Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (6 page)

“So you do know something about this?” stated the sergeant.

“Take me to the investigating detective,” Doc requested.

They had passed into the lobby, where the beleaguered hotel desk clerk was fending off questions.

“I have no idea about the man’s business. I’ve told you all that I know.” He looked stricken. And with good reason. The reputation of this hotel was impeccable. A death, possibly a murder, would be a black mark against the establishment.

Doc Savage inserted himself into the questioning.

“I would like to hear this man’s story from the beginning,” he asked.

The desk clerk looked as if he had been telling the story over and over again to successive parties. He backed up, took a deep breath, and commenced his story from the top. Obviously, he recognized the Man of Bronze.

“The guest in question checked in under the name of Dobe Castle, and he had the brightest red hair you could ever see in all of your life. When I handed him his key, I also gave Castle a message. He all but refused it. After accepting it, he went up to his room and made a telephone call.”

“To whom?” inquired Doc.

“A party in Chicago.”

“We’re looking into that right now, Mr. Savage,” inserted the detective in charge, an inspector. Doc knew him. His name was Clarence Humbolt, better known as “Hardboiled” Humbolt. He was the inspector in charge of Manhattan. Presently, the two were on excellent terms. It had not always been this way.

“Go on,” prompted the bronze man.

“After Castle made the call, he came down to the barber shop and made an unusual request. He had his head completely shaved. Then he ran back up to his room.”

“I understand that he left his hat behind,” prompted Doc.

“That’s right. According to the bellhop, when they tried to return it to him, Mr. Castle didn’t seem to want it anymore.”

“That’s the funny part—except it ain’t funny,” interjected Humbolt. “In this changeable weather, you’d think a bald guy would need a hat even more than he had previously.”

“Not if you wanted to throw someone off your trail,” supplied Doc.

The inspector’s eyes grew wise. “You think he was being followed?”

“Unquestionably,” said Doc. “After he departed this establishment, he secured a room at a Bowery flophouse, under another alias. He was there just long enough to call my office, and arrange an appointment. When Ned Gamble showed up at my door, he expired without explanation.”

“Expired! Don’t you mean dropped dead?”

“Exactly that.”

“Well, what struck him down?”

“That remains to be seen,” said Doc, not volunteering his discovery that the man’s brain had somehow been petrified.

Inspector Humbolt began worrying the nape of his neck with blunt fingers.

“If that don’t beat everything. Sounds like what happened upstairs.”

“Take me there,” requested Doc.

They all went up in a crowded elevator. Upon alighting, the first thing Doc Savage and his men noticed was the yellow-green splotch emblazoned on the hallway wall.

They studied it. It was similar to the silhouette that had appeared on Doc’s corridor wall in the aftermath of Ned Gamble’s uncanny demise. The pose was different, but there was no mistaking the horrible head of hair that was composed of sinuous vipers.

“We don’t know what that is,” supplied Humbolt. “When the body was discovered, this blot was first noticed. Looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Doc Savage did not enlighten the inspector. He saw no point in it.

They went to the room, whose door hung open, the two sides of the closed laundry door-hatch also open wide, permitting the room’s interior to be seen from the hallway when the portal was shut.

The inspector resumed his account, saying, “According to the bellhop, the guest refused to open his door. Didn’t seem to want his hat, but told them to leave it in the clothes hatch. When the hatch was opened, there was a bright green light and a whole lotta smoke. You can’t smell anything now, but the poor barber staggered back and practically died on the spot. The hop fled to the lobby, spilled his story, and that’s when we were called.”

Hardboiled concluded, “We found the inner and outer hatches open, but the guest had vanished. The window was open, so it wasn’t hard to see how he eeled away.”

Doc stepped in the room, looked around, and said to no one in particular, “It would seem that Gamble opened the hatch to observe the commotion on the other side of the door.”

Hardboiled grunted. “We kind of figured he opened the hatch to retrieve his hat.”

Doc shook his head slightly. “Ned Gamble was not interested in his hat. Otherwise, he would have opened the door and accepted it. He wanted the person who was following him to be thrown off the trail by his lack of hair, hat and distinctive overcoat.”

The bronze man then pointed to the discarded ulster lying on the bed, adding quietly, “Gamble believed that his overcoat and bright red hair made him conspicuous to any trailer. So he dispensed with those items, had his head shaved, and changed hotels.”

“Gamble figured he was followed to this establishment?”

“That appears to be his assumption,” said Doc, looking around.

Without asking for permission, the bronze man began to go through the closet and the bureau, but found nothing. Ned Gamble had not occupied this room long enough to leave articles lying about.

In a wastebasket, however, was a discarded newspaper. Doc extracted this and unfolded it.

The paper was the
Chicago Tribunal
. An Extra edition, dated the previous day. The sensational headline told of the sudden death of scientist Myer Sim only hours before. There was hardly any detail.

Doc committed the story to memory and dropped the paper into the wastebasket as if it held no significance to him.

“Let me talk to the bellhop,” he requested.

THE FELLOW was a nervous wreck when confronted, but he told his story as best he could. He contributed nothing new to their understanding.

“Describe the flash of light,” prompted Doc.

“It was green as all get-out, and it practically blinded me. I thought it was a bomb, so I lit out of there.”

“What did you smell, if anything?” asked Doc.

“I didn’t stick around long enough to sniff. I dived through the fire door and practically somersaulted down the stairs. It wasn’t until I reached the lobby that I saw that I wasn’t injured.”

Doc Savage turned to Monk and said, “Monk, take samples from the hatch and the silhouette on the wall.”

“Gotcha, Doc,” Monk had toted with him a metal case that comprised his compact chemical laboratory. Setting this on the corridor table, he began taking out various items, which he used to scour the inside hatch doors for chemical residue. He did not test these. When he was done, the simian chemist did the same with the silhouette on the wall.

Monk had not seen the silhouette at Doc Savage’s headquarters, and so took a few moments to study the image. As a chemist, he could study shades of color and deduce underlying chemical constituents. Here, the greenish-yellow splotch seemed to baffle him. His homely features gathered up in a puckered puzzlement.

Muttering under his breath, Monk took a ball of cotton and attempted to swab up a specimen of whatever had created the yellow-green shadow.

“I’ll be daggone,” he said suddenly.

Ham Brooks, who had been watching everything with deep suspicion in his eyes, turned and demanded, “What is wrong now?”

Monk nodded, “I thought this was painted on somehow, but it’s not coming off. I don’t get it.”

Ham stepped up, and laid a well-manicured finger against the greenish-yellow outline, rubbed vigorously, and examined the tip of the same finger. It came away clean.

“It is not a residue, that is plain to see,” he suggested.

“That’s what I just said,” retorted Monk.

Doc Savage paid no attention to this exchange, but had resumed speaking to the inspector in charge.

“Where is the body of the barber?”

“Where else?” grunted Hardboiled Humbolt. “City morgue. Want to take a gander at him?”

“At once,” said Doc.

Looking baffled, Monk wondered, “What should I do with this? Rip out a hunk of the plaster?”

“Not necessary at this time,” said Doc. “We will return if need be.”

Taking their departure, they followed Inspector Humbolt to the city morgue and were soon standing around a body in an autopsy room. Chemical smell was not pleasant, but they had all visited morgues before. So they were used to it.

The Medical Examiner was saying to Doc Savage, “I’ve just begun to examine this man, and have as yet to make any determination.”

Doc Savage volunteered no information but said, “I would simply like to observe you.”

Shrugging, the M.E. resumed his autopsy.

He opened up the chest with a bone saw, used a stainless steel device to crack apart the chest cavity, exposing the internal organs.

After he did so, the medical man began to recite his observations. “Heart seems sound, major organs appear to be undiseased.”

Ham Brooks decided he did not need to pay close attention to this grisly operation, and tried to pick a fight with Monk Mayfair.

“It is a relief not to have to watch where I step,” the elegant attorney remarked. “Traveling with a wild pig distresses me no end.” Casting an accusatory eye in Monk’s direction, he added, “If only Doc would consent to leave you behind, I would be ecstatic.”

The hairy chemist was not having any. He was fascinated by the exposed organs of the deceased barber.

Ham fell to examining his nails, especially the tip of the finger that had lifted up no residue. He found nothing of interest there.

“The lungs appear to be unremarkable,” the M.E. was saying. “On superficial examination, I see no indication of a heart attack, which might lead to the possibility that this man suffered a stroke.”

“You will need to lay bare the brain,” suggested Doc Savage.

Agreeing with that determination, the Medical Examiner picked up a circular saw that was operated by electricity. With practiced skill, he commenced sawing all the way around the crown of the man’s head. Bits of bone grit flew.

When this was done, the top of the skull became removable. The medico lifted this free, set down the scalp, then trained a goose-necked lamp on the exposed brain.

Doc Savage stepped closer, the golden flakes in his uncanny eyes growing animated.

The human brain is normally a grayish color, and often pink in spots. The dead man’s brain was neither.

The hideously wrinkled organ looked for all the world like a large specimen of coral. It was pale white. It possessed the outward semblance of polished marble. Though it had the approximate shape of a human brain, its hue and outward appearance were not at all what the Medical Examiner was accustomed to encountering when he opened up a dead man’s skull.

The medico gasped. “What on earth?”

Doc Savage’s indescribable trilling filled the room. It seemed to wander about in such a fashion that it was impossible to tell whence it emanated.

So stunned was the Medical Examiner by what he had uncovered that he completely failed to take notice of the unnatural sound.

Doc Savage seldom realized that he was making the trillation, for it was entirely unconscious. But he noticed now. Sealing his lips, he stifled the vocal emanation, which had come unbidden.

“With your permission,” he said. Taking up a scalpel, Doc Savage applied the sharp point to the ridges of the exposed brain.

The scalpel tip made the identical scraping sound that the bronze man had produced when he had inserted his own scalpel into the nasal passage of the deceased Ned Gamble.

“That sounds like stone!” blurted out the Medical Examiner.

“Certainly the consistency of stone,” agreed the bronze man. “What it is in actuality remains to be determined. I would like to take a sample of this man’s brain.”

“It is highly irregular,” said the Medical Examiner slowly. He appeared to be dazed. He was not a young man. There were suggestions of gray at his temples. It might be assumed he had been at his job for a number of years. But the discovery that a dead man’s brain had been somehow petrified seemed to have swamped his wits.

Doc Savage said, “I will take responsibility for any repercussions.”

“The big guy has my vote, too,” added Hardboiled Humbolt.

Shrugging rather helplessly, the M.E. said, “Proceed.”

Doc Savage used a small hammer and the kind of chisel that is often used when working with bone, and chipped off a segment of the brain about the size of a tiny cowrie seashell. He wrapped this up in a handkerchief and pocketed it.

Monk, who had been fascinated throughout, ambled up and ran his fingers along the exposed portion and grunted, “Kinda reminds me of calcium carbonate more than stone.”

Doc nodded. “It may be that the brain calcified, rather than petrified. Only chemical analysis will determine that.”

The Medical Examiner spoke up, “I fail to see how the human brain could do either.”

“Yet you see the evidence before your own eyes,” reminded Doc.

The M.E. scratched his chin, began ruminating, “Anything that could petrify the soft tissue of a brain should have petrified the eyes as well.”

Taking a thumb, he lifted both eyelids, and saw that they were sunken in the man’s bony sockets. Sunken unnaturally. For under the overhead lights, it seemed simply that the man’s face had sunken in death. This was commonly true of decaying corpses, but the Medical Examiner realized the man had not been dead very long. The natural processes that would have rendered the facial features hauntingly ghoul-like should not have been very far along.

“This is peculiar,” mused the M.E.

Doc explained, “It is possible that the brain matter has shrunk due to its chemical transformation. You know the human eyeball is directly connected to the brain, so if the brain mass did shrink, it would have tugged on the muscles controlling the eyes, causing them to retreat within their bony sockets.”

The Medical Examiner nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, that makes perfect sense.”