Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (42 page)

Exiting the office, Doc Savage returned to the lobby, where he was informed that Dr. Rockwell had finished his ministrations.

“The procedure did not go as expected,” reported the head nurse sadly. “Dr. Rockwell was unable to revive the elevator operator.”

Doc Savage took this news in silence.

“Did Rockwell give any explanation for his failure?”

The nurse shook her head, saying, “No, he did not. But he seemed very shaken. We all had very high hopes for his restorative process, whatever it is. Would you like to speak with him?”

“Not at this time,” replied the bronze man. Without another word, he exited the hospital, hailing a taxi, which took him back to his hotel.

LONG TOM ROBERTS was waiting in the lobby for Doc Savage when the latter entered. His normally sour features were excited.

“Doc!” he said urgently. “I hung back, waiting for you. Monk and Ham just called in. They say someone is rattling around in Malcolm McLean’s house.”

“Did they observe the individual?”

Ham shook his head. “No. I told them to hold their horses and not to barge in.”

“That was prudent. We will go directly to McLean’s residence and look into this.”

At the garage, they claimed their rental sedan—Monk and Ham having taken a taxi—and were soon whipping through the city streets, dodging automobiles and streetcars.

As Doc drove, Long Tom said, “I happened to knock on Janet Falcon’s door. She didn’t answer. Thought I’d flash your sketch to see if she recognized the face. No soap.”

Doc nodded. “We will interview her again once we have concluded our investigation of Malcolm McLean’s whereabouts.”

“Dig up anything new?”

Without taking his eyes off the road, Doc Savage said, “A great deal of this trouble seems to center on that closed coal mine down in Vermilion County.”

“Maybe we should open it up and pull out those bodies.”

Doc Savage said nothing. He drove with expert control, but the speed with which he whipped around corners and shot up Chicago’s congested thoroughfares showed that the bronze man was anxious to reach the McLean residence.

When at last they pulled up, the rain had commenced again, and Monk and Ham stood huddled and unhappy under an oak tree.

The quiet neighborhood was fully enveloped in night.

Monk Mayfair said, “He’s been there about twenty minutes. You can see him through the drawn shades, but I can’t make out who the heck it is.”

Ham added, “Whoever he is, the fellow has not been still since he arrived.”

Doc said, “We will surround the house so he does not escape, if he is of that mind.”

Monk and Ham unlimbered their supermachine pistols, while Long Tom brought out his clumsy-looking magnetic gun, which he had stuffed into his belt.

“Between Doc and the three of us,” the puny electrical wizard said, “he hasn’t a chance of escaping.”

They set out. Long Tom stationed himself before the attached garage. Monk and Ham went around back.

Doc Savage drifted up to the front door, his hands empty. The bronze man habitually eschewed firearms, although he had invented the supermachine pistol. It was his personal philosophy that a man could easily become reliant on such a weapon, and consequently reduced to helplessness should he lose control of it. This opinion he did not extend to his men, who were perfectly free to use whatever weapons they chose, provided they produced no fatalities in the course of their activities.

Observing carefully, Doc Savage saw a figure flit before the drawn blinds of an upstairs window. For the inhabitant had moved on to the second floor. Nothing much could be seen of this person, except that he or she appeared very active—going from room to room, as if searching for something.

This would not seem to be the behavior of someone comfortable in his own home, so Doc approached the front door cautiously.

He rang the doorbell, and stepped back to watch the reaction.

A silhouette visible through a fully-drawn blind, the figure froze, appeared to hesitate, and then flitted furtively from view. It could be discerned that the head of the active individual was oversized in comparison with an ordinary human being.

Doc Savage closed the distance between himself and the door, put his shoulder to it, and drove the panel inward. Wood splintered and the lock broke free.

Flashing through the living room, Doc Savage located the staircase leading to the second floor and charged up the carpeted risers. For all his Herculean stature, the bronze giant made surprisingly little sound.

At the rear of the house, window glass shattered, and the bronze man knew that Monk and Ham were impatiently barging in through the back.

Reaching the second floor landing, Doc Savage whipped toward a front room, and demanded, “Come out of there!”

“Who is it?” quavered a voice.

The voice was one that Doc Savage recognized. He pitched to the door, and immediately seized a cowering figure.

“Oh! It’s you! Imagine that! What a surprise!”

The look on Marvin Lucian Linden’s round face was one of immense relief. His wild, frizzled hair quivered like myriad insect antennae.

“I—I thought that burglars were breaking in,” Linden stammered. “It is a distinct relief to learn otherwise.”

Doc demanded, “What is your business here, Linden?”

Marvin Lucian Linden pulled himself together, straightened his rather flowery tie and said, “Why, I could ask the same of you, Mr. Savage.”

Monk and Ham charged up the stairs, followed by Long Tom, who had come through the front door, all bristling with assorted weaponry.

Doc Savage said, “We are seeking Malcolm McLean, who has not been seen since he was released from the hospital last night.”

“And I am doing the very same thing. McLean is a close friend of mine. I had become concerned not hearing from him.”

“How did you get in?” asked Doc.

From a pocket, Linden produced a key, saying, “I happen to have a house key. I am free to drop in at any time. You may ask Malcolm about that when he shows up.”

Observing Monk and the others, Linden added, “You can lay down those weapons, gentlemen, for I am completely harmless, as you can see.”

“I don’t like the look of this,” gritted Long Tom suspiciously.

“Yeah,” growled Monk. “Something don’t smell right.”

“You appear to be searching the place,” Doc Savage pointed out.

“Yes, I was. I admit it. I was looking for Malcolm. Or any sign of where he might have gone. He often leaves notes behind. Alas, I discovered none. No clue, nor any hint. It is almost as if he has not been restored to life, after all.”

“That is the way it is beginning to appear,” said Doc.

This simple declaration took a moment to sink in. When it did, Marvin Lucian Linden’s voice sank into a sad whine. “You do not suspect Dr. Rockwell of tomfoolery, do you?”

Rather than reply directly, Doc said, “It is unusual for a physician to release a patient so quickly, and not entirely understandable that that patient should subsequently disappear.”

“The reputation of Warner Rockwell is impeccable,” Linden said stiffly. “I do not associate with him as much as McLean, but I do know him socially. Moreover, I am well aware of his background. He belongs to one of the finest families in Chicago. His forebears have been esteemed medical men for at least three generations. Rockwell asserted that he cured Malcolm McLean. I, for one, am taking that to the bank—even if you choose not to do so.”

Doc Savage said nothing, while Long Tom remarked sourly, “Everybody involved in this is starting to look suspicious to me.”

Marvin Lucian Linden seemed to take that personally, for he frowned deeply, changing the contours of his normally pleasant features and remarked, “I take exception to that canard, sir.”

“Take what you want,” said Long Tom peevishly. “But everything about this deal is fishy.”

Linden became thoughtful and he said, “I have an idea. Why don’t we all make ourselves comfortable and await Malcolm’s return? Night has come on and surely he will be seeking his own bed.”

“If he is yet among the living,” inserted Ham dubiously.

Linden turned several shades paler than normal. He distinctly trembled, which made his frightful hair quiver alarmingly. “Do not say that! Malcolm McLean is my closest friend. If anything unfortunate were to befall him—”

“Something did,” reminded Doc Savage. “His living brain was apparently fossilized—at least temporarily.”

Marvin Lucian Linden closed his eyes, and shuddered momentarily.

“Yes, I recall. I will never forget the stony aspect of his eyes as he laid there. It was a medical miracle that Malcolm was plucked from the jaws of death.”

Long Tom made a skeptical noise in his throat, and looked around as if he were seeking a convenient cuspidor.

Then he spied something which caused his pale eyes to narrow. The room in which they all stood was the master bedroom. A partly open door led to an adjacent room. Something in the other room had caught Long Tom’s eye.

Drifting to the door, he pushed it wide, and craned his head about.

“Better take a look at this,” he called out.

Led by Doc Savage, the group followed the electrical genius into the other room, which proved to be an attic space built into one corner of the second floor. A cunningly-concealed door hung open.

The odd-shaped room was bare of furnishings, being a wedge with little floorspace. The three angular walls were a pale ivory. Or they had been.

For now the far wall screamed at them in a yellow-green hue they had seen before.

“Jove!” exclaimed Ham, pointing with his cane. “Medusas!”

Monk said thickly, “Looks like a nest of them!”

There were, in fact, three Medusa silhouettes imprinted on the opposite side. Overlapping one another, they formed a single broad shape. Only the snaky heads stood apart.

Marvin Lucian Linden stared at the wall, seemed not to understand the significance of the unlovely shapes parading along the otherwise-blank surface.

“I fail to fathom what upsets you gentlemen,” he expounded. “It appears to me that Malcolm has unusual taste in decoration, but he is an unusual fellow.”

“Do you not recognize the three Gorgons?” demanded Ham.

Linden squinted, then said, “Oh!” so abruptly his crispy hair shook like thin leaves in a wind. “I do not know what to say, gentlemen. Really and truly.”

Doc asked, “How did you discover the secret room?”

Linden replied, “Oh, it was never a secret. It used to be McLean’s experimental laboratory, until he moved it. I knew where the hidden catch is.”

Doc said abruptly, “We have business elsewhere. If McLean returns, we would appreciate your notifying us through our hotel.”

“Happy to do so,” said Marvin Lucian Linden, in a relieved tone. “You can be certain that I will do exactly that. As a matter of fact, I may stay the night. McLean has a spare bedroom, and I am welcome to use that. I will stand sentinel until his return. Good night to you all, gentleman.”

Doc Savage led his men out, and they reclaimed the sedan, which Doc put into motion. It was now steadily raining, and the monotonous drumming depressed their spirits.

“What do you make of those Medusa silhouettes?” asked Long Tom, who had not previously encountered the uncanny shadows.

“They are highly suggestive,” admitted Doc.

“Yeah, but of what? That’s what I want to know.”

Monk said, “They mighta been planted there as a warning.”

“But to whom?” countered Ham. “To McLean himself, or to anyone prowling about his residence?”

“Either theory is plausible,” advised the bronze man, who offered no more insight.

“Bally dead end,” complained Ham.

“It’s startin’ to look like Malcolm McLean did not make it after all,” growled Monk. “And that can only mean one thing.”

“Yeah,” grated Long Tom. “Rockwell is pulling a fast one on the city.”

They waited in vain for Doc Savage to confirm this theory, but the bronze man maintained a grim silence as he propelled the sedan through the city’s rain-washed streets.

As was often the case, Doc Savage’s mental workings were not immediately understandable to his men.

Chapter XL

BIG SPOTS STEPS IN

THE DEATH OF mobster Joe Shine proved to be headline news. It was electrifying.

By itself, the crime lord’s expiration would have rocked the city which, in Prohibition times, had all but celebrated its gangland figures. But when police revealed that Shine’s entire mob had been captured by Doc Savage and turned over to the city police, it was a cause for celebration.

News of the death of Shine’s arch-rival, Duke Grogan, had not yet reached print. At Doc Savage’s suggestion, his body had been removed from his Cicero hideout, and consigned to the city morgue adorned by an anonymous toe tag proclaiming him to be “John Doe.”

But such was the underworld grapevine that rumor of Duke Grogan’s untimely passing raced around the city, transmitted from barber shop to saloon to even less reputable establishments.

One such place was a pool hall known as Mulligan’s, situated on North Clark Street, not three blocks from the garage where the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day massacre had taken place.

There, in a back room, Big Spots Bender held forth. Big Spots was a rare survival of the gangland rivalries of the 1920s, and was a key figure in the infamous “taxi wars” of a decade gone by. Competing taxi companies had locked horns over lucrative cab stands in the Loop, with one faction encroaching upon the supposed territory of the other—the inevitable result being sporadic gunfire, leading to bloodshed. At its worst, the conflict erupted into a full-blown war for control of the city’s numerous cab stands.

When the worst was over, several companies had gone out of business or fled the city. Those that remained flourished. Big Spots Bender had been a bare-knuckled enforcer for one of those companies, and had done well for himself, earning himself a flaming reputation undiminished by changing times.

He was still available to handle that kind of work, but these days Big Spots provided the torpedoes, instead of doing the dirty work himself.