The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum

Epilogue ~ Magnetron Regains Strength

"I began to grow restless... It was some other bit of unfinished business that irritated like a splinter embedded in one's dermis, the stub protruding from the tiny wound at times and yet evading a tweezers' grasp."

Enfeebled by the sustained exertion and sleep deprivation I had just endured, I took to bed at my earliest opportunity and slept nearly twenty continuous hours.  I awoke in the evening to find that the Hogalum Society members had taken their leave and gone their individual ways.  Mrs. Mackenzie prepared a late supper and explained that they had departed in some haste shortly after I had retired in the wee hours of the morning.  They had left considerable business unattended to in order to investigate why I had not returned their telegrams and, having resolved the matter, were obliged to depart forthwith.  Before leaving, Valkusian had advised Mrs. Mackenzie he intended to muster the group again shortly pursuant to a forthcoming mission, the details of which he was not at liberty to discuss.

Setting aright my laboratory kept me well-occupied over the following fortnight, as my exquisite Masterstroke Mill was in frightful disarray.  I also devoted an extravagant portion of my time to more slumber, a luxury I had not enjoyed for the preceding three weeks.

Pung was distraught over the apparent disappearance of Mozi, the most recent addition to his feline omnium gatherum.  He displayed an anthropomorphic indignance toward the other cats for not joining the search, reserving his most denunciatory reprimands for Confucius, the haughty white Persian mix tom. "Why you not help Pung, you lazy good-for-nothing!" he exhorted.  Confucius steadfastly ignored Pung, devoting each day his two or three waking hours to eating, cleaning, and other inoffensive diversions.  I resolved to emulate this creature. But it was not to be.

Mrs. Mackenzie was also distraught, but not by the wayward Mozi.  She was consumed by worry at Anders' continued absence.  He had estimated he would return early in October, but near the middle of that month the big Swede had not yet returned.  Unable to duplicate the profound disinterest displayed by Confucius, I tried unsuccessfully to calm Mrs. Mackenzie.  I reminded her that Anders had the strength of three ordinary men and that—at nearly seven feet tall—he was unsuitable prey for robbers and other scurvy rogues.  She remained inconsolably querulous, demanding that I launch a search, despite the fact that none of us had the least hint where his family resided.  It was nettlesome, yes, but I hadn't the mistiest notion how to effect his return.  Several days passed during which I received not the most fleeting respite from her vigorous appeals, and in the end I consented to allow her to rifle my personal household records for any of Anders' documentation, a task which she undertook with great gusto.

I began to grow restless.  I was unconcerned about Anders, for the reasons stated above.  It was some other bit of unfinished business that irritated like a splinter embedded in one's dermis, the stub protruding from the tiny wound at times and yet evading a tweezers' grasp.  I became convinced that there was more to Dr. Hogalum's death than perhaps even he knew.  How could I reconcile Petión's compelling intuition that Hogalum had been murdered with the doctor's own perfunctory account of an accidental fatality?

The answer was that I could not.  There was more to this mystery, and I determined then to unravel it.  I promptly arranged to meet Dr. Hogalum's personal physician, Dr. Glockenholz, one of two men who were the last to see him before his death.

At that time I apprehended not the most infinitesimal fraction of the bizarre mysteries then just beginning to unfold, nor the depth and breadth of treachery I would soon encounter.  Looking back, I can say with utmost certainty that but for my stalwart companions in the Hogalum Society I would have gone completely mad, as indeed, I nearly did.  As I was then blissfully ignorant of the perils yet to come, I felt not trepidation, but rather the invigorating discomposure of a new mystery, a new journey, a new adventure.

But that is a story for another time....