Darkness had been banished from the city of shadows. And though it was long past sunset, Ombreville’s sky was seeded with the lights of a thousand jet-cars, traffic blimps, and airships.
The streets were crowded with laughing, happy people, and music spilled out like light and light played like music through open doors and windows. And even on the back streets, the cheerful glow of gas lamps and carriage lights succeeded in chasing away the shadows that had given the city its name.
Perhaps the brightest spot that hot August evening was the Hotel Metropole. Nearly all its lights were ablaze, making it sparkle like an enormous chandelier. Yet even here shadows lingered.
On the Metropole’s roof, a shadow detached itself from a wall and crept toward another deeper patch of shadow. It moved stealthily, cat-like, careful to avoid the glittering skylights that dotted the roof. But even though its movements were sinuous, the shadow was heavily burdened. Over one shoulder hung an indistinct mass.
A few moments later the shadow lay down its burden and laughed a ragged, nervous-sounding laugh. The glow of a nearby skylight fell on the bundle and revealed the body of an unconscious young woman in a ball gown.
The shadow bent over and carefully began to arrange her unconscious body so that her throat was exposed to the warm air. Then, just as carefully, he drew something small and sharp from a concealed pocket.
Now a scalpel hung suspended over the girl’s naked throat, poised to strike like a murderous talon.
Suddenly, just as the shadow was about to strike, thunder crashed around it.
A bullet zinged through the air, landing inches from the shadow’s foot.
The shadow leaped up and stood swaying like a drunk as he tried to locate the gun that had interrupted him. As if in answer the thunder roared again.
This time flakes of stone burst from the wall behind him. The shadow crouched instinctively and began to back away. Panicked, suddenly unsure of everything, he stumbled into the glare of a skylight and froze.
There. for all the world to see was a man in a long, blood-spattered lab coat. A leather butcher’s apron of equal length was tied over the coat.
In contrast to his gory top half, the man’s trousers were of a smart pinstripe and his shoes were well-polished Oxfords. A black silk tie was visible at his throat. Over his mouth, he wore a white surgical mask, whilst the rest of his head was hidden by a white surgical cap. Perched on his rather pointed nose, was a pair of rimless spectacles that distorted his eyes and gave him an insane, fish-like appearance. A pair of opaque rubber gloves covered his hands.
Finally, a Cyclops-eye of polished metal, a surgeon’s reflector, sat in the middle of his forehead.
Squatting there in the glow of the skylight, the man looked like a nightmare, and yet he was real and solid enough. He had certainly been real and solid enough to drag the girl up onto the roof and attempt to murder her. And he was real and solid enough now to duck out of the light and to make a mighty leap over to the still unconscious girl.
A moment later, after he had manhandled the girl back onto his shoulders, he was on his feet, running and stumbling towards the roof exit.
Suddenly his legs were knocked from beneath him. He thudded heavily to the floor, dropping the girl as he fell.
He struggled to get up but found an iron grip pinning his arms to his sides and what seemed like a ten-ton weight holding him down.
The strange doctor’s adversary had tackled him to the floor and then, whilst lying across him, had wrapped him in his almost unnaturally strong arms.
The strange doctor continued to struggle despite the vice-like grip of the other man, but it was no good, his attacker wouldn’t give an inch. Just as the doctor’s strength was weakening, the other man loosed his right arm and delivered a short-armed uppercut to his opponent’s chin. Although the range was limited, the man’s strength was such that the doctor was knocked abruptly into unconsciousness.
The brief struggle was over.
The second man picked himself up and began to dust himself down.
He was dressed almost as bizarrely. He stood well over six feet tall, and just like the other man, his clothes mixed a number of oddly conflicting styles.
Over his face, he wore a steel fencing mask whose protruding eye-cones were reminiscent of Chameleon’s eyes. His throat and part of his chin were hidden by a high leather collar, which looked vaguely like an orthopedic neck-brace. His heavily padded jacket was fastened across his chest by thick straps like those on a straitjacket. His trousers and knee-length boots looked as though they had once belonged to a Calvary officer, whilst his gun belt seemed as if it had come from a Wild-West show. Instead of a six-shooter, however, the gun now sheathed in its leather holster, was a Webley .38, a weapon more often seen in the possession of an English army officer. An impressive-looking sabre hung at his side and completed his small but deadly arsenal.
However, if all this wasn’t striking enough, the whole imposing picture was completed by a mass of bone-white hair, neatly swept back from his wide, intelligent forehead.
Oblivious to how strange he looked, the second man pulled a small glass ampoule from a pouch on his gun belt and broke it under the nose of the young woman, who had been dropped in the short but ferocious struggle.
Almost immediately, she spluttered and coughed, wrenched back to consciousness by the overpowering smell of ammonia. She sat up groggily and saw the smiling face of her rescuer floating above her. Before she had time to thank him properly, however, there came the boom of another gun and a storm of angry shouts. And almost at once, her rescuer was gone.
In the meantime, a group of gendarmes had seemingly appeared from nowhere and were galloping after her rescuer, screaming at him to stop whilst firing their guns for all they were worth.
The man reached the edge of the roof in seconds and skidded to a halt.
There was nowhere left to go and now the rescuer looked in need of rescue.
Suddenly, a new sound joined the clamour: the roar of a jet-bike engine.
All at once a jet-bike and rider rushed into view, rapidly drawing level with the edge of the roof. Seeing his chance, the second man jumped off the roof and landed a split-second later on the bike’s pillion seat.
The gendarmes continued to fire until they were almost deafened by their own guns, but it was no good. Long before the last gun had clicked into silence, the man and his rescuer had vanished into the bright summer’s night.
∞
For six months now, one name more than any other had been on the lips of every man woman and child in Europe. It was absurd and theatrical and yet, with its overtones of eternity, strangely exciting too. The name was simply ‘The Forever Pilot’.
Robberies, kidnappings, murders and bombings; all these crimes had been solved or prevented by the timely intervention of The Forever Pilot and his companion Maxim. During those six frenetic months, The Forever Pilot had seemed to be everywhere at once, hanging in the skies of Europe like a huge black question mark
The Forever Pilot was ‘a phenomenon!’ The Forever Pilot was ‘a fad that no one had grown tired of yet!’ The Forever Pilot was ‘a new Messiah!’ The Forever Pilot was ‘a dangerous anarchist who must be suppressed!’ The Forever Pilot was ‘no more than a publicity stunt dreamed up by the Capitalist, Imperialist rags to boost their flagging circulations!’ The Forever Pilot was … news!
In Ombreville Central Police Bureau, Superintendent Celestine Janvier was trying to ignore the newspaper headline. Even though the paper lay upside down at the furthest corner of her desk, the headline still clamoured for her undivided attention.
Janvier sighed and pushed her report away from her. She leaned back in her chair making it creak and groan with the extra effort. She wiped the back of her neck with a large, nicotine-stained hand and went on staring despondently at the empty page in front of her.
Janvier was an imposing, big-boned woman, with wide shoulders and hips. During the early part of her career, her size and her ruddy complexion had often meant that she was mistaken for a milkmaid or a servant girl up in the city for a spree. It was a mistake many of the Ombreville underworld had made. And a mistake she had been all too happy to capitalise on, gathering a number of important and surprising arrests along the way.
Now, age and seniority had hardened her face into a saturnine mask and confined her clothes to a degree of nun-like severity. Only the lustre of her chestnut hair and the sparkle of her grey eyes spoke of the intelligence and vitality that lived within her.
Janvier dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief. Outside, it was another sweltering evening. Even though her office window was open, there wasn’t a breath of wind to relieve the heat. It was too hot to do anything. Even too hot for murder and yet murders were being done. So, reports had to be written about them, and yet…
Janvier gave up and threw her pen down in disgust. The pen skipped across the blotter with a flat ‘tap, tap’. She leaned across the desk, grabbed the newspaper and shook it open.
BARBARIC BUTCHERY BAFFLED AS PILOT SAVES BEAUTY FROM CHOP! (proclaimed the headline)
In the small hours , pretty Florette Defleur (22) was saved from the cold steel of the notorious killer known as ‘Dr Fleischer’. Fleischer had abducted the attractive mannequin from a party given by the famous English gambler, Lord Neville Forbes-Danberry.
The party, held in the Hotel Metropole Ombreville, was crowded with a string of wealthy guests, and Miss Florette’s disappearance went unnoticed for some time.
Whilst the revelers danced, Dr. Fleischer, dressed in the mockery of a surgeon’s gown, drugged Miss Florette and prepared to brutally slaughter her on the roof of the very same hotel where the party was being held. Miss Florette continues the story:
It was scary. The ugly man was holding a knife at my throat. I’m sure he wanted to chop my head off. Then there was shooting and the Doctor ran off. Next thing I knew I was in the manly arms of someone dressed all in black. I couldn’t see his face but I felt very safe. Then some idiot policemen shot at the man in black, so he escaped. But he didn’t drop me; he set me gently on my feet and kissed me on the cheek. Then, just before he jumped on a jet-bike, he turned and smiled at me. His teeth were dazzling.
The gendarmes, local air-traffic cops, had been alerted by the sound of pistol shots. Rushing to investigate, they mistakenly opened fire on The Pilot whom they thought was assaulting the seductive young mannequin. Meanwhile, thanks to the confusion created by the cops’ foolish blunder, Dr. Fleischer was easily able to make his escape.
Janvier closed her paper with a snort, dropped it carelessly on the desk, and leaned back in her chair. She opened a desk drawer, reached for a crumpled packet. After lighting a cheroot, she narrowed her eyes and squinted thoughtfully through a lengthening column of smoke.
It seemed the enigmatic Forever Pilot had descended on Ombreville. What was worse, he seemed to be close on the trail of the equally mysterious Doctor Fleischer, the subject of one of her own investigations. And no matter how famous or daring he was, this Pilot fellow could only mean trouble. And if there was one thing Superintendent Janvier hated, it was an unnecessary amount of trouble.
Janvier sighed gently. "Oh for a simple case of manslaughter".
“Chief, there’s some sort of a delivery. Clemenceau just rang through.”
The inspector looked up sharply; she hadn’t heard the tap at the door nor the office messenger’s polite cough.
“It’s Gaspard the butcher’s boy, he’s brought your usual parcel.”
Of course, it was Wednesday. Claude came with vegetables on Tuesday, Gaspard with the meat on Wednesday. She scowled to cover her embarrassment. Janvier was well aware that her individual attention from the merchants of Ombreville was a constant source of amusement amongst her colleagues.
“Of course, he claims it’s a delivery of meat,” smirked the messenger, “but I have my suspicions.” The old man gave a bark of amusement and then quickly shuffled out of the office to avoid a rebuke.
By the time Janvier arrived at the porter’s desk, her feeling of annoyance had grown and was stinging her cheeks with hot, silent fury. The large, jostling crowd that had gathered around the desk didn't help either.
She was about to snarl for the crowd to get out of the way when she caught sight of Gaspard the delivery boy. The boy was slumped in a chair by the porter’s desk. His face was as white as raw pastry. He was trembling uncontrollably. Clemenceau, the night-porter, was leaning over the boy trying to calm him down.
“Chief! Thank God it’s you!” exclaimed Clemenceau. “Look what’s on my desk, not your normal delivery! Poor Gaspard’s taken it pretty badly.”
Janvier pushed her way through the crowd so that she could see what Clemenceau was babbling about.
Then she saw it.
Squatting in the middle of a pile of newspapers was a joint of meat entirely different from the one she’d been expecting. Blood ran down the middle of the paper, soaking into Clemenceau’s blotter like scarlet ink. The meat was nearly as grey as the paper on which it sat, crowned by a circle of ragged crimson gristle and bone. It gave off the unmistakably sour-sweet stench of putrefaction.
Janvier, whose face was known to be as passive as a stone lion’s, gaped in amazement. Lying there on Clemenceau’s desk was a severed hand!
Her second big shock came a few hours later as Janvier took an etherphone call in her office.
The face of Baldon, her deputy, assembled itself on the visage-plate. For a moment Janvier was relieved to see the man’s familiar, rumpled features: his heavy, drooping eyelids; the mop of black hair, carefully slicked back with macassar oil; the crooked, ex-boxer’s nose that gave his face a roguish quality and made him beloved amongst criminals and policemen alike.
Then, as Janvier saw the horror that was distorting his face, she felt her heart sink.
“Boss?” Baldon’s voice was hoarse; “I’ve got some odd … insane … I don’t think you’ll believe what’s just happened!
An invisible rain of tension drummed faintly against Janvier’s scalp. She had known her unflappable deputy for nearly fifteen years and never in all that time had she heard the strange tone she detected now. Besides the terror, there was something close to a tremble of hilarity in his voice.
Like the rest of the Flying Squad, Baldon had been at old Vernet’s retirement party. In fact, as Vernet’s closest friend, he’d actually organised the whole thing. At the time it had seemed like a privilege, but now…
Janvier cut short the detective’s rambling and asked him to repeat what he’d just said.
“A foot! A god-damned almighty human foot floating in the soup tureen!”
∞
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