Doc Savage - The Pure Evil Part 2

Spencer now asked the wire-chief if they could ascertain whether there had been a monitoring camera on the scope circuit that Doc Adams had been computing that morning. Wasn't there a record kept? Cal Smith said sure, there would be a record. He did some hunting, then reported in surprise, "The sheet's gone!""You mean," Gail demanded, "that someone has removed the circuit record of that scope at the time my brother was on it?"

"It's missing, anyway," the wire-chief said cautiously.

"What about the film from the scope monitoring camera?"

Cal Smith did some searching, made a telephone call to the cine-processing room, then made a personal visit to the room, and came back shaking his head.

"If there was a camera on that scope circuit, and we don't know there was-then the film isn't in the file-can where it should be." He hesitated, rubbed his jaw, and confessed, "There could have been a film, because there's a label on the file-can that has been rather ineffectually sc.r.a.ped off."

Gail said, "There is enough label left on the can to show that there was a label originally? Is that it?"

"That could be it."

"Thank you," Gail said. "This is most interesting. Thank you very much."

Spencer showed signs of being upset, as well as excited. "Gail, if you're going to talk to Cooper, I'll take you out to his place in my car. I had a date with the girl-friend, but I'll telephone her and postpone it."

"You'd better not, Spence," Gail told him. "I know Louise, and she's not going to like you running around with me."

Spencer nodded uncomfortably. "You're probably right. She's jealous. Tell you what, I'll phone Louise and tell her we'll pick her up and take her along."

"She won't like that, either, Spence," Gail surmised. "Go ahead and phone her. But if she's reluctant, don't insist. Louise is a fine girl, and you don't want to make her mad on my account."

While Spencer telephoned, Gail waited in the reception room. She sank in a chair, gripped her hands together, and thought: I'm acting strangely, aren't I? My brother is dead. The police say he killed himself. He possibly did. But here I'm running around asking questions. Is this a form of hysteria?

She thought about that seriously, staring fixedly at her hands.

"Beg pardon," a man's voice addressed her. "Aren't you Miss Adams?"

Gail lifted her eyes. "Yes. I-" She fell silent. She had the foolish feeling her mouth was remaining open, and she was without the will to close it.

He was a little old man of uncertain age-at least any uncertainty beyond fifty was logical. Surely he was over fifty. Between that and ninety, somewhere. He had white hair, an enormous abundance of it, that grew from the sides of his head and was combed upward so that it peaked startingly on top, the effect that of a somewhat abbreviated white duncecap. He had leathery skin of the color shoe manufacturers call factory brown. His features were delicate, completely Nordic. His eyes were two large dreams, blue ones. An odd feeling for her to have about an old man's eyes, Gail thought, and shook her tongue loose.

I-yes-I'm Gail Adams," she said.

"Sister of-ah-the unfortunate young Dan Adams?"

"Yes."She noticed that he had his hands in his pockets, the coat pockets, and that he kept them there.

He gave a little bow. "Mr. Villem Morand."

"Mr. Morand? I see. But I don't believe-"

"Probably not. Probably you don't know me." He gave his small bow again, dropped it as a curtsy.

"Insurance. Central Imperial Life. I represent."

Gail waited, studying the little man, wondering why he vaguely disturbed her with his presence. She had never seen him before, had never heard of his company, Imperial Life. No, Central Imperial Life, he had said. She still didn't know the concern. He definitely made her feel uneasy.

"I represent," he repeated. "Your brother. Most unfortunate. Very sad. My sympathies."

"Thank you, Mr. Morand," Gail said nervously.

"Your brother. A customer. My customer."

"Oh!" Gail looked at him in confusion. "I didn't know my brother had a policy with such a company."

She frowned, then named two first-line companies in which Dan had carried small policies, and added, "I only knew about those."

"I'm investigating."

"Oh!" Gail drew up tensely, on the edge of her chair. "Then you think there was something odd about my brother's death also?"

"No. Satisfied. Investigated. Quite satisfied."

The oddness of the little man's appearance, with his apparent inability to use more than two words in a sentence, had Gail ill at ease. To this queasiness about him, his next words added a considerable shock.

"Brother suicide. Policy covers. Wouldn't upset. Wiser."

Gail frowned in bewilderment. "I don't know a thing about this insurance," she said. "I take it you mean that some insurance policies are void in case of suicide within certain periods, but this one is valid."

"Right. Valid. Perfectly valid."

"That seems odd."

"No. Logical. Excellent insurance."

"What did you mean," Gail demanded, "about not upsetting? Not upsetting what?"

"Present status. Suicide. Policy covers. Double."

"What? It pays double for suicide? What kind of an insurance is that?"

"Convenient kind. Suicide, ten thousand. Otherwise, half."

Gail examined the little man with growing suspicion. It certainly sounded odd.

"One might," she said coldly, "almost think it would be worth five thousand dollars to me not to investigate my brother's death any farther.""One might. Imaginative, however."

"Well, I don't like the idea a bit!"

"Sorry. Distresses me." The little man made a bow, and kept his one-and-two-word record clean by saying. "Pleasant meeting. Fruitful, perhaps. Good night." And he executed his small curtsy once more-it was as monotonous as his words-and wheeled, clapped a somber black hat on his peak of white hair, and left.

Spencer, returning, stepped aside to let the little man pa.s.s. Spencer's eyebrows lifted wryly. "Who was that?"

"He said his name was Morand," Gail explained shakily.

"Odd looker."

Gail winced. "Don't use two-word sentences on me, Spence. That's what he did. Odd is no word for it."

Spencer shrugged, and dismissed the matter of Mr. Morand for information that concerned him more.

"Louise was a little cranky on the telephone," he explained sheepishly. "She's not too hot about this. It seems we had a dance date tonight."

Gail nodded. "The thing for you to do is keep on the good side of your girl-friend, Spence. I can go talk to the wire chief, Cooper, alone. It should be simple. I merely want to find out if there was a camera monitoring Dan's scope circuit when-when whatever it was happened."

"Well, I hate to let you down, Gail, but I don't want Louise mad at me."

"By all means run along to Louise, Spence."

Chapter III.

MORAND of the brief words stalked in Gail's mind during the drive to Cooper's rooming-house. She hadn't liked Morand. Now, knowing she could readily get wrong impressions because she was upset, Gail weighed the little man carefully. The results weren't soothing. She came to the conclusion that he had offered her a backhanded bribe not to pry further into the oddness surrounding her brother's death.

Insurance policies didn't pay double in case of suicide. They just didn't.

She checked on that by stopping at a drugstore and telephoning a Mr. Andrew Chapman, an insurance man whom she knew.

"Gail, I never heard of such a thing," the insurance agent told her. "Life insurance companies just don't do business that way."

"Morand said he represented the Central Imperial Life Insurance Company. What about the concern?"

"Never heard of it, Gail. Nor of this Morand, either."

"If he is legitimate insurance agent, would you have heard of him?""I think I would, Gail. Let me look it up in my books." The insurance man was away from the telephone for a time, then returned to report, "I can't find any record of the company or the man."

"Thank you," Gail said gravely. Now she was certain that she had been offered a bribe. The idea sickened her.

She drove on to the address which Spencer had given her as being that of Cooper. She parked in front of number three in a succession of four nearly identical stucco apartment houses of two stories and four apartments each. They even had the same hibiscus trimmed the same way before each entrance. The front door stood unlocked. They would all be unlocked, she imagined.

There were four bell-b.u.t.tons, the same kind of cards above each, the tenants names printed with identical lettering. Cooper's didn't answer. Neither did the other three. . . .

If the man is ill, he's probably dodging company, Gail thought. I'll go up and rout him out. . . . Cooper's apartment was second floor, right. There were two doors, an inner paneled one and an outer slatted ventilating door. The latter was closed and locked, but the inner one seemed to be open.

Gail's knocking and lock-rattling got no response.

"Mr. Cooper!" she called. "This is Gail Adams. Could I see you a minute? It's important."

She listened to silence except for a clock ticking and an electric fan running, both in the apartment. The lights were on.

"Mr. Cooper, I've got to see you!" Gail called more sharply.

She waited, and grew coldly angry. The man was in there. His fan was running. She wrenched at the breather-door handle, but the door was solid. The slats, however, were designed for the warm climate rather than privacy, and she wondered if a little prying at them wouldn't let her look into the room. She drew a mechanical pencil from her purse, used it as a pry, and sprung two of the slats apart a slit. Her eye went to the opening.

Her scream, a shrill, sickened thing, went through most of the neighborhood.

Chapter IV.

A TELEPHONE operator wanted four dollars and forty cents. She had a thin weary voice, like the string of a violin sc.r.a.ping under a fingernail.

Gail asked, "You have Doc Savage on the wire?" Then she counted the money, in quarters and dimes, into the metal slot, and a bell clanged hollowly and steadily in the instrument. The sound was dull in the booth. Outside, the hotel lobby was still and almost deserted, with all but the main lights turned out.

"h.e.l.lo," Gail said. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Savage."

A small shrill voice, the voice of a child in a man, grated back at her over hundreds of miles of wire.

"This is Monk. Monk Mayfair," it said."Who?" Gail was discouraged. "But I wanted to speak to Doc Savage. The operator told me-"

"That's right, lady," the immature voice told her. "But this is closer to Doc than telephone calls from strange babes usually get. Want your money back?"

"Listen, whoever you are, I didn't call New York to be funny-"

"And I don't answer the telephone at three o'clock in the morning to put on a humor broadcast. . . .

Look, lady, I'm Monk Mayfair and I'm a.s.sociated with Doc Savage. I'm one of the five who work with him. It just happens this is my night to be the victim of the telephone. Incidentally, we usually have a private detective agency sift these calls, but tonight they're not functioning. So you're lucky to get this near Doc. Now if you understand all that, and if you'll be satisfied to talk to the a.s.sistant master, I'm willing to listen."

"Then could I talk to Doc Savage?" Gail asked grimly.

"That would depend. I doubt it."

"Depend on what?"

"On how much we might be fascinated by this trouble you're in."

Gail hesitated, then decided there was nothing to do but follow his suggestion. So she told the story, not using too many words, but putting enough to convey the full gist. Half-way through, the long-distance operator was asking for more money, but Monk Mayfair said something sharply-it sounded like some kind of company code-and after that the operator remained off the line. Monk Mayfair sounded interested.

"This Cooper, this wire-chief," he said. "You say he was found hanged the same way as your brother?"

Gail, having some difficulty with self-control now, explained, "The circ.u.mstances of Mr. Cooper's death were almost identical with that of my brother. There was one exception-he had not taken a recent bath.

But the doors and windows were locked on the inside, and he was strangled with the cord of a bathrobe.

And he was lying in the middle of the room some distance from any support from which he could have hanged himself."

"You didn't," Monk Mayfair suggested suspiciously, "just toss in that last to fascinate us?"