Part 2 (1/2)
”I,” Hahln said, ”have come to kill you.”
FOR some moments there was silence. Jerome Gadberry did not change expression. Hahln had spoken softly. He appeared almost indifferent, but the expression in his eyes showed he meant what he said.
There was a faint rustling sound nearby, but neither man moved.
Alice Dawn was glad of that. She was afraid she might have been heard.
The girl held a gun in her hand. It was a big gun, and it was trained on the office where the two men sat.
She was peering through a tiny slit in the wall. The muzzle of the gun was held at another such slot.
She was concealed in a small closet that apparently had been built purposely for some such purposebetween the two offices.
Jerome Gadberry broke the silence. ”You are the man who fired on us last night?” he asked. His voice remained calm, conversational.
”I am the man who drove you from the scene,” Hahln corrected.
Gadberry nodded. The fingers of one hand tapped the desk reflectively. ”Then you must know something of what it is about,” he agreed. ”But still, why kill me?”
Hahln's lips drew back in a snarl. For the first time he showed emotion. ”You should know the answer to that. You and two others. And they, also, will die.”
Tiny beads of moisture came out on Gadberry's face. But when he spoke his voice remained calm.
”There is no chance of a deal?” he asked.
Hahln shook his head. His gun came up.
Jerome Gadberry shrugged. He reached toward a humidor on his desk. ”I would like one last smoke,” he began. ”Even a condemned man is allowed that-”
Hahln's eyes had followed Gadberry's hand. Alice Dawn's had not. She had been watching the fingers tapping on the desk. Those fingers flashed toward a shoulder holster.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
The three shots sounded almost as one.
ALICE DAWN got out of the closet in a hurry. She put her gun in her handbag. Then she ran to the door leading to the corridor, eased it open and listened.
Few of the offices on the third floor were occupied. The shots apparently had pa.s.sed unnoticed. She stood there for a long time listening.
As she turned back, a tall, square-faced man with ramrod back came from the inner room.
”You did well, Alice,” the man said. He spoke at some length, then went to the door. ”Wait five minutes, then call the police.”
Alice Dawn was sobbing when the first homicide detectives stormed into the room. She pointed dramatically toward the inner office.
A dead man was there. A very dead man. He was seated in a chair on the far side of the desk. One of his hands was on a humidor filled with cigars. The other held a gun pulled from a shoulder holster.
The man's head was down on the desk. One of the detectives pulled it back gently, then almost dropped it. The man virtually was without a face. An explosive sh.e.l.l had eliminated most of it.
The detective bounded back to the side of the still weeping girl. It was some time before he could get a coherent story.
”Yes,” she sobbed, ”the dead man was Jerome Gadberry. He was a scientist, a famous scientist. And now he is dead,” she wailed.One of the detectives clucked his tongue sympathetically.
”Wasn't there a story about him in the paper recently, about him bein' down here to get treasure of some kind out of the Gulf water?” he asked excitedly.
The girl nodded dumbly.
After a time she quieted down and explained what had happened.
”A little man with baggy clothes and a dark mustache did it,” she said. ”He came rus.h.i.+ng in, swearing poor Mr. Gadberry had cheated him out of an invention.”
The sympathetic detective patted her shoulder as sobs came again. The detective decided that patting her shoulder was the kind of a job he could stand a lot of.
”T-then this little man whipped out a gun. M-mr. Gadberry tried to protect himself, but he was too late.”
After some prompting, she gave a detailed description of the little man. His hair was gray; his suit had a blue stripe in it.
”And I think he had blue eyes,” she said. ”B-but I was so frightened I cannot be sure. I . . . I hid behind my desk as he ran out. I thought he was going to kill me also.”
The detective agreed she had been wise. Police photographers and fingerprint experts were on the scene.
Reporters and newspaper photographers, held in the lobby by unsympathetic patrolmen, were clamoring to get in.
The shoulder-patting detective never did decide just who suggested it, but he found himself escorting the girl out a rear entrance.
No need for her to be annoyed, he agreed. He took down the telephone number and address she gave him, and said that he himself would be out to question her more at length later.
It wasn't until he returned to the murder scene that he discovered the small closet. The smell of powder fumes still was strong inside the small s.p.a.ce.
The detective didn't say anything. He slipped out and called the number the girl had given him. His face became very white at the answer he received.
No Alice Dawn was known at that number or address.
Chapter IV. A NOSY REPORTER.
EXTRAS telling of the murder of Jerome Gadberry were on the streets when Doc Savage's aids reached New Orleans. They might have been more interested if there hadn't been a message waiting them from the bronze man when they reached the airport.
The message had been filed from New York the night before. It read: TAKE DIVING EQUIPMENT WHEN YOU GO OUT TO INVESTIGATE THE SEA SERPENT.
MAKE A CAREFUL INSPECTION OF THE SEA FLOOR. WATER NOT EXCEPTIONALLY.
DEEP THERE.
Long Tom's sallow-complexioned features brightened. ”Doc is taking an interest in this,” he blurted.
”Maybe everything will be all right, after all.”Monk's homely features reddened. Ham roared delightedly. ”Doc knew you wouldn't think of that all by yourself,” the dapper lawyer gibed.