“Does being a mystery writer list you as a disreputable character?” Mr. Cornelius Latimer Leydon suddenly asked me.

I was at the Jinxville sheriff department, when Mr. Leydon suddenly surprised me with this question. I knew that he was a mystery writer, of course, and prone to ask questionable questions, but this one took me completely off guard. I thought about all of the mystery writers I had ever known in my life (including Mr. Leydon), and finally gave him my answer.

“Of course,” I answered. “You silly little fellow, all mystery writers are a little sleazy.”

“Then what does that make you?” Mr. Leydon retorts.

“I,” I answered grandly. “Am merely a servant of the people. I think only of their needs, not my own.”

Mr. Leydon was naturally surprised at the sacrifice that I had bestowed for the good of all the citizens of Jinxville, but then remembered something.

“But,” he said. “What about last month when you raised the taxes up even higher?”

“That was for the good of the city,” I responded. “After all, that was the same month that our historic haunted mansions were repaired.”

“Ah,” Mr. Leydon said. “But that was also the month you bought yourself a new limousine.”

“Naturally,” I fixed a cold glance on him. “The mayor of a town should not be expected to sacrifice everything. Now and then he may permit himself one small luxury.”

Of course, Mr. Leydon most likely would have continued to argue if I hadn’t reminded him that not only was I the head of the Jinxville City Committee, but I was also the person in charge of the publishing house that printed his mystery novels. At first, he didn’t believe me, but when he looked at the back of his book and saw that the Jinxville Publishing Co. printed it, he was forced to admit that I was right.

“I am forced to admit that you are right,” Mr. Leydon sniffed. “But my readers would be very indignant if you discontinued their printing.”

“Maybe they would,” I yawned. “But that doesn’t really matter. Because money is everything, and money is also something that you don’t have much of.”

Our quarrel would have continued if an unexpected person hadn’t arrived, or, I should say, ‘persons’. There were two of them, one named Bill and the other named Bob.

“Are you the sheriff of this town?” Bill asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I am also the mayor.”

“I see,” Bob said. “We have found five corpses in the basement.”

“How invigorating,” I said absent-mindedly, and then realized what he had just said. “Five corpses, did you say?” I exclaimed.

“That’s right,” Bill said. “It’s pretty smelly too,” he added.

“I would prefer it if you would leave out the graphic details that I am sure my mystery writing friend here is soaking up. As a coroner, I can draw my own conclusions about this affair myself. Tell me, though,” I went on. “Has rigor mortis set in?”

“Er, excuse me?” Bob looked at me blankly.

“Never mind,” I said hastily. “Where are these corpses anyway?”

“Well,” Bill said. “We’re staying at the Jinxville Motel, and we were going down in the basement because that’s where the laundry is washed, when we saw the corpses on the ground.”

“I see,” I said. I now realized to whom these corpses belonged. Of course, I thought to myself, these are those people my so-called friend Boris Karloff has murdered so that he could make a super-human race to fight the Nazis. He had told me about his plan some time ago. A good cause, but terribly misdirected.

“What are you two doing in Jinxville?” I asked.

“We’re traveling car salesmen,” Bob said.

“Well, I’ll go to the Jinxville motel right now,” I said.

“Can I come too?” Mr. Leydon asked hopefully. “As a mystery writer, it might be interesting for me to watch a coroner like you at work.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. I had completely forgotten about Mr. Leydon. “But don’t you think it’s rather late? This is about the time that the bogeyman starts prowling around.”

Mr. Leydon looked slightly nervous when he heard that, but he also had a determined expression that he often had when he stubbornly refused to yield from some

“Goal his soul had fixed its intellectual eye on.”

We both arrived at the Jinxville Motel. The werewolves were already howling at the full moon, but having lived in Jinxville for years, I had grown used to their timeless song of the night.

“Listen to the children of the night ,” I mumbled.

“What’s that?” Cornelius asked nervously.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied. No need to make Mr. Leydon more nervous than he already was.

Entering the motel, I met a young man.

“Do you own this motel?” I asked.

The young man had a vacuous expression on his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me and my mother.”

“Ah, yes,” I nodded. “Mrs. Bates. I haven’t met her for quite some time. Anyway,” I continued. “I am the sheriff of this town, and there seems to be something odd going on in this motel, and I am here to inspect the basement.”

Bob and Bill nodded hastily, and directed Mr. Leydon and me down to the basement. The air smelled a little musty, but other than that, it wasn’t quite as odiferous as the traveling salesmen had led me to believe.

Sure enough, though, there were those corpses on the ground.

“Really,” I thought. “This time Boris Karloff has gone too far. I’ll have to have a word with him.”

“Do you know who did it?” Bill asked.

“I believe so,” I said. “Don’t worry anymore about it. Go back to your rooms now.”

“All right,” Bob sighed with relief. “See you later.”

And the two car salesmen left the basement.

Mr. Leydon looked slightly disappointed about something.

“What are you so disappointed about, my fictitious friend?” I asked. “Were you hoping that I would do an autopsy on these bodies or something, you little ghoul?”

“Ahem!” Cornelius looked outraged. “Is this the way you speak to a mystery novelist?”

“Writer, my friend, writer,” I corrected him. “Novelist is too forgiving.”

Mr. Leydon ignored my statement and turned his attention back to the corpses.

“You said you knew who murdered these people,” he said. “Who do you thing did?”

“Oh, my old pal Boris Karloff,” I answered. “He wants to help out in the war cause by making super humans to fight the Nazis.”

“Ugh!” Mr. Leydon looked disgusted. “What are you going to do?”

“Well,” I said. “If it was anyone else, I would immediately send them to the Idlewilde Sanitarium marked as the criminally insane. But I’ll just try to explain to him the, er, crudeness of his methods.”

“This won’t happen again, will it?” Mr. Leydon asked anxiously.

“No, of course not,” I reassured him. “You go home, and I’ll speak to Boris some time tonight.”

Mr. Leydon left the motel, his mind at rest, while I went home to my own mansion. Sometimes, I thought, I feel like I am either on top of the world or in the depths of despair. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events. I had certainly not expected Boris to do something so unscrupulous as murder someone, much less five people, but I was sure that it was he who was responsible for the crime.

When I reached my mansion, I was greeted by my dear little friend Shickelina, the Siamese kitten.

“Hello, Shickelina ,” I sighed. “You know, I wish that my friend Boris Karloff was more like you and not so bent on pursuing his scientific research.”

“Mew!” said Shickelina.

“Yes,” I went on. “It was all right when he just talked about it, but murdering people…that’s going too far. I am sorry,” I added. “That I can’t stay at home too long, but I have to have a word with him about his methods of research. I just came by to tell you that I’m going to be coming home a little late.”

Shickelina purred contentedly, and I wished I didn’t have to leave. The little Siamese kitten seemed to be the only one who understood and appreciated me. And her reasoning and deductive skills were incredible…second only to mine, of course .

I started out the door, but Shickelina followed me.

“Well,” I told her. “You can come too. Goodness knows I might need your help when it comes to dealing with Karloff. ”

The kitten curled up comfortably in my coat pocket, and I felt that I would be glad of her company later on tonight.

I drove over to Boris Karloff’s underground laboratory outside of Jinxville. Parking my car in the underground parking decks, I was greeted by a robot, one of Boris’s many creations.

“Ahem!” I cleared my throat. “I would like to speak to your creator.”

“This way!” the robot said in a strange metallic voice, and I followed it out of the parking deck through the tunnel which led into an odd, underground Gothic castle.

We went downstairs a little further, and I was beginning to feel a little discombobulated as I always do when I have to go very far underground somewhere. Finally, the robot reached a hallway lined with many metal doors and warnings in four different languages painted on the fronts.

The robot opened one of them, and I entered to find Boris writing something in one of his laboratory notebooks. He glanced up as I entered the room.

“Ah, Lorencz, I was expecting you,” he said. “I see you’ve been doing well for yourself,” he added, glancing at my expensive clothes.

“You’ve been doing well too,” I said. “This hallway wasn’t installed when I came here last.”

“No,” Boris Karloff agreed. “But that’s because I need more room now. For my work.”

“I would like to speak to you about your work,” I said. “It seems that two traveling salesmen have found five corpses in the basement. You murdered them, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no,” Boris said. “They were already dead. I just dug them up again from the Jinxville cemetery.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, why did you put them in the basement of all places?”

“I don’t know,” Boris said. “I was going to pick them up again, but I forgot.”

“Well, you better not forget again,” I said sharply. “This city has enough, er, problems already without corpses appearing and disappearing everywhere. If you do this again, I will be forced to take drastic measures against you.”

“Sorry, Lorencz,” he said sullenly.

“That’s Doctor Lorencz to you,” I snapped.

“You weren’t Doctor Lorencz last time I saw you,” Boris said.

“I am now,” I retorted. “In fact, I am not only the sheriff now, but I have been elected as mayor and head of the Idlewilde Sanitarium. Which is where you are going if you don’t stop digging up corpses.”

Boris Karloff assumed a menacing look.

“You think I don’t know much about you,” he said coldly. “But I know what you did to get elected as mayor.”

“Y-you do?” I stammered.

“Yes,” he returned. “You really lost the election, but you put fake ballots in the voting boxes so that you would remain in office anyway.”

I laughed nervously. “How did you find out?”

Boris Karloff shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. But I’ve got evidence that would look pretty bad in the newspapers.”

“But—but,” I protested. “You wouldn’t do something like that, would you? That would mean that I would lose all of my jobs! You know how I feel about this town.”

“I know,” Boris said.

“We were friends,” I went on. “We went to school together. I was the one who made it possible for you to join all of the famous colleges where all of the great mad scientists studied. The same college that the invisible man got his degree from, the same university that Dr. Phibes graduated from. I made you into what you are now.”

“Yes,” Boris said bitterly. “You were always my prosperous little friend. Always making more and more money, like that time when you set up a battery store and sold everyone dead batteries and made more money than anyone else…until everyone tried to use the batteries, that is. My mother always said, “Why can’t you be like that other little boy at your school who’s doing so well in science and economics? That Lorencz boy? Why can’t you study like him?” And, you know,” Boris mused. “The one thing that we all dread the most is disappointing our mothers.”

I gulped. “You weren’t that bad in school, Boris.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I wasn’t that good either. You were brilliant. ‘A’ after ‘A’, prize after prize, scholarship after scholarship. I watched my friend soar high above me while I lingered in the ‘B’ grades.”

“You didn’t hold it against me, did you, Boris?” I asked nervously.

“No,” Boris said. “Not much. After all, you helped me out a lot too. But, you see, I wouldn’t really mind pulling you off your perch if it really came to that.”

“Please,” I sniveled. “You know what all of this—“

“Money means to me, I know,” Boris interrupted. “I won’t spill the beans on one condition.”

“What do you want?” I asked anxiously. “Money?”

“I could use some,” he nodded. “But I need you to be my helper and do jobs for me, things like that.”

“No,” I moaned. “That’s impossible, what you want. I can’t stand the kind of things you do. No, I won’t do it. I don’t have enough time.”

“All right,” Boris Karloff shrugged. “I’ll just have to write the Jinxville Times a letter telling them that the mayor of Jinxville is a phony.”

“All right, all right,” I gave in. “You won’t get me to do anything revolting, will you? You know how delicate my digestive tract is…”

“Calm yourself, doctor,” Boris Karloff cut in. “I will handle the corpses.”

“I’m glad you aren’t an unscrupulous person, Boris,” I said carefully. “You’ll do everything with caution, won’t you? And discretion?”

“Yes, of course,” Boris Karloff said. “My first job for you is this. Those traveling salesmen need to leave. They’ve already caused enough trouble in finding those corpses. I leave you the job of making sure that they leave Jinxville and never come back.”

As a mystery writer, I have learned to seek trouble wherever it might hide—for my stories, you know. It is important for a writer to go to unpleasant places like the morgue or some other such place, so that he can write about it in his mystery books. Or, in this case, I had to go see five corpses. I was not expecting such an excursion at all. In fact, if I were not a mystery writer, I would have avoided it as well as I could. But, anyway…

Staying at Jinxville was an unexpected addition to my plans. You know I am recently vacationing in America, and I decided to travel to California. Driving through the Midwest, I found that it was getting late and I also found myself in Jinxville.

“What kind of a name for a town is that?” I muttered to myself as I pulled in to the visitor’s center. A man, who seemed to be the curator of the Jinxville Historic Museum, greeted me.

“Hello,” I began. “I am thinking about staying in this town for the night and I was wondering if you could recommend a good hotel for me.”

“Ah,” he said. “You have come to the right person, my friend. I am Dr. Lorencz, head curator of the Jinxville Historic Museum, and I can recommend an excellent hotel for you.”

“Oh, you can?” I said hopefully. “I myself am Cornelius Latimer Leydon, a mystery writer, you know.”

“Oh,” Dr. Lorencz looked at me a little blankly. “I am afraid that I do not recognize your name.”

“You know,” I said. “I wrote a book called Murder Most—“

“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” intelligence sprang into Lorencz’s eyes. “I remember. You wrote those frankly silly mystery books that for some reason took off in the literary world.”

“Frankly silly?” I repeated, but Dr. Lorencz was already saying, “As for the hotel that you want to stay at, I think that Mr. Fink’s Hotel would be an excellent choice for you.”

After giving me directions for the hotel, he left the museum and went somewhere else. Since he was locking the museum up after him, I was forced to leave the museum as well.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m just making the rounds of the city,” Dr. Lorencz answered, and drove off in his little black car before I could say anything more.

I decided to stop at a nearby café and refresh myself before booking a room for myself at the hotel. The Jinxville café was pleasant enough, but there was hardly anyone there except two other people, one who had a sharp, military-like voice, and the other who was small with a slightly timid demeanor.

I ordered a biscuit (and plenty of butter to go with it) and a coffee, and was just enjoying a post-dinner smoke, when suddenly I realized as I was trying to extract my wallet from my pocket to pay for my meal that my wallet was missing.

Of course, I was alarmed, but I decided to keep calm and survey my fellow guests critically. Sure enough, I saw that the smaller of the two men was pocketing a wallet that looked very much like my own.

“Excuse me,” I said irritably. “But I believe that is my wallet that you have there.”

“It is?” the smaller one blinked innocently at me.

“Ahem,” the other man suddenly cleared his throat. “Give the wallet back to him, Polo.”

“Very well,” Polo sighed. “I can’t help it,” he went on to me as he handed be back the wallet. “I get these sudden urges to steal things even when I don’t need to.”

“He’s a kleptomaniac,” the other man said. “I suppose we may as well introduce ourselves. My name is Andre, and this is Polo.”

“I am Cornelius Leydon,” I said. “Do you two live in Jinxville?”

“Oh, no,” Polo said. “We just came here as tourists. Though we have been here before, about two months ago.”

“Jinxville is a very harrowing city, if you know what I mean,” Andre said.

“Harrowing?” I repeated.

“Never mind,” Polo said quickly. “Let’s not get started on that again. Jinxville is a fine city. After all, we wouldn’t have come here again if it wasn’t.”

“Well, I suppose I ought to be heading out,” I said.

“Where are you going?” Andre asked.

“I’m staying at Mr. Fink’s Hotel,” I said.

“Is that so?” Polo said. “We are staying at the Jinxville Motel.”

“Dr. Lorencz, the head curator of the Jinxville Historic Museum, recommended Mr. Fink’s Hotel to me,” I explained. “I didn’t know much about this town, so I had to ask for directions.”

“I see,” Andre said. “Well, if we had know that there was another hotel, we would have stayed there instead. The Jinxville Motel is all right, but it’s a little run down.”

“Who owns it?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Polo replied. “Some guy and his mother, I think. Anyway, we better get going too. It was very pleasant meeting you.”

And the two men left the café. I decided to stop by the sheriff’s office and tell the sheriff that there was a kleptomaniac hanging around the town; not because I wanted to get Polo and Andre in trouble, but because I just wanted everyone to keep a close eye on their wallets while the two were prowling around town.

I stopped by the sheriff’s office, and met Dr. Lorencz there.

“Hello,” I said. “Is the sheriff in?”

“Well, I am the sheriff,” Dr. Lorencz smiled. “As well as the justice of the peace, the mayor, the coroner, the loans, and the notary. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I don’t want to get these people in trouble,” I began. “But there happens to be a kleptomaniac running around loose in this city. He and his friend seem harmless enough, but they have an irritating habit of filching wallets.”

“I see,” Dr. Lorencz said. “What are their names?”

“The kleptomaniac’s name is Polo,” I replied. “And his friend’s name is Andre.”

“What!” Dr. Lorencz exclaimed.

“Er, do you recognize these people?” I asked.

“Yes, I do,” Dr. Lorencz said. “They are two criminals I met about two months ago. I have no idea why they are here in Jinxville again, but I promise you that I will keep a close eye on them. You would be surprised,” he continued. “What kinds of people are prone to be criminals and what kinds aren’t…”

A sudden thought came to me. “Does being a mystery writer list you as a disreputable character?”

“Yes, you silly little fellow,” snickered Dr. Lorencz unpleasantly. “All mystery writers are a little sleazy.”

I was greatly offended by this statement, and for a half an hour, Dr. Lorencz and me were engaged in a heated argument. Suddenly, two car salesmen appeared and explained to us that there were five corpses in the basement of the Jinxville Motel, and we set off there at once.

Dr. Lorencz explained to me that his friend Boris Karloff was the one who had murdered these people; something to do with trying to help out in the war cause. I was too stunned to really understand everything that he was saying. But he assured me that he would speak to Mr. Karloff about it, so I went to Professor Fink’s Hotel, my mind at rest.

I woke up the next morning after my disastrous conversation with Boris. After hearing his absurd proposal that I should be his helper and assist him in his grotesque experiments, I found myself confronted with the realization that I had another problem on my hands: the problem of Polo and Andre. Of course, I remembered my singularly unpleasant encounter with these criminals in the haunted woods outside the Bercovy Castle, and I had no wish to repeat that experience at all. The fact that they were again here in Jinxville was enough to confirm my suspicions that the two were still not satisfied with the million dollars that they had obtained from the buried treasure we had found.

To top it all off, I also had the undesirable job of forcing the car salesmen to leave Jinxville. How in the world was I supposed to do that?

A knocking at the door forced me out of my reverie. Opening the door, I found myself face to face with a man of a height slightly higher than mine who fixed a fake smile on his face.

“Are you Dr. Lorencz?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And who are you?”

“My name is Rick Davis,” he replied. “I am a government official, and I am here to investigate this town.”

“Any investigating that goes on in this town is conducted by me,” I retorted.

“We aren’t investigating a crime,” the man said. “We are investigating this town to see if everything is working right.”

“What do you mean ‘working right’?” I said. “I would prefer it if you would be more precise in your explanation.”

“We’re just trying to make sure that the people in this town are getting their constitutional rights,” the man said. “I hear that you are the mayor of this town. I also hear that you are the sheriff of this town. You are also half a dozen other things. We might have to fix that, and make it so that you only have one job like that. All of those important jobs need to be spread out.”

“Now look here,” I exclaimed. “The people in this town are perfectly happy without you messing everything up. This town is also peculiar…it needs to be handled delicately, and only I can do the handling.”

“Is that so?” the man sneered. “We’ll see about that.”

After the government official left, I closed the door with an air of finality. But I knew that my problems were far from finished.

“This is perfect!” I thought when we first arrived in Jinxville. “A run-down motel…the perfect place to steal plenty of jewelry and other odds and ends from guests.”

Or, at least, that’s what I thought, until me and my co-criminal Andre discovered that the only other guests at the Jinxville Motel were two car salesmen.

“Of course,” Andre said. “Car salesmen are supposed to be really rich.”

“They are?” I said doubtfully. “But my specialty is purloining portable property. I’m not so good when it comes to breaking into people’s hotel rooms.”

“Tomorrow morning, then, you can search the laundry room and go through people’s clothes,” Andre said. “There’s bound to be something of value that they forgot to take out of their pockets.”

“No, Andre,” I moaned. “That’s disgusting, going through people’s dirty clothes.”

Andre glared and I hastily said, “Well, I’ll do it tomorrow. I don’t have to get up too early, do I?”

“Yes,” Andre retorted. “Or else they’ll get their laundry before you have a chance to search it.”

I went dejectedly to my room. My room was room 13, and though I am generally not a superstitious person, I felt distinctly nervous, especially when the creepy owner of the motel started ambling down the hallways.

I had a difficult time going to sleep, too. The clanking of chains and the moaning of the motel phantom kept me awake until the small hours of the morning when I finally managed to go to sleep.

I awoke the next morning at six in the morning. I like to get up at seven, but I remembered Andre’s warning about getting up early to search the laundry, so I forced myself out of bed.

The sun hadn’t come out yet—that’s the worst of getting up early. There isn’t even any sunshine to help get the sleep out of your eyes. Not to mention, the weather in Jinxville is almost certainly “Partly Cloudy”.

Unfortunately, as I was going downstairs to the basement, I began feeling a little nervous. It was cold and a chill draft swept through the laundry room. I was not really very eager to begin my frankly repulsive job of going through dirty laundry, and the fact that it was almost pitch dark did nothing to relieve my nervousness.

I was halfway down the stairs, when I became aware that someone else was in the laundry room too. I could see their silhouette faintly, but it was so dark that I couldn’t identify who it was.

Suddenly, the flash of a match lit up the person’s face for a moment. I immediately recognized the person as Boris Karloff, one of those odd people that Andre and me had met during our adventure at Bercovy Castle. He seemed to be lighting a cigar. Now who, I asked myself, would come all the way down to the basement to have a smoke? And Karloff was taking forever with his smoke—I was getting a little tired of waiting on the steps, but I couldn’t search the laundry while he was there. The match went out, and once again the basement was totally dark.

Suddenly, I noticed that he seemed to be getting up to do something. I nervously watched as he bent down to pick something up. It looked alarmingly like a dead body. Then, to my growing trepidation, I realized that he was walking towards the stairs.

I managed to lower myself as quietly as I could off of the stairs and onto the floor of the basement. Karloff seemed to be collecting additional bodies, and he seemed to be coming closer and closer to the spot near the stairs where I was.

I noticed the outline of something like a wagon next to me, and I decided that that was the best place to hide until he left. I managed to hide inside, but to my indescribable alarm, I saw that he was dumping his burdens inside the wagon. Being inside a wagon with a load of corpses can usually make the most unimaginative minds come up with the most brilliant schemes to escape, but I realized very quickly that if I left the wagon I would be seen by Karloff who appeared to be involved in some infernal plot.

To make matters even more hopeless, the wagon suddenly started moving. It seemed to be going down into some sort of hidden trapdoor, down some underground tunnel. The stench of the corpses made me feel sick, but after a while I couldn’t smell it. A grey mist swept over me, and I couldn’t see, hear, or smell anything for quite some time.

I woke up the next morning, still not fully recovered from my unpleasant encounter with the five corpses. After a speedy breakfast, I resolved to go immediately to the sheriff’s office to see if the matter had been dealt with.

I was a little surprised to see that Dr. Lorencz was not at his usual place at the sheriff’s office. After five minutes of waiting, he finally arrived.

“Sorry about being late,” he smiled nervously. “But something unexpected occurred and I was delayed.”

“That’s quite all right,” I assured him. “I just wanted to know if the corpses have been cleared away?”

“The corpses?” the doctor repeated absent-mindedly. “Oh, yes: the corpses! Why, I almost forgot! I’m so sorry, Mr. Leydon, I have to go right now, there’s so much to do. Thank you for reminding me!”

Dr. Lorencz was in such a hurry to leave the sheriff’s office that he ran right into someone who was just entering the office.

“Excuse me,” he said quickly. I recognized the person who had just entered as Andre.

“I have a problem,” Andre said shortly.

“What sort of problem?” Dr. Lorencz enquired. “Hauntings? Ghostly manifestations? Werewolf attacks? Vampire bites? In other words, anything of the supernatural sort?”

“Not in any degree,” Andre said quickly. “I just wanted to report a disappearance.“

“Just a moment!” Dr. Lorencz exclaimed. Rummaging in a file cabinet, he produced a form. Quickly pulling out a pair of reading glasses and fitting them on, he glanced up at Andre with an air of professional interest.

“Now,” he said briskly. “Who has disappeared?”

“Polo,” Andre answered. “I told him to go in the laundry room and when I checked to see what was taking him so long, he wasn’t there!”

“You mean he just disappeared?” I exclaimed.

“That’s what I said I was reporting, didn’t I?” Andre turned a cold fish eye glance on me.

“And do you know any of Polo’s family members?” Dr. Lorencz asked. “His parents, siblings, or his wife if he had one?”

“He wasn’t married,” Andre frowned. “And as for his parents or his siblings, I’ve never met them so I don’t know where they are.”

“That’s all right,” Dr. Lorencz assured Andre. “I’m sure we’ll find your friend in no time. And where did you say you last saw him?”

“In the laundry room,” Andre replied. “In the basement.”

“In the basement,” Dr. Lorencz repeated, as he wrote it down on the paper. Suddenly, he stopped. “The—basement! The basement! Excuse me, gentlemen; I have something urgent to attend to. I’ll try to find your friend as soon as I can!”

Andre and I watched the doctor rush out of the office and drive off.

“What bit him?” I muttered.

“This whole town is weird,” Andre groaned.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said sympathetically. “But if he disappeared in the basement, then I’m sure it wasn’t anything like a werewolf that attacked him.”

“I don’t know,” Andre said irritably. “For all we know, the silly little fellow just decided to go off somewhere and forgot that he was supposed to go in the laundry room. Anyway, I ought to be going back to the hotel now.”

Suddenly, a person entered the sheriff office. It was a tall, ill-tempered man whom I didn’t recognize.

“I am Rick Davis,” the man said. “A government official. Is Dr. Lorencz here?”

“No, he just left,” I replied.

“Who are you, then?” the man asked, none too politely.

“I am Cornelius Latimer Leydon,” I replied. “A mystery novelist. Have you read any of my books?”

“Sorry, I only read true crime,” the man replied, and I took an instant dislike to him.

“You know,” I said philosophically. “There are two kinds of readers in the world: those that read true crime and those that read mysteries.”

“What’s your point?” Rick said, glowering.

“Well, you’re the sort that reads true crime, anyway,” I returned.

“So, do you live in this town?” Davis asked.

“No,” I replied. “I’m only visiting.”

“Can you give me a list of some of the people who live in this town?” Davis asked Andre.

“I can give you a list of the people I know,” Andre said doubtfully. “There’s Professor Karl Fenniger—he lives in the Bercovy Castle near the Haunted Forest. Then there are the owners of the Jinxville Motel, Norman Bates and his mother. A plastic surgeon named Dr. Einstein lives here, and a person named Boris Karloff, though I don’t know where he lives.”

“Why is it called the ‘Bercovy Castle’?” Davis asked sharply.

“Well, it used to belong to a fellow named Fritz Bercovy,” Andre answered.

“Where is he now?” Davis asked.

“I don’t know,” Andre answered. “I believe he moved back to Switzerland. Are those all the questions you have?”

“Yes,” Davis said. “I better go find Dr. Lorencz now. Do you know where he went?”

“Actually, I have no idea at all,” I answered.

Our city motto is, “Anything is Possible”, but yesterday our city truly lived up to its reputation for being on the edge of the unordinary. Two traveling salesmen, Bob and Bill (last names not given) found five corpses yesterday in the basement of the Jinxville Motel where they were staying.

“I doubt,” Dr. Lorencz, our beloved mayor, sheriff, coroner, justice of the peace, banker and public notary of Jinxville says. “I doubt that it is murder, because the corpses are of people who have already been dead and who have already had their funeral services. I conclude, therefore, that the perpetrator is a body snatcher.” Dr. Lorencz has also recently ordered the traveling salesmen to leave the city of Jinxville immediately, and the traveling salesmen left with little protest though the doctor did not give his reasons for why they had to leave.

To further heighten our suspense, the corpses have mysteriously vanished before policemen could come and re-bury them. Also, another person who is staying at the Jinxville Motel, Andre (last name withheld) reported to our brilliant sheriff Dr. Lorencz that a friend of his named Polo mysteriously disappeared after going in the laundry room.

Could the laundry room of the Jinxville Motel be haunted? We asked Mr. Bates what he thought, but he only said, “I think we all go a little insane sometimes, don’t you?”

Could these disappearances signal the end of Jinxville as we know it?

I hurried as fast as I could to the Jinxville Motel after making a hasty retreat away from the sheriff office. When I reached the basement of the motel, though, the corpses had vanished.

I also noticed that there was a trapdoor in the motel that I hadn’t noticed before because it had been hidden under a pile of dirty laundry. Opening it, I discovered a subterranean tunnel. I proceeded to walk down it, wondering who has constructed it. I doubted that the owners of the motel had any idea that this tunnel was in their basement.

The tunnel was quite long, but after twenty minutes of walking, I noticed that the tunnel seemed to be going down more and more. Finally, it stopped going down but instead of going up I just went straight ahead. I kept walking, and eventually found a trapdoor above me. Opening it, I emerged inside Boris’s subterranean Gothic castle.

Somehow, I was not very surprised that it was Boris who had constructed this tunnel. I had always suspected that he had secret ways of getting to sections of Jinxville. He most likely had one in the cemetery to make his dirty work all the easier.

I walked to Boris’s laboratory in the castle, and found him doing something with some sort of corpse with a plastic sheet over it.

“Ahem!” I began. “I forced the traveling salesmen to leave Jinxville.”

“That’s good,” Boris answered.

“Er, you don’t happen to have any ideas where Polo might be, do you?” I asked.

“Who’s Polo?” Boris asked.

“A person who is visiting Jinxville,” I answered. “With his friend Andre.”

“Well, it’s hard to tell since I don’t even know what he looks like,” Boris said sourly. “But, I have another job for you. I need you to get me some uranium.”

“Uranium!” I repeated. “Isn’t that some sort of radioactive chemical?”

“That’s right,” Boris nodded. “I need it to make my super humans?”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” I said dubiously. “Though isn’t it illegal?”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to handle the legality of everything we’re doing,” Boris said. “All I need you to do is to get them.”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I might have to get criminals to get it for me…and if I’m caught, it might ruin my reputation permanently.”

Boris Karloff looked at me in disgust. “Listen, doctor, which is more important: money or fighting the Nazis?”

“Er, well, really, I suppose money,” I replied.

“Well, let me put it this way, then,” Boris said. “If the Nazis take over the world, then they won’t let you continue being the mayor of Jinxville.”

“But they won’t take over the world…” I said uncertainly. “Will they?”

“Do you really want to wait and find out?” Boris asked. “Anyway, I’ll find the criminals and I’ll tell you when and where you need to pick up the supplies of uranium.”

“I suppose that will work,” I said, and left the laboratory.

Waking up and finding oneself in a stinky wagon is not the most pleasant experience one could hope for. But to make matters worse, I had just woken up when the wagon stopped. I felt a little nervous, because if Karloff was desperate enough to become a body snatcher and cart around corpses, then he was capable of practically anything.

The wagon seemed to have stopped in some sort of odd underground castle. Karloff got out of the cart and was just lifting one of the corpses out when he caught sight of me.

“Er, hello?” I said, trying to look as innocent as possible. “I didn’t know that this was your cart.”

Karloff stared at me in surprise and annoyance.

“Well, get out,” he said angrily. “But don’t try to do anything sneaky.”

I watched him as he wrapped the corpses in protective sheets, I suppose to prevent decomposition, and then he said, “Follow me. Now you’ve really done it,” he added cryptically.

Feeling more and more uncomfortable, I was beginning to reach the conclusion that Karloff was a mad scientist, and though he may not have murdered these people, that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it.

After locking the corpses up in an air-tight chamber, he turned to me menacingly. “Now,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself? Don’t try to answer,” he added. “We’ll have to do all the talking in the laboratory.”

“You have a sitting room though, don’t you?” I asked.

“No, of course not,” he said sharply. “We wouldn’t have to go in the laboratory if I had a sitting room, would we?”

“No, I suppose not,” I said cheerfully. “Well, let’s go to the laboratory then. It’s so much fun visiting new places isn’t it?”

“It’s much more fun discovering new things,” Karloff retorted. “Things that mortal man could only aspire to in the ancient days. Things—“

As Karloff continued with his enlightened speech, I almost expected violin music to start playing in the background. I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying, and so he said, “Did you hear anything that I just said?”

“Is this going to be on the test?” I said automatically.

Karloff looked furious. “Come this way!” he said, gritting his teeth.

I followed him to the laboratory. There was something on one of the tables with a white sheet over it.

“Is that part of one of your experiments?” I asked curiously.

“You sit there,” he interrupted, pointing to a chair in a corner.

“All right,” I said, getting a little annoyed. “I suppose you don’t have any tea, by any chance?”

“I thought tea is only what old ladies like to drink,” Karloff said nastily.

“Well, you thought wrong, then,” I retorted. “Because I am a pickpocket and I drink tea regularly.”

“Well, it just so happens,” Karloff sneered. “That I don’t. If it isn’t silicon based, it isn’t here.”

“I see,” I said.

“Now,” Karloff said. “What were you doing in that wagon?”

“I was hiding there,” I replied.

“From what?” Karloff asked.

“From you,” I replied.

“And why were you hiding from me?” Karloff asked.

“Because I didn’t want to be seen, obviously,” I returned.

Karloff frowned. “What were you up to in the laundry room at six in the morning?”

“What were you up to in the laundry room at six in the morning?” I retorted.

“I don’t think you are in the position of asking any questions,” Karloff said. “You’ve gotten yourself into a fine fix now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, now that you’ve seen this laboratory,” Karloff said. “You might tell someone about it.”

“But—but,” I sniveled. “There really isn’t any reason why I would do that.”

Karloff looked bored. “Look, I don’t have time to talk to you right now. Someone might come any moment now, and they probably have a missing persons alert out for you now.”

I gulped. “What are you going to do?”

“Well,” Karloff said. “Maybe you can help me do a little research.”

“That doesn’t sound very interesting,” I began, until suddenly I remembered reading somewhere that the best way to get on a mad scientist’s good side is by showing an interest in his work. “Er, I mean, that sounds great!”

Karloff nodded in approval. “I’m glad to see young people taking an interest in scientific research. You can be my helper in the laboratory, since that sissy Dr. Lorencz doesn’t like it here.”

“What do I do here, though?” I asked nervously.

“Oh, nothing much,” Karloff said. “All you have to do is fetch me beakers of acid, etc., etc. Nothing really out of the ordinary, and you don’t have to know any science to do any of it.”

“Does that mean that I can go back to the Jinxville Motel now?” I asked hopefully.

“You don’t really think I’m that stupid, do you?” Karloff asked in disgust. “I might be a mad scientist, but I know what people are up to most of the time. No, you’ll have a special room all to yourself, don’t worry.”

“I’ll have some tea with every meal, right?” I asked desperately. “I have to have exactly seven and a half lumps of sugar stirred in too.”

“All right, all right,” Karloff said impatiently. “Now I have a call I want you to make for me…”

It has been a day now since Polo has disappeared. There’s still no sign of him, and even the distracted Dr. Lorencz is getting a little desperate. As for Rick Davis, he is constantly harassing the poor doctor, so it looks like it’s up to me and Andre to find Polo ourselves. We decided to start at the last place that Polo had been—the basement. It looked bare, with just one dirty, forgotten pile of laundry in a corner. I accidentally tripped over this pile, and as I was getting up, noticed that a hidden trapdoor was under it.

“That’s odd,” Andre frowned. “It appears to be the only entrance into the basement besides the stairway we just entered through. This must be where Polo went down when he disappeared.”

“I suppose we should search it,” I said uncertainly.

Andre opened the trapdoor. “That’s odd,” he said. “There seems to just be an underground tunnel here.”

“Well, by all means, lets explore it!” I said excitedly. “Why, in one of my mystery novels—“

“We better be quiet as we go,” Andre interrupted.

“You know,” I said as we proceeded down the subterranean tunnel. “I have a theory about all of this. I think that the disappearance of those corpses and the disappearance of your friend Polo is connected somehow.”

“You think someone mistook him for a corpse?” Andre said doubtfully.

“No, no,” I said impatiently. “I mean that Polo must have seen something that someone didn’t want him to see.”

“Well, in that case he’s done for,” Andre said grimly.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “It’s possible that he’s still alive. Maybe whoever has him is keeping him for experiments.”

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better,” Andre said sarcastically. “My best friend is now having a bunch of quack hypothesis tested on him.”

“Let’s look on the bright side,” I said. “The worst thing that could happen would be that he’d have an extra eye, or X-ray vision, or something of that sort. But,” I added cheerfully. “He’d still be alive!”

We reached the end of the tunnel. There was a trapdoor, and we opened it cautiously to find ourselves in an underground Gothic castle. Torches hung on the walls, and candles guttered in small niches carved in the corner of the walls.

“So this is where Polo is?” Andre frowned. “I bet he’s having the time of his life here. He always loves exploring creepy places like this, though the whole time he’s scared out of his wits.”

Suddenly, footsteps sounded in the hallway to our left. Quickly ducking back inside the trapdoor, we watched through a crack in the trapdoor to see who was going by.

“It’s Boris Karloff!” Andre whispered. “I remember him from my experience back at Bercovy Castle. I didn’t know he was a mad scientist.”

Suddenly, a muffled gasp was heard behind us. Andre spun around to see a person carrying a bag of something and staring at us in surprise.

“How do you do?” I asked automatically.

“Er, very well thank you,” the man replied politely.

“This is no time for formalities!” Andre exclaimed. “This fellow is obviously part of Boris’s plot! I recognize him: this is Dr. Einstein.”

“No, I’m not,” he said quickly. “I just happened to find this trapdoor.”

“And I suppose you just happened to have a bundle of illegally imported uranium too?” Andre retorted.

“Uranium?” Dr. Einstein smiled uneasily.

“I think that you’re going to come with us,” Andre said, taking a menacing step forward towards Einstein.

“You aren’t going to take me to the police, are you?” Dr. Einstein asked anxiously.

“Yes, we are,” Andre said.

“No, please,” Dr. Einstein pleaded. “I’ll tell you everything. Boris wanted me to bring this uranium for his experiments.”

“What’s he experimenting on?” Andre asked.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Einstein moaned. “All I know is that he wants to make super humans so that he can fight the Nazis with them.”

“A good cause,” I nodded. “But terribly misdirected.”

“So I don’t have to go to the police, do I?” Dr. Einstein asked hopefully.

“Yes, you do,” Andre said, and forced the doctor to leave the basement and motel with us, along with the incriminating bundles of illegally imported uranium. We went to the sheriff’s office with the miserable criminal, and Dr. Lorencz started with alarm when he saw Einstein.

“Why are you bringing Dr. Einstein here?” Dr. Lorencz asked.

“He’s a criminal,” Andre replied. “He was wandering around with bundles of illegally imported uranium.”

“I see,” Dr. Lorencz said. “Well, I’ll let you off with a warning,” he told Dr. Einstein.

Dr. Einstein blinked in surprise at the sheriff, and then hurried out of the office before Lorencz could change his mind.

Andre stared at Dr. Lorencz in surprise also. “Why did you let that guy go?” he asked. “Don’t you realize that he is also part of Boris Karloff’s plot? He’s part of the same gang who is responsible for the disappearance of Polo!”

“Yes, I know,” Dr. Lorencz said. “If he does it again next time, he’ll have to go to jail.”

Andre and me left the sheriff’s office.

“Dr. Lorencz can’t be trusted anymore,” groaned Andre. “He’s obviously part of the plot too, or he wouldn’t be protecting Einstein like this.”

“Oh, by the way,” Lorencz called out from the office. “There’s some mail for you, Andre!”

Frowning, Andre took a note. It was in an envelope but it did not have a return address. Opening it, Andre stared in amazement.

“It’s from Polo!” he exclaimed.

“Is it his handwriting?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” Andre nodded. “I’d recognize that sissy, flowery handwriting anywhere. He says that he’s perfectly all right, and,” Andre paused. “And is enjoying himself immensely.”

“What?!!” I exclaimed. “That’s hardly the letter of a kidnapped hostage!”

“No…” Andre agreed. “Unless he’s been brainwashed.”

“I wish that we could visit Polo ourselves,” I said. “So that we could see what’s really going on.”

“I told you to call Dr. Einstein!” exclaimed Karloff.

“And so I did,” I said calmly.

“Yes,” Karloff said through clenched teeth. “But you also ordered ten boxes of expensive Swiss chocolates!”

“I would hardly describe them as expensive,” I sighed.

“Yeah,” Karloff muttered. “They were only ten dollars each! Do you think I can afford to waste a hundred dollars on candy!?”

“What else would you waste it on?” I returned, munching on some Turkish Delight.

“Not to mention,” added Karloff. “That now that delivery fellow has seen the inside of this laboratory. If this wasn’t Jinxville, where no one hardly gets surprised about anything anymore, he would have called the police!”

“Well, he didn’t,” I said. “Nice place you’ve got here. You know, I wouldn’t mind staying here forever…”

Karloff glared. “Well, you probably will be staying here forever, so you just might get your wish.”

“The best thing about it,” I continued. “Is this nice comfortable armchair with the built-in book-holder. I could just sit here, and read and read and read and—“

“Yes, well, I need you to work and work and work!” Karloff scowled. “So will you get out of that chair and help me with these experiments?”

“I think not,” I returned. “It wasn’t my idea to stay here, anyway.”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea either,” Karloff retorted. “But you have to help, or I’ll have to be extremely unpleasant.”

“Very well,” I sighed reluctantly. “By the way, I ordered a few shipments of English tea too.”

“You what?!” Boris Karloff shouted.

I was taken-aback at his outburst. “Don’t you like tea?”

“I would be loath to drink tea like an old maiden aunt!” yelled Karloff.

“And I also ordered twenty mystery novels to keep me busy,” I added.

“Twenty mystery novels, eh?” Karloff snickered malevolently. “And who were they by? That foppish mystery writer Cornelius Latimer Leydon?”

“Well, yes they were actually,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because you won’t have any time to read,” Karloff exclaimed. “We have work to do, and you aren’t going to waste your time reading.”

Suddenly, a knock sounded at the laboratory door.

“Come in,” Karloff said sourly.

Dr. Lorencz of all people came in. He started in surprise when he saw me.

“Polo! What are you doing here?” he exclaimed.

“This no-good good-for-nothing just hitched a ride on the back of my wagon,” Boris retorted. “And now he has to help me experiment on the corpses.”

Dr. Lorencz clucked sympathetically in a way that I found profoundly irritating. “I’m so sorry, Polo. Do you want to write a letter to your friends to show them that you’re all right?”

“I suppose so,” I said glumly. “Though I don’t really want to go back.”

“You don’t?” Dr. Lorencz said in astonishment.

“Why would he?” Karloff said irritably. “He’s spending the whole time stuffing his face with sweetmeats!”

Dr. Lorencz couldn’t resist sampling one of the chocolates.

“Well, you have enough assistants as it is,” he finally said. “After all, we have Dr. Einstein who should be coming here any moment now with those supplies of uranium.”

“Yes,” Boris Karloff nodded. “I got Polo to call him up a few hours ago.”

A discreet tap was heard at the laboratory door, and Dr. Lorencz hastened to open it. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, it’s just you, doctor,” he said. “Have you got the uranium.”

A fellow whom I recognized as Dr. Einstein timidly stepped inside the laboratory.

“Yes,” he said cautiously. “But it seems that Andre and Mr. Leydon have found the trapdoor in the basement!”

“They’ve what?” Karloff stared in horror at the plastic surgeon. “How do you know?”

“Because I was in the underground tunnel,” Dr. Einstein replied. “And Andre and Cornelius Leydon tried to have me arrested.”

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Lorencz nodded knowingly. “I remember. I let you off with a warning.”

Dr. Einstein smiled nervously. “But what would have happened if that Rick Davis had been there? The government would certainly be interested to know about any shipments of uranium, you know.”

“He has a point,” I said.

“You stay out of it,” Karloff barked. “What do you think, Lorencz?”

Dr. Lorencz assumed a professional air. “I think that you, Dr. Einstein, should stay out of sight until Davis leaves this city.”

“Permit me,” Dr. Einstein interjected. “Permit me to remind you that Davis is extremely interested in putting you out of office, if you take my meaning.”

“That—that!” Dr. Lorencz exclaimed. “That wiggling worm of wretchedness! That jumping jugular jabberwocky! That miserable miserly marsupial!”

“Please, Lorencz,” Karloff groaned.

“That bumbling bloated baboon!” Dr. Lorencz finished before lapsing into an angry silence and muttering some unintelligible Latin phrases.

“Is Rick Davis much of a problem?” Dr. Einstein asked presently. “If he is, we can always make him a super-human!”

“What?” Karloff exclaimed. “Are you suggesting that we murder him?”

“No, no of course not,” Dr. Einstein protested. “I was just thinking. In plastic surgery, we have ways of adding things to the face to change certain things about it.”

“Please,” Dr. Lorencz grimaced. “What is your point?”

“My point is,” Dr. Einstein said patiently. “That it may be possible that Davis, can have an operation done on him to make him stronger than he was before. Who knows? Maybe we can also make it so that he is invulnerable to bullet wounds and shrapnel!”

“Brilliant, doctor, brilliant!” Karloff exclaimed. “Are you sure you’re just a plastic surgeon and not a mad scientist like myself? That’s a stroke of genius! Of course…that way, we will eliminate the problem of Davis all together and make it so that the need to discover the secret of life will also be eliminated! After, all Rick will already be alive, so there will be no need to reanimate him.”

Dr. Einstein smiled modestly, but Lorencz was still dubious. “How do you propose to get Davis over here?”

“Leave that to me!” Dr. Einstein announced.

“How will you go about capturing him?” Dr. Lorencz asked inquisitively.

“Through ways of my own,” Dr. Einstein answered cryptically.

“Well, as long as you get him here,” Lorencz said doubtfully. Suddenly he remembered something. “I almost forgot! I have to show that dweeby Davis around the city.”

“I’ll arrange some way to catch him while he’s on the tour then,” Dr. Einstein said. “Where will you be going?”

“Well,” Dr. Lorencz thought for a moment. “It isn’t just Davis who’s going on the tour. There’s also Mr. Leydon and Andre too.”

“Those two are doing a little amateur sleuthing,” frowned Karloff.

“Do I have to, er, do something about them too?” Dr. Einstein asked.

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Lorencz replied. “Not at this early stage in the game. We just need to keep an eye on them.”

“So when are we going on that tour of Jinxville?” Rick Davis asked impatiently. Andre, Dr. Lorencz, Davis, and myself were outside of the sheriff’s office. It was twilight, though it was still hot and humid as is the customary weather in the Midwest.

“We will begin right now, I suppose,” Dr. Lorencz said doubtfully. He seemed to me like he was a little worked up about something, but I didn’t know what. “We will start with the Haunted Forest.”

“Is that the name of the forest?” Davis asked sharply.

“Well, yes, it is,” Dr. Lorencz replied.

“That’s not the sort of name it should have,” Davis frowned. “It should have a boring, easy to forget name. When I become the mayor of this town, I’ll have to change it.”

Dr. Lorencz looked like he was going to do something hysterical, so I quickly changed the subject. “Ah, now isn’t the Haunted Forest near the Bercovy Castle?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Lorencz said. “Where Professor Karl Fenniger lives. It’s a pleasant part of town—“

“Can we get on with this tour?” Davis interrupted.

If looks could kill, Dr. Lorencz’s would have turned Davis into a member of the Un-Dead, but fortunately looks have no such super-human powers, so Dr. Lorencz merely scowled at the government official.

“As the mayor of this town,” Dr. Lorencz said deliberately. “I will decide when this tour begins and when it ends.” He turned to me.

“Mr. Leydon,” he said. “Can we borrow your car for this tour?”

“Of course,” I said dubiously. “My car’s parked right outside the sheriff’s office.”

I brought the car outside to the front of the sheriff station, and we all set off towards the Haunted Forest. By this time, it was certainly getting darker. We parked in front of an iron gate that surrounded the Haunted Forest.

Davis wrinkled his nose. “What’s that awful smell?”

I noticed the smell too. It smelled familiar.

“Garlic,” explained Dr. Lorencz. “Is an effective guard against members of the Un-Dead and werewolves too.”

“Members of the Un-Dead?” Davis repeated. “Werewolves? I might have to send you to the Idlewilde Sanitarium if you keep talking like that.”

“I suppose you don’t believe me,” Dr. Lorencz smiled. “Why don’t you go in the Haunted Forest?”

“Well, why not?” Davis frowned. “But you, doctor, have to come too. I don’t want you pulling any tricks.”

“Certainly,” Dr. Lorencz agreed.

Taking out a rusty key from his coat pocket, he fitted it inside a lock in the iron gate. The gate swung open with a blood-curdling screech.

“It badly needs oiling,” Dr. Lorencz smiled apologetically.

“I can see that,” Davis frowned. He had noticed the same thing that I had noticed: the sudden change in Dr. Lorencz’s mood. Before he had been jittery, but now he was smug and sure of himself.

Andre and I were naturally not as enthralled with the doctor’s decision to go through the Haunted Forest as he seemed to be. I believe in the existence of ghosts and other such unearthly spirits, despite the fact that my colleagues tend to undermine me because of it, and I didn’t think that Dr. Lorencz’s idea to go through the forest was a very prudent thing to do.

A dismal howl was heard. It sounded plaintive and far away. Davis shuddered in spite of himself, but the sound didn’t appear to bother the doctor.

“You people certainly have a problem with the wolf population,” Davis said. “When I become the mayor, I’ll be sure to address this problem as soon as possible.”

Dr. Lorencz’s lips held a strange smile that somehow made me feel uneasy, though I didn’t know why—

“I hear,” Dr. Einstein said carefully. “I hear that you have many subterranean tunnels leading to different parts of Jinxville.”

Karloff frowned. “That’s true. For example, you know about the one in the basement of the Jinxville Motel. I also have one in the Jinxville Cemetery and in several other parts of the town. Is there any specific place you were thinking of?”

“Well, yes, actually,” Dr. Einstein said. “I was thinking of the gateway to the Haunted Forest.”

“I do have a tunnel leading there,” Karloff answered. “What’s your point?”

“My point,” Dr. Einstein answered. “Is that it might be possible to open the tunnel up when Davis is immediately above it so that he would fall down the tunnel and we would have a better chance of reaching him.”

“I don’t know,” Karloff said doubtfully. “It isn’t a sheer drop, so he would only fall a few feet down and then get out again. And there’s a chance that he might not even stand above the trapdoor in which case we would have wasted valuable time on a false enterprise.”

“True,” agreed Dr. Einstein. “But it’s certainly possible that one of us might emerge from the tunnel—“

“And surprise him?” Karloff snickered. “I don’t think any of your ideas would work, doctor.”

“Well,” Dr. Einstein said sulkily. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“Yes,” Karloff answered. “At least, I have a few of my own.”

“That makes me feel a lot better,” Dr. Einstein muttered sarcastically. “I have an idea that might help, but first I have one question: do you have satellite images of what is going on in certain portions of the city?”

“Yes,” Karloff answered. “I have one for the entrances of all my tunnels so that I could make sure no one was around when I emerged from the trapdoors.”

“In that case,” Einstein said. “Why don’t you just wait until Davis enters the Haunted Forest and then gang up on him? It will be so dark that Mr. Leydon and Andre won’t be able to figure out what’s going on too well, and you’ll be able to render him unconscious long enough so that we can take him down the tunnel!”

“That sounds like a pretty good idea,” Karloff said doubtfully. “But how can we contact Dr. Lorencz and tell him about it?”

“Leave that to me!” Dr. Einstein said triumphantly. “Where are those satellite images anyway?”

We entered the Haunted Forest. The trees were gnarled and ancient, but there was a majestic quality in their towering claw-like branches that filled me with indescribable awe and excitement. There was also an uneasy feeling that accompanied these grand emotions, though, and the distant howls of a wolf were enough to keep me from forgetting that we were, after all, in a Haunted Forest. It had grown quite dark by now, but Dr. Lorencz fortunately had a flashlight.

“So far I haven’t seen anything,” sneered Davis.

“No,” Dr. Lorencz agreed, though I noticed his hand reaching for something in his coat pocket…

“Are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?” I muttered to Andre.

Andre nodded grimly. “Looks like Rick Davis’s time is up.”

Suddenly, a dark shape seemed to rear up out of the branches. We all froze, but Dr. Lorencz was unperturbed. A gunshot was heard, and the grey, shaggy mass crumpled to the ground. I saw the doctor taking the cartridges out of the gun, and I saw a gleam of silver.

Dr. Lorencz seemed to notice my inquisitive gaze, but did not deign to explain himself.

Davis gaped at the corpse. It was undeniably a werewolf; anyone could see that the transformation had already begun to take place, and that the claws had already begun to take the form of human hands.

“Now do you believe me?” the doctor leered unpleasantly, though I really couldn’t blame him.

Before Davis could answer, I saw a quick, silver flash somewhere near his head. At the same time as Davis began falling to the ground, the flashlight abruptly went out. I forced myself to stay calm. Where was the doctor? Someone seemed to collide into me, and I seized whoever it was by the edge of their coat. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I had accidentally stumbled on another member of the Un-Dead.

“Doctor, will you help me?” the person whom I recognized as Dr. Einstein because of his voice was struggling ineffectually. “I think a ghost has me!”

“That’s no ghost…” Dr. Lorencz said uncertainly, and at the same time I felt someone catch my hand. “It’s not a ghost, “ Dr. Lorencz repeated, as if he was giving a medical diagnosis.

I had a desperate fear of being left behind in the Haunted Forest, and I was extremely reluctant in letting go of either of the conspirators as long as one of them had a flashlight.

“Look here,” I managed to say. “I’m not letting go of Dr. Einstein unless you two give me the flashlight so I can find my way out of the forest.”

“We aren’t going to leave you in the forest, are we?” Dr. Einstein said, as if he was asking for confirmation.

“No, we’re coming back for you,” Dr. Lorencz said. “Unless, of course, you want to help us…”

Suddenly, Dr. Einstein whispered something to Lorencz. I didn’t catch all of it, but I did catch the words, “What about Davis?”

“Aha!” I said, so loudly that the two partners in crime started with surprise. “So that’s your dastardly plot. You’re taking poor Mr. Davis hostage so that he won’t force you to quit being a mayor.”

There was a silence broken only by an odd beeping sound that seemed to be coming from somewhere to my left. At the same time, Dr. Lorencz said, “Please, Mr. Leydon, can’t you see that we’re in the middle of a scientific discovery?”

“A what?” I asked, though I didn’t loosen my grip on Dr. Einstein.

“A scientific discovery,” Dr. Lorencz answered patiently. “You see, using Mr. Davis, we can turn him into a being with super-human powers to fight the Nazis.”

“So now you’re helping Karloff with his goofy plot?” I exclaimed. “What was that beeping sound, anyway?”

“Never mind,” Dr. Lorencz said.

“Well,” I said obstinately. “As I said before, I’m not letting go of Dr. Einstein if you two don’t give me the flashlight.

All of the sweetness that had previously saturated Dr. Lorencz’s speech now seeped out and was replaced with a distinct hint of menace. “So you want the flashlight, is that so?”

“Yes,” I said nervously.

“Well, you’ll get it then,” Dr. Lorencz said, and I could feel more than see his sinister smile in the darkness. “If you let go of Einstein.”

I didn’t believe him. “How can I be sure?” I demanded.

“You can’t,” Lorencz said. “Which is why I’ll simply place the flashlight in your hand and you’ll let him go.”

I felt the rubbery end of the flashlight and loosened my grip on the hapless plastic surgeon.

I heard Dr. Einstein say a few hurriedly whispered words to Lorencz and I guessed that they were going to take Davis somewhere. At the same time, a bright flash of light from somewhere on the ground nearly blinded me and when I could see again, the two doctors were gone along with Davis.

I looked around for Andre, but he was nowhere to be seen. Feeling sorry for myself, and also feeling distinctly nervous, I wondered what was to be done now—

A distinct knock on the door to the laboratory caused Karloff to start with surprise. Opening the door, I was alarmed, though not surprised, to see the two doctors Einstein and Lorencz coming in with Davis on a stretcher.

“Needed a stretcher, eh?” Karloff sneered. “Some doctors you guys are.”

“Lend us a hand, will you, Karloff?” Lorencz murmured.

“Well, at least he’s out cold,” sighed Karloff, placing the unconscious Davis on an operating table. “And now, doctor,” he went on, turning to Einstein. “You may begin the, er, operation.”

Dr. Einstein smiled agreeably. “It will be an honor,” he said grandly, and proceeded to give Karloff a list of all the various utensils he would need to complete the operation.

“Thank goodness we have enough uranium,” Karloff muttered. “And what are you going to do, Lorencz, while we operate?”

“Oh, er, keep an eye on what’s going on in the Haunted Forest, naturally,” Dr. Lorencz said, clearly not eager to participate in the operation. “I am sure I would only get in the way if I tried to help you both out,” and he added, smiling nervously. “Too many doctors spoil the superhuman, you know!”

“Yeah, we know,” Karloff cut in. “But we might need your help.”

“But I have such a weak heart!” Lorencz murmured. “I cannot even witness such procedures, let alone help you in your, er, operation. I am not that sort of doctor. Anyway, that mystery writer and Andre are still out there. I suppose I ought to go help them out.”

Suddenly, he remembered something.

“By the way, Polo,” Lorencz turned to me. “Could you keep an eye on Shickelina for me while I go out there?”

“Shickelina?” I stared at him. “Who’s she?”

In reply, Dr. Lorencz extracted from one of his gargantuan coat pockets a tiny Siamese kitten and handed her to me. I goggled at her, and Dr. Einstein and Karloff noticed her too.

“Lorencz…” Karloff groaned. “You took a kitten with you?”

“I take Shickelina everywhere,” Dr. Lorencz sniffed. “By the way, I suppose you don’t have any silver bullets on you, by any chance?”

“It just so happens that I do,” Karloff said, and handed the doctor a few.

After Lorencz loaded his pistol with the bullets, he left the castle in search of Mr. Leydon and Andre.

I flicked the flashlight on uncertainly. The golden light flashed out ahead of me, but was not much brighter than the moonlight, perhaps less bright. I glanced around nervously, wondering where Andre was. He couldn’t have gotten far without a flashlight. As for the two doctors, they seemed to have vanished into thin air.

I remembered the odd beeping sound I had heard at about the same time as Davis had been taken away. It reminded me a little of the sound that accompanied the opening and closing of doors on a subway train. I also remembered the brilliant flash of light that had temporarily blinded me, and realized that there must be another one of those subterranean tunnels in the Haunted Forest and that the flash of light must have been a flash of light from below.

I scanned the floor of the forest with my flashlight. Sure enough, there was a metal trapdoor covering the entrance to a tunnel similar in appearance to the one in the basement of the Jinxville Motel. I advanced towards it, and prepared to open the trapdoor, when suddenly someone from the inside of the tunnel opened the trapdoor uncertainly and stepped out with a lantern in hand. It was Dr. Lorencz.

“Doctor!” I stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Dr. Lorencz sighed with relief. “Do you know where Andre is?”

“No,” I replied.

Lorencz frowned. “He couldn’t have gotten far. He’s only been in these woods by himself for a few minutes.”

My flashlight seemed to be going out. The light grew dimmer and dimmer, until finally it was out completely, and we were left only with the light from the lantern.

“I suggest that we go in two different directions,” Lorencz finally said.

“I agree,” I replied. “You can go that way,” I pointed ahead of us. ”And, er, I’ll go that way too.”

“An excellent idea,” Lorencz said. “That will take us to the heart of the Haunted Forest.”

“Is that really the name of the forest?” I asked.

“Dear me, no,” Lorencz said quickly. “It’s true name is Whisperwood Forest, but on account of the abnormal number of spirits in the forest, we adopted the term ‘Haunted Forest’ as a suitable moniker.”

“I see,” I murmured, as we advanced deeper into the forest.

I waited in the room adjoining the operating room, feeling nervous. Suddenly, the door opened and I was horrified to see Andre of all people come into the room.

“So there you are!” Andre said irritably. “Now let’s get out of here before those two find out what’s going on.”

“How did you get here,” I stammered.

“I saw a trapdoor open in the ground and I ducked down in it before anyone noticed,” Andre returned. “Now we have to get out of here.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “But we’ll have to take Shickelina along.”

“Who’s she?” Andre snapped.

At that moment, Shickelina mewed impatiently, clearly not used to being ignored for so long a time.

“A kitten,” Andre said in disgust. “Chuck her out the window and let’s get going.”

“There are two reasons why I am not going to do that,” I returned. “First, Dr. Lorencz told me to take care of her, and secondly, at this moment, Dr. Lorencz is out in that ghost-infested wood trying to find you, and we have to let him know that you’re all right.”

“Well,” Andre muttered. “We can leave this laboratory and try to find Dr. Lorencz and Mr. Leydon too.”

I agreed. “But before we leave,” I said. “Why don’t we check and see how the operation is going?”

The door to the operation room was slightly ajar, and I glanced into the room. I was taken aback at what I saw next. At first glance, it had seemed like there was nothing different about Davis. But then I noticed how much larger he was. He had had a rather puny appearance before the operation. Now, he looked much more muscled. His eyes had a vacant, zombie-like expression.

“I think that we had better get going,” Andre said quickly.

At that moment, Dr. Einstein caught sight of us. “Boris,” he said nervously. “I think that Andre is right there.”

“Andre?” Karloff muttered. “Oh, yes, that criminal-type fellow,” he pressed a button on the laboratory panel. “Well, that locks all the doors, including all of the trapdoors, so he won’t be able to get away.”

Andre entered the laboratory, looking a little angry. “Now that you’ve made your super human, why can’t we leave now?”

“Well, it’s rather difficult at the moment,” Dr. Einstein explained. “You see, we have to make sure that no more government agents come looking for Davis.”

“But I thought you’re helping the government,” I said. “By helping fight the Nazis.”

“We aren’t serving the government,” Dr. Einstein said stirringly. “We are serving America.”

After an hour or more of searching the Whisperwood Forest, we had still found no trace of Andre.

“I conclude,” Dr. Lorencz said grimly. “That we must assume the worst.”

“What is the worst?” I asked nervously.

“Oh, anything, really,” Dr. Lorencz said absent-mindedly. “You know, the city motto for Jinxville is ‘Aliquid est potest’, which means, er, ‘Anything is Possible’.”

“I suppose we should turn back,” I said doubtfully. “I hate to give up on finding poor Andre, but I don’t think he’s anywhere around here.”

“No,” Lorencz agreed. “We ought to see if the operation has been completed also.”

As soon as we reached the trapdoor leading to the underground laboratory, it was flung open and Karloff appeared, along with Dr. Einstein. Polo and Andre followed behind.

“The operation is completed,” Dr. Einstein said triumphantly. “And Davis is ready to leave for the army!”

“Delightful!” Dr. Lorencz exclaimed.

“Here’s Shickelina,” Polo put in, handing the doctor the Siamese kitten. “Now may we leave Jinxville?”

“Certainly,” Dr. Lorencz nodded. “Now that we are finished with everything, you may leave too, Mr. Leydon.”

“Thanks,” I said. Jinxville was a nice town, but I had had enough of super humans, haunted forests, and coconspirators to last me for quite a while.

A month later, in August, I was listening to the radio as I finished my breakfast.

“Soldiers have reported,” the radio blared. “That they have noticed a soldier of odd appearance fighting with them against the Nazis. He has been recognized as Rick Davis, an ex-government agent who signed up to join the army a month ago. He was reported missing about a month ago on a trip to the small Midwestern town of Jinxville. FBI agents assumed that he had given up the job and replaced him, but he is now serving our country in a different way, it seems.

“Here we have Dave Johnson, a solder who fought in a battle with Mr. Davis, who will speak with us about some of the odd things that occurred on the battlefield.”

“Well,” Johnson said. “When we were going through a particularly rough bit of country, where there were mines hidden all over the ground, I actually saw Davis standing right over a mine when it went off. But instead of getting blown to pieces like the other men who were next to him, he looked like nothing had happened, and kept on fighting. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.”

“Do you have any theories about this?” the reporter asked.

“I guess it was just a miracle,” Johnson replied. “I can’t think of anything else to explain what was going on.”

“Well, now we take you to the White House, to hear President Franklin Roosevelt address the American people,” the reporter droned.

“I would like to thank the American people,” President Roosevelt said. “For their contributions to the war cause. So many people besides soldiers have given their time and energy in protecting America and safeguarding the lives of innocent people and freedom. We especially thank the following cities: Cincinnati, Ohio for its supply of rubber from used car tires; Los Angeles, California, for the medical supplies it has sent to help our soldiers, and,” the president hesitated as he glanced at the page he was reading his speech from. “And Jinxville—”

There was a small silence after the name Jinxville, but the president continued.

“And Jinxville for its remarkable help in the war cause,” he finished. “We thank these cities and all other towns that have valiantly placed their offerings on the altar of freedom.”

The president finished his speech, and the broadcaster began another report. “The American astronomical observatory has just noticed a series of explosions off of the surface of planet Mars…”

I wondered how Jinxville had managed to get its name mentioned along with all of those other bigger cities. Perhaps the government knew a little more about what was going on than it was letting on. But one thing was certain: if any town deserved credit for helping out in the war cause, it was certainly Jinxville.

THE END

© Copyright 2003 by Colin Azariah-Kribbs
All rights reserved.