Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Since there was no place for him to sit, Bullock stood in the bow. As they pushed off he gave Stella a reassuring wave then turned forward and struck a pose, imagining one more diorama in the Mountie Hall of Fame’s Memorable-Moments-in-the-Early-Career-of-Commissioner-Maynard-Bullock series: “Bullock Enters the Mysterious Fog Bank Where Lurks The Sea Monoceros.” By godfrey, he thought, adventure hones the senses. He was alive again, tasting the chill morning air, feeling the curl of fog against his cheek, sensing a presence at his back, smelling the chloroform. Chloro...?

Bullock came to with a gag in his mouth and two sailors strapping him onto a gurney. He knew at once that this cramped little room with concave metal walls was the belly of The Sea Monoceros! And the craft was under way. Now the sailor with the stripe came into view, pushing a wheeled table bearing a large hypodermic. The man wore the crooked smile of a waiter delivering a cart of suspect pastries.

Suddenly all three sailors snapped to attention. Bullock lifted his head as a slightly built seventeen- or eighteen-year-old in an ill-fitting navy uniform and a hat thick with gold braid stepped in through the open bulkhead. Bullock heard whimpers of desire from the crewmen when they saw the vial of bright blue liquid he carried. Setting the vial alongside the hypodermic, the young man rubbed his palms until they squeaked. “A real Mountie at last!” he said triumphantly. “Soon I, Dr. Athanatos, will rule Canada. Then it will be the world. After that, it’s the solar system and...” He looked up at the ceiling. The three sailors followed his eyes. “...space, the final frontier.”

Bullock roared muffled defiance into his gag, shouting not just on behalf of Canada but for the very universe. Amused, Athanatos filled the hypodermic from the vial and said, “Hey, you were expecting an old geezer, right? Undiluted, my formula’s real gangbusters. I went a little overboard last dose.” He offered himself for inspection. “What do you think? Want to be twenty-five years younger?” He paused before adding, “Knowing what you know now.”

By godfrey, knowing what I know now? thought Bullock.

“Sure,” said Athanatos, clairvoyantly, “I’m talking a second crack at life over a course you’d run before. You’d know when to zig and when to zag. You’d be RCMP Commissioner in no time. My commissioner.” Athanatos poised the hypodermic for the thrust. “Yes, one shot in the pituitary and you’re my slave. Without the maintenance doses, you go ‘Poof!’ ” Smiling, Athanatos leaned forward. Bullock gritted his teeth. But the man pulled back playfully, promising, “Oh, it won’t hurt. Just a jab and a troubled kind of sleep, a dreamy rush back over years of failure and humiliation. But backwards or not, they’ll still hurt like hell. That’s why the gag. Who wants to listen to a big stoop moaning and groaning in his sleep, right?”

Athanatos raised the needle again. The three sailors leaned forward. But a sudden, jarring klaxon sounded from a wall speaker. “Prepare to dive! Prepare to dive!” it crackled.

“To your stations,” commanded Athanatos. The sailors rushed from the compartment. As the bulkhead door slammed shut, the young man’s stem mask collapsed. Exhaling deeply, he rested his elbow on Bullock’s chest and smiled. “Boy, that was close. I couldn’t stall much longer.” Undoing Bullock’s gag, he added, “Hell, I don’t even know where the pituitary gland is.”

“I’ll never tell,” said Bullock, eyeing the needle warily. “Now what the hell’s going on around here?”

“I’m Billy Athanatos,” said the young man. “Doc was my dad. Spontaneous combustion got him.”

“Dive! Dive! Dive!” commanded the loudspeaker. Bullock felt his body slide forward on the gurney as the submarine made its descent. When the craft had leveled out again Billy said, “First he started buying turtle soup by the case. Next thing I knew, he was reeking of smoke. So I said, ‘Hey, Dad, I hope you’re not back on cigarettes?’ Well, he swore he wasn’t and I believed him. But a couple of days ago I was vacuuming the living room— Did I tell you I had to take over the housework when Dad fired our last housekeeper for snooping around? Dad had a thing about snoops. He was always hiding behind the living-room drapes trying to catch them. Anyway, there were the tips of his shoes sticking out from under the drapes. ‘Lift ’em, Dad,’ I said when I got to where he was standing. But he wasn’t there, just these shoes, the pair he always said pinched so much, and the smell of smoke.”

“Spontaneous combustion,” said Bullock.