Men of Mystery

Detective Sergeant

Smashed desks, overturned filing cabinets, strewn plaster, gaping holes in the walls, shining steel fixtures drooping in sad caricature of their former modernistic splendor, greeted the startled Detective Sergeant's eyes, as he swung open the office door to the firm Harvey Brown, Patent Attorney.

A quivering wreck of a man arose from the floor, stridently shrieked, "He can't do this to me! Get him! Arrest him!"

Sergeant Blake surveyed the fellow's torn clothing. mussed hair, and blackened eyes once again speechlessly regarded the carnage in the room. "What in blazes has happened here?" he roared, finding his voice at last, "A cyclone?"

"Cyclone, nothing!" exclaimed he trembling man. "Worse! I've just had a visit from Cerulean."

"Cerulean!" The word burst from Blake's lips with the force of an explosion.

"Yes! He claimed I've stolen my client's inventions. After he wrecked the place, he warned me that if I didn't go out of business, he'd come back and finish the job! I demand..." Brown halted his tirade. The Detective Sergeant was no longer in the room.

The remaining members of the riot squad were taken aback to see their superior officer come hurting out into the hall at full tilt.

"Quick!" shouted Blake. "Seen anyone since I charged into the room?

"No one." volunteered a puzzled officer. "That is, no one except a man in a strange costume who asked what the trouble was, when stepped into the elevator."

A howl of baffled rage left the Sergeant as he sprang to the wall and desperately jabbed the elevator button. "Fools!" he roared. "That was Cerulean."

Concerted cries left the policemen. "Cerulean ... and he's in that elevator! ...What'll
we do?"

Blake seized the hand of one of his men, and shoved it against the button. "Keep that pressed down for a full three minutes, Mooney, — or I'll have your badge — you others, come with me."

Blake dashed toward the nearby stairway, followed by his men. As they clattered down at top speed, he explained "Fortunately, the elevator is automatically operated by the push-buttons on the various floors. As long as Mooney presses the button, Cerulean is trapped. And when the three minutes are up, and he gets off at the bottom floor, we'll be ready for him."

Two minutes later found the policemen arrayed before the first floor entrance to the elevator, guns out, all eyes strained on the indicator which showed that the car was stalled somewhere between the second and the first floor. Triumph blazed in Sergeant Blake's eyes. Visions of a pat on the back from the Commissioner, a promotion in rack, and a boost in salary, dangled tantalizingly in his mind.

"Careful, men!" he warned the officers grouped about him. "We've prayed for this break for months and now that it's come, we don't want to muff it. He was seen going into that elevator... and he's bound to come out of that door any moment!"

"That's what bothers me,"muttered someone. "What'll we do when he does emerge?"

Another man said, "Our guns are useless against him!"

"Nonsense!" retorted Sergeant Blake. "All we've got to do is keep cool, and we've got him."

But his glib comeback didn't satisfy even the Detective Sergeant himself. There were some very wild tales about this fellow who called himself Cerulean. He was said to be a modern Robin Hood... a person who had dedicated his existence to assisting the weak and oppressed. It was whispered that he possessed super-strength, could lift tremendous weights, smash steel with his bare hands, jump over buildings, and that nothing could penetrate his amazingly super-tough skin. But, of course, pondered the Sergeant, these were mere rumors, fantastic fairy tales. Probably Cerulean was just an ordinary person whose better than average strength had been immensely exaggerated Without a doubt!