Sincerely yours,
THE SCORPION
Stevenson read the letter. "Well, well," he said.
"He says that's the third letter," Roberts pointed out. "We asked around in the office, and we found out who got the first two. They were both back a ways. The first one was early in the summer, and the guy who read it remembered it said something about a bank robbery. So I was sent out this morning to check up on bank robberies in June and July. You're the third one I've talked to this morning. The first two figured me for some kind of nut."
"My Captain figures me the same way," Stevenson told him. "What about the second letter? Or, wait, don't tell me, I'll tell you. It's that guy in August, the one who ran amok over in Canarsie."
"Right you are," said Roberts. "How did you know?"
"I was there. He left his mark on the rifle stock."
"Okay," said Roberts. "So there's something in it, after all."
"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?"