Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (48 page)

“Drat!” Ham snapped. “He could have gone in any number of directions.”

“Why don’t we split up and conduct a search?” suggested Long Tom. “I’ll take the street.”

“No need,” said Doc Savage. “I have a good idea where he went.”

Everyone looked at the bronze chief in somewhat stupefied surprise.

“I don’t see any kinda trail,” mumbled Monk.

“There is no discernible trail,” said Doc. “His goal is purely psychological.”

The bronze man’s aides looked wholly dumfounded. But they followed him to the nearest elevator bank, where Doc showed the police sketch to the elevator starter, adding, “The individual we seek will be very bloody.”

“He just went up,” said the starter. “When the cage comes back down, the operator can tell us which floor.”

“Never mind,” said Doc. “It could only be the sixth. We will go there.”

The starter summoned another cage, and they rode this up to the sixth floor, Ham holstering his supermachine pistol in order to take his sword cane blade out of the concealing barrel.

“No doubt the assailant is seeking us in our hotel room,” he said firmly.

“We will get the drop on him there.”

“He’s in for a hot time,” said Long Tom, checking his reloaded magnetic gun.

Grinning, Monk added, “I’ve got some red hots in my superfirer drum that will make him dance a hot jig.”

When they stepped off the elevator, the bronze man led them, not to their hotel suite, but down the hallway to the room formerly occupied by the late Janet Falcon.

Their astonishment mounted when the bronze man said, “Remain here. I will enter alone.”

“But Doc,” Monk pointed out. “He’s got a knife and probably a gun. Let Long Tom and me fill the place with slugs. You can rush in after we drop him.”

“This may not be the confrontation you imagine,” said Doc Savage quietly. “Remain outside until you are summoned.”

Stepping up to the hotel room door, the bronze man tested the knob and found the panel was not locked.

Slowly and carefully, he eased the door open, just enough to admit his great frame, and silently slipped within, closing the door behind him with the faintest click.

Ham, Monk and Long Tom all swapped bewildered glances and crowded close to the shut panel as they listened intently.

Only Monk offered any opinion. “What does Doc know that we don’t?” he mumbled.

Once inside, Doc Savage paused.

Lights were on and someone was rattling around in the wash room.

Doc Savage went to a closet, and slipped inside in order to observe undetected.

After a bit, the person stepped back into the room, looking somewhat worried.

It was the tall, pale individual with the mink-brown hair Doc Savage had seen earlier and for whom the police were searching based on the bronze man’s sketch.

The man wore a nondescript suit that was splattered with blood. His hands showed indications of a fresh washing—no doubt done in the adjacent wash room—so they were clean, but not yet fully dry.

The man took a pointless turn around the room. He appeared greatly agitated, and uncertain what to do with himself. Low moans of emotional agony were coming from deep inside him.

It was clear that the person was having difficulties managing his feelings, so he paced, making aimless circles. He was utterly unaware that he was under observation.

“McLean,” a voice said quietly, “you appear to be upset.”

The pale man all but jumped out of his skin. His anguished eyes grew round. Seeing no one, he attempted to bolt, lunging for the door.

Suddenly, a human wall blocked his escape. Or so it seemed. For the fellow rebounded off the obstruction that was suddenly standing before the exit door.

Doc resumed speaking. “Your skin has been coated with a preparation designed to give it a pale but lifelike appearance, and your hair, which you had dyed brown, is already beginning to grow out, showing the original gray. But your deception has been discovered.”

“What—what are you doing in here?” the man addressed as McLean stammered.

“Merely observing you,” replied the bronze man.

“Who are you?” he quavered.

“My voice should tell you that.”

Shock was replaced with comprehension. “You’re Doc Savage!”

“And you are Malcolm McLean.”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes,” said the tall, pale man. “I am McLean, come to pay my respects to Janet Falcon. For I have read the newspaper accounts of her murder.”

McLean’s voice was dull and dead-sounding. All the life appeared to have been drained out of him. He had lost his fire.

“Why did you slay Marvin Lucian Linden just now?” asked the bronze man without emotion.

“Haven’t you figured it out?” sneered McLean, reaching into his coat pocket.

One of Doc’s hands flashed out, seized the man by the wrist, forcefully brought out the hand from the pocket as if the other had lost all power over his arm.

Clutched in thin fingers was a simple package of cigarettes.

“I need to smoke,” he said, and his hands were trembling so much with emotion that the bronze man was convinced, despite his suspicions.

Shaking out a group of slim paper tubes, McLean carefully selected one and placed it between dry lips.

With normal skin tones and youthful brown hair, Malcolm McLean did not look so much like a walking corpse as before. But neither did he appear healthy. The preparation he used to normalize his skin tones lent his cadaverous frame an unhealthy pallor. The result was a distinct improvement, but still not one appealing in a human being.

In his own peculiar way, he rivaled Long Tom Roberts so far as unhealthy appearance went.

Fishing into another pocket for a cigarette lighter, McLean snapped the flint wheel and applied a leaping yellow flame to the cigarette. Thoughtfully, he began smoking.

Since he was taking his time with speech, Doc Savage prompted, “You were in love with Miss Falcon, were you not?”

“I was,” admitted McLean. “But it was a hopeless love. I could never divulge it. Not with my condition, which repelled women. But also because she had a fiancé, Ned Gamble, with whom she was very much in love.”

“You suspect Marvin Lucian Linden of having slain Miss Falcon?” prompted Doc.

McLean nodded. “Linden is the Medusa who has been terrorizing the city,” said McLean. “There is no doubt about it. I appear to have done the city a favor.”

Doc studied the man with his animated eyes, saying, “Why would Linden wish Miss Falcon dead?”

“Is it not obvious from the newspaper reports? He forged that suicide note signed Medusa in order to frame her. That was all. He wanted to throw suspicion on an innocent woman. So Linden overpowered her, hanged her, and trusted in the press doing the rest.”

“That is a reasonable theory,” said Doc Savage. “But you seem to have overlooked something.”

Malcolm McLean took a long draw on his cigarette, and blew wispy smoke into the air.

“And what is that?”

“That Miss Falcon may have indeed committed suicide over the untimely death of her fiancé.”

Malcolm McLean blinked rapidly, and a cigarette in his hands hung poised in the air.

“That does not explain the incriminating suicide note,” he said flatly.

“Consider the possibility that Miss Falcon committed suicide, and her intended killer subsequently discovered that she was already deceased. So the killer went ahead and planted clues suggesting culpability in the so-called Medusa murders, since it would serve his purposes.”

“I don’t believe it! I don’t think Janet would ever do away with herself!”

Doc said firmly, “Janet Falcon was distraught over the death of her fiancé. She consequently blamed herself for sending him to New York to his death.”

“That was not her fault!” snapped McLean. “That is the fault of the killer or killers!”

Doc nodded. “Precisely. The killer or killers are indirectly responsible for Miss Falcon’s suicide.”

This assertion seem to strike Malcolm McLean forcefully. So forcefully that he dropped his cigarette and took a backward step. He appeared momentarily incapable of speech.

Stepping on the smoking butt, the ashen chemist ground this into the carpet, fished out the cigarette pack and very carefully selected a replacement.

Lighting this, McLean resumed smoking even more furiously than before.

“This is a shock!” he said thinly. “I hardly know what to say.”

“A confession would be in order. For I entertained the suspicion that the weird Medusa who was caught in the coal mine cave-in was none other than yourself.”

Malcolm McLean declined to reply.

Doc continued, “There is reason to believe, however, that there was not one Gorgon, but three. Legend speaks of three Gorgon sisters. It follows therefore that there must be three modern editions of those Gorgons. You are but one. Inasmuch as you are complicit in the numerous Medusa slayings, the death of Janet Falcon lies at your feet as equally as it does those of your confederates.”

“You think you have everything figured out?” McLean sneered nastily. “Don’t you?”

“Not everything,” admitted the bronze man. “But you might fill in the gaps.”

A crafty look came into Malcolm McLean’s disguised eyes. “I imagine I have very little choice in the matter. Perhaps you can figure out why I slew Linden.”

“Because you believed he was the one who planted the incriminating suicide note, and therefore was directly responsible for Miss Falcon’s apparent murder.”

“In which you say I was mistaken.”

“Mistaken,” countered Doc Savage, “but not entirely so. For if Marvin Lucian Linden was one of the three Gorgons, Miss Falcon’s tragic fate rests on his guilty conscience, as well as yours.”

Malcolm McLean’s gristle-like lips writhed. He started laughing unexpectedly. An explosively ghoulish giggle erupted from deep within. It was entirely a nervous reaction, and not an expression of mirth or hilarity.

The laugh was terrible to hear, and Doc Savage for a moment suspected that the man’s mind had snapped.

Suddenly, there was an odor in the room that was different than the aromatic smell of burnt tobacco. It possessed the disagreeable stink of charcoal.

McLean evidently smelled this, yet he took a long drag on his cigarette, and suddenly blew a great cloud of smoke in Doc Savage’s direction.

Sealing his lips, clamping his nostrils shut with thumb and forefinger, the bronze man abruptly backpedaled. The door was behind him, and Doc got it open and slipped through before the cloud of smoke could reach him.

Outside, Doc rapped out, “Gas masks everyone!”

Monk, Ham and Long Tom reached into their coats and drew out their masks, donning them hastily.

Still holding his breath, the bronze man urged the trio down the corridor, and once they got clear, they listened.

Even through the closed door, the thud of a falling body came distinctly.

As a precaution, Doc Savage had drawn on his own gas mask, which consisted of a cuplike chemical filter covering mouth and nostrils.

Striding back to Janet Falcon’s room, the bronze giant used his coat to fan the smoky air around the closed door before he entered.

He shut the door behind him and was inside only a few minutes.

After he reappeared, Doc again sealed the door and rejoined his men, removing his chemical filter mask thoughtfully.

“Malcolm McLean is no more,” he told them. “The realization of the extent of his crimes in all of their ramifications caused him to resort to smoking a cigarette that was impregnated with the charcoal substance that calcifies human brains.”

“Daggone!” Monk exploded.

Ham mused, “That means there remains but one Gorgon left!”

“But which one is he?” wondered Long Tom.

“The answer to that question,” said Doc Savage, “might or might not be found in the collapsed coal mine.”

“Well,” exclaimed Monk, “what’re we waitin’ on? Let’s mosey!”

“Not just yet,” said Doc. “It may be that Dr. Rockwell can restore Malcolm McLean to life. If possible, it is worth taking the time to do so. The body of the Medusa in the coal mine is going nowhere. It can wait.”

Chapter XLV

ENVY

IN ORDER TO save precious time, Doc Savage carried the lifeless form of Malcolm McLean down to the hotel lobby while Ham Brooks summoned an ambulance from Mercy General Hospital by telephone. Monk and Long Tom accompanied the bronze giant.

Once they stepped into the lobby, the front-desk clerk spotted Monk and Ham, then noted Doc Savage who, while still in disguise, towered over his aides.

There were reporters loitering outside on the sidewalk, evidently herded there by combined efforts of the hotel detective and the doorman.

Monk grunted, “Want me to run them off, Doc?”

“It may be that they will not recognize me.”

This exchange caused the hotel clerk to step up and inquire, “Are you Doc Savage?”

Doc nodded. The clerk looked slightly perplexed, but maintained his professional aplomb.

“A message was left for you at the desk,” said the clerk, offering an envelope marked with the hotel crest. “The bellhop brought it down earlier in the day, at the request of the guest in Room 612.”

Doc laid down the body of Malcolm McLean on a chair and examined the envelope. It was addressed to Doc Savage. He opened it.

It was a letter, covering six sheets of hotel stationery. The bronze giant read this rapidly, and before he had turned to the second page, his trilling piped up, low and intrigued at first, but growing in crescendo, expressing a kind of satisfied wonderment.

“What is it?” asked Long Tom.

Strange storms played in the bronze man’s flake-gold eyes, denoting uncommon emotions. “Janet Falcon wrote this. We suspected that the suicide note found with her body was not genuine, but here is proof. This is the actual note. The handwriting is different. It is a full account of what she knew.”

“What does it say?” asked Monk.

“It is quite involved, but does not tell the complete story. We still have work to do before we wrap up this affair.”

Then the ambulance pulled up, bell clanging, and Doc Savage folded the missive and pocketed it.