Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (34 page)

Once the plane had been emptied, the police departed in a procession, a gaudy gangster necktie flapping from the closed trunk lid of the trailing squad car.

Everyone climbed aboard and while Long Tom closed the cabin door, Doc Savage started up the engines.

No one had much to say. It had been a long night and now that it was concluding, fatigue was setting in. Even Doc Savage showed faint traces of strain on his metallic features.

Easing the throttle open, Doc urged the bronze aircraft rumbling along the macadam road, until the tail lifted and the plane climbed, striving for altitude.

Pointing the bawling engines north, Doc Savage set a course for Chicago and its municipal airport.

No coddler of criminals, Doc nonetheless regretted very much the Joe Shine outfit falling into police custody. He knew that some of those men faced long prison sentences for their past crimes—and conceivably the electric chair for a man or two.

“Too bad about the police nabbing the Shine mob,” murmured Ham.

Monk said callously, “As long as they’re out of circulation, that suits me.”

“What were you going to do with them?” Janet Falcon wanted to know.

No one bothered to respond. Janet Falcon took the hint. She subsided in her seat. Her emerald eyes took on a faraway look, and her composed face had a drained, bloodless cast to it.

Silence dominated the flight all the way to the metropolis of Chicago.

Chapter XXXIII

TWISTS

IT WAS FULL morning by the time the taxicab had dropped Doc Savage and his party off at the Hotel Chicago in the heart of the Loop.

As they exited, Janet Falcon remained seated. Poking her disheveled head out the open window, she said plaintively, “If you do not mind, Mr. Savage, I would much prefer to travel on to my apartment.”

Doc told her, “That would not be wise. Two attempts to kidnap you have already taken place. You will be safer with us.”

Firmness showed in her set features. “I am afraid that I must insist.”

Doc showed her the Superintendent’s letter and said, “Consider yourself in my custody.”

The woman’s lips thinned bloodlessly. “Very well, if you insist.”

Getting out, she allowed herself to be escorted into the deserted lobby and on to the elevator.

There, Janet Falcon hesitated. “I rather prefer my own hotel room—the one Mr. McLean arranged for me.”

“Time enough for sleep later,” advised Doc. “I would like to take your statement as soon as possible.”

“I—I am not up to any such ordeal,” she said evasively.

They were in the elevator now, rising to the upper floors.

Doc said firmly, “It should not take long, Miss Falcon. Afterward, you will no doubt wish to make arrangements for your late fiancé’s funeral.”

Janet Falcon’s pale face turned starkly white.

“Ned!” she choked. “Where… is… he—his body, I mean?”

Doc Savage stated, “Arrangements were made for his remains to be returned to Chicago for burial.”

Fighting back tears, the woman nodded. She seemed like a delicate handkerchief that had been wrung out of all its absorbed tears.

They entered the suite, and Janet Falcon threw herself on the divan, looking more than a little lost.

Doc Savage was moving about the hotel suite, evidently uncomfortable with the woman’s display of grief. He slipped into the next chamber. He was out of sight but a minute.

Monk Mayfair froze, startled, listening to an eerie sound which had come into being. Remindful of ghostly cicadas, it swelled into a unitary chorus of disembodied musical notes before dwindling to nothingness.

The homely chemist looked at Ham, puzzled. It was Doc Savage’s sound, which he only made in moments of mental stress. Moved by the same thought, Monk and Ham rushed to the connecting door which led to the other rooms of their suite. They got the door open.

“What is it, Doc?” Monk exploded.

The bronze man stood in the center of the room. He was holding in one hand the cushion of a sofa chair, the seam of which he had opened.

“The evidence we had collected,” the bronze man said. “The piece of Ned Gamble’s petrified brain and the asthma powder Myer Sim had inhaled which evidently caused his death.”

“What about them?” queried Ham.

“Gone,” Doc Savage said quietly. “They were concealed in this cushion.”

“Someone’s been prowling in here,” Monk muttered. “Whoever it was knew what he wanted and got it.”

“Something else is missing,” the bronze man pointed out. “The window shade bearing the Medusa silhouette we discovered in Myer Sim’s den. I secreted it under this chair, but it is no longer there, either.”

Monk peered about, shook his head. “This place don’t look like it’s even been searched.”

“It
has
been searched,” Doc Savage assured him. “The person who did the job was an expert. No ordinary examination would show that anything had been disturbed. Whoever did this has done the same thing a great many times before.”

“You think that is significant?” Ham asked.

“It might be.”

Ham firmed his lips. “Anyway, we still have one piece of evidence left.”

From his coat pocket, the dapper lawyer produced the stony hand that had been found at Janet Falcon’s apartment—the artifact they had for a time believed was the petrified hand of Long Tom Roberts. It was wrapped in a silk handkerchief. Ham unwrapped the thing.

The little casting of pale stone was a marvelous bit of workmanship. In every respect but one, it was very lifelike. The thumb was large and out of proportion to the rest. It revealed the expected tracery of fingerprint markings upon examination with Doc’s pocket microscope.

“What is that?” asked Long Tom.

Ham told him, “This is the broken hand we found in a pile of rubble back at Miss Falcon’s apartment. We thought the pile was all that was left of you, and this hand the only intact portion.”

“That’s crazy!” Long Tom exploded.

“That sore-lookin’ thumb has your fingerprint,” Monk pointed out.

Long Tom snatched the thing from Ham and examined the thumbprint with one doubtful eye, the other squeezed tightly.

“I don’t know my own fingerprints from Adam,” the puny electrical wizard related. “But this thumb is too big.”

Monk allowed, “We kinda thought whoever turned you to stone and smashed your corpse with a hammer hit your thumb while you were still livin’, and the thing kinda swelled up.”

Long Tom favored the hairy chemist with a dubious look.

“Did it ever occur to you,” he retorted, “that the thumb was made big so that the fingerprints could be cut into it?”

Monk’s mouth dropped open, proving that it had not.

“That is the most reasonable explanation,” imparted Doc.

Tossing the grisly relic back to Ham Brooks, the undersized electrical wizard snapped, “I’m going down to the lobby and collect some newspapers. The local press should be having a field day with last night’s activities.”

With that, Long Tom took his departure.

Ham shook his well-tonsured head violently.

“This whole thing is getting to be an incredible puzzle!” he snapped. “Men have been found dead in two cities, hideous greenish shadows near them. I can’t understand that part of it.”

“That,” Doc Savage told him, “is probably the least significant part.”

“Eh?” Ham looked interested.

“Let us talk to the young woman,” Doc suggested.

Monk and Ham, realizing they had left Janet Falcon alone, whirled and dashed wildly into the other room. Much to their relief, she was still there.

The attractive young woman seemed not at all interested in what was going on.

Doc Savage addressed Janet Falcon.

“When we last saw you, Miss Falcon, you were being kidnapped by Duke Grogan. Why?”

Janet Falcon flushed. Her head came up and she bathed the bronze man with a frigid stare. “You should ask him.”

“Grogan is believed to be dead,” continued Doc, unperturbed. “He was shot by an as-yet unidentified person.”

The bronze giant’s words seemed to sting the woman. She patted at her head. Her long fall of hair had become undone. She was absently toying with it, a faraway look in her eyes.

Doc reminded, “During the abduction, you attempted to impart something before your outcry was smothered.”

“You will have to refresh my memory,” Janet Falcon said thinly. “It has been a difficult night.”

“I distinctly heard you say, ‘Gorgoni,’ which in the Italian language is the plural for Gorgon. But I do not think you know that fact. Therefore, you were trying to communicate something else entirely.”

“Perhaps you misheard me. I believe I was berating Duke Grogan. The names sound similar, as I am sure you are well aware.”

Lowering her head, she turned her back on the bronze man.

Doc said, “Monk, prepare a dose of truth serum.”

“Gotcha.” The homely chemist went in search of his portable chemical laboratory.

That seemed to shake the young woman of her resistance. “No! Please, I am prepared to divulge all that I know.”

At a glance of Doc’s golden eyes, Monk subsided.

Doc Savage attempted another approach. “How did this chain of grisly events get started?” he queried.

The girl showed a little spirit. “With Ned Gamble, my fiancé. As you know, he is a mineralogist—or was. He made a discovery so terrible that it got out of hand. Ned was being threatened in some way, but refused to share details. Ned did not know which way to turn, then he had lighted on a way of bringing you into the affair. He was going to get you to come to Chicago.”

“For what purpose?”

“There is some kind of a horrible mystery behind this whole affair. Ned wanted to get you working on it, hoping you would clear it up without involving the authorities. But something went wrong.”

“This is rather a circular explanation,” Doc stated. “What went wrong?”

“The master mind, whoever is behind all this, found out that Ned was going to New York,” said the girl, twisting her handkerchief miserably. “Shortly before he left, Mr. Sim was found dead. Then I received a letter. It informed me that if I did not do exactly as I was told to do, Ned would be killed next. I was scared. The writer of the letter telephoned me, speaking in a horrible, hissing voice. I pretended to agree to do what he or she wanted. My first order was to refuse to speak with you.”

“During the rest of the affair, you were under threat to be quiet?” Doc Savage demanded.

“I was.”

“Where is this letter?” queried Doc.

“I am afraid that I burned it. The telephone voice instructed me to do so.”

“Was the letter signed?”

“It was.
M.S. Euryale
. The name meant nothing to me. It seemed unreal. And there was no such person in the Chicago telephone directory.”

“Or any other,” stated Doc Savage. “For the name is one plucked out of Greek mythology. Euryale is one of the three Gorgon sisters. The other two are Medusa and Stheno. By invoking all three names, this unknown person was attempting to incite terror.”

Ham put in, “I still do not understand what Myer Sim has to do with this?”

“I never did learn,” replied the girl. “But I do know that Ned spoke to Mr. Sim about the matter, and Mr. Sim gave a statement to the press just before his death that he had learned something of grave medical significance. It was his going public that alarmed Ned, and prompted Ned’s mission to New York City. I gather that Ned confided in Mr. Sim, but I was never told what they feared—no doubt to protect me, I can now see.”

“And where did Malcolm McLean come in?” Ham pressed.

“He was merely an acquaintance. I knew him through Ned. They were friends, and often spoke of working together, but as far as I know, nothing ever came of this talk. The other day, Mr. McLean happened to telephone my apartment looking for Ned, and I blurted out that Ned was packing for a trip. Mr. McLean became very solicitous.”

“Who knew that Ned Gamble was coming to New York to see me?” asked Doc.

“Only Ned and myself—and Mr. McLean, in whom I confided.”

Monk grunted, “Someone tipped off Duke Grogan that your boyfriend was takin’ a train to see Doc Savage. If it wasn’t you, it had to be McLean.”

Janet Falcon looked stunned. “I—I can scarcely imagine such an act of treachery. It—it seems so out of character. While he never came out and declared such, I have always harbored the suspicion that Mr. McLean rather had a crush on me. Of course, he would keep any such feelings to himself, out of respect for poor Ned.”

“A motive!” exploded Monk. “That cinches it. McLean tipped off Duke Grogan, then Grogan trailed him to New York.”

The woman jumped up from her seat, paling. “Oh! That cannot be. It isn’t possible.”

Ham Brooks interjected coolly, “Men have been slain for much weaker motivations.”

Janet Falcon was again wringing her sopping handkerchief. Her composed features were white as bone.

“And now Mr. McLean is himself dead.” She shuddered uncontrollably. “If what you say is true, he has paid for his misdeeds—for no doubt he was killed during the cave-in.”

Monk and Ham looked to the bronze man for confirmation of this theory, but the expression on the bronze giant’s metallic features was as unreadable as that of a cigar-store Indian.

JUST then, the telephone rang. Doc Savage glided to the instrument stand and scooped up the handset.

“Doc Savage speaking.”

The voice on the other end launched into what appeared to be a wordy speech. At its conclusion, the bronze man said, “Thank you.”

Restoring the telephone to its cradle, he addressed the others.

“That was the Superintendent of Police with some unfortunate news. Joe Shine’s attorney turned up at police headquarters with a judge’s order to release the gangster on bail. Shine has been freed.”

“How is that possible?” howled Monk. “We got him dead to rights on kidnappin’ and attempted murder. Any judge woulda thrown the book at him!”

Ham frowned, saying, “Any honest judge, you mean. You are forgetting that this is Chicago. And a writ of habeas corpus was filed to facilitate the man’s release.”