Part 2

The three stared from one to another. At last the major broke the silence.

"All right," he snapped. "Have it your own way. I suppose we _would_ stand out like sore thumbs if we wore clothes."

It took the trio but a minute to disrobe. They slipped through the gate, a strange sight: Henry, small and spindly, chin-whiskers waving animatedly; Professor Paulsen, gaunt, lean-shanked, stooped; and Major Coggleston, still strong and well-built, but with a noticeable spare tire beginning to develop around his midriff.

Inside, a great open fire was burning, with a throng of male and female nudists disporting themselves about it. Some were toasting wieners and marshmallows; other only their own epidermis. There was much laughter and good-natured raillery.

"Joseph!" exclaimed Henry tensely, his goatee quivering to a point like a setter's tail. "There! See her? That blonde girl--"

His colleague turned on him.

"Henry Horn, I'm warning you for the last time!" he clipped. "We're having a hard enough time as it is, without your calling that young lady's anatomical details to our attention. So keep quiet!"

"Oh, all right," the little man sulked. "Just because you think you're smarter than I am--"

"Joe! Henry!" Major Coggleston interrupted excitedly. "Look! That man walking off into the shadows! Hasn't he red hair?"

The two friends shot quick glances in the direction the officer pointed.

"That's him!" squealed Henry, dancing about like a monkey on a stick. "That's the man who bought my glasses!"

"Come on!" The major darted forward, looking for all the world like an oversize kewpie doll. Henry and the professor followed close on his heels.

* * * * *

Ahead of them, the red-headed nudist hurried farther and farther out of the firelight and into the brush. Bushes began to slap against the three friends' faces.

"Damn that devil!" fumed Major Coggleston. "I can't see him. Has he lost us?"

"Ouch!" yipped Henry, close beside him. "Oh! The mosquitoes!"

Professor Paulsen slapped vigorously at his own anatomy.

"They're awful!" he agreed. Then, to his friend, the major: "Do you see him? Where is he?"

And from the darkness behind them a voice answered:

"Right here I am, gentlemen! At your service, now and always!"

As one man, the trio whirled. A burly figure loomed in the gloom.

It was the red-headed man!

"Did you buy a pair of binoculars--" the major began.

The other waved him down.

"Sure, I bought 'em. And tonight I used 'em to snag onto the most important military secret I've seen in a month of Sundays. Believe me, mister, I'll make my fortune from this job!"

"Then you admit you're a spy?" the officer rasped, starting to move forward. "You admit you're the dirty dog who murdered our sentry--"

"Sure, sure, I admit it." The burly one seemed unperturbed.

"Why, you--"

"Hold it!" There was a sharp note of command in the red-headed man's voice this time. "Don't come no closer, buddy. Not if you want to keep your health!" He held out one ham-like hand. It gripped a heavy, bottle-shaped package.

"I got a little private lab in my suitcase," the spy explained. "When I saw how simple that formula was, I just brewed me up a batch of your new powder. Now I got it right here"--he waved the package--"complete with detonator. If you guys try to jump me, all I do is let go and the whole works goes off." He chuckled unpleasantly. "I guess you know what happens when two pounds of that stuff lets go."

The three friends shrank back. Henry's teeth already were chattering like the gourds in a rumba band.

"I guess you've got us," Major Coggleston said tautly. "However, you can't go far. My men are surrounding this camp right now."

The red-headed man sneered.

"Why don't you tell me something new?" he commented caustically. "Why'd you think I grabbed you?"

"What?"

"You didn't think you guys surprised me, did you?" The burly one laughed. "Hell, I saw you the second you came in.

"The way I'd planned it, I was going to hide out in the camp, here, until the stink blew over. Then I figured on pulling a fast sneak out of the country.

"But someone caught wise. I guess it was you"--he nodded at the quaking Henry--"so I had to revise things a little. I knew you'd have support coming up--Army Intelligence officers don't walk into trouble without backing except in the movies."

* * * * *

"So what do you plan to do with us?" demanded the major. "You can see you haven't a chance to get away--"

"Haven't I?"

"The camp is surrounded."

"Sure." Their captor was amused. "That's why I grabbed you. The four of us are going to march out of here together. And you"--he jerked his head toward Major Coggleston--"are going to make your boys lay off. You'll go with me 'til I'm satisfied I'm in the clear. Then I'll turn you loose."

"And if we refuse?" grated the major.

The other shrugged.

"O.K. by me," he said. "We all blow up together."

There was a long moment of silence, pregnant with panic.

"You must have a great deal of confidence in your ability as a chemist, to prepare this explosive on such short notice and with limited equipment," Professor Paulsen commented at last.

The red-headed man laughed.

"Why shouldn't I have?" he demanded. "I may have been raised in Brooklyn, but I learned my business in Berlin, and they know how to teach there."

Another long silence.

"Well, make up your mind!" their captor grunted finally. "We ain't got all night, you know. Do you come quiet, or do I have to blow us all to smithereens?" He waved the package in his hand menacingly.

Major Coggleston threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

"You win!" he snapped. "If I were alone, I'd say blow and be damned. But my friends deserve a better fate."

"You're smart," the other reported approvingly. "Come on!"

Slowly, the trio moved forward.

"Hurry up!" grated the red-head. And then, to the professor: "You skinny, get a move on!"

For the gaunt savant was distinctly lagging. He had dropped back until he was a full yard behind Henry and the major, and only a step in front of the spy.

"Hurry up!" the Nazi repeated, his eyes suddenly cold and menacing.

"Joseph! Come on!" urged Henry, his teeth chattering. "Don't make him mad! Please, Joseph!"

"I'm coming," grunted the scientist. "I certainly can't be blamed if the pebbles and twigs hurt my feet, can I?"

And with that, he sprang.

Like a human octopus, all long arms and legs, he launched himself at the spy. His hands clutched at the red-head's throat. His legs wrapped around the man's waist and dashed him backward to the ground.

"Help!" screamed the spy. With a wild motion he hurled the package from him in a long arch.

_Bang!_

* * * * *

But the explosion was the crack of a detonating cap, not the thunderous roar of a heavy charge of powder.

Major Coggleston lunged forward. His fists beat a meaty tattoo on the spy's face.

The next instant the crackle of military commands and the thud of footsteps burst upon them. The four--Professor Paulsen, Major Coggleston and the spy, in a heap on the ground; and Henry Horn, wide-eyed and trembling, standing near at hand--were illumined in a powerful flashlight's beam. Half a dozen soldiers rushed up.

"Major! We heard that shot! Are you all right?"

The officer struggled to his feet, trying hard to preserve the dignity of his rank despite his nudity. In the light of the flash he looked even more than before like an overgrown kewpie doll.

"Of course I'm all right!" he puffed. "What's more, that red-headed rat on the ground is the spy and murderer we've been looking for. Take him away, men!"

He turned to Professor Paulsen.

"Joe, this is one time I don't know what to say. If it hadn't been for you that devil would have made a clean getaway."

"Forget it," retorted the gaunt scientist. "It's little enough I can do for my country at my age."

"Honestly, Joseph, I can't see how you got the nerve to do it!" marveled Henry, still wide-eyed. "Just think, we might all have been killed--"

The professor glared.

"What do you mean, we might all have been killed?"

"Why, the explosive in that package, and the detonator--really, Joseph, it was terribly dangerous--"

"Dangerous!" snorted the savant. "The only dangerous part was that he might have hit me over the head with it."

"But--the explosive--"

"Explosive, my eye!" And, again glaring: "Do you mean to tell me you can't understand why that stuff he had in the package didn't go off, you abbreviated atom?"

Henry's goatee waggled uncertainly. He adjusted the steel-rimmed spectacles which were his only garment.

"Well ... really, Joseph...."

"I'll admit right out I don't get it," broke in Major Coggleston. "You mean there wasn't any danger of that stuff going off?"

"Of course not." Professor Paulsen was distinctly snappish.

"But why--"

* * * * *

The scientist turned back to Henry. "Don't you remember what I said to you this morning about those devil's glasses of yours transposing letters instead of just reversing them? And that you told me it would take a special lens to straighten them out?"

"You mean--"

"Take any formula and transpose the symbols all the way through, and see what you get. Trinitrocresol, for instance. The formula is C_{7}H_{5}N_{3}O_{7}. Transpose it all the way through, and you have _{7}O_{3}N_{5}H_{7}C. In that particular case, it wouldn't even make sense. But when our red-headed spy said he was a chemist and hadn't had any trouble compounding this new explosive, I figured the formula must be one that would be at least half-way logical, no matter which way you wrote it. Only the odds were a million to one that one way it would equal an explosive; the other, nothing at all. So I didn't hesitate to attack him."

"Joe," said Major Coggleston admiringly, "that's a lot faster thinking than I've ever done. And I don't need to tell you how grateful the Army will be."

"Really, Joseph, it was awfully clever!" Henry chimed in. "I'd never have thought of it--"

And then, changing thought in mid-sentence:

"Look! There's that pretty blonde girl with the--"

"Henry!" exploded Professor Paulsen. "You're old enough to behave like a grown man, not an inspectionistic schoolboy!" His hand shot out to grip his little partner's goatee and jerk his eyes from the luscious creature now parading her charms before them.

"Ouch!" squealed Henry, his face screwing up with pain. "Joseph, you're hurting!"

"Then will you be good? Will you behave yourself?"

"Of course, Joseph. Just let me go!" Then, sulkily, as the tall scientist released him: "Though I still think you're mighty finicky, Joseph Paulsen. After all, what's wrong with my liking the cute way that girl wears the bangs across her forehead?"

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: The Piltdown Man was a species of prehistoric being (_Eoanthropus dawsoni_), long since extinct, with a retreating, apelike chin and thick cranial bones, but a human-type cranium.--Ed.]

[Footnote 2: See "Henry Horn's Blitz Bomb," Amazing Stories, June, '42.--Ed.]

[Footnote 3: See "Henry Horn's Super-Solvent," _Fantastic Adventures_, November, '41.--Ed.]

End of Project Gutenberg's Henry Horn's X-Ray Eye Glasses, by Dwight V. Swain