Chapter Two

"Astonishing… utterly astonishing!" said Director Blessing as he sat on a tall stool in the Academy's laboratory, a freshly poured brandy in his hand as he stared across the worktable at a little unassuming gray-haired man in a white lab coat sitting only a few feet away, also holding a glass of brandy.

Yes, the man himself! For when Jim, Artie, and Mr Blessing had come rushing down the hall to Thompson's desk just minutes before, they had found the nonplussed secretary fumbling the speaking tube back into its holder while Prof Montague stood by the desk, blinking in bewilderment at everybody.

Once they had all collected their individual jaws back up off the floor, the four men had escorted the professor into the familiar surroundings of his lab, ensconced him within his own chair, and proffered him a restorative.

"Ah, yes, yes, yes. I could do with something medicinal indee… Oh, but dear me no, not that one!" He waved his hands at Thompson. "No, no, put that one back! That's one of my experiments, you see."

"In a brandy bottle?" asked Artie.

"Why, yes! It's a new variety of knock-out drug, steeped in brandy to mask the flavor. One sip and pow! You're out like a candle!" Montague grinned proudly.

Thompson set that bottle back hastily and found another of which the professor approved. And now, with both the director and the scientist supplied with libations, Jim West asked quietly, "Prof Montague, where have you been?"

Montague smiled as he looked around the room at all his usual everyday accoutrements. "Ah, there truly is no place like home!" he sighed happily. "That other laboratory wasn't nearly as well furnished as this, my own shop, you know. But then I suppose she didn't really need to provide me with so very much equipment, did she? Not with the single-minded project she insisted I undertake."

The words "Project!" "Other lab!" and "She!" sprang from various lips. "Prof Montague, what are you talking about?" said Jim, encapsulating all their questions. "Where is that other lab, what project were you made to work on, and above all, who is this 'she' you mentioned?"

"Although I suppose I really shouldn't have been so very surprised," the professor nattered on, "when my cabbie drove me, not to the restaurant I'd requested, but to another part of town entirely. Over by the railroad yards, I shouldn't wonder, judging by the amount of heavy wagons crowding the street. Oh, and warehouses. Lots of warehouses. One of them called…" He frowned in puzzlement. "Oh dear, I really should have written everything down. It was… some sort of geometrical shape, I'm sure of that. Ah… pentagon? Or no, not quite that: a pentagon with triangles attached — yes, that's more the ticket! You know what I mean, don't you?" He used a finger to trace a shape on the worktable before him.

"A star, you mean, Professor?"

"Yes, precisely, Artemus! Good lad! Oh, but what a mind like a sieve I have," Montague added, shaking his head ruefully. "Why, I fear I'd mislay my own head if it wasn't so firmly attached! But yes yes yes, that's positively correct: the Star Warehouse. That's where she took me." He beamed at them all.

"Star Warehouse," murmured Jim. "I've run across more than my share of those in this job."

"Must be a chain of 'em," added Artie. "But you say that's where she took you, Professor? Are you saying your cabbie was a woman?" He shot a glance at Jim; they both knew of a time not so very long ago when Prof Montague had set off in a cab only to find that its driver was in fact a woman in disguise — and for that matter, she too had spirited him away to a warehouse.

"Why, yes, of course that's what I'm saying!" exclaimed Montague, his eyebrows beetling. "Surely you understood that when I told you who had waylaid me!"

"But, Professor," put in Blessing, his voice cracking like his patience, "you haven't told us who waylaid you. You were abducted, that's plain, but who was the woman who kidnapped you?"

"Bosh! Of course I told you who she was! That lovely little, er… Oh, why is it I always seem to have such trouble with her name? Synonyms… synonyms for happy…" He snapped his fingers by his ear as if that would somehow improve his memory. "James, Artemus, you know of whom I speak!"

The two agents exchanged a glance. "We sure do!" exclaimed Artie unhappily.

"That's exactly who I was afraid of!" added Jim. "And at the Star Warehouse near the railroad yards?"

"Well, yes, but…" The professor found himself speaking to empty air, for Jim had yanked open the lab door and sprinted off. Grabbing Artie's arm before he too could race away, Montague said, "But she's not there anymore! She put me back in the cab and dropped me off here outside the Academy just now. I've no idea where she's going, but it certainly wasn't back to the warehouse!"

"Where who's going?" said Blessing sharply. "What is this all about? And what do synonyms for happy have to do with it?"

"That's, ah, the lady's name," Artie answered. "Well, I use the term 'lady' loosely; she's an erstwhile assassin turned international jewel thief, one who's given Jim and me the runaround on both the West and East coasts, and she happens to go by the name of Ecstasy La Joie."

Montague greeted that pronouncement with a gleeful clap of his hands. "Yes yes, that's it precisely! I don't understand why I always have such trouble remembering it, but that's her name: Ecstasy La Joie!"