William nodded. “It’s almost written itself, hasn’t it? Muck up a character or two to flesh it out with, and …” William made a squiggly flourish with his hand to illustrate what would come of mucking up a character or two.
After a short pause, Edward said, “So what do we do about Peach?”
“You’re certain it’s him?” asked William.
“I saw him face-on when he turned toward the window. It was him — the spitting image of his father, too.”
“Then get a warrant,” said William. “There’s probable cause to believe Giles was kidnapped. Either that or he’s ran away. And if he’s ran away and Frosticos is harboring him, then a crime’s been committed just the same.”
“How do we persuade the D.A. to write out a warrant, tell him we were out doing a bit of peeping torn work in the neighborhood and happened to see Giles splashing in a pool in the basement of Frosticos’ house?” Edward shook his head. “And how do we account for the smashed window? Looks like an attempted burglary or something.”
“We don’t mention any of it,” said William. “We work up a letter. Type it. Forge Giles’ signature. One that swears he’s being kepi there against his will — that the doctor is practicing vivisection, is going to cut him up. What do you think they’ll find when they go down into the cellar? Nothing but evidence to confirm their suspicions. And so what if Giles contradicts the lot of it? All signs will point to his being manipulated. And him only fifteen to boot. It’s foolproof. Velma Peach will back us up all the way.”
Latzarel nodded slowly. “It might work,” he said to Edward.
“Tomorrow it might work,” Edward said tiredly. “Right now it’s almost two in the morning. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, after walking back to Rusty’s Cantina, Edward, William, and Professor Latzarel drove north on Western Avenue, slumped silently in their seats. William was the first to speak. “Actually,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair, “it probably won’t work at all. For my money they’ve already flown. Dirty shame you had to smash out the window.”
Edward nodded. There was truth to that. If be hadn’t slipped and broken the window, Frosticos would be none the wiser. They could have waited until the moment was ripe and gone in after Giles — hauled him out of there. They’d have had the support of Velma Peach. But by now Frosticos would be on his guard. William was right. They’d probably already flown.
“Well,” said Latzarel, thumping his hand down onto the seat of the car, “I’m for wading in. The authorities can’t be depended upon here. They’ll poke around, ask questions. And what will they hear? That Giles Peach is a merman? That we’re bound for the Earth’s core? That Frosticos and Pinion were sighted off Catalina Island in a flying submarine? It’s all preposterous. Nuts. They’ll laugh us down. No one with a bit of sense would find that credible, unless, of course, they’d had the right son of scientific training. No, gentlemen, what I’m suggesting here is that we go into the breach.”
“In what way?” asked Edward, skeptical of going into the breach and of wading in. Latzarel was always making him wade in.
“We go in after him. We haven’t any idea whether they’ve routed Giles out of there or not. Why should they have? They’re not afraid of us. They don’t even know that it was you and I who were messing around the house tonight. And where would they take Giles? To Pinion’s? That’s too obvious. There’d be no profit in it. I say we use the charts of Pince Nez. Take a tip from the French Resistance. Wage our escapade from the sewers.”
“Pince Nez!” cried William, sitting up. “You’ve found the book then?”
“We found the captain,” Edward said darkly. “Frosticos got to him right after we did. Or so we think.” Edward repeated their conversation with Pince Nez, supplying as much of the dialogue as he could, hoping that with his unique insight William could make some sense out of the captain’s cryptic comments, about Ignatz de Winter and the immortality of carp.
But William just shook his head. “You got the book though?”
Edward nodded. “Yes. It cost me sixty bucks and cost Pince Nez his life.”
“So we’ve got to use it!” Latzarel said. “We’ve got to go in after him. We’ll snatch him out of there, slip into the nearest manhole and have him home in half an hour.”
There was silence in the car. Edward hesitated at the desperation of it. Breaking Frosticos’ window seemed reckless enough; Latzarel’s own logic argued against such rash action. What would they tell the authorities when they were caught, when the bullets were flying, when they were asked why they’d found it necessary to break into the home of a doctor of such high repute? Edward couldn’t generate any enthusiasm.
In the light of his own recent victory, however, William was a different case. “We’ll move quickly,” he said, warming to Latzarel’s plan. “Tomorrow. Even if they’ve got plans to fish him out of there, they won’t move so fast as that. They’ll assume I’ll head home and smash up your plans. You’ll have your hands full with me. And anyway, they won’t half believe we’re a desperate enough bunch to mount such an attack as that. That was their mistake in the sanitarium. They thought I was weak. Demented. Milquetoast. They supposed they’d broken my spirit. The scum. But I was too many for them. A man has to strike, by God, and damn the consequences!”
William leaned forward, caught up in the spirit of the thing. “Now I might not amount to such a lot myself, but I gave them the slip, didn’t I? I walked into Frosticos’ office barefoot and rifled the desk, fingered his books, and slipped out scot free. And if that wasn’t enough, I slid out under their noses and disappeared beneath the street, and led them all on a chase through the sewers. Think what we can do together! All of us. Who are they with their foolish plots? One old sod who chases after boys in an ice cream truck and a white devil megalomaniac intent on blowing us all to kingdom come. If we can’t take them apart, then we’re a sad case. And that’s my opinion.
“And mine too!” cried Latzarel. “We move on this tomorrow. What do you say, Edward?”
Edward, caught up in the current of enthusiasm, nodded assent. This was no time to be the weak link.
The next morning about nine o’clock, Edward called the sanitarium. Yes, the doctor was in. He’d be happy to speak to Mr. St. Ives. Had Edward heard from William by any chance? No, he hadn’t. William, Edward sensed, had flown. Perhaps to San Francisco. Maybe farther north — to Humboldt County where he’d lived for a short time when he was first married. He’d talked about returning. Something about the green of the countryside. Like emeralds, he always said, like the walls of Oz. It was nostalgia, to be sure. But if Edward were looking for William, he’d send to Eureka for him.
Dr. Frosticos wasn’t much interested in what Edward would do. His brother-in-law, said the doctor, was a danger to himself and to everyone else. He’d severely beaten an innocent man and broken the toe of another. The authorities had been notified.
“It would be best,” said Edward, “to un-notify the authorities.”
“That can’t be done,” said Frosticos flatly.
“It’s quite possible, then, that the authorities ought to be more thoroughly notified. They might be vastly interested in a certain steamer trunk and a Chinese man by the name of Han Koi.” Edward paused to let his words take effect. There was silence on the other end. “They also might have some interest in the death of Captain H. Frank Pince Nez. We know a good bit about that. A good bit.”
There was more silence on the other end. Edward became instantaneously suspicious. He strained to hear something but could detect nothing but faint breathing. Then, suddenly, shattering the airy silence was a mad and capering laugh, weirdly distant, howling through the ominous breathing. All was silent again.