We've got boys that could get a personal signed story from Delilah
on how she barbered Samson--and find out who struck Billy Patterson
and who was the Man in the Iron Mask. But the Bat's something else
again. Oh, of course, we've panned the police for not getting him;
that's always the game. But, personally, I won't pan them; they've
done their damnedest. They're up against something new. Scotland
Yard wouldn't do any better--or any other bunch of cops that I know
about."

"But look here, Bill, you don't mean to tell me he'll keep on
getting away with it indefinitely?"

The editor frowned. "Confidentially--I don't know," he said with
a chuckle: "The situation's this: for the first time the super-crook
--the super-crook of fiction--the kind that never makes a mistake
--has come to life--real life. And it'll take a cleverer man
than any Central Office dick I've ever met to catch him!"

"Then you don't think he's just an ordinary crook with a lot of luck?"

"I do not." The editor was emphatic. "He's much brainier. Got a
ghastly sense of humor, too. Look at the way he leaves his calling
card after every job--a black paper bat inside the Marshall safe
--a bat drawn on the wall with a burnt match where he'd jimmied the
Cedarburg Bank--a real bat, dead, tacked to the mantelpiece over
poor old Allison's body. Oh, he's in a class by himself--and I
very much doubt if he was a crook at all for most of his life."

"You mean?"