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I was working at one of the observatories atop Davey Lab on campus on Friday night, 28 August. We had tried to track the new
crescent moon, but it was too close to the horizon by the time dusk ended.
I had already settled into the nocturnal boredom when a celestial wonder startled everyone among me. Flashes of brilliant
night nearly blinded me as I was peering through the eyepiece. I blinked hard as I withdrew from the telescope.
"What was that?" I heard myself ask. Actually I was already on the scent of an investigation. I jumped down from the platform
and sallied the observatory while passing the astonished group lined up to the telescope. A zephyr greeted me along with the
murmuring of the outside crowd.
To my chagrin, there were no clues of what had happened. Everyone saw a bright flash, but I doubted that it had had a celestial
source. A survey of the surrounding buildings also gave my eyes no clues. No meteorites lay on the ground, dark windows appeared
intact. Some windows illuminated incandescently, but there appeared nothing unusual.
"Do you have anything?" a voice asked me in the darkness.
"Doctor Ram, do you have a theory?"
"If it had been a meteor, some of the bricks on the roof may still be hot where it passed."
"I'll go around the perimeter with my hand and flashlight."
I started in the direction I had seen the flash. Because I had been peering into a lens, I did not observe the direction of
the flash, but I did remember that it had moved from right to left. I went to the corner nearby and felt along the wall. Heat
radiated near the top of the structure!
I pulled a sawhorse to the corner and stepped up. A top brick showed a melted edge, although the air above it exhibited no
distortions. I probed the melted edge with my left index finger. The surface was no longer hot!
"Hey, I almost got cooked there!" a voice warned from behind. I twisted around to see the figure of a tall male submerged
within the walls. The nocturnal wind played with long, blond hair. In the dimness, I answered with a question.
"Were you standing here when the flash occurred?"
"I surely was. Here, I'll show you," the voice insisted. I felt the sawhorse sag as he joined me at the corner. As his elbows
touched the top of the wall, I noticed that he was about 1.93 m, nearly my height.
"I was standing here," he explained. "Then came the flash, It happened so fast that I didn't have time to blink. I almost
fell, but I caught myself in time."
"Then it was just one flash, an instantaneous one," I concluded. "That incident narrows my options considerably!"
"Glad to help," he temporized. "My name's Kevin Lamb. Why are you so interested in where this flash originated?"
"My name's George Król and ..."
In the darkness I saw a smile. "Not the George Król. I'm so happy to meet you!"
We shook hands in the dark.
"What have you discovered so far?"
"I've excluded a meteor. In fact, I suspect that the flash was some kind of light."
"I don't follow".
"Allow me to check your clothing," I requested as I turned on my flashlight. Over Kevin's clothes were bits of dust.
"Just as I'd thought," I continued. "That flash occurred when a laser beam struck the parapet. From the angle of the impact,
I'd say that the laser came from Pond lab about the first-floor window, second from the front." I used the flashlight beam
to indicate the probable path of the laser.
"What're we waiting for?" Kevin rhetorized.
We just caught the elevator's going down, although I am not cosseted to avoid running down steps. We sprinted over the grass
between the buildings toward the suspected source of the laser.
"Kevin, you guard the window while I go inside," I commanded as we split paths. I raced through the front door down to the
first door on the left. I noticed the door was ajar and proceeded cautiously. An empty room greeted me, devoid of people rather
than furnishings. In fact, it looked like an ordinary laboratory. I pulled a shade to raise it at the back window, revealing
Kevin's startled face.
"It look as if they'd long gone," I reported.
"I'd have been surprised otherwise," Kevin answered lugubriously.
Hey, what's going on here?" a voice queried behind me. Startled, I whirled to face L Peter Mold, a gruffy, physical chemistry
professor.
"Excuse me, Doctor Mold," I answered, "but we saw a laser beam shoot at us from here to the top of Davey Lab."
Mold looked at us incredulously. "What makes you think it had been a laser beam?"
"it made an interesting hold in the brick where it struck before it flashed across the roof."
"Very strange", Mold muttered while peering at us over his glasses. "Neither the physical chemistry nor the physics department
is experimenting with lasers."
With that sentence, Mold sauntered into the corridor while maundering.
"Weird guy," Kevin vocalized my thoughts.
"There's something he's not telling us," I added.
Rather than follow Mold, we returned to the roof of Davey Lab. We had just stepped off the elevator when Keith Cahill greeted
us on the sixth floor. I was agape to see him and introduced him to Kevin Lamb.
"What brings you to University Park?"
Keith was rather pleasant with the question. He looked at the floor while his dimples appeared.
"I transferred from the Wilkes-Barré Campus," He explained when his hazel eyes returned my gaze.
Keith contrasted to Kevin and me because he was short and Celtic. I explained to my little buddy what had just happened. Keith's
pupils dilated as I spoke.
"What're you going to do now?" he asked.
"Enjoy the night and search on Monday," I answered.
"What do you know about lasers?" I asked both Kevin and Keith when we met on Monday.
They looked at each other as we walked to the physics department. They stood in the corridor as I spoke to the secretary.
I asked for Carol Austin, a tall, dark graduate student whom I knew was doing laser work.
"Well, George," Carl told us when we went into his laboratory. "We were experimenting on lasers using microwaves until May.
However, the bulk of the research changed."
"What happened?" Keith queried.
"In January, the University of Texas announced a breakthrough in superconductivity. Since then, both the physical chemistry
and the physics department shifted their efforts toward research in this field."
"So Mold was right!" Kevin exclaimed.
"What's superconductivity?" Keith asked.
"It's making a material that is so conductive to electricity that it has no resistance at a certain temperature," Carl lectured.
"Recently, researchers have found that ceramic materials of different mixtures will act like superconductors at temperatures
of liquid nitrogen instead of liquid helium. They are now trying for higher temperatures nearer to this room," I added.
"Right, George," Carl continued. "Within eighteen months, we've gone from four to a hundred Kelvin in superconductivity. Room
temperature is about two hundred ninety five Kelvin and liquid nitrogen is cheaper than liquid helium."
"So we've reached a dead-end," Kevin concluded.
"Whom do you know in the physics department who can help us in superconductivity research?" I queried.
"Why follow this line of reasoning?" Keith asked puzzled.
"It's our only lead," I argued.
"I know a Jimmy Kern in the Physical Chemistry Department who can tell you what they're doing. The basic research is really
in that field anyway because they are seeking various metallic oxides for this property, Carl informed us. "I will call to
find out if he'd be in."
It was the next day, the first of September, when I received an opportunity to talk to Kern. That afternoon, i went alone
to find, in a laboratory in the Osmond Building, whether this whole case merited any more pursuit.
The laboratory door leaned against a perpendicular wall as I entered the workplace. I called out, but no one answered. About
twenty meters down an aisle surrounded by glassware and equipment on both sides was a closed door. Realizing that the graduate
students probably had their offices in the laboratory, I continued to call out to the other room. I was just about to knock
on the door when someone decided to knock me on the head. All I remember was that I kissed the floor as footsteps retreated.
My subconscious told me that I had found a good lead.
I remember dreaming about drowning last year when I awoke in a pool. (the case of the Fifth Fourth) This time I felt as if
something had been attacking my nose. I opened my eyes to a colorful blur. Reality coalesced in my supine position to a valley
view of the laboratory about a half meter above the floor.
A slightly lentiginous and dark countenance with a chin cleft appeared in front of the ceiling. "You surely got clobbered,"
the man simply said.
I was suddenly aware of a throbbing head. Although I had risen somewhat, I winced and sank my head back on the leather upholstery.
"What were you doing here?" the man asked.
I was looking for a graduate student named Jimmy Kern."
"Jimmy, whose lying on the couch?" a woman's voice inquired.
A slender and short woman in a lab coat came over to us. Her stern visage showed no mood for paronomasia.
"I take it that you're Jimmy Kern," I stated to the man somewhat uncertainly.
"Why, yes. Why did you come to see me?"
"I was following a lead on lasers which led me here about superconductivity."
"Superconductivity?" repeated the woman who had been listening intently to our conversation. "I'm afraid I don't see the nexus."
"The nexus," I replied profoundly, "is the lump on the back of my skull."
When I told Keith and Kevin what had happened the following night, they began to worry.
"Shouldn't the police be involved?" Keith asked with concern in his hazel eyes.
"No, we have a few suspicions, surmises, and leads. Those're hardly enough for the authorities. It's fairly obvious that superconductivity
has something to do with that laser beam last Friday night."
"So what do we do?" my blond buddy asked.
"What could the nexus be between lasers and superconductivity?" I answered rhetorically.
"I'm afraid, George," the physicist said simply. "There is no link between the two," Eric Sheppard, a balding African-American
told us.
"What about a laser's operating by superconductivity?" Keith wondered.
Sheppard just looked at the little Celtic guy and smiled. "Superconductivity exists in the laboratory. We are not anywhere
near practical uses yet."
"Then there must be a coďncidence of which we haven't thought," I concluded.
"What do you mean, George?" Kevin asked.
"I mean that we'd better take another look at the lab from which the laser came."
It was already late that Thursday afternoon when the three of us reached the Pond Laboratory room we had searched nearly a
week previously. I immediately strode to the window and examined the panes some two meters above the floor. Both Keith and
Kevin looked perplexed.
"What're you doing, pal?" Keith asked earnestly. He had no idea where to search.
I was pulling down the shade to approximately where it had been Friday night. I found a burn hole in the shade which matched
a melted hole in the glass!
"Eureka", I shouted as I took out a pencil to imitate the path the laser had taken. It led me to a far corner of the room.
I noticed that nothing was in that corner. Coolly, I opened the drawer directly under the table. Inside were microscopic lenses,
slides, and mirrors.
"Of course," I berated myself. "There was a mirror here!"
Keith walked up behind me and put his left hand on my left shoulder. Then his eyes lit up as he realized my discovery. We
both looked directly out the window to the first floor of Davey Lab. Kevin joined us so we all saw it led to the back of the
same laboratory where I had been conked on the head!
"I think I'll do some sleuthing," Kevin said firmly. "They know you now, George".
"While you do that, Keith and I will check out Carl Austin."
Carl Austin was leaving his office when Keith and I approached. "What's up, guys?" he asked while standing in the doorway.
"Have the Japanese approached any faculty members for information about superconductivity?" I replied interrogatively.
"No, but I know of rumors that some foreign agent approached Doctor Loraine Ellsworth on the matter."
"Is she the one I met at Jimmy Kern's lab?"
"Why, yes. She's second-in-charge of the physical chemistry department research on superconductivity."
"Who's first-in-charge?" Keith asked the obvious question.
Carl looked puzzled at first. After a long moment, he spoke.
"When the laser technology experiments were running, I believe Doctor Thurston Thalberg was in charge. I remember he was so
angry about those changes that he went on a sabbatical."
"Where did he go," Keith mused.
"I think he went to the University of Toronto to do laser research. He left rather abruptly last June>"
"Has the department received any letters?" I asked curiously.
"I don't know. I suppose you'll have to ask tomorrow. It's past five o'clock, so the department's closed."
"That's all right," I assured. "We have the night to plan our next move."
"Let me know what you've found out."
We sauntered out of the lab to the elevator. I pressed the up button, to Keith's astonishment.
"Aren't we going down?" he blurted.
"No, we're going to have another look at the roof."
We ascended to the sixth floor and alit. The outside door stood propped open. I felt excitement seize my intestines as I realized
that we may have stumbled upon something. -- There was no reason for the door to be wide open!
We strode out along the bricked floor without seeing anyone. Keith and I split toward perpendicular walls. Furtively, we stole
toward the edges of the roof. When I just about reached the parapet, I heard Keith yell, "George, someone's running away!"
I made a virtual pirouette in time to see a figure in a while lab coat scurry toward the aperture. By this time, Keith appeared
from behind the observatory. With my longer legs, I soon caught up with him some ten meters from the closed door. To our chagrin,
we found ourselves locked outside on a landing about eighteen meters above the ground!
"What'll we do now?" Keith winced.
I didn't bother to look around because I knew there was no building nearby. I could see through the glass that the elevator
was ascending. I had thought that it might stop on the sixth floor, but I was astounded when I saw Carl step out! He came
to the door before he realized out plight. Fumbling through he pockets, he produced a set of keys. Almost smirking, he ended
our brief crisis.
"Did anyone get off that elevator?" Keith asked as soon as the door was open.
I smiled at my little buddy. "Our fugitive had run down the stairs."
"How do you know that?" Keith said aghast.
"The elevator Carl took was just coming up when we reached this door."
"What about the other elevator?" Keith retorted.
"It's been on the first floor all this time."
"I don't get it," Carl muttered. "Why are we standing here? Can't we go after this person?"
"I didn't get a decent look at our runaway, did you?"
"All I saw was an average lab coat Keith frowned with his dimples. He had been closer.
"I'm sure whoever it was is long gone by distance or like a chameleon,": I deduced. "Let's figure out why he was here."
The three of us examined the walls for some sign of tempering. I immediately probed the melted brick and found nothing different
from a week ago. I then stared at Pond Lab, particularly at the hinge window, and wondered why anyone would come up here at
this time.
Carl had strolled to the sawhorse upon which I stood. "What's your next move?"
"I don't know until Kevin tells me what he found out at Lorraine Ellsworth's lab. More importantly, I forgot to ask why you
followed us up here."
"Oh, yes. Right after you left, I remembered that Thalberg wrote the chemistry department that he had accepted a position
at the University of Toronto about a week ago," Carl recalled his actions. "I just missed hailing your elevator and made the
mistake of thinking you went down. It was after I pushed the down button when I realized that you had gone up to the sixth
floor."
"Nevertheless, it is now imperative that I speak to the head of the chemistry department and check out that letter. Was the
letter hand written?"
Carl reflected momentarily. "No, as I remember, it wasn't even signed!"
"Did Thalberg have tenure?"
"Why, yes. That's why James Nixon, the department head, was so surprised when he received the letter. Nixon tried several
times to reach Thalberg since the letter came! Rumors ran that Thalberg was merely disgusted with the change in emphasis of
the funding that he refused to communicate at all."
The three of us realized what had happened to Thalberg simultaneously, although Keith spoke first. "That leaves us two questions:
What happened to Thalberg? and Where is he now?"
"We may find out by retrieving Kevin at the Ellsworth lab," I posited.
We left the roof, went down the elevator, and stopped in front of a locked door. I peered through the opaque glass for lights.
"I can't see anything through the diaphanous window. I suggest we wait for Kevin to contact us."
"Do we bother to collate Thalberg's letter?" Carl asked.
"Outside of something adventitious, I'd say we have that issue resolved. Obviously, we can't be apprised here. Tomorrow we'll
return to the provenance of this case. -- the Ellsworth lab. I suspect that Kevin would tell us enough to determine the case."
Keith and I returned to my hovel to wait for Kevin. Carl went to his apartment to retire, intending to join us the next day.
I sat in my favorite wingback chair as Keith plopped on my couch and pulled out a cigarette.
"Could we recap this case?" he requested as he lit the fag.
"Well, I was going to wait for Kevin, but let's make sure we have it clear. We know that someone shot a laser beam out of
a first floor window of Pond Lab, bounced off a mirror, and shot into the parapet."
"How do we know the laser originated in Davey Lab?"
"We don't, Keith. That's what we'll do tomorrow when we sneak into Ellsworth's lab. Of course, I'll know if my conjecture
be correct when Kevin gets here.
"However, even though we can prove that the laser came from that source, we cannot prove that Ellsworth is selling superconductivity
technology to foreign agents."
"Did we need Thalberg's testimony?" Keith pondered the unlikely.
"Unless we can snare her cohorts, we can't do much of anything. We might find evidence in that lab, but we must convince Nixon
to do the search. We certainly have no probable cause for a warrant! Does that give enough perspicuity to this case?"
"What did you expect Kevin to find there this afternoon?" Keith asked as he blew smoke rings.
"At the very least whether there are laser holes in the correct lab window. I doubt whether he could get a peek in Ellsworth's
desk. I'm afraid we'd have to convince Kern to do it."
"If Ellsworth be the culprit, how did she manage to keep her assistants from finding out?" Keith wondered.
"I'm hoping she didn't; we're going to need some witnesses for a successful prosecution."
We discussed some trivia until I suggested that we be taciturn. I opened a biochemistry book while Keith looked through a
history book. As time dragged past, he perused, skimmed, then closed the book and lay on the sofa. I myself tried calling
Kevin's at nine and ten o'clock. Eleven passed while I was snoozing under a lamp with the book on my lap. The tome thumped
on the floor to revive me. I realized that our waiting had become supererogation. Keith lay asleep by this time, so I draped
a blanket over his supine figure.
Kevin did not answer my third endeavor to call him. Slowly, I began to explore a heinous possibility, and I knew we had to
search that lab the next day.
Jimmy Kern had a problem sleeping that night. He wondered why Ellsworth had sent him to the roof only to be trapped by investigators
of superconductivity espionage. Ellsworth told him to go home right after he had returned from the escapade. Carl had called
him that night trying to find out why Thalberg had left. That was the problem. -- Jimmy didn't know. After all, he just started
as a graduate assistant this year. He remembered how Ellsworth had changed the subject when he asked about the hole in the
window. Of course, it probably had been there earlier, before the semester started -- how could he know? What really bothered
him was when Kevin Lamb started asking those suspicious questions. Ellsworth offered to answer them while he went to the roof.
About 7 AM on Friday the Fourth, my telephone rang The summons woke Keith, but he just turned into the couch as he shifted
his supine position onto his left side. Meanwhile, I had answered the call. "Kevin," I guessed into the farspeaker.
"No, it's Jimmy Kern. I want to meet you at Ellsworth's Lab about six tonight. By that time, she should have left. I know
something suspicious is happening there, and I want you to discover what it is." He then hung up.
"Well", I said while looking at Keith's disgusted visage. "It seems that we may have an ally in the Ellsworth lab. Kern just
called to invite us there at six tonight. We should prepare to break this caper by then."
James Nixon looked helpless when he showed the letter. The unevenness of the letters suggested a manual typewriter. A ghost
of the seal of the state university proved that it was university stationery.
"Is it unusual for Thalberg to use stationery from this university and not from Toronto?" I catechized.
"No, not at all. Thalberg may have used the stationery to emphasize his disgust."
"Did any foreign agents approached you about superconductivity?" Keith intoned.
Nixon looked out the window. "Yes," he murmured. "I told them that we were merely checking the experiments from the University
of Texas. They surely looked angry when they left."
"When was this?" I asked.
"Last April, around Easter I'd guess."
"I'd like to make a copy of this letter," I requested. "Please keep the original safely tucked away."
Nixon looked quizzical. "It's only a letter."
"It may be evidence that espionage had occurred in your department," I warned.
After we had the copy and left, Keith gave me a brutal look. "I don't get it. What's so important about an unsigned letter?"
"Like fingerprints, every typewriter has its distinctions. I find it very peculiar that the university seal lies in the background
of the letter; It suggests that the letter came from here. In other words, someone in University Park typed the letter here
on a manual one yet -- an easy one to trace!"
"So, we're going typewriter hunting!" Keith exclaimed.
"Yes, and it'll be in the indigenous habitat. Tonight we should have enough evidence to corner more than a typewriter."
"I know what you're saying," Keith smiled with full gelasins. "The one who locked us up on the roof."
"Right, little buddy," I praised while patting his back.
I immediately scrutinized the windows. The last one had a distinctive laser hole indicating what we had suspected. Using a
pencil once again, I pointed a path to the window from which we had thought the laser had come.
Why the laser had fired bothered me, but I decided to search for the typewriter. The office had an electric one, so in a flash
I tried it. No, it wasn't the right one. A nauseating contemplation hit me: suppose Ellsworth had typed it at home. How could
we justify a search there, or even worse -- suppose she'd destroyed the typewriter! There was also another remote possibility
that I was wrong. There could be nothing more than a simple laser misfire. Thalberg could have typed the letter.
My companions had been searching the laboratory for both the laser and evidence. They did not hear the figure creep into the
room. Keith had reached the cryogenic room. Inside he saw a chamber for the superconductivity experiments. Due to the need
for extremely low temperature, the chamber temperature surrounding the actual experiments had to be low. An outside thermometer
registered two hundred sixty Kelvins, a fairly cold winter night. Minus thirteen Celsius, calculated Keith He threw on a lab
coat and opened the door. I'll be in there for a quick scan, he thought.
"What're you doing here?" Ellsworth shouted with hands on hips. She startled both Jimmy and Carl so much that both were momentarily
speechless. Carl broke the awkward moment by explaining that Jimmy had come back for some notebooks.
When I heard the commotion in the lab, I left the door ajar in the office and frantically searched for another egress. The
office window looked inviting, so I quickly pushed up the sash and sat on the sill. I could still hear conversation, so I
slipped out, closing the window behind me. I crept to the sidewalk between the two buildings pondering what to do next. I
had to know when Ellsworth left before I dared go back into the building.
Keith felt cold in the chamber, so he moved as quickly as he could while still making a thorough search. None of the drawers
contained locks, so it was little trouble opening all of them. Finally, he came upon a huge space underneath the heavy equipment.
He pulled up the door and latched the hook on the ring aside the cabinet. Keith looked puzzled Solely in the space, about
two meters wide, lay a sack. Thinking it was some expensive machine, Keith loosened the tie at the side carefully. He pushed
the sack apart by the string and gasped in horror. His fingers felt yellow hair! He pulled the opening down to reveal a head.
Kevin looked rather serene in death considering it had been by freezing.
Keith backed away, leaving the corpse as he had discovered it, and exited the chamber. Gary Heidnick would have been proud
of this torture chamber. Leaving the door ajar, Keith rushed into the lab. "Carl, Jimmy," he called. "Wait till you see what
--".
Keith interrupted himself when he saw Ellsworth's standing in the room. It was too late; his body language had betrayed him.
"Well," Ellsworth simpered while drawing a pistol. "It seems you'd discovered the deeds of Madame Lee. Take off those coats!"
The three obeyed as she gave the next order. "Into the chamber, now!"
Keith stepped in first, then Carl, then Jimmy.
"This is quite propitious. They won't find you until Tuesday because of Labor Day weekend. You'll suffer even more because
you'll be conscious!"
With an evil laugh, she shut the door and turned the thermostat down as far as it would go: two fifty Kelvins or minus twentythree
Celsius, the equivalent of the most extremely cold winter's night in Pennsylvania.
It was too bad that it couldn't go lower, Ellsworth thought. I could get them to take their clothes off, No, escape has become
paramount. The notorious Madame Lee has nefarious deeds to do. Besides, they'll surely freeze long before Tuesday.
My watch indicated that I had left the building ten minutes, yet no one came out. Something was amiss. I crept back to the
front of the building. Perhaps she'd gone upstairs. When I reached the door in the hallway, I found it locked. Now I knew
something was wrong! Alas, I didn't have my skeleton key, but there was another way into the room. I raced out of the building,
rounded the corner, and slipped in through the same office window. The office showed no disturbance -- even the door remained
ajar. The laboratory remained deserted. Using convergent logic, I knew they had to be there somewhere. I saw the ajar door
to the cryogenic area.
I arrived just in time to see my three comrades huddled by the window. I shoved the thermostat up to two seventyfive Kelvins
before trying to open the door. Madame Lee had locked the chamber, but there was an emergency lock release. Jimmy pointed
to it after I discovered that I could not unlock the door. The lever pushed down easily once I'd broken the seal.
The captives burst out with joy and then stood still soaking up the warmth. "Hold still, guys," Carl commanded. "We don't
want to shock our systems."
"Where's Ellsworth?" I inquired.
"We don't know," Keith replied. "She said that she was Madame Lee and left us to freeze to death in that chamber like Kevin."
"If we should let her get away, we'd be abetting a murderess," Jimmy opined.
"If she be Madame Lee," I stated. "What you just said is much more important than you think."
"I don't follow," Carl said while still shivering.
"We don't have the time. Are you able to chase after her?" I replied briskly.
"I certainly am," Keith insisted while rushing out of the room.
"Jimmy," I informed. "Get out your keys; the lab door is locked. We may still catch her before she leaves town."
I had just left the room to stop Keith when I caught an aperçu of Madame Lee's pointing a pistol at me! Instinctively, I dove
into the perpendicular aisle behind some glassware as I heard the shot. Carl had come into the line of fire while still in
the cryogenic lab. Using the doorway, he pulled himself back as the bullet missed his cheek by two centimeters.
I pulled out my revolver and peered out of the corner about twentyfive centimeters from the ground. Madame Lee had Keith in
a headlock with the gun pointed to his head!
"It looks as if we have a stalemate here, Król," she laughed. It is truly time for my escape."
In a moment, they backed out of the room and vanished behind the locked door. Quickly Jimmy rushed forward to unlock the door.
We burst into an empty corridor.
"Jim, you check the front, Carl, the back while I search the first floor" A quick, futile search brought us to the front of
the building in the lobby. We three saw the elevator reach the sixth floor just as we converged.
"Jim, call the campus police to block the exits," I ordered as I pulled the emergency switch on the elevators. "Carl, you
take the backstairs, I'll take the front ones. Meet you on the sixth floor."
I threw myself up the stirs in full sprint, hoping that they didn't pass me on the way down. The possibilities for hiding
in the building were in the dozens, although Madame Lee must have had a reason to rush to the sixth floor.
I reached the top of the stairs first, but Carl appeared as I checked the inside area. Cautiously, we approached the observatories.
From our left, Madame Lee fired at us while still holding Keith tightly. As Carl and I ducked back inside, we heard a whirling
crescendo. A helicopter descended to the roof while I realized that Keith was a dead duck.
Madame Lee had mounted the chopper when she pointed the gun at Keith's head once more. I just released a shot enough for Keith
to jump down and use the momentum to take cover behind the nearest observatory. Muttering imprecations galore, the evil woman
tried to catch Keith exposed on the other side of the observatory, but my little pal had ducked into another one. By that
time, I was there for cover. We fraternally embraced as the copter faded out of sight. Carl could only look up while wishing
for another chance at revenge.
Needless to say, the police lost the helicopter, or rather they never could find it. The four of us had brunch in my cramped
quarters the next morning.
"A search warrant of the house produced no evidence against Madame Lee," Carl announced as he joined us at the table. "Alright,
who is this Madame Lee?"
"She's a modern Mata Hari, one of the most dangerous spies in the world. The trail of bodies would cover the entire world.
She works only for herself, having no loyalty to any cause. This time, she was selling technology to the Chinese."
"How was she abating the corpses?" Keith wondered.
"I checked that one out easily," Jimmy frowned. "She sold them to the other state universities for the medical departments."
"You mean --" Keith gasped.
"Yes, for experimentation, dissecting, anson."
"Wait a minute, you said 'corpses'. Don't you mean Thalberg?" Carl noted.
"No, I'm afraid even in this case we know of two. Do you recall a Harvey Sinn?" I explained.
"Wasn't that one of the assistants?" Carl guessed.
"Yes, and he explains the reason for the laser blast. Apparently that Friday night Sinn and Lee had quite an altercation.
The fact that he was a former marine gives you an idea how dangerous she is. Our guess is that the laser went off while they
struggled. Fortunately for Madame Lee, it hit that mirror and deflected the source," I expounded.
"That laser beam proved to be an augury of the end of this treachery," Jim added.
"Yes," Keith extended the thought. "One might say that is was an August augury."
"Is that really August or do you mean august?" Carl played philologically.
"There was nothing august about this lump on my head," I chimed in. "As I said before, Madame Lee packs quite a wallop."
"How did you know Lee had hit you?" Jimmy asked me.
"In the angle of my educated guess about Madame Lee's cudgeling me, I simply saw no reason for anyone else to hit me as the
case unraveled. Our subsequent discovery of corpses proved me correct."
"Our discovery, it was my discovery," Keith teased.
"Not really," Carl rebuked. "We found Sinn's body in New Jersey. Furthermore, after she had killed him, Madame Lee sent Thalberg's
body to the University of Toronto."
"Did any vital information get out?" Jimmy worried.
"We don't think so. It seems that Madame Lee had jacked up the price while negotiating the deal. It seems that our interruption
had been timely."
"Do you suppose we'll ever run across this Madame Lee again?" Keith contemplated.
"I wouldn't even try a guess," I replied.
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