Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (49 page)

Gathering up the body of Malcolm McLean, he instructed Monk, “Go to the airport and prepare our plane for departure. Do not wait for me. Go directly to the coal mine. See if you can open it up. I will join you as soon as possible.”

“Gotcha,” said Monk. “Long Tom and I will get the job done.”

“Wait for Ham,” reminded Doc.

The bronze man shouldered out into the street, and his stature caught the attention of the Chicago reporters loitering outside in hopes of snagging a story.

The great height of Doc Savage impressed them, but his blond hair and ruddy features did not. They failed to recognize him.

“Who is that?” one demanded, pointing a pencil at the body in Doc’s arms.

“Another suicide,” said the bronze man in a voice not his own.

“Is that so? What’s his name?

Ambulance attendants had rushed out and yanked open the back door for Doc to place the body within.

“Take us to the hospital at once,” Doc ordered, climbing into the back with the body of Malcolm McLean.

The rear door was shut, the internes reclaimed their seats and the ambulance tore off, rocking on the corner turn.

The reporters next set their sights on Monk and Long Tom, whom they readily recognized.

“Do you mutts have anything to do with what just happened here?” accosted one. It was the
Tribunal’s
nosy legman, Jack Swangle.

“What’s it to you?” challenged Long Tom.

“It’s a story and we want it.”

“Well, you just missed your scoop.” Long Tom jerked a rude thumb in the direction of the departed ambulance. “That was Malcolm McLean. He ended his own life.”

“The bird that Dr. Rockwell revived?”

“The very same,” said Ham Brooks, who had joined them. “And if you’re smart, you will file that story.”

“What did Doc Savage have to do with this? An awful lot of people are committing suicide around him.”

“You’ll have to ask Doc Savage,” clipped Ham. “We must be going.”

The three Doc Savage aides went off in search of their rental sedan, while the reporters raced to public telephones to file their copy.

“A whole swarm of reporters are gonna show up at the hospital,” grunted Monk.

“Doc will handle them all right,” said Long Tom. “Let’s get going.”

DURING the noisy ride, the bronze man had not paid much attention to the body, but instead finished reading Janet Falcon’s letter, which he had once again pocketed. Once he felt it safe to do so, Doc removed the blue-optical shells that concealed his remarkable flake-gold eyes, for he did not want any confusion arising about his identity once he arrived at Mercy General Hospital.

Dr. Rockwell was waiting in the emergency room when the ambulance pulled in. He paced in an agitated manner while orderlies set up a wheeled gurney to convey the body of Malcolm McLean inside.

Doc Savage’s impassive features were without outward expression when he addressed the waiting physician in his unmistakably vibrant voice.

“Malcolm McLean has once again succumbed to the brain-calcifying influence,” Doc told him.

The look that crossed Rockwell’s face was one of stunned astonishment. He appeared disinclined to believe the words striking his ears. His professional demeanor quickly returned, however.

“I cannot accept what I am hearing,” he said thickly.

“It was suicide, brought on by guilt connected to the suicide of Janet Falcon, for whom he cared very deeply,” replied the bronze man.

The body was being wheeled in now, and Rockwell’s unblinking eyes sought the face of the dead man.

“I scarcely recognize him.”

“McLean was in disguise, the better to go about his nefarious work.”

“Nefarious?”

“Malcolm McLean was the so-called Medusa, or should I say, one of the Gorgons who have been terrorizing Chicago. Evidently, he had a falling out with another conspirator, Marvin Lucian Linden.”

All normal color drained from Rockwell’s craggy features until they resembled cold marble. “Linden!”

Doc nodded as they walked along on either side of the moving gurney.

“McLean stabbed Linden to death at the exposition, apparently blaming him in part for the death of Janet Falcon. I found McLean in her hotel room, overcome by grief. Upon questioning, he dosed himself with a cigarette that was laced with the unknown combustible substance which, when inhaled, reduced human brain tissue to the consistency of stone.”

“He confessed?”

“Fully,” admitted the bronze man. “There are still more pieces of the puzzle that need to be assembled, however.”

“Did he say who the third Gorgon was?”

“I did not mention that there was a third Gorgon,” countered Doc.

Dr. Rockwell’s staring eyes met Doc Savage’s aureate gaze and locked. They were unflinching in their steady regard.

“You said that there were two, and I know my classical mythology. The Greeks told of three Gorgon sisters. The terrorist who is sending threat letters to the newspapers employed all three names. Was Janet Falcon the third?”

“She was not,” returned Doc. “There is reason to suspect that the third Gorgon perished two days ago in the collapse of the Ryerson Coal Mine in Vermilion County.”

Warner Rockwell said nothing to this. An examination room came into view, and he told the orderlies, “Place the body on the examining table. I will join you directly.”

Addressing Doc Savage, he said, “I revived Malcolm McLean once, perhaps I can do it again. Of course, if what you say is true, I am merely reviving him so that the state can execute the misguided wretch at a future date.”

“Justice must be served,” said Doc Savage, “no matter how harshly it is meted out.”

If Dr. Rockwell had been a blinking man, he might have blinked at that. Something like a nervous twitch touched his composed features as he commented, “That does not sound like you, Savage, for you are considered a great humanitarian.”

“Justice may be tempered with mercy, but it must retain the essential qualities of justice,” stated Doc firmly.

“Well spoken. Have you any suspicion as to who this third Gorgon must be?”

Instead of replying, Doc Savage stated, “It is always preferable to deal in certainties, not suspicions. Once I reach Vermilion County, all may be revealed. Except, perhaps, for the motive, which remains murky.”

Deep frown lines etched Dr. Rockwell’s craggy features. “I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but perhaps I might volunteer some useful information.”

“Go ahead,” invited Doc.

“I have known both McLean and Linden for a good many years. My opinion of them is very high. Nonetheless, they were subject to professional jealousy. Neither fellow felt he had advanced in his chosen career as rapidly as expected. Some of this envy, I am sorry to inform you, was centered upon yourself.”

A flickering troubled Doc Savage’s golden eyes, and one knowing the bronze man well might suspect that this reflected a recognition of certain facts.

Rockwell explained, “Marvin Lucian Linden’s envy was centered much more on your associate, Long Tom Roberts, than upon yourself, but it may be a case of guilt by association. As for Malcolm McLean, he was envious of anyone who possessed more fame and accomplishment than he had attained. Sorry to say that, as bright as he appeared, McLean was more of a dabbler than an accomplished chemist.”

“As motivations, what you suggest sounds rather thin.”

“Perhaps, but I am not offering certainties, merely suspicions. Now you must excuse me, for I have work to do.”

“As have I,” said the bronze man.

As he turned to go, Dr. Rockwell paused. An ironic warp touched his mature features.

“I have suspected you, Savage, of doubting my ability to raise Malcolm McLean from the dead. But now that you have delivered him to me, once more deceased, I imagine you have greater confidence in my abilities.”

“You are very clever, Dr. Rockwell,” said Doc Savage expressionlessly.

“A compliment from the great Doc Savage,” murmured Rockwell. “I shall cherish it always. Wish me luck.”

“Better to marshal our respective skills in order to win the day,” advised Doc Savage.

The door closed, and the bronze giant departed rapidly.

There was a commotion in the main lobby. Doc Savage was not surprised to see it packed with milling Chicago reporters, among them the dogged Jack Swangle, clamoring for news of Malcolm McLean, the man who had been brought back to life only to perish once more under identical circumstances.

Seeing this, the bronze man slipped out the side door, worked his way around to the back, and hailed a passing taxi.

“Where to, High-pockets?” asked the cabbie once Doc sank into the back seat, causing the taxicab springs to groan in complaint.

“Airport,” directed Doc. His flake-gold eyes were speculative.

Chapter XLVI

FLASH!

MONK MAYFAIR LANDED the big speed plane in the vicinity of the Ryerson Coal Mine just as dusk was falling.

Switching off the engines, he sprang out of the control bucket, and went barreling down to the rear of the plane, where he began excavating ammunition cases. He worked with a kind of mad abandon which caused Ham Brooks to flounder about and Long Tom Roberts to demand, “What’s eating you?”

“That coal mine entrance is probably sealed by a ton of rocks, and we don’t have any dynamite. I’m puttin’ together some of my special bullets to take care of that.”

Alarm rode the puny electrical wizard’s thin features.

“If you’re thinking of blowing that entrance wide open with explosives,” he warned, “better think again. There’s no telling how much poison gas may be trapped inside.”

“I got bullets for that, too!” chortled the apish chemist.

Ham fingered his dark cane and asked, “What manner of ammunition would be proof against poison gas?”

“You’ll see!”

To which Long Tom growled, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m bringing along a fresh gas mask. I suggest everybody do the same.”

Heavy-duty gas masks were excavated and passed around. Monk lugged a heavy metal case crammed with assorted ammunition drums to the cabin door.

“One of us oughta wait behind in case Doc radios in,” he suggested.

There were no volunteers. Monk made thinking faces and said, “Come to think of it, it might be smart to let a little more dust settle before we go to pokin’ around. No point in attractin’ any attention from the local cops.”

That was a sensible suggestion, although neither Ham nor Long Tom cared to give Monk any credit. Instead, the dapper lawyer went to the radio and took a seat at the cubicle.

“Doc Savage is likely to have chartered a plane by now. I will see if I can raise him.”

Several minutes of trying produced nothing other than noisy static fry and silent frustration.

“Deuced nuisance,” Ham frowned. Fiddling with the dials, he tuned in to a commercial radio station until he found a news report.

Evidently, he came into the middle of something interesting, because a news announcer was trying to contain his excitement.

“Authorities are being tight-lipped. Here is what we know at this hour. Malcolm McLean, noted Chicago chemist, who was previously struck down by the mysterious Medusa menacing the Windy City, has again been felled. All attempts by the famed Doctor Warner Rockwell of Mercy Hospital to revive him a second time have failed miserably. Efforts to learn more from the physician have been met with silence.”

“I didn’t think they were going to pull him back from the grave a second time,” commented Long Tom.

To which Ham Brooks added, “I, for one, was not convinced it was accomplished the first time.”

The excitable announcer was saying,
“The Chicago medical examiner has released a statement confirming that a waterlogged body discovered in the last forty-eight hours, which bore a resemblance to Malcolm McLean, was in fact not the chemist himself. Authorities have identified him as Doane McLean, a cousin of the now twice-deceased chemist. Police remain mum on the circumstances of this discovery, except to say that the dead man had not drowned.”

Monk drove a hairy fist into the opposite palm and yelled, “So that’s who that gray corpse was!”

Long Tom mumbled, “This is getting weirder by the hour.”

“Quiet,” Ham admonished. “There is more coming.”

“The Superintendent of Chicago Police has announced that no less than the famous Doc Savage is now being sought in connection with the death of Malcolm McLean. For it appears that McLean’s body was discovered by the Man of Bronze himself. This marks the second victim to die mysteriously while in Doc Savage’s custody. The police official maintains that Doc Savage is not at this time a suspect in the Medusa slayings, but is only wanted for questioning as a material witness.”

Ham barked, “That means he
is
a suspect. This is not going in a good direction.”

“It also means that Doc took it on the lam,” added Monk. “No tellin’ when he’ll show up now.”

Ham offered, “If Doc Savage is smart, he will not try to hire a plane, but instead drive south. Do not forget that he is still in disguise, which will help him avoid capture.”

They stood around a few moments while considering their next move.

As they were doing so, the announcer came on with another bulletin. It was shocking in the extreme.

“This just in! Flash! Dr. Warner Rockwell, prominent Chicago physician, was discovered in his office late this afternoon, barely breathing. Upon examination by his fellow doctors, it was discovered that his eyeballs showed outward signs of petrification. The famed medico is being examined at this hour, but hope is not held out for his survival, inasmuch as the only doctor who has so far revived any victim of the mystery Medusa is Rockwell himself.”

“That means the danged Medusa is still at large!” Monk howled.

“But who could it be?” wondered Long Tom.

Ham Brooks rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, “I completely fail to see any motivation for all of this macabre madness. These killings now appear to be the work of an insane person, not someone with a definite goal in mind.”