Batman Versus the Fearsome Foursome Read online

  Robin’s voice was slightly hushed with awe. “Holy barber shop! That was a close shave.”

  “I agree, Robin. One of the most fiendish traps that we’ve ever escaped from…”

  Carefully Batman mounted the loosely hanging Batladder. Once aboard the Batcopter he pulled Robin up with him.

  “You’re not hurt at all,” Robin said. “I could have sworn that shark got a grip on you.”

  “Not on me, Robin.” Batman showed the raveled, tom edges of his famous blue cape. “I thrust this between the shark’s jaws just as it struck at me. I’m afraid the cape is past even Alfred’s mending now.”

  Robin looked out from the window of the Batcopter to where the ocean stretched in gray monotony to the furthest horizon.

  “And the yacht we saw. It’s completely vanished…The ship that wasn’t there.”

  Batman answered, musing. “Robin, I have a feeling that this case is going to be a strange one.”

  The next day Batman and Robin attended a press conference in Police Commissioner Gordon’s office. There were reporters from the chief Gotham City newspapers, photographers from the wire services, staff writers from the news magazines. Most striking of all those present was a girl reporter from the Moscow News Service—a tall dark beautiful girl who wore a simple black dress that clung to the curves of a ravishing figure.

  Batman finished answering the questions posed to him by the various reporters, and photographers took positions to let loose with a barrage of flashbulbs. After several minutes, Commissioner Gordon raised his hands.

  “All right, fellows,” Commissioner Gordon said. “That’s enough pictures. This press conference is at an end.”

  “I have one further question to ask,” said the Russian girl reporter.

  “Now, now, miss,” Inspector O’Hara said. “You heard the commissioner. The press conference is over.”

  “No, wait a minute,” Batman said. “I’m willing to answer the young lady’s question. What would you like to know, Miss—?”

  The dark girl smiled gratefully at Batman. “I am Comrade Kitanya Irenya Tatanya Karenska Alisoff. I represent the Moscow News Service.”

  “Well, Comrade Kitanya Irenya Tatanya…”

  The dark girl’s smile widened. “My friends call me Kitka,” she said.

  “That would be simpler,” Batman said, and smiled too. “What is your question, Miss Kitka?”

  Miss Kitka produced a small Leica camera from her capacious handbag.

  “I would like to take a picture,” she said. “But I think I would prefer for you to take off your mask. It will give the bettair picture…”

  Miss Kitka could not have foreseen the shocked response to this apparently simple request. A chorus of exclamations broke from the assembled reporters and one of the news photographers almost dropped his flashgun.

  “Great Scott!” Commissioner Gordon said. “Batman take off his mask?”

  Inspector O’Hara stared at Miss Kitka incredulously. “The woman must be mad,” he muttered.

  Miss Kitka looked about her in bewilderment.

  Across the furor Batman’s clear voice cut cleanly, “Please, let’s have order. Chief O’Hara. All of you!” The turmoil in the room instantly lessened. Batman continued in a kindly tone, his glance including Miss Kitka. “The young lady is a stranger to our shores. Her request was not unnatural. However impossible it is for me to grant…”

  Kitka’s magnificent brown eyes widened. “Impossible?”

  Batman nodded. He indicated Robin standing beside him. “If Robin and I were to remove our masks, the secret of our true identities would be revealed. That would destroy our value as crime fighters, Miss Kitka.”

  Chief Inspector O’Hara’s grumble interrupted: “Not even Commissioner Gordon and myself know who they really are.”

  Miss Kitka’s lashes fluttered down. She seemed so disappointed that Batman felt impelled to add, “I’ll answer any other question, Miss Kitka.”

  Miss Kitka brightened and her curiosity returned as she looked at Batman and Robin. “Your so-curious costumes,” she murmured in an exquisitely melodious voice. “Why do you wear a uniform that resembles a bat?”

  “Robin and I adopted Batwear for one simple reason,” Batman answered. “There’s nothing that strikes terror into the heart of a crook like the shadow of a bat. Pardon me, are you smiling, Miss Kitka?”

  A dimple appeared Miss Kitka’s flawless white cheek. “I am sorry, Batman, but you are like the masked vigilantes in the western movies, no?”

  Commissioner Gordon made an unmistakable harrumphing sound. “Certainly not! Batman and Robin are fully deputized agents of the law. Now I’m afraid that I really must put an end to this conference. Batman and Robin have a great deal of work to do. Thank you—and goodbye!”

  The reporters put away their notebooks, and photographers quickly packed up their equipment. Miss Kitka was the last to leave the office. Robin noted how Batman’s gaze lingered on her departing figure.

  Chief Inspector O’Hara closed the door firmly and locked it.

  “You did a fine job, Batman,” Commissioner Gordon said. “Answered all their questions—and yet didn’t reveal anything vital.”

  “That wasn’t hard, Commissioner,” Batman said. “The truth is that I can’t explain how the yacht disappeared. But I do believe that it was meant to be some sort of a decoy—to lead us astray and into a trap—while Commander Redhead’s yacht was being hijacked somewhere else!”

  “And how about the exploding shark?” Commissioner Gordon asked. “Who could invent such a fiendish plan to take your life?”

  “Robin and I have some ideas on that score, Commissioner,” Batman said. “We checked the latest status report on the known supercriminals currently at large. I’m afraid our findings are discouraging. Would you reveal them to the commissioner, Robin?”

  Robin’s expression was grim. “Well, first of, all there’s the Penguin—that pompous. waddling master of Fowl Play. The maestro of a million criminal umbrellas.”

  Commissioner Gordon nodded gloomily. “He was paroled last month after having served a prison sentence.”

  “And there’s the Joker,” Robin said. “The fiendish Clown Prince of Crime.”

  “I wish I had a nickel,” Chief O’Hara said heavily, “for every time he’s baffled us.”

  “And there’s the Riddler,” Robin added.

  Commissioner Gordon’s mouth twitched. “What? The Riddler loose, too? I thought he was safely behind bars!”

  “He was,” Robin said, “until twenty-four hours ago. He disappeared from his solitary confinement cell at the maximum security prison where he was being held. They’re holding back the news until they’re absolutely sure he’s escaped from the prison and isn’t still hiding somewhere inside the walls.”

  “In view of recent developments,” Batman said, “it’s clear that the Riddler is at liberty once more to plague us with his Criminal Conundrums.”

  “The Penguin, the Joker, and the Riddler,” Commissioner Gordon repeated, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “We’re facing the worst combination of villains that the underworld could possibly produce.”

  “I’m afraid there’s even worse news, Commissioner,” Robin said. “You can add the Catwoman’s name to that cunning criminal combine!”

  “The Catwoman? Are you sure?”

  “We thought she was dead,” Chief O’Hara said.

  Robin said, “The status report clearly indicates from all available data—including crimes committed, hangouts frequented, and the otherwise unexplainable absence of her Kittycar from the custody of the police—that the Catwoman is alive.”

  “Saints be to mercy,” said Chief O’Hara. “You don’t think all four are working together, do you? That’s a nightmare—a living, waking nightmare for law enforcement officials all over the country.”

  “All over the world,” Batman corrected him, somberly.

  Even as this conference was taking place in Commis
sioner Gordon’s office, a taxi approached a picturesque section of the Gotham City waterfront area. The taxi moved slowly down rough cobblestoned streets past quaint low-lying buildings with old-fashioned mansard roofs. Finally it stopped before a building with a shingle sign and antique lettering: YE OLDE BENBOW TAVERN.

  From the taxi emerged the tall shapely Miss Kitka, the Russian news service correspondent. She paid the driver and then entered the tavern through the swinging doors.

  In the main ground level room of Ye Olde Benbow Tavern there was a small circular bar. A man in shirt sleeves, wearing a red armband on one arm, was serving drinks to a brace of sailors and their girls. At round wooden tables scattered about the room other sailors were gathered with pretty girl companions. Most of the occupants of the tavern were in various degrees of drunkenness.

  At a table in the far corner a grizzled old salt in a striped sweater and tight-fitting blue bell-bottom trousers was playing the accordion and singing a sea chantey.

  Miss Kitka went directly to a stairway at the end of the room. She climbed the stairs to a small landing. One door led off from the landing. This door was closed and a sign was prominently stenciled on it: HQ U.U.—STRICTLY PRIVATE.

  On the landing a broad-shouldered ugly-looking man with narrow eyes, dressed in semi-piratical garb, moved forward to intercept the visitor. Then he saw who it was. His blue-jowled features relaxed in a tight grin of welcome.

  “It’s all right, Bluebeard,” Miss Kitka said. There was no trace of the accent which she had used in the press conference with Batman and Robin a short time before. “It’s only me.”

  Miss Kitka took a key from her handbag. Bluebeard raised his hand in a half-salute. “Ahoy, Catwoman,” he said.

  In a sinuous controlled movement Miss Kitka slung her handbag to deal Bluebeard a staggering blow. As he reeled, Miss. Kitka moved quickly—her beautiful face transformed with savage felinity. Her hand streaked out to scratch Bluebeard’s cheek, leaving a thin red gash.

  “Owww!” Bluebeard yelled.

  Miss Kitka’s voice was sibilant with menace:

  “Peasant,” she said. “Imbecile! How many times. have I told you? Never use my real name in public. Remember that, or it will go much harder with you the next time!”

  Bluebeard nodded mutely, holding his hand to the razor-thin slash in his cheek made by that sharply pointed fingernail—the silver-tipped nail that almost resembled a talon.

  The deadly talon of—the Catwoman!

  CHAPTER 3

  The Catwoman turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Within, there was a dimly lit room, hung with several multicolored Tiffany lamps. On the far wall was a banner which read: UNITED UNDERWORLD. Catwoman looked at this with a slightly contemptuous smile curling her perfect lips. Nor did she look with greater approval at the insignia of a globe encircled with an octopus that decorated the banner.

  On a facing wall the Penguin and the Riddler were busily tacking up another banner which read: “TODAY GOTHAN CITY—TOMORROW THE WORLD!”

  The Penguin’s top hat was pushed back on his sloping forehead, and his cigarette was tilted upward in a long holder. He hammered in a nail to hold his end of the banner to the wall. On the other side of the banner the Riddler, a slender agile man in a skin-fitting costume with a large question mark on his chest, turned to peer at the Catwoman.

  “How do you like it, old girl?” he asked.

  “It’s childish,” Catwoman answered. She shrugged exquisite shoulders. “But then—all men are childish. Even master criminals.”

  From a low-slung chair nearby a coolly sardonic voice inquired, “Does that include me, my feline friend?”

  The lanky figure seated in the chair seemed almost boneless in his nonchalance. His face was chalk-white, and thin scarlet lips were drawn back in a mad-looking, triangularly shaped grin.

  “Your pranks are adolescent, Joker,” said the Catwoman. “Otherwise, you do manage to act at times like a fairly normal mastermind of crime should.”

  The Joker’s coal-black eyes stared at her. “I’m glad to have your approval, Catwoman. Now, would you mind informing us how your day has gone?”

  Catwoman smiled slightly as a black cat rose from a cushion on the floor and loped forward to her. She held out her arms and the cat leaped up and cradled there.

  “Did you miss me, Hecate?” she asked. The cat purred an answer that seemed almost human. Its green eyes kept the others in the room fixed in a malevolent green stare. Finally Catwoman deigned to answer the Joker’s question:

  “In my disguise of Kitka, I penetrated Batman’s and Robin’s press conference. The fools are completely baffled by how the yacht disappeared. And they don’t have the faintest idea of what we’re really up to.”

  The Joker said, “We wouldn’t have to worry about them at all if the Penguin’s idea had only worked out.”

  “My idea!” the Penguin answered in a high voice.

  “Your trained exploding shark. You have to admit that was a flat failure.”

  “Paugh,” said the Penguin disdainfully. He set his top hat forward at its customary rakish angle. “I still think it was a brilliant idea. How was I to know the Riddler’s disappearing yacht wouldn’t fool them long enough to make shark-bait out of Batman?”

  The Riddler’s slender figure stiffened with fury. “Are you blaming me, you arrogant, pompous penguin?”

  “Pompous! Me pompous? You crack-brained puzzle plotter!”

  The Riddler grasped the short stout Penguin by the lapels of his frock coat. Before the Penguin could move, the Joker interceded.

  “Friends,” he cautioned, “let us not forget that we are here as members of a United Underworld. We must hang together or we will hang separately. Let’s have a handshake all around on that.”

  The Joker grabbed both the Penguin’s and the Riddler’s hand. There was a loud zapping sound, and a blue halo of electrical fire danced around the Penguin and the Riddler. They seemed to dance, too, as they leaped in the air, electrified.

  “Yaaa-hahaha!” cackled the Joker. He opened both his palms. “Electrical buzzers. One of the oldest tricks in the world. You both fell for it!”

  “You clown!” gasped the Penguin. “I ought to bash out your brains!”

  “I’ll help you,” said the Riddler.

  The Catwoman’s tone was sharp as her claws: “Sic ’em, Hecate!”

  At the command the black cat leaped down, hissing and spitting.

  “No!” cried the Joker. “Call off that savage animal! Or I swear I’ll strangle the beast.”

  “I don’t think so,” the Catwoman said. “Hecate’s claws are treated with a poison that will make you extremely ill if you get the faintest scratch. Would you care to risk that?”

  The four Supercriminals, equal members of the United Underworld organization, glared at each other in helpless and frustrated anger.

  The sound of chimes distracted them. They each turned as though summoned.

  The Riddler rasped, “There he goes again. Commander Redhead wants his late afternoon tea tray.”

  “I took it to him last time,” said the Penguin. “It’s your turn, Joker.”

  The Joker hesitated, shrugged, and crossed the room to where a teapot was warming on a hot plate. He put the teapot and a cup with a plate of biscuits on a tray, and with a venomous glance at the others, left the room.

  Carrying the tea tray expertly on the fiat of one hand, the Joker went down a short corridor. He knocked on the door of another room.

  “Come in,” said a voice with an unmistakable Oxford accent.

  The Joker entered a small room that exactly duplicated a stateroom aboard a ship. There were no windows, only a round porthole in the wall, and past the double-pane glass streams of thick fog were passing. On a comfortable bunk bed lounged a red-bearded man in an immaculate yachting costume with an open shirt and Ascot tie. His red beard was impeccably trimmed.

  He slowly removed the spectacles with which he had been readin
g.

  “Your tea, Commander Redhead,” said the Joker.

  “Put it here on the table beside me, will you, steward?…Thank you. I must say I’ve enjoyed jolly good service aboard this yacht.”

  The Joker answered solemnly, “We strive to give good service, sir.”

  Commander Redhead surveyed the Joker with interest. “I say, steward. Your face has the most ghastly pallor. Are you sure you get enough of the old sea air?”

  The Joker’s curving black brows rose slightly. “My duties keep me…uh…mostly undercover, sir.”

  “Too bad, too bad.”

  Commander Redhead poured his tea. There was the hoarse sound of a foghorn in the room followed by the cawing of sea gulls.

  “Any notion how much longer this yacht will remain fogbound here off the Grand Banks?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “Ah, well.” Commander Redhead patted the open pages of the book he had been reading. A stack of similarly bound volumes was on a shelf behind his bunk. “It gives me a jolly good chance to catch up on reading my Dickens. Fascinating author, don’t you think, steward? Although I suppose his characters aren’t exactly true to life.”

  “No, sir.”

  Commander Redhead sighed. “I hope we get to Gotham City one of these days.” He winked at the Joker in friendly fashion. “Got a deuced clever invention with me, y’know. Stored down in the hold. Should be worth millions of Yankee dollars. But a monstrous force for evil if it fell into the wrong hands. That’s why I have to offer it to the United Nations first, y’see? You do see, don’t you, old chap?”

  “Indeed yes, sir.”

  “Well, then. Pip-pip.”

  “Pip-pip to you, sir.” The Joker schooled himself to assume a grave and courteous expression. If you wish anything further, sir…just ring.”

  “I will, old chap. Ta-ta for now!”

  The Joker carefully closed and locked the door behind him. He went down a short corridor to a hallway that led past the porthole of the room he had just left. Here a man in pirate’s garb was turning a crank that raised and lowered a painted seascape. Steam rose from a water-heating device near him while a large fan blew steam past the porthole. It created an effect that closely resembled streamers of fog drifting by. The henchman had one bare foot in a large water pail which he sloshed about occasionally, imitating the sound of water sloshing against the sides of a ship. At intervals he reached up to pull a cord that operated a foghorn on the wall. At other times he switched on a record that reproduced the cawing noise of sea gulls.