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!
