Mystery Of The
Broken Statues — Epilogue

by Tom Nichol

based on the episode of the same name from the
Adventures of Superman
1953

A week had passed since gangster Paul Martin had been arrested at the main branch of the Metropolis Post Office, after retrieving a small parcel from the Post Office Box he had rented some time before. Upon being pried open, the box had been found to contain—of all things--a small piggy bank!

Clark Kent, who was also Superman in disguise, had used the receiver of Police Inspector William Henderson’s desk telephone to break open the seemingly innocuous object. Inside, to the Inspector’s astonishment, and that of Lois Lane, wrapped with straw, was nothing less than the world-renowned Renssalaer Ruby, at that time the largest ruby in the world. As Clark had explained, it had been stolen from the London Museum three years before.

Since then, a considerable amount of further investigation had taken place. Now, a week later, Lois, Clark, and Henderson (Jimmy Olson was on vacation) had gathered in the office of Perry White to discuss the results of that investigation, which had been conducted in a joint operation by Interpol, the Metropolis Police, Scotland Yard, and the FBI.

As usual in such cases, Henderson had acted as the liaison between the four agencies.

With understandable satisfaction, Henderson reported that Martin’s entire gang had been rounded up, and were all being held without bond. He explained that the gang would be facing a variety of state and Federal criminal charges, including not only grand theft, but, in Lois’s case, kidnapping and aggravated assault and battery.

Perry White, who was both a journalist and a trained lawyer, nodded his concurrence with Henderson’s report. “Once the charges have been properly sorted out,” he commented, “at the very least, Martin and his gang will be looking at combined sentences which will amount to life without parole—and in the case of Lois’s being kidnapped, it could mean a Federal death sentence for everyone involved!” This, he went on to explain, was due to the fact that the original offense of stealing the ruby from a foreign museum, made all the gang’s subsequent criminal acts subject to Federal prosecution. Furthermore, they could also be subject to being prosecuted by the British authorities, since the theft of the ruby had taken place on British soil.

Clark then went on to relate that, on learning that Paul Martin was involved, he had conducted a back-ground investigation of his own. That inquiry had disclosed that Martin had long been suspected of being involved in the theft of the ruby. However, until now, the authorities had not had sufficient proof to prosecute Martin or any of his subordinates. This was why Clark had suspected that the theft of the Renssalaer Ruby was at the core of Martin’s criminal actions. (With his X-ray vision, the disguised Man of Steel had quickly verified that the Ruby was in the package Martin had gone to so much trouble to retrieve, and the rest was history.)

The Inspector then wrapped up his report by stating that the ruby would soon be returned to the London Museum. While it would still be on public display, the ruby would undoubtedly be kept under much tighter security in the future. With that, after discussing a few technical details, Perry assigned Lois to compose the main story, while Clark would write an article providing the necessary background information to round out the Daily Planet’s coverage of the affair. The meeting then broke up, and the foursome returned to their (more or less!) normal routines.

Posted February 13, 2025
Jim