"There's something in it," said Stevenson. "The question is, what?"

"Well," said Roberts, "what have we got so far? Somebody—call it person or persons unknown, for the fun of it—is stepping in every once in a while when there's a crime being committed. He stops it. He calls himself the Scorpion, and he uses some pretty dizzy methods. He melts automobile tires, makes a rifle too hot to hold, makes knives and leather jackets ice cold—how in heck does he do things like that?"

"Yeah," said Stevenson. "And just incidentally, who is he?"

"Well," said Roberts, "he's a kid, that much is obvious. That whole letter sounds like a kid. Talking about 'the bad boys' and stuff like that."

"What do you figure, some scientist's kid maybe?"

"Maybe," said Roberts. "His old man is working on something in his little old laboratory in the cellar, and every once in a while the kid sneaks in and makes off with the ray gun or whatever it is." Roberts laughed. "I feel silly even talking about it," he said.

"I'd feel silly, too," Stevenson told him, "if I hadn't seen what this kid can do."

"Can we work anything out from the timing?" Roberts asked him. "He seems to show up once every couple of months."

"Let me check."

Stevenson went over to the filing cabinet and looked up the dates. "The bank job," he said, "was on Wednesday, June 29th. At eleven o'clock in the morning. That Higgins guy was on—here it is—Friday, August 5th, around noon. And this last one was on Hallowe'en, Monday, October 31st, at eleven o'clock at night."

"If you can see a pattern in there," Roberts told him, "you're a better man than I am."

"Well, the first two," Stevenson said, "were in the daytime, during the summer, when school was out. That's all I can figure."

"Why just those three?" Roberts asked. "If he's out to fight crime, he's pretty inefficient about it. He's only gone to work three times in four months."

"Well, he's a kid," said Stevenson. "I suppose he has to wait until he stumbles across something."

"And then rush home for Daddy's ray gun?"

Stevenson shook his head. "It beats me. The only one that makes sense is the second 

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