Robin sprang for the Joker, it occurred to him that Batman’s eyes seemed to hold an agonized glance—of warning. But Robin was already in mid-flight.

He crashed into the seated figure of the Joker.

In that split second, the Boy Wonder’s superquick reflexes flashed their danger signal.

This was not the Joker at all. It was a dummy!

In the next split second, Robin realized that the dummy had set off an ingenious and diabolical trap.

The floor beneath the desk swung down. The desk and the dummy Joker remained bolted in position on the floor.

But Robin plunged through, into the blackness! Then the floor swung back into position.

From a far door to the room the real Joker emerged. He was in a triumphant mood.

“My dummy trap caught Robin! And you, Batman, were forced to watch it happen. Oh, what exquisite torture it must have been!”

Only the tense straining of Batman’s muscles against his bonds proved that he heard the Joker’s taunt.

The Joker laughed. “Hyaa-ha-ha! Perhaps you think your little friend will survive my trap, Batman. Well, he can’t. I was saving the cream of the jest to tell you later. Robin is already dead. Thoroughly and quite untraceably murdered!”

The chair in which Batman sat creaked with his terrible effort to move. But the chair legs were bolted firmly to the floor.

The Joker’s laughter grew shriller.

“Just five feet below this floor is a pool of carbolic acid. The moment Robin went through the floor he plunged into the pool. Hyaa-ha-ha-ha! Your young comrade-in-arms is nothing but a memory. Not a hank of his hair remains. He-he-he-he-he! He’s completely dissolved into his original atoms!” 

To Be Continued...

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Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom

By Winston Lyon

BATMAN vs 3 VILLAINS of DOOM "Chapter 6"

Chapter 6

“Step on the gas,” the Joker ordered. “Quick! It’s Batman and Robin!”

The henchman seemed to have forgotten where he was in his terror. His teeth chattered, and not from the cold.

The Joker shoved him roughly out from behind the wheel.

“I’ll drive myself, you cowardly idiot,” he cried.

The truck started up. But it went only a few feet before the Joker jammed on the brakes. The Batplane was coming down vertically—almost on top of him!

He flung open the truck door, jumped out, and ran. His henchmen were ahead of him. They were heading toward the only refuge in sight—the greenhouse which they had ransacked and deserted.

The Joker flung a shot back into the darkness behind him. He did not pause to see what effect the shot had.

He reached the greenhouse a step ahead of his men and held the door open until they were safely inside. Then he slammed the door.

“Turn the lights out,” he shouted. “Train your guns on that door. If Batman or Robin tries to come through it, blast them to bits!”

The burly henchman said, “H-how did they find us, J-Joker? Did somebody tip them off?”

The Joker snarled, “They guessed the clue hidden in my ‘June in January’ announcement. But they can’t stop me! They’re too late!”

Batman’s voice rang in the glass enclosure. “It’s never too late to trap rats!”

The burly henchman shivered violently. “Where did that v-voice come from? He’s inside here somewhere—in the dark with us!”

“He can’t be,” the, Joker said. “It’s a trick.”

“Are you sure it’s a trick, Joker?”

From another side of the glass house, a shot rang out as a nervous crook pressed a trigger.

“EEEYOW! It’s him!” a man shouted. “I’m hit!”

“Fools!” cried the Joker. “You’re shooting at each other.”

His warning went unheard in the general panic. Shots echoed. Men fought and clawed their way toward the exit door.

As they opened the door, a wintry blast blew in.

And so did Batman and Robin!

KERPOW!

WHAM!

ZOWIE!

In the dark interior of the greenhouse the Joker dropped to his hands and knees. The air above him was rent with the sound of blows. Someone gasped. A foot stamped near him on the ground. There was a grunt, and a body fell heavily.

“The steam pipes,” the Joker thought to himself. “That’s how Batman projected his voice into the greenhouse. Through those pipes! If I can reach the pipes I may be able to turn the tables on him.”

He crawled over two prostrate figures—Horace Holly and his gardener.

His hand touched a double row of horizontal pipes that ran along the side wall of the greenhouse. The pipes were red-hot to the touch. The heat went through the Joker’s gloves. He followed the horizontal pipes until he found a long, slender vertical pipe that fed steam into the system.

The sounds of battle were diminishing. Gasps had been replaced by groans.

“Batman and Robin will be after me next,” the Joker thought. “There’s no time to waste.” He stood up and grasped the handle that controlled the steam intake.

At that moment Batman turned on the switch.

One of the Joker’s henchmen glimpsed Batman. He aimed a gun at his back.

Robin quickly snatched up an empty flowerpot and hurled it with all his might. The pot struck the burly henchman’s elbow, and sent the gun flying from nerve-deadened fingers. The henchman’s wail of pain was cut short as Robin’s first drove home to the point of his jaw. He turned slowly, his legs twisting as he fell in a heap.

“Thanks, Robin,” said the Batman. “We’ve disposed of them all, except for…”

“Me?” asked the Joker. “How right you are, Batman!”

The mad Clown of Crime was already twisting the handle that controlled the input from the steam pipes.

“This hothouse is getting a little too hot for me!” The Joker finished wrenching the handle completely to its furthest arc.

“But turning this steam loose may make it even too hot for you!”

An explosive hiss of steam erupted into a scalding hot veil as Robin charged into the middle of it.

The fiery hot blast struck the Boy Wonder like a fist. He staggered back. Steam rose about him in a blinding white cloud.

“Batman!” he called.

The Joker’s high taunting laugh answered him. Valiantly Robin made an attempt to get to him. But it was like groping through a thick fog in a temperature higher than that of a steam room. Robin could scarcely breathe.

Robin’s groping arms caught a man’s body—and held on.

“Take it easy, Robin,” Batman told him. “It’s me. I’ll get you clear of this.”

Batman led the choking, gasping Boy Wonder to an area clear of the steam vapor.

Through incandescent steam they heard the Joker’s command:

“Quick, men. Into the truck!”

Robin shook his head dazedly. “We can’t let him get away, Batman. Let’s go after him.”

Batman shook his head. “We can’t. Not until we’ve found the steam intake valve and shut it down. I saw Horace Holly and his gardener lying on the ground near the steam pipes when I switched on the lights.”

“Can’t we come back for them later, Batman?” Robin pleaded. “Listen! The Joker and his men are getting away.” Outside the greenhouse the truck’s engine roared into life. There was a hasty grinding clash of gears.

“If we leave those two unconscious men here,” Batman said, “they’ll suffocate. This greenhouse will be full of scalding steam in a few more minutes. We don’t have a choice, Robin. We can’t leave Horace Holly and his gardener to die.”

Steam rose higher and higher in menacing white billows.

The temperature rose steadily—to the limits of human endurance.

Batman swept his cape up about his nose and mouth, and Robin did the same. They plunged into the swirling billows of red-hot steam.

When Batman found the intake valve, the handle was already so hot he could only touch it with his gloves for a second. But by turning the handle a bit at a time he managed to cut off the deadly hiss of incoming steam.

With Robin’s help, he carried Horace Holly and his unconscious gardener out of danger. In the cool air near the open door to the greenhouse the two men slowly revived.

Horace Holly said, “Batman—Robin. Thank goodness you’re here. Someone broke into my greenhouse and…”

Batman said gently, “I know, Mr. Holly. It was the Joker. He was after your rare orchid bulbs.”

“My orchids,” the old man gasped. “Nothing happened to my precious bulbs, did it?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Holly. But I’m afraid the Joker got them.”

“They’ll be ruined. A man like the Joker doesn’t know how to care for those flowers. The slightest rough handling…the merest frost…”

“You can rely on the Joker to take good care of them, Mr. Holly. He doesn’t know much about orchids—but he does know that your collection is worth a fortune. And one thing the Joker does understand, I assure you, is the proper care and handling of—money!”

Horace Holly was close to tears. “My precious orchids,” he said. “I’ve spent most of my life making my collection the finest in the world. How can I ever replace them?”

“You’ll get them back, Mr. Holly. The Joker doesn’t want to go into the business of raising orchids. He’ll unload them as soon as he can—on the market. You’ll be able to buy them back again.”

“Do you really think so? I don’t care about the money. I’ll pay anything.” A wavering smile appeared on Horace Holly’s seamed face. “I can’t tell you what your saying this means to me, Batman. I know it sounds foolish, but to think that all my work—my reputation as the world’s finest orchid grower—might have been undone by this cruel robbery. It’s almost too much for me to bear.”

“Mr. Holly, as soon as you feel better, call the police. When they get here, tell them exactly what happened.”

Horace Holly, with Batman’s assistance, got to his feet. “I surely will, Batman. And I’ll also tell them how you and Robin saved my life—and my gardener William’s life, too.”

Batman and Robin hurried off. A hundred yards distant, the Batplane was waiting.

“We have to face it, Batman,” Robin said grimly. “The Joker won round number two.”

“He’s laughing up his sleeve at us right now, Robin,” Batman said bitterly.

“We mustn’t get discouraged, Batman. You’ve always said that he who laughs last, laughs best!”

“Nevertheless, Robin, I knew what Horace Holly meant when he said that he had spent a lifetime building a reputation—only to see his work undone. That’s how I feel about us and the Joker right now. We’ve spent years building a reputation as crime fighters—and he’s making fools of us.”

“Our day will come, Batman. It may come sooner than the Joker thinks. After all, we’ve beaten the Penguin—and put the Catwoman in prison. The Joker is no tougher than they are.”

But even in Robin’s own ears his words had a false ring—the empty bravado of someone whistling in the dark.

The red phone rang on Commissioner Gordon’s desk. “Batman wants to talk to you, Commissioner,” said Inspector O’Hara.

“He must have heard the request number on the Tune Parade program,” Commissioner Gordon said. “I wonder if he’s reached the same conclusion as we have.”

He crossed the room to pick up the phone. “Yes, Batman?”

The Caped Crusader’s strong assured voice came over the wire, “I presume you heard the request number, Commissioner. ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’”

“Yes, I have, Batman. What do you think it means?”

“I’m not sure. The Joker is being more cryptic than usual.”

“I’ve been discussing it with Inspector O’Hara. We think he’s going to attempt a robbery with the aid of smoke bombs.”

“That would be a little too obvious for the Joker, I’m afraid.”

Commissioner Gordon tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice: “Well, then, Batman, what’s your answer?”

“The Joker will try to match his song clue with a crime, of course—although I doubt he’ll use smoke bombs. Commissioner, I’d like you to post men on rooftops throughout the city to report any suspicious signs.”

“All right, Batman. How will I reach you if there’s anything to report?”

“Use the regular police frequency to broadcast all reports. I’ll be listening.”

“Very well, Batman.”

Commissioner Gordon hung up the phone.

“He didn’t agree with our theory, did he now, Mr. Commissioner?” asked Inspector O’Hara.

“No, he didn’t. But whatever the answer to the Joker’s riddle is, Batman and Robin had better catch up with him soon. We can’t afford another mistake. The Crime Parade has got to stop!”

“What can we do to help Batman, Commissioner?”

“I want a hundred of your best men, O’Hara, posted on rooftops throughout the city at strategically located spots. The moment they see anything smoking, they’re to let me know at once.”

Inspector O’Hara looked dubious. “It’s a big city, Mr. Commissioner. You’ll get reports on every incinerator, every factory furnace, every one-alarm fire.”

“I know, Inspector. But this is what the Batman asked me to do. Do you have a better idea?”

Inspector O’Hara flushed. “No, sir, that I don’t. Is it a hundred men you want, sir? It’s a hundred men you’ll have.”

There was a full moon that night.

In the ghostly pale radiance the towers of Gotham City stood out sharp and clear.

On a rooftop with a commanding view of the business section of the city, Batman and Robin stood guard at a powerful telescope on a tripod. Every few minutes they changed the angle of the telescope’s vision. Either Batman or Robin was constantly at the eyepiece.

Nearby, on the ledge of the roof, stood a small radio tuned in to the police frequency:

“Officer Templeton reporting. Sighted smoke at the corner of Vineland and Roberts Streets. Checked same. Woman burning trash in her backyard…”

“Officer Nelson here. Smoke on Reit Avenue from a burning automobile. Conflagration has been extinguished…”

“Detective Sergeant Andrew Rose. Cause of smoke from a building at Alkon Street proved to be a roast beef left too long in the oven…”

On and on went the reports.

Robin replaced Batman on the telescope. Batman replaced Robin. The hour wore on toward eleven.

Robin said, “Batman, I hate to say it, but I think we’ve missed another of the Joker’s song clues.”

“What makes you think so, Robin?”

“I’m discouraged. Just listen to all these false alarms being checked by the police! And we haven’t noticed any suspicious signs of smoke…”

“I don’t expect any, Robin,” Batman said calmly.

“You don’t—what?” Robin stared at Batman. “But why all this fuss about putting police observers on rooftops? And what are we doing up here with this telescope?”

“The police are stationed out there to give the Joker a false sense of security, Robin. If the Joker thinks we’re actually looking for some sort of smoke signal to reveal the location of his next crime, he may very likely get a little careless. And that may uncover his real plan.”

“Holy firefighters!” Robin exclaimed. “I never thought of that. What do you expect his real plan is, Batman?”

“I wish I could tell you, Robin. All I do know is that the mere presence of smoke won’t give it away. The Joker is far too devious a scoundrel for—wait a minute!”

“Did you see anything, Batman?”

“It’s something I don’t see. The last time we looked through the telescope at the northeast section of the business district the factory chimney was smoking.”

“Let me see, Batman!”

Robin took over at the eyepiece of the powerful telescope. “You’re right, Batman. We had a report on it at that time. It’s a silk warehouse. They were burning the leftover cuttings and sweepings.”

“How long ago was that, Robin?”

Robin consulted his notebook.

“I have a report on it here. From Detective Sergeant Andrew Rose. Ten forty-seven.”

“Barely fifteen minutes ago.”

“That’s right, Batman.”

“And the police report said the smoke would continue for at least two hours. Why has it stopped so suddenly?”

“Do you think…?”

“This would be just like the Joker, wouldn’t it? To tip off his crime not by a smoke signal—but by the absence of smoke!”

Robin was already preparing the Batarang. “Let’s get there in a hurry, Batman!”

“Not so fast, Robin. Don’t forget the Batrespirators. The Joker also warned us that ‘smoke gets in your eyes.’ And we have learned to ignore his warnings only at our peril!”

Batman and Robin fixed respirators over the lower part of their faces. Then the caped duo set out for the silk warehouse about two miles distant. They did not waste time descending to the street. Instead they took the direct route over the rooftops and the streets.

Time and again the Batarangs shot out, coiled over an adjoining roof or ledge support, then Batman and Robin, supreme acrobats, swung on the Batropes high above the street.

The high-flying shortcut to the warehouse was saving precious minutes!

On the roof of the silk warehouse, a few minutes earlier, the Joker had put a daring plot into action.

At his orders, three of his henchmen took heavy bags of sand and dropped them down the stack of the smoking chimney. As the sandbags plunged through the stack, the smoke from the chimney thinned.

“Won’t somebody notice when the chimney stops smoking, Boss?”

The Joker whinnied triumphantly. “Haven’t you been listening to the police broadcasts? They’re watching for signs of smoke appearing—not disappearing! So they won’t think there’s anything suspicious about this. The poor dolts!” The smoke from the chimney stopped altogether.

“Shall we put on the oxygen masks now, Boss?” asked a second henchman.

“Plenty of time,” said the confident Joker. “Right now the smoke from this choked-up chimney is pouring through the building. And the watchmen are trying to get out. There won’t even be time for them to turn in an alarm.”

“Smoke will get in their eyes, eh, Joker? That was a good one.”

The Joker’s eyes flashed fire. “Good?”

“I mean great,” the henchman corrected himself hastily. “All your ideas are great, Boss. That’s because you’re a genius.”

“What a nice thing to say, Gorgo. As one devoted to the truth, I love to hear it spoken. And it is quite true—I am a genius.”

The third henchman ventured cautiously, “Shall we put on the masks now, Boss? And get started with our business?”

The Joker yawned. “Ah, yes,” he said. “We might as well. This is the part of committing a crime I enjoy the least. It’s so much like plain hard work. And it’s really quite boring for a man of my brilliance.”

They put on the oxygen masks and descended into the smoke-filled main room of the silk warehouse. Valuable rolls of fabrics were stored on shelves and in. huge bolts on the floor. The Joker leisurely watched his men pull and haul the goods into position.

“Shall we start dropping the stuff now, Joker?” one of the men asked through the microphone in his mask.

The room was aboil with acrid black smoke from the chimney, and the Joker could hardly see where the man was.

“Yes,” he said impatiently. “The rest of the boys are waiting below to put it into the trucks.”

“When we open the window, Joker, this smoke will get out. Won’t that signal the cops to come here?”

The Joker rasped irritably, “By the time they get here, we’ll be safely gone. I’ve allowed exactly three minutes for this part of the operation. Like all my superb crime plans, it’s been timed to the fraction of a split second. The nearest police are posted half a mile from here. It will take them exactly six minutes from the time they first sight the smoke to arrive on the scene. We have a more than adequate margin of safety.”

“You think of everything, Joker. Here we go.”

One henchman signaled the other, who rolled up the large window.

Black smoke poured out the window. At the same time the men dropped the first of the great bolts of silk to the pavement below.

On the pavement the Joker’s other men scurried to pick up the bolts and load them into the waiting trucks. The men working below could not even see the window from which the smoke—and a fortune in costly fabrics—was emerging.

So they did not see two caped figures swing in a long daring arc from a building opposite into the open window of the warehouse!

THUD!

“What was that?” asked the Joker. Then his voice became a trumpet of alarm: “BATMAN AND ROBIN!”

Out of the smoke charged two caped figures. They collided with two henchmen carrying a new bolt of silk to the window.

Down went the men, with the silk. The fabric unrolled and billowed out over them like the silken canopy of a parachute around a grounded parachutist.

“HELP!” screamed one of the men from beneath the silken prison.

The Joker did not answer the call for help. He took refuge behind the tall wooden shelves in which other bolts of silk were stored.

“A pox on Batman and that cursed brat!” he said. “They’re getting too good at detecting my song clues. Well, my men should delay them long enough for me to make my own escape. I’ll get away in one of the trucks waiting below!”

As the two henchmen tangled in silk tried to extricate themselves, Robin planted himself between them. He took their heads and expertly banged them into each other.

The remaining henchman tried to flee, tripped over a bolt of silk, and went sprawling. He rolled over on his back and managed to fire two quick shots as Batman lunged at him.

Batman landed heavily on him. A black-gloved fist struck—and that was all the henchman remembered.

Robin called, “The Joker! He’s hiding behind those tall shelves.”

The Joker cursed fluently. The delay he had counted on had not materialized. Batman and Robin had disposed of his men in just a few seconds of violent combat.

The Joker heaved at the shelf between him and Robin as the Boy Wonder raced toward him.

The tall shelf teetered forward.

“LOOK OUT!” Batman shouted to Robin. But the Boy Wonder, eager for battle, hardly noted the danger.

Batman fired the Batarang.

A coil of rope swept around Robin—and Batman hauled him back with all his power.

Robin yelled. “Batman! What’re you doing?”

Robin was pulled off his feet, sliding across the floor.

In that instant the huge shelving fell with a shattering crash—exactly where Robin had been a moment before! Batman quickly untied the ropes that bound Robin.

“I guess I should’ve watched where I was going, eh, Batman?”

“That’s always a good idea, Robin. If that shelving had landed on you, I’d be scraping you up now with a spoon!”

When Batman had finished freeing Robin he glanced around to see what had happened to the Joker.

The mad jester was poised on the edge of the window. The Joker’s long coattails flapped in the breeze from the window as he made ready to jump.

“Farewell, Batman. Until we meet again!”

The wail of police sirens sounded from the street below.

Looking down from his window perch, the Joker saw his trucks frantically start to pull away from the curb. But police cars were already on the scene. Police piled out, guns in hand.

The trucks screeched to a halt. The Joker’s henchmen stepped out of the trucks with their hands high in the air.

“Up there!” someone cried from the street below. “The Joker himself!”

A police searchlight flashed upward. The Joker’s tall figure was framed in the window with smoke still pouring out behind him.

“Surrender, Joker. Or we’ll shoot!”

“Oh, drat!” thought the Joker. “My timing was upset by Batman and Robin’s arrival. They delayed everything long enough for the cops to get here.”

A warning shot chipped wood from the window above the Joker’s head.

Down below waited certain capture. To remain at the window meant certain death.

The Joker leaped back into the room—to confront Batman and Robin!

“Not leaving after all?” Batman asked sarcastically.

“I simply can’t tear myself away, Batman,” answered the Joker.

Batman sprang for him. The Joker tried to fend off the blow, but Batman’s rock-hard fist drove home unerringly.

The impact sent the Joker reeling back to the wall.

The Joker picked up a chair and threw it desperately.

Batman ducked beneath it and dived in at the Joker again. His left hand dug deep into the Joker’s stomach. The Joker gave a wheezing gasp and his hands clawed upward blindly at the Batman’s face.

He tore off the Batrespirator!

Instantly Batman was choking, his eyes smarting.

In the acrid stinging smoke, Batman bent to recover the respirator. The Joker’s knee flashed upward and caught him on the point of the jaw.

Batman went down heavily. He lay still.

A furious small figure exploded with savage fury at the Joker.

Trying vainly to hold off Robin’s attack, the Joker stumbled backward and sprawled full length.

Robin leaped at him.

The Joker’s agile legs shot up, caught Robin, lifted him, and sent him flying across the room.

Robin was instantly on his feet, ready to do battle again.

But the Joker had his gun out—and it was aimed not at Robin.

The Joker was holding the gun tight against the temple of the fallen, unconscious Batman!

“I can’t miss at this range,” the Joker said. “If you move toward me, Robin, I will blow out Batman’s brains.”

Robin halted. Seeing the Boy Wonder’s hesitation, the Joker added, “Come now, Robin. You don’t want his blood on your conscience, do you?”

“I wish I had my hands on your throat right this minute, Joker.”

“Tsk-tsk. What a sadistic idea. However, there’s always hope that you may triumph one day, Robin. The question is, will Batman be alive to see it?”

“You know I can’t do anything, Joker. I’m helpless.”

The Joker grinned widely. “So you are. And so, in point of fact, are the police on the street downstairs. While I tie Batman securely with some of this silken rope, I would strongly suggest that you apprise them of the fact.”

Robin gritted his teeth. “What do you want me to do, Joker?”

“Go to that window over there and tell your police friends that Batman is my prisoner. Tell them that unless my men and I are allowed to go free, Batman will be killed!”

“I can’t make the police agree to a bargain like that.”

“You can’t make them do anything, Robin. All you can do is tell them the situation. I’ll risk what decision they make.”

“Suppose I do what you ask? Will you agree not to kill Batman later?”

“Why should I want to kill him? He’s much too valuable as a hostage.”

Robin stared at the Joker grimly. “If anything happens to him, I’ll track you down and make you pay for it if it takes the rest of my life.”

“Let’s not exchange any further pleasantries, Robin. You have my promise that Batman will not be harmed. Now, how about your informing the police?”

Robin hesitated for a long moment. Then he said, “All right, I’ll do it.”

The Joker chuckled. “I rather thought you would, dear boy.”

The Joker began to bind Batman’s hands behind him. Robin crossed the room to the window. It was, the Boy Wonder thought grimly, one of the worst moments of his life. He was making a bargain with the Joker—archfiend of crime—a bargain that Batman himself would never have approved of.

But there was no choice.

To Be Continued...

MONDAY!

Same Bat-Time!

Same Bat-Blog!

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Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom

By Winston Lyon

BATMAN vs 3 VILLAINS of DOOM "Chapter 5"

Chapter 5

When Bruce Wayne hung up the Batphone, he said, “Alfred, you’ll have to make our apologies to Aunt Harriet.”

“You won’t be here for dinner, sir?” “I’m afraid not.”

“I can’t imagine what to tell Mrs. Cooper this time, sir. She prepared a splendid meal for you and the young master, and she just went into the kitchen to warm your soup. How can I tell her that you’ve decided to go out again?”

“You’ll think of something, Alfred,” Dick Grayson said cheerfully. “You always do.”

“Yes, Master Grayson,” Alfred answered with a sigh. “But there certainly are times when one’s ingenuity is strained to the very limit.”

Bruce Wayne removed the top of the bust of Shakespeare and threw the switch. The secret door opened in the wall. In a moment Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were sliding down the Batpoles into the hidden recesses of the Batcave.

Alfred returned to the dining room. Aunt Harriet came in carrying the plates of soup on a tray.

“Now, here we are. All nice and…” She stopped and looked about the empty dining room. “My gracious. Where did they go?”

“Master Grayson just recalled that he left his boots near the pond where he and Mr. Wayne were observing the habits of the fork-legged petrel.”

“Forgot his boots! How could he do a thing like that?”

Alfred said, “I am afraid, Mrs. Cooper, the boy must have removed them to go in wading.”

“Wading! In January! He could have caught his death of cold. I am going to speak to him when he returns.”

“That,” said Alfred, “is an excellent idea. There are times, Mrs. Cooper, when a maternal influence is sadly missed around this domicile. Particularly in the case of Master Grayson.”

Aunt Harriet put the soup plates down on the table. “Well, I suppose they won’t be back for a while. We might as well eat their dinners before they’re ruined.”

“If you recall, Mrs. Cooper, I have already dined.”

“Oh, Alfred, you can always make room for another bowl of my vegetable soup.”

Alfred sighed. “Of course. You do make a most commendable vegetable soup, Mrs. Cooper.”

Commissioner Gordon showed the note to Batman and Robin in his office. The note was made up entirely of letters cut out of a newspaper and pasted down on a sheet of paper to spell out the Joker’s message.

“Tune in the Tune Parade if you want to know the latest hit on the Joker’s Crime Parade.”

“Is that all, Commissioner?” Batman inquired.

Commissioner Gordon nodded gloomily. “It’s another of the Joker’s silly riddles. There’s always a meaning hidden in them, isn’t there?”

“Yes, there always is, Commissioner. What do you make of this one, Robin?”

Robin pondered the pasted-up message. “The Tune Parade is a popular program on Gotham City radio. He must be referring to that, Batman.”

Batman put the Joker’s message back on the police commissioner’s desk. “It would be the Joker’s idea of a comical clue. He’s planted what he intends to do in crime as an announcement on a popular radio program. I think we had better listen in.”

At eight o’clock when the Tune Parade program went on the air, Batman, Robin, and Commissioner Gordon all listened carefully. But there did not appear to be any message that could be interpreted as a clue for crime.

Finally, the disc jockey, Vance Jennings, played the last number on the regular program.

“Well,” Commissioner Gordon said, “it seems that there is no message for us from the Joker on tonight’s program.”

“Wait a minute,” Robin said as Commissioner Gordon was about to turn off the radio. “Isn’t there usually a request number?”

“That’s right, Robin,” said Batman. “And if the Joker has anything to tell us, that will be where he chooses to do it.”

In a moment, after a commercial announcement, Vance Jennings came back on the air.

“Now we’re going to play our request number—the tune most of you folks out there wanted to hear tonight. It’s that great melody ‘Old Man River.’”

“‘Old Man River,’” Batman repeated. “It’s from the musical ‘Show Boat.’ It might be a tip-off that the Joker plans some riverboat crime. No, that isn’t likely. He’s usually more specific than that.”

“You don’t suppose,” Robin said, “that there actually is an Old Man River, do you?”

Batman snapped his fingers. “That’s it, Robin!”

While Commissioner Gordon looked on puzzledly, Batman flung open a telephone directory and quickly went down the list of names.

“I find at least two possibilities,” he said. “An E. M. River, who’s a wholesale fur merchant. And a Jabez River, who deals in diamonds.”

“Sounds pretty farfetched to me,” Commissioner Gordon said. “You don’t seriously believe, Batman, that the Joker intends to rob one of these two men. Why, there are all sorts of other possible meanings…”

“You might save time, Commissioner, if you place two phone calls. One to E. M. River and the other to Jabez River.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Ask them one question,” Batman said. “How old are they?”

Commissioner Gordon stared. “How old are they?”

“That’s right, Commissioner.”

Commissioner Gordon called E. M. River, spoke for a moment, and hung up the telephone.

“He probably thinks I’m crazy,” the commissioner said grimly. “But he finally told me how old he is. He’s thirty-four.”

“Then he isn’t our man. Call Jabez River quickly, Commissioner. Find out how old he is. If he’s over sixty, tell him to lock up his store and not to let anyone in under any circumstances. Tell him we’ll be there right away!”

Commissioner Gordon seemed about to protest, but then he shrugged and made the phone call. When he put down the phone this time, his expression had changed to pure incredulity.

“That was Jabez River’s store I just called. But I couldn’t talk to Mr. River.”

“Why not?”

“He was busy with the police, who were in his store already. He’s just been robbed—by the Joker!”

Batman nodded. “Did you find out how old Mr. River is?”

“Yes. He’s seventy-four years old.”

“You see, Commissioner. In his own way, the Joker can be pretty specific. He told us that the first target on his Crime Parade was Old Man River—and that’s exactly who it was!” Commissioner Gordon took a handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe his forehead. “Crime has changed from the days when I was a policeman on a beat. Sometimes I think it’s getting to be too much for me.”

“Commissioner, you do a fine job against the ordinary run of criminals. But the Joker is no ordinary criminal,” Batman said.

Batman started for the door, with Robin following him. “You’re not leaving now, are you, Batman?” Commissioner Gordon asked. “Don’t you want to question Jabez River?”

“No—that’s past history,” Batman said. “There isn’t anything we can do until the Joker gives us the clue for his next caper on…his Crime Parade.”

The next evening, during a fine dinner together, Aunt Harriet smiled brightly at Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in the dining room.

“I’m so glad to have you two home for a change instead of traipsing all over the place on those silly bird-watching expeditions.”

“We’re not going off on any more of those for a spell, Aunt Harriet,” Dick Grayson assured her.

“Well, certainly hope not. Especially after you went wading in that cold pond yesterday without your boots!”

“After I went…?” Dick Grayson caught himself as Alfred, standing nearby, gave him a meaningful wink. “Oh, yes, that was careless of me, Aunt Harriet.”

“It was much worse than that, Dick. You risked catching pneumonia.” She turned to Bruce Wayne. “I really must say that you’re not living up to your responsibilities as Richard’s guardian when you let things like that happen.”

Bruce Wayne said seriously, “You’re quite right, Aunt Harriet. I’ll try to do better.”

“You don’t seem to realize the kind of danger a boy can get into sometimes,” Aunt Harriet observed. “A youngster like Richard needs someone older and wiser to protect him.”

There was a snuffling sound from the corner of the room where Alfred was standing.

Aunt Harriet said, “Whatever is the matter with you, Alfred? Are you laughing at anything I said?”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Cooper.” Alfred regained a measure of his customary solemnity. “I—er—had something caught in my throat.”

Aunt Harriet clasped her hands on the table. “Now that we’re all finished with the main course, I have a special surprise for dessert. Strawberry and pistachio ice cream parfait.”

Bruce Wayne said, “Do you mind if we have it in the library, Aunt Harriet? There’s a radio program we don’t want to miss. It’s coming on any minute.”

“That’s fine. It’s something educational, I hope.”

“Well—uh—not exactly. It’s the—er—Tune Parade.”

Aunt Harriet sighed reprovingly. “I do wish you’d try to encourage Richard’s interest in a better kind of music. Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, for example.”

“Oh, I dig them, Aunt Harriet,” Dick Grayson said.

“You do—what?”

“I appreciate their music, I mean,” Dick Grayson corrected himself. “But the Tune Parade keeps me up to date on what most people like to listen to. And that’s something I have to know for an essay I’m writing in my sociology class.”

Aunt Harriet beamed approvingly. “That’s different. You two go right on ahead and listen to the radio. I’ll bring you your strawberry and pistachio ice cream.”

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson listened intently through the regular program of the Tune Parade. There was no hint of anything resembling a clue by the Joker. Finally, it was time for Vance Jennings to announce the request number:

“Friends, today the request song is that old and familiar favorite, ‘It’s June in January.’”

The first strains of the melody began to come over the loudspeaker.

“What can it mean?” Dick Grayson asked. “It’s a pretty vague clue, if you ask me.”

“I’d better call Commissioner Gordon,” Bruce Wayne said. “He may have received further information from the Joker.” He handed Dick his emptied parfait glass. “Here, you bring these back to Aunt Harriet. Keep her talking in the kitchen until I finish making the phone call.”

“Okay, Bruce.”

Commissioner Gordon’s voice crackled over the Batphone,

“Yes, Batman, we got another message from the Joker. It said today’s clue to crime would reveal not the person—but the place at which the crime would occur.”

“I see.”

“Well, I don’t, Batman. I listened in and the song request was ‘It’s June in January.’ What’s that got to do with a place?”

“Offhand, I can only surmise that the Joker is referring to Florida—where the weather is like June in January.”

“If he’s going to strike in Florida next, I can’t do very much about it. My authority extends only to the limits of Gotham City.”

“We do have an airport, Commissioner—from which Florida-bound planes take off, and to which they return. The Joker may be referring to that.”

The commissioner sounded skeptical: “All right. I’ll post men at the airport with special instructions to watch every incoming and outgoing Florida plane. That’s about all I can do, Batman.”

“It may be very helpful, Commissioner.”

Bruce Wayne hung up the phone and replaced the lamp atop it. The voices of Dick Grayson and Aunt Harriet approached in the next room.

He went to meet Dick Grayson and Aunt Harriet at the door.

“I was just telling Richard,” Aunt Harriet said, “that if he has an important essay to write he ought to stay home and study instead of gallivanting around town with you tonight.”

“You certainly can’t complain about the marks Dick has been getting, Aunt Harriet. Straight A’s in every course.”

Aunt Harriet sighed bewilderedly. “I don’t know how he manages to do it. I never see him doing his regular schoolwork. He’s always off on peculiar projects with you—like bird-watching or studying Sanskrit. No boy his age ought to be interested in things like that.”

“It’s all part of his education, Aunt Harriet,” Bruce Wayne said. “I want Dick to be well informed about everything. Tonight, for instance, we’re going to the Gotham City Airport. I want to show him the intricate and complex operations of a modern airport.”

Aunt Harriet said, “I don’t see how that’s going to help him in his sociology class.”

“Sooner or later,” Bruce Wayne said, “everything we learn comes in handy. At least, that’s what I believe.”

Aunt Harriet sighed resignedly. “Well, have a good time. And be sure to be home in bed early. A growing boy needs his rest, Richard.”

“Yes, Aunt Harriet,” Dick Grayson said as he kissed her goodbye. He followed Bruce Wayne out of the room.

Aunt Harriet Cooper would have been a mightily surprised woman if she could have seen what Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne were doing scarcely more than an hour later. They were hovering above Gotham City Airport in a black plane whose fuselage was shaped like a bat’s head, and whose oddly constructed wings ordinarily increased its resemblance to a bat. But now the retractable wings had been withdrawn and auxiliary helicopter gear enabled the Batplane to stay almost motionless in the air.

Inside the plane Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson had changed their costume. They were attired as—Batman and Robin!

Below them, a huge four-engined jet plane wheeled out onto the runway, waited for takeoff instructions, and then raced down the strip and zoomed up into the air.

Robin lowered his binoculars. “There goes another plane bound for Florida. Not a sign of anything amiss.”

“There’s another plane due to land from Florida in about twenty minutes, Robin. It may be carrying the cargo that the Joker is after.”

Robin turned to Batman anxiously. “I have a feeling that we haven’t found the right answer to the Joker’s riddle. He could easily have meant some other place where the weather is like June in January.”

“I’m a little worried about that too, Robin. The Joker’s already pulled off one of his Crime Parade robberies. I’d hate to see him get away with another.”

The throbbing roar of big jet engines came up to them from the airport below as the wind gusted and fell away. The sky was overcast and the air was full of millions of driving, icepointed droplets that swept over them from the darkness out of the east. When Batman lifted the cowling of the Batplane to look out, the narrow exposed area of his face beneath his mask was stung by, minute particles of bail like infuriated hornets.

It was a sharp, exquisite pain, but the pain vanished in the greater torment of Batman’s increasing suspicion that Robin was right—they had not interpreted the Joker correctly. But what else could the clue have meant?

Horace Holly was displeased.

His stooped, aging figure moved through the bitter January weather toward the glass hothouse where his gardener was waiting. As he opened the door, a blast of hot air struck him. The gardener was wearing only a shirt and light trousers, and his face was streaming perspiration.

“No use waiting any longer, William,” Horace Holly said. “I just called Gotham City Airport. The plane with my new collection of orchids from Florida isn’t due for twenty minutes. I told them to keep the boxes of orchids aboard the plane until tomorrow morning and then ship them over to me. It’s freezing cold tonight.”

“Will the orchids be safe, Mr. Holly? They’re worth a lot of money.”

“It’s the airline’s responsibility. I’m insured against loss. I’m not going to risk having those orchids delivered in weather like this. I’m going to bed!”

“Good night, Mr. Holly.”

The door to the hothouse opened and closed.

“Pleasant dreams, Mr. Holly,” added a rasping, mirthless voice.

The tall, grotesquely attired figure of the Joker stood inside the hothouse door. He fired a pellet from a gun—and that was the last thing Mr. Holly remembered for some time. He fell unconscious in the passageway between the double-tiered rows of boxes of his fabulous orchid collection.

The gardener William fell close beside him.

The Joker’s evil laugh rang out triumphantly. “When Mr. Holly awakens, his rare orchid collection will belong to me. Ha-ha-ha! I love to collect flowers too—but only for resale!” The Joker motioned to a truck standing outside.

The truck backed up to the hothouse door, and the rear opened.

The Joker commanded, “Start loading these orchids aboard, men. Handle them gently. The least rough handling or cold might injure them. If that happens, whoever is responsible will answer—to me!”

One burly henchman mopped his forehead. “Golly, Joker, it’s hot as blazes in this place. Couldn’t we get it a little cooler?”

“I find this temperature pleasant,” the Joker said. As a thought struck him, he laughed: “Where else could you be where the climate is like—June in January?”

The Joker nearly doubled up with laughter.

Perspiring, as they removed the boxes of orchids into the heated interior of the truck one henchman whispered to another, “That guy kills himself with his jokes, don’t he?”

“Yeah. He may be a genius—but he’s the first one to admit it!”

At Gotham City Airport, Batman and Robin watched the arrival of the plane from Florida.

“No sign of the Joker yet, Batman,” Robin remarked.

The Batman was listening in on the conversation between the pilot of the incoming plane and the airport tower. Batman put down the earphones with abrupt violence. Over the microphone Robin could still hear the murmur of conversation between the pilot and the tower.

“Robin,” Batman said. “I’ve been a fool.” His voice was calm, but full of self-reproach—the voice of a man in whom the cold, dismaying processes of reason had led to an unwelcome conclusion.

“What do you mean, Batman?”

“I’m switching from helicopter to forward flight,” Batman said as his hand flicked to the controls. “We’re going to Horace Holly’s estate.”

“Horace Holly—the multimillionaire hobbyist? Why, Batman?”

“Because that’s where the Joker is striking tonight.” Batwings slid slowly into position and in a sharp climbing turn the Batplane zoomed away from Gotham City Airport.

Robin said, “How did you figure it out, Batman?”

“I didn’t—until I overheard the conversation between the pilot of that incoming plane and the airport’s control tower.”

“What did they say, Batman?”

“The pilot told the tower he had a special hothouse section on board the plane—to protect the cargo. He wanted to know if similar arrangements had been made at the airport. It seems that he’s delivering a special consignment of orchids to Horace Holly.”

“Orchids!’ Robin said. “Hothouse! They’re kept in a hothouse where the temperature is always—June in January!”

“And the Horace Holly orchid collection is world-famous. It’s a perfect crime target for—the Joker!”

“How can you be sure the Joker doesn’t intend to rob the shipment that’s coming on the plane?”

“It wouldn’t make sense, Robin. Horace Holly’s greenhouse on his estate has a collection that’s at least ten times as valuable. And it won’t be under the kind of surveillance that a new shipment would be—which is guaranteed by an insurance company to arrive safely. The insurance company will make sure every security protection is taken—including police guards.”

“Golly, Batman, I think you’ve finally solved the Joker’s crime riddle. I just hope it isn’t too late!”

Batman did not reply. He was too busy urging every possible ounce of speed from the Batplane. That he had solved the Joker’s riddle he was pretty sure. But he bit his lips in chagrin at the thought of how he had been misled. The Joker’s crime clue had seemed vague but was, in fact, brilliantly precise.

This was what Batman should have expected of a master criminal who thought of everything, made every possible provision against the slightest chance of failure.

Still, even though furious at the delay, Batman thought he could cope with the situation.

If only he could reach the Horace Holly estate in time!

The last of the orchid boxes were being loaded aboard the waiting truck. The hard labor of carrying out the entire greenhouse full of orchids to store in the truck, together with the high temperature in the hothouse—at now higher than ninety degrees Fahrenheit—had left its mark on the Joker’s men. The burliest of them looked as though he had been shrunken by the heat; his face was pockmarked with streams of sweat. The others were exhausted, moving with mechanical, lackluster gestures. The insidious energy-sapping effects of the unnatural heat had already eaten deep into their physical reserves.

The Joker himself sat watching them with expressionless coal-black eyes. He, too, felt the humidity in the place plaguing him. His breathing was difficult, and the sweet ethereal odor of the orchids assailed him.

He was tempted to turn down the valves that controlled the temperature in the glass greenhouse. But he resisted the temptation. After all, it would not take long for his men to recover. But the orchids might be ruined by a change in temperature.

Nevertheless the Joker was relieved when the work of loading came to an end at last.

The driver started up the truck engines and the Joker got in beside him at the wheel. The powerful headlights of the truck switched on.

The driver suddenly jumped up from the seat. “Hey, Joker. There’s somethin’ right ahead of us. A shadow!”

The Joker saw it. But this was no ordinary shadow. It was not the reflection of any object in the path of the truck.

This shadow came from above!

And it was shaped like a bat!

To Be Continued...

TOMORROW!

Same Bat-Time!

Same Bat-Blog!

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Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom

By Winston Lyon

BATMAN vs 3 VILLAINS of DOOM "Chapter 4"

Chapter 4

Slowly, consciousness came back to Robin. He had the feeling of drowning, deep in ocean depths, and struggling back toward surface and light.

His head ached horribly.

He tried to put his hand to his head and discovered that he could not move. He was bound hand and foot.

“How do you feel, dear boy?” asked a solicitous voice.

The Penguin’s pudgy frame was bending over him.

“If I could get my hands free I’d show you how I feel,” Robin replied. “I’d bash your head in.”

The Penguin chuckled with a burbling delight. “Ah—that’s the spirit. I’d hate to bring you in cowed and broken-spirited before the judges. It wouldn’t be quite as spectacular a triumph.”

Robin winced, not entirely from the racking pain in his head.

“I suppose it would be asking too much,” the Penguin went on, “to request that you give the committee a blow-by-blow account of how I defeated you. A vivid, firsthand personal account always has a great deal of influence.”

“On what?” Robin asked.

“They are going to decide whether I am the master criminal of our time. The only one entitled to the Tommy Award.”

The Penguin patted his protuberant stomach. “I can’t wait to see the Joker’s and the Catwoman’s faces when the committee gives the award to me.”

Robin was annoyed at the Penguin’s all too evident selfsatisfaction.

“Are you sure they will give it to you?”

“How can they give it to anyone else?” the Penguin demanded. “Here you are—Robin, the Boy Wonder, himself. My captive! This feat alone would entitle me to the prize. But then they must also consider my successful bird-crimes—in which I outwitted Batman. First, there was the robbery at the state bird exhibit in which I used the lark bunting as my method of executing the crime. Then there was the auction gallery where I made off with an emerald statuette of the ibis-god Thoth—using the auctioneer’s yellow hammer. The yellow hammer! Ha-ha. That’s also the name of a bird. Oh, how I tweaked the Batman’s nose!”

Robin said, “I could tell them about the fiasco when you tried to hijack that gold shipment. You deserted several men, allowed them to be captured, wrecked the blimp, and lost all the gold. And barely escaped yourself.”

The Penguin’s disdainful smile did not conceal a tremor of anxiety.

“Everyone is entitled to one mistake. And I redeemed myself by making my escape cleverly and by trapping you while committing my third and most profitable felony—stealing the payroll of the Robert O. Link Remote Control factory.”

“That crime wasn’t a part of your bird-pattern, Penguin. It was a lucky coincidence.”

“I deny that.”

“You were running away. I found your hiding place—inside that roll of newsprint on the truck. What an undignified exit for the Penguin. Your compatriots in crime will get a good laugh when I tell them about that.”

The Penguin’s jowls shook. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“You’re a nasty boy!”

Robin grinned. “I’m not such a prize package as a prisoner, am I? However, I don’t want to spoil your fun, Penguin. You’ve won fair and square.” Robin strained uncomfortably as the bonds cut deep into his arms. I’ll make a deal. How would you like me to keep quiet about these embarrassing incidents I spoke of?”

The Penguin glanced at him suspiciously. “What do you want in return?”

“I’m not in a good position to bargain. Just untie these ropes. They’re cutting into my arms.”

“It’s a trick.”

“You can keep a gun on me. I can’t do anything to you.”

“That’s true,” said the Penguin thoughtfully. “Well, if I do untie you, will you promise to be quiet about the gold shipment episode?”

“You have my word for that, Penguin.”

The Penguin kept his revolver pointed at Robin’s head while with one hand he untied the knots that bound the Boy Wonder’s arms.

Robin stretched his arms. “Golly. That feels much better.” The Penguin’s sleepy-lidded eyes smoldered at Robin from behind the gun muzzle.

He said nervously, “One false move and I’ll blow your head off.”

“Will you stop worrying?” Robin asked. “I’m not going to try anything rash while you’ve got that gun aimed at my head.” Even as he spoke, Robin’s elbow touched a section of his utility belt. From within a small protective shield, an ultrasonic frequency signal began to emit steady sounds too high for human hearing.

It was a signal to the Batman!

In the office of Police Commissioner Gordon, Batman was pacing the floor while the commissioner and Police Inspector O’Hara watched sympathetically.

“You’ve done a good job, Batman,” Commissioner Gordon said. “You have nothing to reproach yourself for. You saved that gold shipment, and captured three of the Penguin’s best men.”

“But the Penguin got away. And I haven’t heard from Robin. I’m starting to get worried.”

“I told you I saw him at that intersection,” Inspector O’Hara said. “He was hot on the trail of the Penguin. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Robin’s found the Penguin by now.”

“Or vice versa,” Batman said worriedly. “The fact that the Batmobile was found abandoned near the site of the robbery at the Robert O. Link factory is an ominous sign.”

“It might just mean that he’s pursuing the Penguin in some other way.”

“The Penguin is a formidable opponent. I shouldn’t have sent Robin after him alone,” Batman answered.

Commissioner Gordon said, “I wouldn’t concern myself about Robin. That young man certainly knows how to take care of himself.”

Batman did not appear to be listening. Or rather he was listening to something else. Suddenly he snapped open the shield on his utility belt. A tiny light flickered within…buzzed…flickered again…buzzed again.

“It’s Robin—broadcasting on our ultrasonic transmitting device. He’s in trouble!” Batman leaped toward the door. “I have to go!”

“How will you know where to find him?” Commissioner Gordon asked.

“I don’t—yet,” Batman said in the doorway. “But with the four-way directional antenna on the Batmobile it won’t take long to track down the source of that signal.”

The door closed behind Batman’s caped figure.

“Begorra,” exclaimed Inspector O’Hara. “Ultrasonic transmitters! Four-way directional antennas! Whoever Batman really is, he’s got to be a scientific genius as well as the world’s greatest crime fighter.”

Commissioner Gordon nodded. “I don’t know what we would ever do without him. Let’s hope we never have to find out.”

The Award Committee of the underworld convened in a bizarre setting. It was a huge warehouse with pipe organs lined up against the walls and placed every which way on the floor. At the far end of the warehouse there rose the mightiest pipe organ Robin had ever seen, a monstrous fifty-foot-high affair that reached almost to the ceiling. Its tremendous pipes were like so many missiles ready for launching.

The reason for this warehouse having been chosen as the meeting place was simple. John Whiting, chairman of the committee, operated behind a respectable business front as a distributor of pipe organs.

The giant pipe organ in the rear of the warehouse had been especially built for installation in a new motion picture palace meant to dwarf all such previous buildings, even the fabulous Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The organ was designed to be played by half a dozen organists at once—each stationed at a different part of the mighty instrument.

When the Penguin entered the meeting place with Robin in tow, the response was enthusiastic enough to please even the Penguin’s monumental ego.

“It’s Robin! The Penguin has taken him captive!”

“He’s delivering the Wonder Boy right into our hands!” “What an achievement!”

The Penguin beamed as he told of his exploits during the preliminary session of the committee.

The Committee of Ten listened gravely on their wooden chairs behind a wooden table. Nearby, present as witnesses, lounged the Joker and the Catwoman.

The Penguin concluded his presentation proudly: “And during my last bird-crime, Robin made an attempt to stop me. We battled—I overcame him. Now I have brought him here as a captive so this committee can judge for itself whether I—and I alone—am not entitled to the top prize in gangsterdom!”

The Penguin ended with a flourish and a bow. He took his seat.

John Whiting, seated in the center of the Committee of Ten at the table said gravely, “Robin, is there anything you would care to say at this time?”

Robin said, “I have nothing to add to the Penguin’s testimony.”

“Then you support his version of what occurred?”

“Allowing for his excessive ego, it’s a fairly honest report.”

The Penguin sat on the edge of his chair, teetering there more like a proud pouter pigeon than a penguin. John Whiting was silent, obviously impressed. So were the other members of the committee.

The Joker’s mad grin seemed forced. He asked Robin angrily, “Did you make some sort of a deal with the Penguin? You’re taking his side.”

Catwoman purred with menace: “Where is the Batman? That’s what I’d like to know.”

The Joker said triumphantly, “Catwoman is right. How can we make an award to the Penguin when we don’t even know what Batman is doing right this very moment?”

The Penguin jumped up indignantly. “Mr. Chairman.”

John Whiting brought down his gavel sharply.

“Order! There must be order, gentlemen. One at a time, please. I believe the Penguin now has the floor.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say that it is most unfair of the Joker and Catwoman to cast aspersions. The whereabouts of Batman is not important. The fact remains that I pulled off my robberies just as I said I would—and I’ve brought Robin here in captivity. What more can anyone ask?”

John Whiting nodded. “You have a very strong case, Penguin. Perhaps we should now proceed to a vote “

“I protest!” said the Joker.

“So do I,” said the Catwoman.

“And so do I,” said a strange voice.

Everyone in the room looked at each other to see who had spoken.

Robin gave them the answer.

“BATMAN!” he shouted.

Then everyone cried out at once. Chairs toppled backward and fell fiat on the warehouse floor.

Through dimly lit upper regions of the high-ceilinged warehouse swung the caped figure that struck terror to the hearts of all criminals. Batman’s cape flew out from his shoulders, and the lights cast a huge shadow before him as he swept down on a Batrope.

He swung feet-first into John Whiting. Whiting was slammed backward with such force that all the members of the committee fell like a row of dominoes.

The Penguin fired at Batman and missed. He took careful aim again.

Robin’s legs were bound to the chair. But he tilted himself forward. His head butted the Penguin deep in his soft, protruding belly.

The Penguin gasped and went down.

The Joker reacted quickly. Gauntly agile, he fled toward the massive organ in the rear of the warehouse. As Batman charged him, the Joker stamped down heavily on the foot pedal of the huge organ, at the same time stuffing his fingers tightly into his ears.

KAROOM!

A terrific diapason of sound stunned the racing Batman. He was literally buffeted by the booming sound of the organ at close range.

The Joker’s mad laugh rang out eerily. “Hyaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Batman’s head seemed to be ringing like a bell tower in which a thousand bells were chiming all at once. He fell to one knee.

He heard the Joker’s triumphant cackle:

“Didn’t count on that little maneuver, did you? You’re dealing with the Joker now, Batman. Not that frumptious fool—the Penguin!”

Batman struggled erect. But there was a terrible, dizzying din in his head. He had to stand still a moment to get his bearings. As he did, the Joker and John Whiting fled with the other members of the committee.

Meanwhile Catwoman was struggling wildly, futilely, in the grasp of Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Robin gasped, “Help me, Batman. She’s trying to get at me with her claws. I can’t hold her off much longer!”

Batman went to Robin’s aid. Together they forced the Catwoman into the seat in which Robin had been a prisoner and bound her with his ropes. She raged and snarled and hissed at them. Her lovely features were distorted with fury.

“A fine pair of heroes!” she said. “While you’ve been busy with me, you let the Joker and the others escape.”

“Don’t bet on it, Catwoman,” Batman told her. “I have the Batmobile waiting outside and…”

“LOOK OUT, BATMAN!”

Without a second’s hesitation, Batman heeded Robin’s warning and ducked. That quick action undoubtedly saved his life. A short, deadly spear whizzed narrowly over his head to embed itself in the opposite wall.

Nearby the Penguin stood with an umbrella aimed directly at Batman. The spear had been fired from the muzzle of the Penguin’s umbrella, which was poised to fire again.

Reacting with lightning fast reflexes, Batman lunged for the Penguin.

The roly-poly little man was uncommonly swift of foot. He fled toward the rear of the warehouse and the giant organ towering to the ceiling.

‘The Joker used that trick,” Batman warned. “It won’t work again, Penguin. If you step on that pedal…”

“I have no intention of employing sound as a weapon against you, Batman. But I thought you might like to match skills with me—at pipe-organ climbing. It’s an exhilarating sport!”

In a twinkling the Penguin leapt to a projecting ledge above the huge pipe-organ leg. Soon he was scrambling up the slippery slope beside the giant keyboard.

Batman was close in pursuit. As the Penguin’s feet found the support of the lower rim of the music stand, the Batman drew himself up the precarious slope adjoining the keyboard.

Poised on the music stand, the Penguin emptied his revolver at Batman. When the last wild shot was fired, he threw the revolver at Batman in disgust.

“I should never rely on clumsy weapons,” the Penguin said as he drew out an umbrella. “Umbrellas always serve me so much better.”

He pushed a button and the handle sprang out on an extension. The umbrella tip reached toward Batman.

“The point is sharp, Batman—and coated with curare,” said the Penguin. “One puncture of the skin and you die horribly—in seconds.”

There was only one chance to evade the deadly umbrella tip. Batman simply hurled himself up and backward in a somersault.

And came down with both feet on the keyboard.

The sudden uprush of air from an organ pipe under the Penguin caught his umbrella, opened it, sent it soaring toward the ceiling.

Holding firmly to the handle, the Penguin was wafted upward along with it!

As the uprush of air subsided, the umbrella started to lower the Penguin again. Batman pushed another key which controlled a giant pipe directly beneath the Penguin.

Again there was a booming musical note and a rush of air from the organ pipe.

Up the Penguin went again!

Batman called to Robin: “Care to join me? Between the two of us, we ought to be able to play a simple little melody.”

Robin laughed. “A great idea, Batman.”

In moments Robin was beside Batman and, in turn, they picked out the notes.

Each successive blast of air, as a key was pushed, sent the Penguin up toward the roof. The warehouse shook and thundered with booming notes from the giant organ.

The Penguin’s face was a mask of misery. “L-let me down, Batman. P-p-please!”

“What’s wrong, Penguin?” Batman challenged. “Don’t you think music is very elevating?”

“Oh, dear,” said the Penguin, dangling helplessly in the air. “It’s bad enough to be pinioned up here, pummeled by all that noise, but I refuse to be perpetually plagued by your persistently bad puns. Let me down, Batman, and I’ll surrender. Anything—even prison—is better than this!”

“Shall we bring him down, Robin?” Batman asked.

Robin shrugged. “It’s not our fault if the Penguin doesn’t appreciate good music.”

They ceased pushing the keys.

As the constant rush of air ceased, the Penguin began to float slowly down from the rooftop with his umbrella—to where Batman and Robin waited below.

“Here he comes,” said Batman. “Just like a bird!” said Robin.

The Penguin groaned.

Later, when Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson appeared for dinner in Wayne Manor, they were sternly rebuked by Aunt Harriet Cooper.

“You know perfectly well that dinner was to be at seven o’clock. It’s half past seven, and your soup is cold. I’ll have to go into the kitchen and heat it up again.” She put the plates on a tray, a fussy, matronly woman whose natural kindness was such that she had great difficulty even in acting annoyed. “I suppose you were off on another of your bird-watching expeditions. I swear to goodness, you two are irresponsible when it comes to your hobbies!”

Aunt Harriet Cooper marched off to the kitchen.

Alfred, the butler, entered the dining room.

“I beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted on the telephone.”

Bruce Wayne said, “Alfred, we just got home!”

“I know, sir. But it’s the special phone in the living room.”

Since Alfred knew the secret identities of Bruce Wayne, the wealthy socialite, and his young ward Dick Grayson, he was privileged to answer the Batphone whenever there was an urgent summons from the police commissioner’s office.

Bruce Wayne sighed and went into the living room. Dick Grayson followed. At the base of a lamp there was a glowing box. Bruce Wayne removed the lamp while Alfred and Dick Grayson kept a cautious eye out for the approach of Aunt Harriet who, of course, knew nothing at all about the double lives of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.

Bruce picked up the glowing box that served as a base for the lamp and took out the telephone.

“Yes, Commissioner.”

Commissioner Gordon said, “First, I want to congratulate you, Batman, on the capture of both the Penguin and the Catwoman. There’s never been a catch like that in the entire history of the Gotham City Police Department.”

“I’m sorry that the others escaped, Commissioner. Especially the Joker.”

Commissioner Gordon’s voice took on an anxious tinge. “That’s why I’m calling you, Batman. I’m afraid there’s bad news. Very bad news indeed! I’ve received a communication from that archfiend who calls himself…the Joker! It looks as though we’re in serious trouble!”

To Be Continued...

TOMORROW!

Same Bat-Time!

Same Bat-Blog!

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Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom

By Winston Lyon