The Glasgow Phantom

by

Guy Gilpatric

Version 1.2

Mr. COLIN GLENCANNON emerged from the shipyard gate, dodged through the traffic, to the bus stop, which lay like a life raft in the slush, and stood gazing rapturously about him.
"Home!" he breathed, the steam billowing up through his walrus mustache and making the Scotch mist Scotcher. "Home! Braugh! How lovely:"
Save that most of the worker's tenements which had stood in an endless row along the inner side of the Dumbarton Road had been blitzed to rubble by the Luftwaffe, the scene was exactly as he had remembered and yearned for it through many a weary month. In both directions, as far as he could see in the gathering dusk, were ships - some of them gaunt skeletons, some nearly completed, and others, including the Inchcliffe Castle, of which he was chief engineer, grim veterans up from the sea to heal their wounds of war. Masts, funnels, derricks and gantries fringed the river like burnt cypresses beside the Styx, while above them, ghostly in the scudding fog, barrage balloons tugged, swaying at their cables, waiting for the bombers which now so seldom came. The air was murky with soot, vibrant with the clang of machinery and bitter with a blended stench of hot metal, anticorrosive paint and tidal mud.
Having just returned from the tropical Orient, with its sapphire seas, spice-scented breezes and kindred foreign flummery, Mr. Glencannon knew, as indeed he had always known, that no other spot in all creation was a tithe so bonnie as these bonnie banks of Clyde.
Humming a little song to that effect, he swung aboard a bus, found a seat next a window and settled down to enjoy the ride into Glasgow.
While the city bore scars which caused him to growl anathema upon the Hun and all his horrid works, he could not but concede that things might have been worse and that bombing even had its compensations. For example, where once had stood a venerable seat of culture known as The Gents' and Scholars' Bar, there now was but a yawning crater with a puddle, a heap of broken bottles and a crumpled brass spittoon at the bottom of it.
Shocked and saddened by the sight, he yet hastened to take out his account book and scratch an item of sixteen shillings from the debit side. "Every little bit helps!" he consoled himself, rolling his eyes toward heaven. Farther on, the Balmoral Street police station, painfully familiar to him as the lair of a malignant and muscular desk sergeant named Hoof MacCorkle, was reduced to a mound of blackened bricks beneath which the sergeant as well as the desk might easily have been flattened, and probably were.
"Ah, weel, the auld place was an architectural eyesore anyway!" he murmured resignedly.
Turning his attention to the pedestrians on the sidewalks, he was gratified to find them outwardly unscathed by war's ravages and looking keen and healthy as of yore.
"Is it the oatmeal, the whusky or both?" he wondered. But as he sat studying the home-going throngs, he became aware of something a bit unusual about them -something he couldn't quite define. For block after block it eluded him, but at last he saw what it was.
"Newspapers!" he exclaimed. "Why, proctically everyone in the crowd - mon and woman, soldier and civilian - has got a newspaper! Great swith, I wonder what has happened?"
Obviously, only an event of world-shaking importance could have caused so many of his fellow Scots to squander their pennies for news when they could learn it for nothing by eavesdropping on a neighbor's radio. Had Hitler choked on a gluten biscuit? Was the second front opened at last? Had the cosmic plumbing system burst its valves and flushed Japan with a salutary tidal wave? Overcome by curiosity, he leaned across the aisle and indicated the folded journal projecting from a lady's shopping bag.
" Pairdon me, modom." he said, baring his pyorrhea in a charming smile. " I wonder if ye'd pairmit me to glonce at the news for half a minute. I -"
The lady turned a flinty eye upon him. " It's not the News!" she snapped. "It's The Glesga Evening Guardian, as ye can plainly see. Ach, dinna attempt yere masher's wiles on me, ye sliddery auld snit, or I'll have ye thrun off the bus!"
Feeling the scowls of the other passengers scorching through his mackintosh, Mr. Glencannon eased back into his seat and resumed his study of the passers-by. Yes, they all had newspapers, sure enough, but not a soul in the crowd was reading; instead, they were carrying them ostentatiously, expectantly and even a trifle defiantly, like a damsel at a blind date hoping to be recognized by her red carnation, but fearful that some lurking rival may beat her to it
Mr. Glencannon knitted his brows in perplexity "Foosh!   How utterly boffling'" he muttered.
More baffling still, however, was his discovery that among those tens, those score's and hundreds of papers, there was never a News, a Gazette, a Scots Presbyterian Churchman nor a Weekly Turf Indicator, but only copy after copy of The Glasgow Evening Guardian.
He remembered the Guardian as a third-rate rag of meager circulation which had once referred to him in connection with a barratry case as "that sinister ruffian, Glen Cohen"; he had never forgiven it for misspelling his name and was chagrined as well as astounded to behold its overwhelming popularity
Still muttering over the enigma, he got off the bus at Sauchiehall Street and made his way through the crowd toward the High Pressure Tavern, a gathering place for marine engineers which had nightly served as a setting for his dreams in the remote Pacific, and thus done much to temper the rigors of war. He had not gone far when he espied an elderly gentleman of nautical cut shaping a course in the same direction, although with a marked tendency to yaw. Like everyone else, this person was carrying a Guardian, but from the erratic manner of his progress and the fumes he left in his wake, it was apparent that the paper was a minor part of his cargo.
"Ho, losh! " exclaimed Mr Glencannon. "It's auld Lochy MacBoil, o' the Penarth Queen!  Noo, at last, I'll get the explanation, the solution, o' this vexing Guardian mystery!" Speeding his pace, he overtook the other and slapped him on the shoulder "Weel, weel, weel'" he greeted jovially. "Here's a happy meeting indeed!"
Mr. MacBoil wheeled so abruptly that he made three complete revolutions Before Mr. Glencannon could check him. He raised his Guardian on high and struck a heroic attitude, his eyes beaming as though they beheld a celestial vision.    Actually, they were rather more than thirty degrees out of parallel and beheld two separate visions of nothing in particular. "Look, Lochinvar!" Mr. Glencannon snapped his fingers. "I'm richt here in the middle!   Just tak' a steady aim alang yere nose and ye canna help seeing me lad!"
Mr. MacBoil hiccuped thrice and squinted his eyes into an approximate focus. His face fell and only the other's restraining grip prevented the rest of him from following suit.
"Colin" " he croaked tragically. "Colin Clolclollin!"
Mr. Glencannon chuckled " Weel, at least ye've got the general idea! Speak up Lochinvar, and say yere glod to see me!"
Instead. Mr. MacBoil burst into a storm of tears.  "Baw!" he wailed, burying his face in his Guardian. He was still sobbing as Mr. Glencannon led him through the doorway of the pub.
At that late hour of the afternoon, the High Pressure Tavern should have been filled with gentlemen of the merchant navy catching up on their whisky, and vice versa. It's sole occupants, however, were a brass-haired barmaid and a guest at a corner table who sat scowling at the Guardian and cursing throatily to himself. He transferred his scowl to the new arrivals.
"H'mph!" he grunted.
"Alec!  Alec Ogilvie!" cried Mr. Glencannon.
"Losh, ye're a treat for sour eyes! How are ye, dear lad, how are ye?" He paused in his effusions and awaited a response, but all he heard was the echo. "Er-haw!" he resumed, lamely but gamely. "As for mysel' I'm feeling vurra fit indeed, thonk ye, and deeply touched by the rousing weelcome given me by my friends."
"H'mph!" Mr. Ogilvie grunted again. "I heard the Joponese had chopped yere head off." He emptied his glass and returned to his study of the paper.
Mr. Glencannon stood uncertain for a moment, then installed the weeping Mr. MacBoil on the bench behind the table and himself beside him. He cleared his throat, smacked his lips and glanced at Mr. Ogilvie, but without result.
"Ah, weel," he sighed, turning toward the barmaid. "Duggan's Dew o' Kirkintilloch, if ye please, muss."
"Oh, all richt, since ye're so persistent a boot it!" said Mr. Ogilvie. . . . "A dooble o' the same for me, muss, and ditto for Muster MacBoil. It shud help straighten him up."
Mr. Glencannon winced. "Weel, after all, a mon doesna come hame every day." he mused. "Tell me, Alec, where are all the auld crowd this evening?"
"Oot carrying," said Mr. Ogilvie.
"Oot-er-carrying? Oot carrying -oot carrying what?"
"Oot carrying the Guardian, o' course! I was oot carrying it mysel' till two o' my bunions exploded. I- "
"Baw!" Mr. MacBoil drowned the words with a fresh torrent of grief. "Oh, domn ye, Glencollin! I thocht ye were he and that he had snopped me, but ye were only ye and he hadn't!"
"There, there, Lochinvar! " Mr. Ogilvie hastened to pacify him. "Drink the nice whusky Glencannon has bocht for ye, there's a guid lad1"
"But wait - noo wait a minute! Let's get this straight!" said Mr. Glencannon, his perplexity mounting to new heights "Why is everybody oot carrying the Guardian, pray tell me that? And who did Lochinvar think I was that I wasn't, and why shud I have snopped at him with what, even if I had been?"
"I -I thocht ye were the Ph-ph-phantom!" wailed Mr. MacBoil.
"The Phantom? Swith! Ye mean there's a Jock the Ripper loose in the town0"
Mr. Ogilvie laughed mirthlessly and shoved the Guardian across the table "Here!" he said, jabbing his finger at the boldface headlines on the front page "Read it! Read it and weep!"

_    The item read:

£25!		 £25!             £25!

THE PHANTOM PHOTOGRAPHER PAYS £25 EACH DAY

TO A LUCKY GUARDIAN READER!

He Takes Your Picture and You Take the Money!

Has He Snapped You Yet?

Right now - this very minute - the mysterious Phantom; Photographer is roaming the streets and public places of Glasgow, waiting to take your picture with his invisible camera! All you have to do is carry a copy of The Glasgow Evening Guardian in plain sight; then, if the Phantom snaps your picture, you simply snap up the money! But you won't recognize the Phantom. You won't even see him! You'l1 never know or guess when or where he's right there beside you - or before you - or behind you - ready to click his shutter! So, wherever you are, wherever you go.

BE SURE TO CARRY THE GUARDIAN!

Has the Phantom Photographer Snapped you yet? Turn now to Page Three, and see! If your picture is printed there come to our main office tomorrow morning between the hours of nine and twelve noon and

GET YOUR £25 PRIZE!

"Twenty-five poonds? Ah, whurra'" Mr. Glencannon breathed reverently "No wonder the whole city's gone daft! Twenty-five poonds is a noble sum and not to be lichtly sneezed at! Let's see what today's winner looks lik'!"
"Aoh! Him! Yo'll find he looks lik' the fulthy scoondrel that he is, whoever that may be!" Mr Ogilvie snarled savagely.
"As a matter o' fact, when ye came stoggering in here just noo, I was busy cursing the luck that wud bring twenty-five quid to a swine lik' him, but leave upstonding men lik' me in penury and want."
"Aye, weel, he certainly is an ugly brute, the ugly brute!" agreed Mr. Glencannon viewing the picture with distaste. "He's got all the earmarks o' a confirmed alcoholic, and I hope ye'll no' attribute my estimate o' him to envy or sour grapes. H'm! It says here in the caption that the Phantom snopped him in the gentlemen's waiting room o' the St. Enoch Square railway station "
"Exockly! That proves he's either a pickpocket or a confidence mon, else why wud he be honging around in such a place?" cried Mr. Ogilvie with heat. "Oh, I tell ye, gentlemen'" He raked his fists above his head and shook them tensely. " I tell ye that when a mere depraved scum can pick up twenty-five poonds by getting his yowp printed in The Glesaga Evening Guardian while I and we cannot, then-then. I say, there is no justice under heaven!"
Mr. Glencannon finished his drink and sat back, frowning darkly. "Aye, ye're rabsolutely-ric!-richt there isn't!" he said. "The more I think o' it, the plainer I see this thing is an affront, a scondal and an ook!-pairdon me-an ootrage! But what can we do aboot it?"
"Baw!" blurted Mr. MacBoil, overflowing again.
Mr. Ogilvie extended his handkerchief and took a firm grip on the weeper's nose. "Blow, Lochinvar! . . . What can we do aboot it, ye osk? Why, we'll never do anything aboot it, if we just sit sitting here! Order another roond o' drinks, mon, and let's start thinking up some way to swundle the Guardian and get our richts!"
When the drinks came, the three refreshed  themselves copiously and sat back, seeking inspiration. Their thoughts were interrupted by a withering salvo of hiccups from Mr. MacBoil.   He raised his hand to stifle them in accordance with the rules of etiquette, but, in his intense preoccupation, he raised it to Mr. Glencannon mouth instead of to his own. The prickle of bristles informing him that something was amiss, he looked up questioningly, then sat as one transfixed.
"Haw!" he cried, his hand still, pressed to Mr. Glencannon's mustache and his face suddenly radiant. "Haw!"
Simultaneously, Mr. Ogilvie emitted an astonished gasp.
"Why, o' course!" he cried. "Colin! Colin, he's got it! Lochinvar's got it. I tell ye!"
Mr. Glencannon peered uneasily from one to the other of them. "Ye-ye mean he's got the deleery and tremens again?"
"No!" Mr. Ogilvie seized Mr. Glencannon by the arm and dragged him over to the mirror? "There, Colin just cover up yere mustosh and tell me who ye took lik'!"
"M'm," said Mr. Glencannon, considering his reflection even as did Narcissus at the pool. "H'm" With rare skill, he picked up his drink and stimulated his perceptive faculties without removing his hand from his mustache. " Weel, if ye mean I look lik' the Archbishop o' Dundee, I suppose I canna dispute ye. After all, his father on his mother's side was a cousin o' --"
"Archbishop, blosh!" scoffed Mr. Ogilvie, in the nick of time snatching his own glass from Mr. MacBoil and draining it at a gulp. "No, no, no, domn it! Withoot yere mustosh, ye're proctically the chewing, spitting image o' that lout in the picture! Noo do you get what Lochinvar's driving at?'
"Aye!" Mr. Glencannon exclaimed delightedly "Aye, o' course I do! Losh, losh, what a grond idea! I thocht from the ootset that yon photo looked strangely familiar!"
"Weel, no wonder!'" Mr. Ogilvie chuckled "It mak's this whole thing as easy as ruling off a log! The mon in the picture is wearing a gray felt hat, but I've got one exockly lik' it aboard the ship. Lochinvar's got a Shetland greatcoat that's a guid match fur this fellow's and it will fit ye to a tea. All that remains, then, is to shave off yere mustosh, go to the Guardian office, tell them that yere name is John Smith, and glaum the money."
"Ah, but it's the office part that worrits me!" said Mr. Glencannon "Suppose this other gentleman turns up while I'm there? Judging from his picture, he is a substantial and vurra high-closs citizen, so 1 micht have some difficulty in exposing him as an impostor."
"Ye needna give it a thocht!" Mr. Ogilvie assured him. "All ye need do is get there early, the vurra feerst thing, and sumply beat him to it. But if by chonce he shud have the hard luck to turn up while ye're inside-weel, I gorontee that he'll no' get in till ye get safely oot! If then!"
"Ye mean ye'll be stonding guard in front o' the building?"
"Aye! And Lochinvar will be standing guard at the back-just in case ye shud absent-mindedly attempt to sneak oot that way when ye've collected the money "
"Ah, noo," Mr. Glencannon pouted, "yere remark is uncalled for and unkind! E'en though you and Lochinvar are taking only a minor part in this enterprise, ye can depend upon me to treat ye fairly, squarely and hondsomely when I mak' the finoncial settlement."
"Ye mean ye can thonk Lochinvar and me for allowing ye to keep a one-third share!" 
"What? A mere eight poonds, six shillings and eight pence? Ah, foosh and foosheroo!" Mr. Glencannon snorted. "The mustosh alone is worth twice the price!"
"I cud skin a rat and mak' ye a better one for nothing." Mr. Ogilvie retorted calmly. "Anyhow, eight quid, six-and eight is what ye'll get, and nary a bawbee more." Dismissing finance with a shrug, he took off his shoe, shaded his eyes with it and peered at the clock. "H'm! Ick's noo exockly six-frorty-foo, or whatever it is, and the nicht is yet young! Later on, we can all go aboard, get the hat and coat and hat, and attend to the shaving. But never fear, Colin. MacBoil and I and Lochinvar will be keeping ye plainly in sicht till we've got the money, so ye micht as weel loosen up and buy a few drinks meanwhile."
"Haw!" said Mr. MacBoil.
"Haw indeed. Lochinvar!" agreed Mr. Ogilvie. "Noo ye can stop licking oot those empty glosses."

THE early hours of morning found the trio in the engineers' messroom of the S.S. Penarth Queen, where they had gone to pick up Mr. MacBoil's greatcoat and lingered to view his extensive collection of lithographic prints. Contributing immeasureably to their enjoyment of this treat, the specimens were mounted on the original bottles and the bottles were, at the outset, full. As was but natural in such circumstances, the thought and conversation of the company rambled along artistic channels, until at length Mr. Glencannon was moved to compose a poem.
"Read ish toosh again, Colin!". Mr. Ogilvie was urging him. "Thish time, read ish shlower, and try nosh to sh yere eshes."
Graciously indicating his acquiescence by lowering his bottle from his lips. Mr. Glencannon braced himself against the table and read:

"Alock. alosh, my braw mustosh,
By dawn I will have slew ye!
 Adieu! Adieu!  A Duggan's Dew
 1 quaff, and strain it through ye!
 I doot if mortal hirsute root
Will ever sprout
Another beaut
Lik' thee, sweet Highland Mary.
So, on Crochallan's something braes
Come, let us spend the something days.
My bonny Peggy Allison."

He was applauded to the echo. "Ah, it's a lovely thing, a pairfick-ick-ick thing!" Mr. MacBoil declared. "Most poetry doesna mak' a domn bit o' sense, but not that one, if ye follow me!"
Mr. Glencannon flushed with pleasure. "Weel, I must confess I am indebted to Robert Burns for the last four lines," he said, and his modesty was charming. "However, if I'd only had a bit more time, I believe I cud have spewed up the whole thing singlehonded."
"Ah, and speaking o' time --" Mr. Ogilvie produced a hard-boiled egg from his pocket and squinted at it gravely. "H'm-yes, I see it's a boot time we went alang to shy mip, my ship to get the fray gelt-er-gray felt hat and let Glencannon shrave-chave- or, if ye prefer, shave."
After a final toast to the successful gouging of The Glasgow Evening Guardian, they assisted one another over the doorsill in courtly fashion and emerged upon deck. The Penarth Queen was in dry dock, but though day had already dawned, the fog around her was so dense that she might have been a thousand miles at sea. 
Mr. MacBoil groped to the rail, peered down into the yawning chasm that lay between the vessel's side and the wall of the dock, and then at the ramshackle gangplank that spanned it.
"Brrh!" He swayed dizzily. "Noo that I've shober dup, I doot if I cud walk acrosh that breakneck contraption withoot breaking my neck!"
Mr. Glencannon looked, shuddered and closed his eyes. "Fronkly, I doot if-ick!-cud mysel'," he confessed.
"Neither cud I cud either," said Mr. Ogilvie. " We've all got a touch o' the vertigo, that's our trouble. It comes from breathing certain types o' pollen. I foncy the only way we can get across is to lash oorsels together with a bit o' rope, lik' the Swish shki jumpers do in the Olps Moontains." He took up a flexible wire cable from the deck and passed the end of it to Mr. Glencannon. " Mak' this fast aroond ye lad and then Lochinvar and I will do lik'wuse." He tugged at the cable to get more slack, but in vain. "Wait, it must be fouled on something."
Cursing the fog. he followed the cable inboard to a winch and cast it loose. It was whisked violently out of his hand by an unseen force. Simultaneously there came from overhead a resonant, deep-toned "Twang!" like the note of an archangel's harpstring, then a swishing, rushing sound as of an earthly body soaring aloft to answer the celestial summons.
Mr. Ogilvie looked up, but saw nothing. "Must be the seagulls carousing aroond again."... Alricht, Lochinvar; noo it's yere turn," he said, stumbling back to the rail. "Sumply bend a loop in the-the -- Great gobs, mon! What ails ye?"
Mr. MacBoil was standing with his mouth open, staring wild-eyed into the fog directly above him. "G-g-gone!" he managed to stammer. "G-glencannon's Glengonnon!"
"Gone?" thundered Mr. Ogilvie. "D'ye mean to say ye let him escape, ye besotted auld glaggy? Quick, then!" He seized the other by the collar and dragged him backward across the perilously swaying gangplank, like a chamois traversing a créte on the Matterhorn. " I'll domn weel teach him that he canna sliv the glip to-ick!-to Alec Ogilvie!"
Meanwhile, Mr. Glencannon felt himself falling, falling, falling through endless, fog-filled space. Though instinctively he clutched the cable, he realized that his murderers had cut it at the instant of pushing him overboard. His stomach quailed with the speed and his very soul cringed with horror as he pictured the impending spatter on the hard concrete below. But the mind works like lightning in the shadow of death, and even as he thought of the dry dock's bottom, he also thought of his own. For it wasn't concrete, and it hurt. Had the assassins hamstrung him? It felt so! Twisting, turning and half dazed though he was, he yet managed to reach around aft and explore the seat of the pain. He found that he was sitting trapeze-fashion in the loop he had made in the wire and that it was cutting a groove in him crosswise. So he wasn't falling, falling, but rising, rising, rising! Suddenly the whole vile plot became clear to him.
"Fiends!" he croaked. "Foul munsters! They tricked me into tying mysel' to a barrage balloon and then cut the domn thing loose! Ach, horrors, Glencannon, ye're speeding toward a frichtful doom!"
Helpless, hopeless, he peered around him. Visibility was zero, but from the buzzing in his ears he judged his altitude to be considerable. "Whoosh!" He gasped the rarefied air. "If the domn thing drogs me much higher, my eardrums will collopse for lack o' oxygen!"
The buzzing became intense, headfilling, like the sound of an electric motor. As, at that moment, he was swinging past the motor cabin of a gantry less than ten feet distant in the fog this was not surprising.
The motive of the crime was obvious. The unspeakable Ogilvie, sans mustache and properly dressed, would look almost as much like the man in the picture as would Mr. Glencannon. Instead of whacking up the money three ways, the sinister twain could split it fifty-fifty. At thought of their treachery, the victim writhed helplessly in his sling and groaned as the cable bit into him anew.
"Whither, oh, whither are we drifting?" he asked himself miserably. "If the wind is from the east, I'll droon in the Atlontic. If it's oot o' the west, I'll droon in the North Sea. If I blow ower Germany, the Huns will shoot me doon with rockets. Weel, I'll go doon fighting, anyway!" His hand sought his coat pocket for his brass knuckles. It closed upon a bottle and he remembered that the coat was Mr. MacBoil's. "Duggan's Dew!" he read the label. "Thonk heavens! Noo I willna starve, at any rate!" Passing both arms around the wire, he removed the stopper and supercharged himself for action in the stratosphere.
By the time he had boosted his manifold pressure to fifty-three inches, an acute dizziness made him aware that he was spinning on the cable's end like the rotor of a turbine. He would whirl perhaps two hundred revolutions in one direction, stop, and then unwind an equal number of turns in the opposite sense. So great was the speed of rotation that centrifugal force, acting upon his considerable liquid content, caused it to work its way outward into the remotest nooks and crannies of his system. Soon the peripheral portions of his brain were flooded with practically pure whisky, while the canter was drained bone dry and stone sober. This duplex mental condition had certain advantages, but they were outweighed by the drawbacks. Theoretically, of course, the sober central spot provided a vantage point from which to study his binge from the inside-a unique opportunity which should have enabled him to perceive and remember all the cosmic truths, dazzling logic and gut-busting humor which are born of the bottle, only to be lost in the inevitable black agonies of hang-over. Unfortunately for the world's store of knowledge, however, the roistering, alcoholized areas resented the presence of the austere, sober center as though it were a teetotaler who had crashed the party and spread the figurative wet blanket. They became self-conscious, sulky, surly. Just as the opposing elements seemed on the verge of an ugly brawl, Mr. Glencannon stopped spinning and his brain went back to normal-which is to say, it was uniformly saturated throughout.
A gale of hurricane force struck him from ahead, blew for several seconds and then suddenly shifted astern. This wax repeated again and again, each time with increasing violence. He realized that now, instead of spinning, he was swinging back and forth, back and forth, and that he was actually the business end of a gigantic pendulum. The balloon was still hidden in the fog overhead, but he judged the amplitude of the arcs to be at least five hundred feet. His speed was terrific; in fact, during the backward swoops, the whisky became so solidly compressed at the bottom of the bottle that he was obliged to suck it out, whereas in the forward swings, it gushed into his mouth like soda water.
The motion made him lightheaded. He had long since lost all sense of time, and though he tried to gauge it by the falling level of the whisky, somewhat on the principle of the hourglass, the readings were of doubtful accuracy.
"I only know it's later than I think," he said. "The main question is: Where am I?'" He felt a slight shock on his right instep, as though a shoe lace had snapped. Looking down, he saw a porcelain insulator and a length of radio aerial dangling from his foot. Simultaneously he swung out of a dense fog wall into a comparatively clear spot, and saw just below him the innumerable roofs, steeples and towers of a great metropolis.
"Berlin!" he gasped. "The crafty Huns have camouflaged it to look exockly lik' Glesga! " He drained the bottle and with a mighty oath sent it hurtling into the busy street below.

Many a reputable citizen of Glasgow will maintain to his dying day that Superman came to town that foggy morning. Literally hundreds saw him run after a bus down Dundas Street, catch up with it at twenty-five miles an hour, and then, just as a collision seemed inevitable, leap clear over it and land a full block in the lead. Others, confirming the story, will add that no sooner had the leaper landed than he went into reverse, rushed at the bus backward and hurdled it by so comfortable a margin that he came to rest on the topmost cornice of the Stock Exchange. A lady of gentle birth and unimpeachable morals has testified under oath that she saw the strange visitant kick a pigeon out of the air above Kelvingrove Park, while the fragment of his trousers which still clings to the weather vane of St. Andrew's Church has become one of the city's chief items of interest.
Swooping and swinging, running and leaping, Mr. Glencannon was too busy keeping pace with the balloon, avoiding collisions and hoping the cable would not bite him in two, to notice his fatigue. It was just as he was girding his loins to hurdle the chimney pots on the roof of what he recognized to be the Buchanan Street Opera House that a sudden blessed relief came to his galled crupper and he knew that he was free. The cable swished by him, curling snakily, and vanished in the fog.
"Ah, whurra! " he gasped, sitting down on the roof. "Ah, whurra!" he gasped, standing up again. He tottered to the balustrade and stood leaning against it, listening to the pounding of his heart. Presently the pounding subsided and all he heard was the gurgling of his liver, like the babble of a Highland brook in springtime. "A-weel," he panted, "the feerst thing to do is to get doon oot o' here. The second thing is to buy mysel' some liniment. The theerd is to commit a couple o' guid, thorough homicides!"
Descending the fire escape into the alley behind the auditorium, he limped between crates and musty scenery to a side thoroughfare and thence around the corner into Buchanan Street. A crowd had gathered on the opposite sidewalk and a police car was just drawing up to the curb. A pair of constables shouldered their way out of the group of bystanders, dragging two badly battered gentlemen handcuffed together. By an effort, Mr. Glencannon recognized them as the Messrs. MacBoil and Ogilvie. Behind them, calmly tucking a rubber blackjack into his pocket, walked a malignant and muscular gentleman who wore a gray felt hat and a Shetland greatcoat.
"Foosh!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon. "Tis he! Tis him! Tis the mon in the Phantom's picture! And he-he is none other than Hoof MacCorkle, who used to be desk sergeant in the Balmoral Street police station! No wonder he looked so familiar-even though I'd never seen him without his unifurrm!"
Chuckling, he watched the car depart with captor and captives. Still chuckling, he glanced at a sign, THE GLASGOW EVENING GUARDIAN, on a building farther down the street. There was a hatter's shop near by and a barber's just across from it. Somewhere in the distance, a clock was striking nine.

THE END

Originally published in the July 15, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and never reprinted to my knowledge.  Scanned from a poor quality photocopy of deteriorating microfilm but best efforts have been made to faithfully reproduce the author's work from the material at hand.