Wurmlinger groaned and wrung his bony hands. "You had no right to hurt Agnes," he moaned.
"Worry about yourself," said Remo. "First, explain this poster here."
"That is the Bizarre Bee-Master."
"We know that."
"He was my hero as a child. My idol. I worshiped him."
"You're not a kid anymore. What are you doing with a comic-book hero on your bedroom wall?"
"I-I still retain a fondness for him. He was the lord and friend of the insect world. In many ways, I have patterned my life after his creed."
Remo frowned. "I don't remember any creed ...."
Behind his Coke-bottle gaze, Wurmlinger's teacolored eyes brightened. "You, too, were a Bee-Master fan?" he chirped.
"I wouldn't say fan. But I read a few issues here and there," Remo admitted.
"What was your favorite issue? Do you remember?"
"Get off it. Are you trying to tell us you've had that poster on your wall ever since you were a kid?"
"Yes. Since November, 1965. I never threw it away. I saved all my comic books, too."
"Why would you do that?"
"They are worth a lot of money. It is better than investing in gold. If you do not believe me, look under my bed."
Remo did. There were three long white cardboard boxes there. Remo pulled one out by the cutout handle, shooing away a scuttling spider.
"Mind you don't hurt my friends," Wurmlinger admonished.
"All I see are spiders."
"Wolf spiders. They eat paper-eating mites."
The box was filled with old comic books, each one bagged in clear Mylar and backed by a cardboard stiffener.
The first one was titled Tales to Amaze You and showed the Bee-Master wrestling with a glowing green dung beetle against the backdrop of the Egyptian pyramids.
"Hey, I remember this one!" Remo said.
"Which one?"
Remo turned the comic book around so the cover showed. Wurmlinger's eyes lit up with undisguised joy.
"Beware the Dung Beetle of Doom! Yes, that was one of my favorites, too. Bee-Master discovered a mummified dung beetle in a museum and accidentally reanimated it. They fought seventeen cataclysmic battles until finally BeeMaster found a way to restore it to an Egyptian tomb in Karnak. They actually parted friends. It was very touching. You see, the dung beetle meant no harm. Bee-Master hadn't perfected his cybernetic helmet yet, so he couldn't communicate with the beetle family. When he finally did, he understood that all the carnage and death the dung beetle had inflicted on mankind was because he was misunderstood. Did you know that one day beetles will take over the world from Man?"
"I thought that was cockroaches," said Remo.
Wurmlinger winced at the thought of dead Agnes. "Before cockroaches inherit the earth, beetles will reign supreme. They are a very hardy race."
Remo dropped the comic book back into its box. "Look, your story doesn't wash."
"I don't have a story," Wurmlinger said in an offended voice.
Remo began ticking off items on his finger. "Number one, the mastermind killing people calls himself the Bee-Master."
"With or without the hyphen?"
"We don't know. So far, we're only hearing this stuff from-" Remo hesitated.
"Unimpeachable sources," inserted Chiun.
Wurmlinger cocked a skeptical eyebrow, but held his tongue.
"Number two," Remo went on, while surreptitiously stepping on a scuttling silverfish that had scooted out from under the bed, "whoever did this has attacked only people or things involved with pesticides or anti-bug inventions like worm-proof corn, or to cover up his killings. That means he's a bug lover. You are a bug lover."
"I am no insectophobe," Wurmlinger admitted. "But being an insectophile is not indicative of guilt."
"Hah!" squeaked Chiun. "He even speaks like Bee-Master."
Wurmlinger flinched.
"He's big on bees, too," Remo added.
"Everyone should be concerned about Apis," Wurmlinger exploded. "Bees are our friends. They pollinate crops as diverse as citrus and cranberry. Without bees, we would starve within a matter of a year or two. And the United States is currently in the throes of a severe bee crisis."
"Yes," Chiun said in a low, menacing tone of voice. "One that you have authored, bee lover."
"No. Not that bee crisis. But a much more serious crisis than a few insectoid casualties."
"Explain," said Remo.
"We are in the fifth year of what I predict will go down in history as the Great American Bee Crash. We are losing our wild bees. Some are the victims of man's thoughtless savaging of their habitats. But the recent droughts have reduced plant forage, and severe winter snow has aggravated bee fragility to elevated levels. All over this continent, Apis is succumbing to bee mites, which make them more vulnerable to bee diseases."
"Bees have mites and diseases?" Remo asked doubtfully.
Wurmlinger cupped one thin ear in the direction of the bedroom window. "Listen."
Remo and Chiun focused their hearing on the glass.
Outside, the doleful buzz of honeybees went up and down the sad end of the musical scale.
"Those are ordinary bees. They were healthy when I left for Los Angeles. I have returned to discover them infected with tracheal and Varroa jacobsoni mites. Some are already so weakened that they have succumbed to foul-brood, a disease that reduces the poor bee to a jellylike state. If my bees have come to harm, no bees are safe. Not feral bees. Nor domestic bees."
Remo looked at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju maintained his stiff, unsympathetic countenance.
"Okay, let's say that's all true."
"It is true," Wurmlinger insisted.
"There is an FBI profile of the Bee-Master out there, and it fits you to a T."
"And a B," added Chiun tightly.
"The Bee-Master has to be an insect geneticist. And everyone's seen your Frankenstein bugs on TV."
"My genetic creatures are mere experiments."
"A dragonfly with eyes all over its body?" Remo demanded. "Where is that thing, anyway?" he asked, looking around the room.
"In my lab. I have many unusual specimens in my lab. As for the dragonfly, it is merely an adaptation of a gene-transplanting technique previously accomplished using fruit flies. You see, the gene that creates eyes has been discovered. Simply by transplanting this gene to other spots on the insect's body, eyes sprout. They are unseeing, because they do not connect to the visual receptors of the brain, but they are perfect in all other ways."
Remo frowned. "What about the other stuff?"
"I have experimented with titanium prosthetics, yes. I admit this freely."
"Prosthetic limbs for bugs?" Remo said sharply.
"There is a need. And my discoveries may have human applications."
"Yeah. Like breeding killer bumblebees."
"Such a thing seems impossible," Wurmlinger said.
"If you can transplant an eye gene, why not a stinger gene?" Remo said pointedly.
"It is feasible," Wurmlinger said thoughtfully, "but it would be harmless unless a neurotoxin gland were also created. Bumbles are equipped with ordinary venom sacs." He shook his long, twitchy head. "No, I cannot envision this."
Remo took him by the arm. "Let's have a look at your lab."
The lab was in the rear of the mud hive. A semicircular room with brown curving walls and a window resembling a blister, it smelled like a festering boil when Remo pushed the door in.
The dragonfly zipped past them. Chiun decapitated it with a flick of his extralong index fingernail. The dragonfly fell in two dry parts to twitch on the floor only long enough for a speedy spider to dart out from beneath a test-tube stand and claim it for his lunch.
Wurmlinger closed his eyes in pain.
Around the room, there were ant farms, cricket terrariums and a goodly number of bugs roaming around loose amid the forest of test tubes and experimental equipment.