RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Dime Mystery Magazine, September 1938, with "Factory For Death"
Marty Moore, crime-fighter extraordinary, and his partner, petite Sally Starr, had cracked some tough problems in their time; but for sheer gruesome horror and impenetrable mystery, they had never seen anything to equal the case of the world famous hospital whose patients were doomed to a fearful, bloody death—only after they were completely cured!
Why were those Malay servants guarding all doors with drawn pistols? What horrible things were going on inside?
DAVID GREER groaned in his sleep, stirred uneasily. His eyes slowly opened. The small, shaded night-light made his room into a thing of unfamiliar shadows. Shadows that seemed to crawl and slither over the walls. He blinked, heart hammering suffocatingly with the memory of the nightmare and reality of the pain.
The shapeless thing in white that filled the armchair near his bed rose, bent over him. "Anything wrong, Mr. Greer," it asked with solicitude.
The dry constriction of his throat eased. Awareness came to him. He was home, in his own bed, after fifteen days of hospitalization. This was Miss Andrews, the night nurse. He grimaced with relief, though his wasted body still trembled.
"I had a horrible dream," he whispered. "I thought I was being disemboweled." He sucked breath in sharply as pain stabbed his side.
The nurse smoothed his pillow with competent hand. "Doctor Braintree advised you not to leave the hospital so soon. The incision is only partly healed. I suppose your dream was induced by the knitting of the tissues."
Fear colored his burning eyes. "I couldn't stay there another night," he declared with unwonted energy. "It was getting me. I forced Braintree to sign my out card."
She stared at him, surprised. "I don't understand, Mr. Greer. The Sperry Hospital is small, but its reputation is excellent. Why, Ras Tekal, the Singapore millionaire, chose the Sperry for his operation. And he can get the best in the world for the asking."
Greer suppressed a shudder. "I know. Dr. Braintree operated on him the same day he cut me open. Maybe it was the sight of those Malay bodyguards of his always hanging around that gave me the creeps. But there was something else. I noticed it after I came out of the ether. Everyone's face was changed. As though something terrible had happened. The nurses cried when they thought I wasn't looking, and the interns were scared stiff. Braintree's hands shook when he changed my bandages. Those damned Malays prowled like cats in my room every time the nurse went out. I was afraid of being murdered in my bed. Why, damn it, before they finally let me out, a couple of tough-looking men searched me from head to toe, as though—"
The nurse pushed the excited man gently back on the pillow. "I don't know anything about that," she said soothingly. "I was sent up from an agency to take care of you here. But you're getting yourself into a state."
Another twinge of pain brought sweat to his brow. "You're right, nurse," he groaned. "I'm home now and everything's all right. Please get me a drink of water. My throat's dry."
She looked in the carafe. It was empty. "If you'll be good while I get a fresh supply," she said smilingly.
HE watched her starched skirts swish out of the room. Then there was silence, and the shadows seemed to crawl again. Almost he called her back; then tried to relax, calling himself a fool. What was there to be scared about? That damned hospital had made his nerves jumpy. Besides, the pantry and a nice iced drink were only some three rooms away, down the corridor.
The cool spring breeze fanned his cheek. It was grateful to his senses. Then he stiffened, and a chill raced through his veins. He had given specific instructions that the windows remain closed during the night. His quarters were air-conditioned. There had been no draft a moment before!
With infinite effort he started to turn his head. He had not heard the window opening; he had heard no sound in the short interval since the nurse had gone out, yet something filled his brain with paralyzing terror. Whatever it was that had haunted him in the hospital had caught up with him.
A man stood over him in the dimness. His body was a formless black, but his face glimmered ghastly within the splash of the night light. His right hand was hidden behind his back.
Surprise stunned Greer, shocked his vocal cords to a throaty whisper. "You!" he gasped. "What do you want of me...?"
His constricted throat muscles started to form a name, contracted to a gurgling scream.
Swift as a flash, the man's right hand darted out and down. Wavy steel glittered. The weapon lunged deep into the bowels of the sick man, turned and twisted with horrible dexterity. Greer's scream cut off in an ugly bubbling sound; then he fell back on the sheets in a drench of spurting blood.
The assassin, his face a mask of snarling triumph, jerked out the gory steel, plunged his hand unhesitatingly into the gaping wound, pawed furiously among tangled intestines and splashing blood.
The triumph died; gave way to savage incredulity. His fingers jerked frantically around the grisly mess. Outside, from the corridor, came the hurried clicking of high heels on polished floor.
With an oath the murderer withdrew his dripping hand, sped like a shadow to the open window, and vanished noiselessly into the night.
Panting, Miss Andrews hurried into the room. In her hand she carried a carafe of clear, cold water. "Sorry, Mr. Greer," she apologized breathlessly, "but I had a time getting a light in the pantry. The switch didn't work."
Then her eyes fell upon the bloody horror that once was a man upon the bed. Beyond, a trail of red splashed guiltily to the window where incarnadined curtains bellied in the breeze.
The goblet fell from her hand, smashed into a myriad fragments. A piercing cry ripped from her throat. Miss Andrews, graduate nurse, slipped limply to the floor. She had fainted.
MARTY MOORE whistled a few cheery bars as he went up the marble steps of the Sperry Hospital two at a time. Even the flaunting morning paper, thrust into his hands as he had hurried from the transcontinental plane at the Newark Airport, had not dimmed his abundant spirits. So David Greer, Wall Street broker, had been murdered under particularly fiendish circumstances. What of it? It wasn't his funeral. Let the New York police worry about it. He had earned a vacation.
For one thing, his three-week sojourn in Frisco had borne substantial fruit. Four men lay on cold marble slabs, each with a neat bullet hole drilled between his eyes. And as a result, frozen corpses no longer rained out of the skies to splinter into chunks of icy flesh upon the public squares of the Western metropolis.
For another, Sally Starr was due to emerge from the hospital today as trim and capable as ever. His grey eyes, frosty as a wintry sky, softened at the thought of her. Sally was a swell kid; the best assistant he had ever had. Never traded on her good looks, nor on the fact that her family moved among the Four Hundred. Stood on her own feet, asked no favors and could exchange bullets with the best of them. No wonder it had taken him an extra week to solve the Frozen Corpse Mystery when he heard that she was in the hospital with a sudden attack of appendicitis.
But at the hospital door his whistle died. Three men barred the entrance with bulky shoulders and forbidding glances. Two were recognizable as husky orderlies, but the third brought a shock of unpleasant surprise to the detective's senses. He was tall and muscular and of a coffee color. His mahogany face was scarred with a dozen knife slashes and his left eye drooped malignantly. There was arrogance in his eyes and evil in his countenance. His brown hand hovered significantly under the skirt of his strange sarong.
A Malay, Marty swore under his breath! What the devil was a Malay doing in the Sperry Hospital? But even as a newspaper item flashed into his mind— Ras Tekul, Singapore nabob, undergoes operation— one of the orderlies stepped nimbly in his path. "Hey you? Where you going?"
"Into the hospital, my dear man," Marty grinned. "Not, as you might have thought, to a fire."
"A wise guy!" snorted the guard. "Well, wise guy, you can't get in. No one allowed without a pass, see?"
"But there's a girl in there, a patient," Marty explained patiently. "Her name's Miss Sally Starr. She's going home today. I'm taking her."
"No can do," growled the other orderly. "You meet her outside. Them's the orders."
"Tighter than a bank," nodded Marty. "Funny doings for a hospital. But if you'll take my card in—"
He fished one out, offered the first orderly the pasteboard. The guard looked at it casually; looked at it again. "'Marty Moore'" he read. "'Private Investigation.' "
"Nix!" he scowled in alarm. "No dicks allowed. Them's special orders. Scram, and this time I mean scram!"
Marty noted the tenseness that gripped them; the way hate blazed into the Malay's eyes as his brown fingers dug deeper into the folds of his sarong.
Deftly Marty snatched back his card, opened his billfold, extracted another bit of pasteboard with a cluck of apology. "My mistake, gentlemen," he murmured. "I gave you my cousin's card. Here's mine."
The second guard took it suspiciously, read aloud: " 'M. Sylvester Moore, M.D. Specialist in Euthanasia.' "
His change of attitude was almost ludicrous. "I'm sorry, Doctor," he mumbled obsequiously. But you know how orders is. Go right in, Doctor."
MARTY waved his hand airily. "Quite all right!" and strode into the marble corridor, grinning, yet with a certain prickling anticipation to his nerves. Why were unauthorized visitors barred from the hospital? Why were the orderlies armed, and that wicked-looking Malay standing guard? What was wrong inside the Sperry Hospital? His scalp tightened. If anything had happened to Sally...
The first orderly scratched his head, looked back after the broad, retreating back. "Almost put our foot into it, calling him a dick. Must be some big specialist that we shoulda known."
The second one continued to stare at the card. "Yeah! What's this euthanasia, anyhow?"
"Search me. But here comes Doc Hassey. He oughta know. Hi there, Doc."
A young interne turned, came hurrying. His face was pinched with anxiety; he glanced with a curious lurking terror at the immobile Malay.
"What's up, Joe?"
"Look. We almost gave some big shot the bum's rush. Here's his card. What's this here now euthanasia?"
Dr. Hassey snatched the card. His face grew even more pinched. He swung wrathfully. "You damn fools!" he cried in a cracked voice. "Now you've gone and done it."
They gave way before his anger. "Done what?"
"Let a detective into the hospital. Against the Chief's strictest orders." He groaned. "Now everything will go haywire. We're cooked."
"But, Doc," expostulated Joe. "He ain't a detective; that's his cousin you're thinking of. This bird's an M. D."
Hassey withered him with a look. "Sure he's an M. D.—graduated from John Hopkins with a brilliant record, and he's got a license to practice, too. But medicine was too boring for him; he wanted adventure. He's been all over the world, hunted big game—now he hunts criminals. Claims it's the most thrilling sport of all." Fear moistened the intern's lips. "Everybody's heard of Marty Moore but you. Don't you clucks ever read anything besides the sporting page?"
"But he's a specialist," gasped the orderly, seizing at a straw. "How could a dick be a specialist in this—uh—euthanasia?"
Hassey wagged his head with contemptuous gesture. "This one can. Do you dunderheads know what it means?"
"No."
"Euthanasia is Greek—for a painless, easy death. That's Moore's sense of humor. He sends his man to hell painless and easy—gets him with a single bullet planted square between the eyes. But here, I'm wasting time. I've got to get hold of Dr. Hale, the Chief, and see if he can't do something about this."
THE outgoing room of the Sperry Hospital was the last of a long series of chastely ornate executive offices. Marty hastened his pace. There was an air of deathly quiet, of ominous brooding about the hospital that he didn't like. All doors were shut, and the corridor echoed with his solitary footfalls.
He had broken into a half-run when the last door opened violently, and a man in a grey sack suit, sporting a trim grey mustache and professional-looking pince-nez hurried out. He seemed angry—and scared. The muscles in his jaw worked convulsively, and two spots of dull red on his cheekbones relieved the pasty pallor of his complexion.
He whirled back at the door, flung his voice at the hidden occupants. "I'm warning you all for the last time. It's not good for you to leave the hospital now. It's—uh—dangerous for your health." There was a peculiar intonation to that last phrase which struck harshly on Marty's sensitive ears.
From inside came an answering voice—slurred, alien, yet tinged with an oily smoothness. "You've kept me here long enough, Doctor. I am a very sick man, and I am getting worse. I shall do better by myself—outside." Again to Marty's attuned ears came a vague, subtle hint of threat.
Dr. Edward Braintree made a little hopeless sound in his throat, spun away, almost to fall over the detective. He started back at the sight of him, eyes wide with an indefinable fear. "Moore!" he gasped.
"Himself, in person," Marty retorted grimly. They had met on several occasions before in the course of the detective's professional investigations. Marty caught hold of Braintree's trembling arm. "What's the matter with you, Doctor? You seem jittery. Where's Sally—Miss Starr?"
Braintree gulped. With obvious effort he pulled himself together. Once more he was the eminent surgeon, the man of precision. "I'm glad you came, Moore," he said rapidly, "even though I don't know how the devil you got in. Perhaps you have more influence over that stubborn girl than I have. It is absolutely vital that she remain another week in the hospital under supervision, yet she insists on going out today."
"Don't you believe him, Marty darling," came a clear, fresh voice. "I'm as fit as ever, and tickled to death to be back on the job again. I wouldn't stay in this place another minute."
The detective whirled, grey eyes glinting with relief. "Sally! I was worried." They shook hands like men, her firm flesh cool, yet tingling to the touch. She was good to look at; trimly turned out in a tailored walking suit, rebellious chestnut curls tucked under a rakish hat, deep blue eyes impish, yet now clouded with a strange seriousness.
"Oh, the operation?" She dismissed it lightly with a wave of her hand. "Dr. Braintree fixed that up in a jiffy. Everything clean, neat as a pin."
"Then why is it necessary for her to stay on?"
The surgeon rubbed his hands nervously, avoided their eyes. There—there are complications," he answered vaguely.
"Look!" Marty told him with cold directness. "You forget that I'm also a doctor, besides being something of a detective. An appendectomy, without rupture or septicemia, requires no more than ten to twelve days of hospitalization. This is the sixteenth day."
Braintree stared at them imploringly, lowered his voice. His face was ashen. "Please don't ask me any questions. Please believe me, that Miss Starr is safe as long as she is in the hospital."
"Meaning she's not safe, outside?"
"Yes."
"Poppycock!" Sally burst out inelegantly. Her eyes snapped angrily. "The danger is inside, Marty. There've been queer goings-on. On the very day of my operation, something went haywire. Nurses, doctors, staff, all have gone around since looking as if they've seen ghosts. We've been under practical quarantine all the time. No visitors, searched inside and out several times a day under pretence of changing our bedding. Why, just a few hours ago, a husky matron insisted on fine-combing all my clothes, every part of me. Swore it was routine before they'd let me out."
Marty's voice was dangerously edged. "You know as well as I do, Doctor, what it means to hold people prisoners against their will. Come clean; what's up? Let's have it!"
DR. BRAINTREE straightened. He made a dignified figure. "She is no prisoner," he said formally. "She is free to go. But let me tell you both—she is as good as dead once she sets foot outside this hospital. I'm warning her for her own sake. Good day to you both."
With that he moved quickly away from them, disappeared into an office a few steps down the corridor.
Marty yelled: "Hey!" but it was too late. He swung on the girl, pulses hammering queerly. "What the devil was that, Sally? A threat?"
"I don't think so, Marty," she said steadily. "I think he's really trying to warn me."
"Against what?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. Ever since I could sit up in bed I've been trying to find out. But not a soul will talk."
The detective stroked his chin. He tried hard to keep his voice casual. "Perhaps you'd better stay a while then, Sally. I'd hate to see you bumped off now. Just as I'm breaking you in."
The imps danced in her eyes again. "That'll rate a raise in salary, Marty. Seriously, though, Braintree is right. The next move in this game is coming outside." She shrugged shapely shoulders. "I ought to make good bait."
The detective's violent retort died on his lips. The door through which Braintree had disappeared opened suddenly, and a tall, white-haired man, immaculately dressed in frock coat, pearl-grey trousers and spats, came out hastily. Hoarse anger thickened his voice as he almost pounced upon Marty. "This is an outrage, sir. How did you get in? I gave strict orders that no detective—"
"Take it easy Dr. Hale," the young man advised with a grin. "I am Doctor Moore. Perhaps you don't recognize me. You offered me a place on your staff once."
The hospital director stared at him unhappily. He looked harried, nervous. "Oh yes, I remember now. And I've heard something of your silly career as a detective since. But you'll have to get out."
"Of course! But first why not let me help you? It's my business, you know."
Dr. Hale glared. "Never! It would mean—that is, there's nothing wrong, young man." He almost pushed them into the outgoing room. "Everything all right?" he asked a stolid looking orderly.
The orderly nodded. "Everyone here's okay. Ready to go."
There were others in the room. But the man who focused Marty's whole attention was fat and pursy, dark brown of face, with small, beady little eyes that darted inscrutably from side to side. A glossy black mustache trembled pendulously on his lip. His paunch was still mountainous, though obviously somewhat shrunken from an original staggering girth. A huge emerald of fabulous size glowed brilliantly on a dark-brown finger. A blood-red ruby, worth a king's ransom, blazed on the starched white surface of his shirt. Two Malays, grim, silent, dressed in their native sarongs, flanked him on either side.
"I was not satisfied with your hospital, dear Dr. Hale," purred Ras Tekul. "I was promised certain treatment. I did not get it."
Hale shivered. "We could not help ourselves," he answered placatingly. "We have still hopes. If you would only wait—"
The Malay nabob arose. "I have enemies," he said tonelessly. "They wish me to die. You know my sickness. I think," his honeyed syllables dripped venom, "there is a connection. Goodbye."
Something sinister went with them as the three dark-skinned men glided with feline steps out of the room, down the marble corridor, and out the front door.
A nondescript little man with pale watery eyes, thin sandy hair, and a prominent Adam's apple that bobbed nervously as he talked, rose as if to follow. "Can I go now, Dr. Hale?"
The director nodded distractedly. "Just a moment, Mr. Wilmot. I'll give you a pass. Let me see, you had an intestinal resection?"
"Yes, Doctor," the little man answered eagerly. "And Dr. Braintree says I'm in swell shape, though he wants me stay on for some strange reason of his own." Wilmot shuddered. "I won't stay another day, so help me. Sixteen days was long enough. This place fair gives me the creeps. Can't stand it any longer."
HALE's eyes narrowed. Almost to himself he repeated. "So Dr. Braintree wanted you to stay, eh?" Then he swung harshly on two other men in the room. "What do you men want here? You were discharged yesterday, both of you. How did you get in again?"
A lank, cadaverous-looking man stumbled to his feet. His straight, coarse black hair fell in a mop over his eyes. His cheekbones were hollow; his voice a throaty whisper. His eyes were like burning coals. "I'm Daniel Devoe," he said, holding his side with a grimace. "You remember, Dr. Braintree operated on me for a fistula on March twenty-second. He asked me to come back today for a look-see."
"Why, that's the same day I went under the knife, too," Sally said softly.
Marty nodded, said nothing. But his brain was clicking furiously. All of these men, as well as Sally, had been operated on the same day by Braintree. An item in that hasty glance at the morning paper blazed now in his mind. David Greer, the man who had been fiendishly murdered in his bed the night before, had also been a patient of Braintree's; had had his gall bladder removed in this very hospital on that very day! What, if anything, was the connection?
Hale recovered his poise. Devoe was a prominent man. He dabbled in mines and oil wells. His rating in Wall Street was triple-A. "I'm sorry, Mr. Devoe," the director said apologetically. "I didn't recognize you. But Dr. Braintree is very busy just now. Perhaps I could get him to visit you at your home."
Devoe shook his head in the negative. "I expect to leave town by night."
"And I want to see him, too," growled the last man in the room. He was of medium height, heavy of face, heavy of neck. He was dressed in a loud-checked, expensive suit. His hair was sleekly pomaded; his eyes were crafty. His thin lips were bloodless, tight.
Marty said: "Hello, Jigger. I thought they got you for keeps last month."
Jigger Molloy turned with slow insolence. "Well, if it ain't Marty Moore, the boy detective, and his pal, Sally!" he sneered. "It takes more'n a bullet in the guts to stop me. Y'oughta know that."
Marty's eyes were inscrutable. "The racket will never be the same when you finally go up the river for a long stretch, Jigger. But I'll bet Dr. Braintree extracted that bullet on March twenty-second, didn't he?"
Molloy's thin lips snarled. "What's it to you, flatfoot, if it was?" He turned swiftly to Dr. Hale. "I gotta see him now. It's important."
Hale viewed him with smoldering eyes. "He can't be seen, Mr. Molloy. Now will all of you please leave."
Molloy went out first, thrusting a malignant glance around the room. "He'll see me, sooner'n he expects," he said viciously. Then he was gone. Marty nodded to himself, eyes bright. Jigger Molloy headed the numbers racket. Big-time stuff, with plenty of political protection. A rival had tried to chop him down, had almost succeeded. What had he meant by that last crack?
"Can you get to your car alone, Mr. Devoe?" Hale asked solicitously. The oil man managed a smile. "I think so," he said. "I get a pain now and then, that's all. Tell Braintree I'll see him at my office not later than three this afternoon. I've got to catch the six o'clock plane for Denver. He knows the address."
"Okay for me to go?" Hugh Wilmot, the nondescript little man, asked eagerly. He had been wandering in seeming agitation around the room; his Adam's apple had not left off its convulsive bobbing.
Hale wrote him a pass, gave it to him.
The man grabbed it eagerly; walked rapidly out.
Sally's eyes followed him thoughtfully. "He seemed in a mighty hurry," she observed.
"And here's your pass also, Miss Starr," the Superintendent said quickly. "Now if you'll take Mr.—er—Dr. Moore, perhaps I should say—along with you, I'd be very happy."
BUT Marty did not stir. "Are you in the habit of leaving your files open?" he asked quietly.
"Eh, what's that?"
The detective pointed to a steel file across the room. The top drawer was open, and a wide gap intervened between two series of cards.
"I think you'll find, Dr. Hale," he continued evenly, "that a certain set of records were just taken out. The case histories of operations performed by Dr. Braintree on March twenty-second of this year. Am I right?"
Hale went deathly pale; rushed to the file; leafed through the surrounding cards. He swung around with a groan. "You're right, Moore. They're gone."
Something tightened around Marty's heart. "I had a suspicion it was like that. Someone who was in this room within the last ten minutes sneaked them into his pocket. What the reason is I don't know; but I can guess this—everyone whose name is on those cards is marked for a horrible death."
The girl's face drained of its color. Her lips found difficulty in forming words. "Marty," she whispered, "my name—was on that list."
Hale pulled himself together. "You're crazy, Moore," he rasped.
"Not at all. If you saw the papers this morning, you must have read about Greer's murder. He was operated on by Dr. Braintree in this hospital on the twenty-second."
"Sheer coincidence!"
Marty shrugged. "Maybe; but I don't think so. What happened here on that day?"
Hale fell back "Nothing!" he declared agitatedly. "Nothing that could have the slightest relation to Greer's death. Now get out!"
"Okay; suit yourself," Marty said with a grimace. "But if there are any more murders, they'll be on your conscience. Come on, Sally."
Outside, in the brilliant sunshine, Marty asked with solicitude. "Feel all right, gorgeous? We'll take a cab."
She laughed tightly. "I feel swell, and no cab. I haven't used my legs in ages. But what were you getting at, Marty? Did you believe that stuff you handed Hale?"
He grinned. "Some; not all. I tried to scare the truth out of him, but he wouldn't scare that much. Perhaps I laid it on too thick. Anyway—"
They were just rounding the corner when they heard the sound. It was like no human sound that either of them had ever heard before. A thin, gurgling noise, as though steam were hissing through rusty pipes, forcing its way through some syrupy liquid. But before it had come, there had been a single shrill scream of agony—that of a man, tortured beyond all endurance.
"Listen to that, Marty," gasped Sally, and started to run toward the unearthly sound. Her slender fingers tugged at her bag as she ran; snatched out a small but efficient-looking automatic.
Marty sprinted ahead of her, police automatic swinging in clenched hand. "Keep out of this," he cried.
"Nothing doing," she retorted, putting on extra speed. "The old firm of Moore and Starr is still doing business together." The color flamed in her cheeks; her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
No one was on the street. It was a backwater of old brownstone fronts, close to the river. Most of them were vacant, with For Sale signs covering their emptiness.
They found the man inside a dark, musty hallway. He was still twitching in terrible agony.
"Good Lord!" groaned Marty, swinging his flash around. He felt sick.
"Oh!" whispered the girl faintly, and held blindly to the wall for support.
THE man lay on his back in a welter of blood. His twitchings had ceased. He was mercifully dead. His abdomen was slashed open in a wide gaping wound; around and around in a single turning slash. And all about the dirt-encrusted stone tile and dusty wooden wainscoting were splashes and smears of crimson gore.
"Like—like a butcher cleaning out a chicken!" Sally gulped. "Who is he?"
The flash held steady on the nondescript face, the prominent Adam's apple, the staring watery eyes, now fixed in the frozen terror of a hideous death.
"Wilmot!" Little knots writhed under Marty's skin. "Slaughtered exactly the way Greer was. My blind hunch was right. Stand guard, Sally, while I hunt for the murderer."
He raced down the musty hallway, gun ready, flash lighting up the accumulated rubbish, the empty boxes of long vacancy. He swung through room after room, stared out at the small yard behind with rickety fences that separated a labyrinth of similar yards from each other. Given a head start, the assassin by this time must have emerged on any one of three circumscribing streets, and lost himself to pursuit.
But even as he stared, Sally screamed behind him. "Help! Marty! Help!" Gunfire spat viciously—once. Sobbing breath and trampling feet echoed in the dusty corridor.
With a curse Marty spun around, catapulted through the darkness. "Hold tight, Sally, I'm coming!" God! If anything happened to her because of his stupidity!
In the outer hall he caught sight of two rim figures. The slender shape of the girl struggling in the locked embrace of a shadowy form. A hand was raised, and in it glinted a curious wave of steel. Sally's fingers clutched desperately at the upraised wrist, staving off that last downward plunge.
Marty dared not shoot. In those close quarters he could not hope to avoid the girl.
"Hold him, Sally!" he yelled, and hurtled forward.
An answering snarl leaped out the darkness. The shadowy figure thrust Sally from him with a sweep of his arm. She sprawled in a wide arc, collided with the onrushing detective. Both went down in a heap. Marty grunted, the breath knocked out of him. He disengaged himself, leaped to his feet, and dashed forward again.
But the hallway was empty now, except for themselves and the unmoving ghastliness that had once been Hugh Wilmot. The murderer was gone.
Marty raced to the outer door, blinked in the blinding sunshine up and down the street. There was no sight of anyone. The man could have darted into anyone of a number of houses, all abandoned, and escaped through the back yards.
He ran back to the girl. "I should never have left you alone," he said remorsefully. "Are you hurt?"
She rose shakily to her feet. "N-no. Just the wind knocked out of me."
"But where was he hiding?"
A little shiver coursed through her. "In there!" She pointed to the wide-open door of a wardrobe closet in the hall. It had been closed when they first entered. "He had been hiding all the time we were examining the corpse. Then when you ran to the back he leaped out at me. I whirled barely in time. I shot as I swung, but the bullet went wild. The next moment the gun was knocked out of my hand, and he had caught me."
"Thank heavens you held him off!"
She stared at him queerly. The flush had died from her cheeks, leaving her deathly pale. "Marty," she said with slow emphasis; "I didn't. He could have killed me a dozen times. Marty—he was trying to rip open my stomach with that wicked knife of his; nothing else. I clung close to him; that was the only thing that saved me."
THE young detective felt cold all over. "You're marked for death," he whispered. "The same as Greer and Wilmot. The assassin must have known we were leaving the hospital; perhaps he had held Wilmot in here as a prisoner until we came. Perhaps he let him scream once before he killed him so as to attract our attention. He even braved the risk of capture in that closet instead of making good his escape, so as to get you. But why? And why must he kill his victims in that particularly fiendish way—and no other?"
Sally stood close to him. There was fear in her eyes. "Marty," she whispered, "this is the first time in my life I've been scared. I don't mind facing death; but not such a death as this."
The detective's eyes were hard and bright as he replied, "There is only one man who knows all the answers."
"And that is—?"
"Dr. Edward Braintree. I'm going to force them out of him, even if I have to use my gun as a persuader." He bent rapidly, retrieved the dropped flashlight, Sally's automatic, and searched expertly through Wilmot's pockets. He found nothing but the usual wallet, identification cards, some private letters. "If it was Wilmot who stole the case histories," he said, straightening up, "the man who killed him has already got them."
"One thing more," Sally said quietly. "That knife that he tried to use on me was wavy, like a—"
"I know," Marty nodded. "I surmised as much when I saw the wound it made. It was a Malay kris!"
They left the body where it lay. A phone call from the corner drugstore to Headquarters would bring a prowl car post-haste. They could not afford to waste precious moments in futile police interrogations now. Sally's life, the lives of others, depended on split-second movements.
At the hospital the two orderlies still held guard. But the Malay who had stood with them was gone.
"Wise guy, huh?" gritted the huskier one at the sight of Marty. "Specialist in euthanasia! Scram! You can't work that gag twice on me."
Marty grinned, then his face hardened. "Never mind that now. You tell Dr. Braintree that I want to see him at once. Its life and death, do you hear?"
The guard eyed him distrustfully. "More gags, huh? Well, you can't see him."
"Why not?"
"Because he left here ten minutes ago."
"Where'd he go?"
"No reason for us to tell you!"
Marty pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off two ten spots, slipped them into their hands. "Here're two good reasons."
"Now you're talking," agreed the second orderly heartily. "There was a car waiting for him. A closed car—some foreign make. It went off like a bat in hell as soon as he got in. One of these Malay guys was driving. I heard him say, as he got in: "Devoe's office—in a hurry!"
Marty whirled even before the orderly had finished speaking. "Come on, Sally," he cried.
She ran after him down the broad marble steps. Not until they were in a cab, jerking around the corner on two wheels, did she ask questions. "So it was Braintree all the time, in cahoots with Ras Tekul! I suspected that coffee-colored gentleman from the start."
Marty stared grimly ahead. "I still don't know," he said, as the cab slid in and out of traffic. "Either they're on their way to slice open Devoe, like the others; or to warn him against the real assassin."
"In which case it might be our old friend, Jigger Molloy... Wait a moment, Marty! I thought we were going to Devoe's place. That's on Water Street. The cab's turning the wrong way!"
Marty nodded abstractedly. "I told him to drop us at our office first."
"You're crazy, darling," she protested. "Devoe's life hangs on a thread."
"It'll have to hang," he retorted. "I've got to look up something."
SHE sank back in her seat. When Marty's eyes got that far-away look, when the little muscles crawled in his jaw, there was no use questioning him. He was on the trail of something, and he wouldn't talk.
They pulled up with screaming brakes in front of the tall office building on Broadway. "Wait here for us," Marty told the cabby; and they dashed out. Up the elevator, hurrying down the corridor of the twentieth floor, to a door which said simply: Marty Moore.
The door was locked. Marty had been in Frisco; Sally in the hospital. Their business required no help. A swift turn of the key, and they were inside. The air was close, the windows tight. No one had been in for three weeks.
But Marty was already at a pile of neatly stacked magazines, leafing through them in desperate haste, one after the other. Sally glanced over his shoulder. The Journal of American Medicine. Now what the devil! A man was on the verge of being murdered, and Marty was reading medical journals! Being a wise young lady, however, and especially wise to the ways of Marty Moore, she held her peace.
At the seventh copy, the detective sucked in his breath suddenly, and read on with feverish intensity.
The girl was bursting with impatience. "Well, what did you find?" she cried at last.
He shut the magazine with a snap, tossed it on the desk. His eyes burned on his assistant. She read horror, fear, overwhelming pity in their gaze. Her knees felt weak. An answering terror awoke in her. "Marty!" she repeated faintly. "What did you find? Something to do with me?"
The young man averted his gaze. His face was the color of ashes. "Heaven forbid it should be you!" he prayed. "I've—found the answers. They're incredible. We've got to get to Devoe's office, before it's too late."
He caught her arm as she reached quickly for the magazine he had just read. "None of that!" he said harshly. "You'd better not know—until I make sure."
Little maggots of terror crawled in her brain. It had something to do with her; something so frightening that it completely upset the ordinarily imperturbable young man who was technically her boss. Then she straightened in his grip. "Let's go, Marty," she said quietly. "I'll wait for the answers."
Daniel Devoe had his office on the river front. It was a queer place for a man of his interests. The building was a ramshackle two-story affair, dating from the early clipper trade of New York. Its windows were shaded with drawn blinds; an odor of tar and sea-bilge pervaded its front.
As the taxi swung around the corner into the cobblestoned street, Marty caught a glimpse of an expensive Mercedes hidden in a neighboring alley. Its motor was idling softly, and a scarred Malay sat patiently behind the wheel.
"Maybe we're still in time," he said between his teeth as he flung a bill to the driver, catapulted from the cab to the sidewalk in front of Devoe's establishment. "Braintree and Tekul are still inside."
Sally quietly eased her automatic into the palm of her hand. "The door's locked," she said. Marty put his shoulder to the wood, heaved. The worm-eaten fabric burst open with a groan of rusty locks. Guns held ready, they pushed into semi-darkness.
Even in the gloom they could see that the place belied its exterior. It was richly fitted out with mahogany desks, deep leather chairs, rows of green steel files, a thick-piled broadloom underneath. But it was empty.
"They got him already," Marty groaned.
"Ssh!" the girl warned him. "I hear voices—overhead." Straining, the detective heard the muffled murmur. In the rear, a door yawned into blackness.
"Okay!" he whispered. "There must be stairs. I'll go first. You follow."
"Right!"
STEALTHILY they went up the narrow flight, alert for any sign that they were discovered. The upper door was slightly ajar. Yellow light flowed through the slit, and voices rose sharply. Then a shrill cry of fear: "Don't do that! For God's sake. Don't do that!"
The voice of Daniel Devoe, pleading, crying out vainly against a terrible death.
Marty covered the last three steps in a single bound, slammed open the door, said in a voice of thunder: "Freeze in your tracks, every one of you." Sally stood right at his shoulder, her businesslike weapon steady as a rock in her small but capable hand.
The long room into which they had burst was a warehouse, filled with drums of oil, of mineral specimens. A portable rock crusher stood to one side; other bits of apparatus used in mining operations and oil-drilling filled the rear.
But in front, spotlighted under an overhead reflector, was a ghoulish scene. Spread-eagled on the floor, held tight by a brawny Malay, lay the writhing figure of Daniel Devoe. His coarse black hair was plastered with sweat, an awful terror burned in his sunken eyes. Directly over him poised another Malay, brown arm uplifted. A wicked-looking kris, undulating like a snake, was gripped in his hand, ready to plunge deep into the victim's bowels. Ras Tekul, his paunch billowing before him, sat in a leather armchair, watching the proceedings with alertly avid eyes. Dr. Edward Braintree, eminent and respected surgeon, stood to one side. His hands clenched convulsively, his grey mustache bristled, a strange, half-insane grimace made something bestial of his face.
For a split second the tableau froze at Marty's command. Ras Tekul cowered in his chair. His dark-brown face turned sallow. Dr. Braintree whirled. His mouth sagged. "The detective! I should have known. Damn you!" he screamed suddenly. "Keep out of this."
"Help me, Moore!" choked the outstretched man. "Shoot them down. I'll give you—"
"Look out!" cried Sally sharply. The surgeon's face was wholly insane now. His hand had clawed toward his back pocket; flashed out with blue steel. Simultaneously, the Malay had sprung, whirling his deadly knife. The kris whizzed through the air. Three guns roared in unison.
Marty felt the whistle of the snaky weapon past his ear; felt the tug of a bullet through his coat. But the Malay flung his hands upward, collapsed in a quivering heap, shot through the heart by Sally's gun. A dark hole appeared as if by magic between Dr. Braintree's eyes. His mouth opened wide, as if in surprise. Then he slid quietly to the floor, dead.
"Tsk! tsk!" clucked Marty reprovingly. "I'm afraid your technique will never improve, my dear. Between the eyes—that's where a bullet is most effective—and merciful. They never know what hit them."
"There's no pleasing you, darling," Sally cried indignantly.
"Thanks!" Devoe gasped, coming shakily to his feet. "If it hadn't been for you, I'd have been a goner. Watch those two birds while I get to a phone for the police."
As he started for the rear, Ras Tekul awoke out of his stupor. The Malay who had held Devoe, crouched near him, silent, impassive under the threatening guns of the firm of Moore and Starr.
"Wait!" yelled the nabob. "Don't let him go, Mr. Moore. I'll tell you everything—"
"HOLD it!" spoke up a new voice. "All of you. That means you, boy detective!" as Marty started to swing. "And you too, Devoe. Don't try to move toward the back, or I'll drill you. I'm taking a hand in this game."
Jigger Molloy moved carefully into the room, backed against the wall where he could command an unobstructed view of them all. A sawed-off shotgun was cradled in his arm; his finger hung on the trigger. A look of triumph smeared his patent-leather face as the automatics clattered to the floor.
"So we're all here," he chuckled. His glance flicked at the dead surgeon. "Including Braintree. I was going to get the truth out of him; now it's too late. But you others will do as well."
"I don't know what you mean, Jigger," Marty said calmly.
"Don't act dumb. I thought you was wise; that's why I followed you around." He whirled on them all viciously. "Come clean! Which of you birds got the radium?"
"Radium?" echoed Sally faintly.
"Yeah! The radium what's worth half a million smackers. I been reading the back papers since I got out of the hospital yesterday. I kinda wondered what all the fuss was about in the Sperry joint; why everybody was searching all the time. I found out. A coupla months ago half a dozen different places loaned Sperry all their supply—five grams. For special research, said the papers. The largest amount in one place in the world. It's supposed to be returned next week. But it disappeared. And this guy Braintree had the handling of it."
"So it was you all the time, Jigger," Marty broke in evenly. "You killed Greer and Wilmot and almost succeeded with Miss Starr. But you didn't find what you went after, did you?"
"Don't try to pin any murders on me, flatfoot," snarled Jigger, showing his teeth.
Devoe shook his damp hair out of his eyes. "Molloy's right, Mr. Moore. It was Braintree who cooked up everything, and that yellow-livered skunk over there. I know these Malays. I'll bet Tekul has the stuff in his pocket right now."
Jigger growled: "All right, yaller boy. Give up, if you want to see Singapore again."
The nabob's mouth opened and closed tight. His black-button eyes flared; his skin was pasty. He shook his head defiantly.
Molloy leaned against the rock crusher to steady his sawed-off shotgun. His face was that of a killer. The squat muzzle pointed directly toward the fat paunch of the Malay.
"You're asking for it," he said viciously. "When I count three—"
Marty balanced on his toes, seeking an opening. Sally screamed: "Don't you dare!"
"One—two—"
The sweat beaded on Tekul's dark countenance. "I'll talk," he broke down. "I'll tell—"
In that instant Devoe moved his foot slightly. Something buzzed. The two jaws of the crusher clamped shut with a clang of steel. Jigger shrieked in wild agony. There was a sickening sound of crunching bones. The shotgun banged to the floor. Like an impaled butterfly Molloy dangled helplessly from the crusher, his arm caught in the terrible vise.
MARTY stooped surreptitiously, snatched up a shiny object near his feet, cradled it in the hollow of his big hand. In the excitement no one had seen his movement.
"Good work, Devoe!" he approved. "You got him just in time. You can set him free now. He'll need some mighty good surgery instead of the radium."
But Daniel Devoe, operator in mines and oil wells, had reached quickly behind him to an open drawer in the desk against which he was standing; whipped his hand forward again. A Colt forty-five snouted unpleasantly in his clenched fingers.
"Not so fast," he snapped, and there was a cold malignity in his tones. "I'm the boss around here now."
"So you are," Marty agreed smoothly. "I still say, no matter what his crimes, Molloy shouldn't be tortured like that." The racketeer's face was a sickly green; his moans were growing fainter and fainter.
"Let him hang there a while," Devoe said contemptuously. "It'll do him good." His gun swung over the others; his eyes held a mad, cunning light in them. "That louse Braintree tried to double-cross me. Gave me a bum steer; told me Greer had the stuff." He whirled on Ras Tekul. "I suppose you jacked up the ante to dish me out, didn't you? I was going to split the proceeds with him."
The Malay millionaire stared at him with inscrutable eyes. "I offered him," he said with precise accents, "three-quarters of a million; more than it was worth. He told me you blackmailed him into his crime. You had evidence of certain illegal operations he had committed when he was younger; you threatened him with exposure if he refused."
Devoe laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. "Sure I did. And I had the affidavits right here, where he couldn't lay his hands on them until I got mine. I was taking no chances of his giving me an overdose of ether. I got the idea when I heard of that radium. I could have sold the stuff abroad. I needed that half a million bad. The Federal guys are beginning to look into some phony mines I sold stock on. With that dough I could skip and have plenty."
"Then you wouldn't have split with Braintree?" Marty asked curiously.
"Of course not. That was the come-on. He'd have been damn glad to get just those affidavits."
The detective seemed a motionless statue under the threatening gun. "Why did you want that radium so badly, Ras Tekul?" he asked quietly.
The nabob's face seemed to shrink. "I have an abdominal cancer," he whispered in hopeless despair. "Every other specialist told me it is incurable. But Dr. Braintree, after he performed an exploratory, felt positive that an insertion of five grams of radium would shrink it to surgical limits. Only the Sperry Hospital had that much in all the world. Then it disappeared. I went almost crazy. Only this afternoon he came to me. He told me the whole story. Now that Devoe had killed the man who was supposed to have had the radium sewn into his insides, he knew he had been double-crossed. Braintree felt that his own life was in danger, and came to me for help. It had not been part of the arrangement to murder the actual holder. There was another, simpler way. But Devoe had started his butcheries to get the radium for himself. We came here to put a stop to more murders—and to recover the radium."
"I've had enough of talk," snarled the mining man. "To show you I'm a good guy, Tekul, I'm going to sell you that radium—for a million smackers, on the nail."
The Malay looked at him with veiled eyes. "So you know where it is?"
"Sure!" Devoe's chuckle was grim. "Process of elimination, that's all. I searched Greer; he didn't have it. I got Wilmot next; and he's out." He jerked his thumb toward Tekul. "You haven't got it, or Braintree would have fixed it up. He'd never dare try Molloy; it would be too difficult and dangerous to get him again." But Jigger was beyond hearing. He had fainted. "That left only one of all those who were operated on the twenty-second." His glance raked the frozen girl with gloating satisfaction. "Sally Starr!"
The girl moaned, crouched away. "I tell you I haven't got it."
He licked his lips. "Sure you have; inside that pretty body of yours. Braintree was a smart duck at that. That little leaden tube of radium was guarded as though it was the United States Mint. He got it from the vault to use on Tekul; but it had to be double-checked before anyone could leave the operating room. It couldn't possibly be smuggled out. But if it were sewn inside an operation—"
"Good God!" Sally gave a low cry. Instinctively her hand went to her side.
"Yep!" he grinned nastily. "You've got it. Braintree was going to tell you something went wrong after; to operate on you again in another hospital; but that wasn't my idea."
THE girl swayed. She was sick. "Marty!" she cried. "And you knew all this back in the office! You read about the radium supply in the Medical Journal."
He averted his eyes. "I suspected what had happened," he confirmed.
"And now," snapped Devoe, "I'll take it from you, my dear. It's a pity to spoil your shape, but Tekul is anxious to give me that million to save his life. I've got a nice little kris of my own that I picked up in Singapore several years ago; but I'm too busy to handle this myself. Tell that brown-skinned thug of yours to slice her open, Tekul; if both of you know what's good for you."
Sally backed against the wall with a scream. "Anything but that! Call a doctor; let him operate. I promise I won't say a word; but not that—that—"
"You fool!" Ras Tekul leaned forward; his brown knuckles a dirty grey on the arms of the chair. His eyes burned on Devoe. "Don't you know—?"
Marty had not shifted his position. His arms hung loosely at his side, the palms of his hands retracted, half closed. Not for an instant had the killer's gun wavered from a dead center on his stomach. Now his voice rose like a whiplash. "Enough, Tekul. Have your man do as Devoe says. It's our only chance to save the rest of our lives. Once he gets what he wants—"
"Marty!" The girl stared at him with horrified, unbelieving eyes. "You—you—mean that?"
He shrugged shoulders. "Why not? After all, its better that one should die than all of us."
"All right," she said tonelessly. "Rip me open. Nothing matters now."
"We-ell;" chortled Devoe. "Marty Moore's turned yellow. I always thought these dicks had a wide streak in them somewhere. Sure," he added insincerely. "I'll let you birds go if you'll play along."
"Never shall I—" started the nabob with extreme energy.
"Keep quiet!" Devoe snapped at him.
The Malay bodyguard rose slowly. From his waist-band he plucked his kris. Its wavy lines glittered with evil lights. Slowly he moved across the room like a great cat. The girl stood up against the wall. Her cheeks were deathly pale, but her eyes were steady.
Even more slowly the Malay raised the knife. A great hush fell upon the room. Only Devoe's eager breathing could be heard. His eyes shifted momentarily from Marty to the Malay. Only an instant, and swung back again. With a startled curse his gun leaped around, spewed roaring fire.
But quick as he was, Marty had been quicker. The dangling arm had come up like a flash of lightning; the police automatic he had palmed jerked forward; its quick, sharp bark preceded the roar of the Colt by an infinitesimal instant.
Daniel Devoe swayed; a round hole etched between his eyes. He went down like a poled ox.
"That's the end," Marty remarked quietly. The Malay grinned for the first time that day; he pushed his kris back into the folds of his sarong.
Tekul came to his feet. "Then you knew all along who had the radium?" he cried.
"Of course. I knew it as soon as I heard that Braintree and you had rushed here. But I wasn't sure whether Braintree was the sole criminal, and Devoe the victim, or not."
Now that it was all over, Sally felt her limbs give way. She sank into a chair. "Then—then the radium wasn't sewn inside of me?"
"No, darling. Braintree had figured a way of keeping the radium himself and of getting rid of his blackmailer at the same time. When the autopsy is performed, the precious stuff will be found in a neat little lead capsule safe and sound within the carcass of our friend, Daniel Devoe. Braintree had planned from the first to murder Devoe. But he hadn't counted on Devoe, frustrated, starting his wild series of butcheries." He turned to the nabob. "You'll require about twenty more treatments. I think they'll prove successful."
The Malay's eyes glinted with reprieved life. Then he said with a touch of reproach. "Yet you almost sacrificed the life of your so charming assistant."
Sally's clear laugh interrupted him. "That was an act, Mr. Tekul. Marty just wanted to get Devoe's attention off him for a moment; so he could use his gun. I think I did my part rather neatly."
"Swell!" Marty assured her. He went swiftly to the crusher; released the unconscious Jigger. "Now we'll phone for the police, an ambulance, and the Sperry Hospital. The firm of Moore and Starr has a little bill to collect for services rendered."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.