Читать книгу The Men Who Smiled No More: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lawrence Donovan - Страница 5

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Doctor Buelow T. Madren pursed his small, round mouth in puzzlement. When he shook his head, the electric light shone on it as on a polished billiard ball. His hairless skull and the pudgy roundness of his face gave Doctor Madren a cherubic, angelic appearance.

But his eyes were deepset and glowed brilliantly. There was deep, probing intelligence there which belied the contour of the rest of his countenance. For half an hour, he had been asking casual and seemingly meaningless questions.

Smiling Tony Talliano showed no disposition to evade replying to any question he understood. The sudden killer of the elevated platform had been brought to the observation prisoners’ ward in the psychopathic section at Bellevue Hospital.

The presence of Doctor Buelow T. Madren, eminent psychiatrist, was to be expected. He was a regular visitor to the psychopathic wards of New York’s big hospital. There seemed to be few vagaries of the human brain with which Doctor Madren was not familiar. Yet now he appeared to be plainly stumped on a diagnosis.

Smiling Tony had replied normally to questioning. Yes, he understood that his friend, Sam Gallivanti, was dead. Yes, he knew Sam had fallen under a train when he had hit him with his shoe-shining box.

But what of it? This seemed to be the attitude of the swarthy man with the death’s-head grin.

Doc Savage had been listening to this examination for many minutes. Three other physicians, all devoted to psychology, were in the ward. One of these spoke to Doctor Madren.

“Well, what do you make of it, doctor? I’ve seen some funny cases come and go, but I’ve got a theory of my own for this one that I’d be afraid to express.”

Doctor Madren smiled at the Bellevue physician. His intense blue eyes twinkled some.

“I’m not a mind reader, doctor,” he said, “but I’m willing to venture your theory agrees with my own opinion.”

Doc Savage also had formed his theory. In the first few minutes of the examination of Smiling Tony, he had arrived at an amazing deduction. But the man of bronze seldom expressed an opinion. And he never did, unless the proof was irrefutable. He was interested in knowing what the trained minds of these psychologists had brought out.

“We’ll write down our opinions,” suggested the Bellevue psychologist. “Then there won’t be any thought of either of us merely deferring to suggestion of the other.”

Doctor Madren produced a gold-headed pencil. He scribbled on the leaf of a notebook. The Bellevue physician followed suit.

A third physician smiled and read the results aloud. The wording was almost the same.

“It is my opinion this man is not insane,” Doctor Madren had written. “Perhaps it would be better for him if he were. He is suffering from the complete loss of all emotions. In his present state, he could not have murdered in anger, because he would not become angry. Neither could he become joyous, nor sad, nor disturbed in any way by outside influence. While in this condition, he can neither laugh nor cry.”

In only slightly different words, the Bellevue physician had given the same opinion. They summed up to the same thing.

Smiling Tony Talliano was held to be a sane man. And as such, without any emotion whatever, he had killed his friend. He could not now feel the emotion of grief or regret. Soon he probably would cease to remember the death.

“So, he is a sane man without emotions,” announced Doctor Madren. “And as such, he is unique in the annals of psychotherapy. He could, and would, kill his best friend without feeling any reaction whatever.”

The man of bronze now knew Smiling Tony was not a unique case.

Simon Stevens, multi-millionaire shipping man, a respected, trusted citizen, a man who had been filled with jollity, a love of life, had only missed by the fraction of a second becoming exactly that kind of a murderer.

Doc’s analytical brain was beginning to evolve some amazing theories. The bronze giant never overlooked the smallest trifle.

The bronze man knew what the pronouncement of the eminent Doctor Madren would mean for Smiling Tony Talliano. The emotionless shoe shiner would be declared sane. As such, he would be tried and convicted of killing Sam Gallivanti.

The case was made doubly amazing by the queer conduct of Simon Stevens. Doc Savage could not ignore the strange coincidence of the cases. He had almost immediately determined that Smiling Tony, the shoe shiner, and Simon Stevens, the World Waterways president were victims of the same dire influence.

And the bronze man felt this influence must have come from some external source. It was impossible to believe that the brains of two men so far apart in life could have been affected thus by mere chance.

Doc Savage was out of the hospital before the others realized it. He went directly to the crowded public square in which Tony worked. Well directed inquiry developed that Simon Stevens always had his shoes shined by Smiling Tony Talliano. The bronze man had no means of knowing about the cigars the millionaire and shoe shiner had smoked.

The man of bronze was given instant attention at the nearest police precinct station. There they had the unusual murder weapon. It was Smiling Tony’s box of shoe-shining equipment. The inspector in charge of the homicide detail was courteous.

Doc asked for and was given samples from the polish in Smiling Tony’s shoe box.

As Doc Savage was leaving the precinct station, he recalled that “Monk” was at this time carrying on a technical chemical experiment. He was isolated somewhere far out on Long Island.

Monk was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Monk didn’t look as if he had a spoonful of brains. But he was one of the world’s leading industrial chemists.

Doc Savage attempted to get in touch with Monk as soon as he reached his own working headquarters. This was a set of offices occupying all of the eighty-sixth floor of the most impressive skyscraper in downtown Manhattan.

Doc failed to make immediate contact with the chemist of his group. The housekeeper at Monk’s isolated cottage was difficult to understand.

Next, the man of bronze learned that Simon Stevens, the shipping line president, had gone to his summer home at Southampton. This was also far out on Long Island. The millionaire’s associates on the shipping line board of directors were still angry and puzzled.

Doc learned they had confirmed the statement of the sale of the Domyn Islands, by Simon Stevens’s secretary. But the identity of the purchaser was still a mystery.

Doc had taken samples of Smiling Tony’s shoe polish to his laboratory. He worked far into the night analyzing samples.

At this time, not far distant in another skyscraper, Henry Hawkins, a night watchman, finished his midnight lunch. Then he recalled leaving his pipe in another room. The watchman found the pipe lying where he had left it.

As he puffed a smoke with his coffee, Henry Hawkins had no means of knowing other hands had recently tampered with that pipe.

The watchman became suddenly alarmed. Near him a bell was ringing noisily. It was the burglar alarm.

Henry Hawkins knew there was a considerable fortune in jewels and gold in the two safes of the inner office. The jewels were of several varieties. The gold was used by the watchman’s employer for the finest of craftsmanship.

Henry Hawkins abandoned his midnight lunch. With his huge unwieldy revolver, the watchman made his way swiftly toward the inner office. He sucked at the stem of his pipe, tightly gripped in his teeth.

The door of the office containing the safes had been locked. Henry Hawkins tried the knob cautiously. It yielded. The door had been unlocked. There was no light inside this office. But against the square of a window, the watchman thought he saw the movement of a shadowy form.

“Put up your hands!” ordered Henry Hawkins. “Whatcha doin’ in here?”

The watchman had never shot a man. Probably his hesitancy was a mistake. Something happened to Henry Hawkins. The old revolver exploded twice with a booming roar.

No other shot had been fired. But Henry Hawkins lay down wearily on the floor. In the meantime, the same burglar alarm that had lured the watchman into a trap was ringing loudly in a Park Avenue apartment.

The alarm brought Harris Hooper Perrin from his bed. He seized the telephone and called the police.

Harris Hooper Perrin was an excitable, highly emotional man. He was nearly fifty years old. But he still chewed his finger nails.

Harris Hooper Perrin was a skilled workman. He was one of the best lapidaries in New York. He could produce more finished value from uncut diamonds and other stones than any other man.

“Thieves!” he squawked into the telephone. “Thieves in my office! Get the police there at once!” He gave the address.

Policemen were already in Perrin’s offices when he reached them. Perrin looked around. Henry Hawkins was sitting in a chair. The watchman bore no outward evidence of having been injured. He still nursed the huge revolver in a gnarled hand.

“What’s this? What’s this, Henry?” snapped Harris Hooper Perrin.

“Hello, Mr. Perrin,” said Henry Hawkins. “Somebody must ’a’ called the police. I haven’t finished my midnight lunch.”

Perrin grabbed at his lock of gray hair. He changed his mind and bit into a favorite finger nail.

“You haven’t finished your lunch?” gasped Perrin. “Here, officer, what’ve you found?”

The door of one of the safes was open. Perrin began moaning. It seemed there had been forty diamonds of great value, among other gems, in this safe. These were uncut stones. Perrin moaned out they had been consigned to him by a customer.

“They’d have cut more’n ten hundred carats!” groaned Perrin. “Ten hundred carats, I’m tellin’ you! And I’m ruined! It’ll cost me everything I’ve got—my reputation—my——”

The lapidary pulled his tormented eyes from the interior of the looted safe. But a detective directed Perrin’s gaze to the floor. In front of the safe was a drying pool of blood. It had spread on the rug. There could not have been less than a quart, perhaps more.

“If the guy was alone, he’s holed up around here by this time,” said the detective. “If there was a pair of ’em, the other one’ll be grabbed gettin’ away with the fellow that’s plugged.”

Perrin twisted his gray strand of hair.

“You saw ’em, Henry?” he shot at the night watchman. “What’d they look like?”

“Who did I see, Mr. Perrin?” replied Henry Hawkins. “Do you suppose I could eat my lunch now?”

The watchman’s face was expressionless. He showed no visible effect of his encounter with cracksmen. Apparently Henry Hawkins was only hungry and he wanted his lunch.

The night watchman expressed no evidence of having felt fear.

Perrin was raging with excitement. The arrival of an inspector named Ryan found the lapidary frothing.

Henry Hawkins evinced little interest in his employer’s excitement. His pipe had fallen unnoticed to the floor.

“Maybe he got a bump on the bean,” suggested Inspector Ryan.

He was facing Henry Hawkins, studying him. Then the inspector thought of something.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” he exclaimed. “He looks like that shiner who bumped off his pal up on the el last night! Say, do you remember shooting somebody in here?”

“Maybe I did—well, I guess I did,” said the watchman. “I didn’t get a chance to eat my lunch and I’m hungry. I wasn’t in here when the safe was opened. Mr. Perrin knows I wouldn’t do it.”

Henry Hawkins had not been accused. There was a possibility he might have been, if there had not been the pool of blood on the floor. One of the detectives was digging a soft chunk of lead out of the wall near the window.

“He done some shootin’, all right,” said the detective. “But something knocked him cuckoo.”

Perrin had a death grip on his lock of gray hair.

“What’ll I do—what’ll I do?” he moaned. “Those stones hadn’t been insured! I was to make an appraisal, but I hadn’t done it!”

Inspector Ryan was a very smart copper.

“We’ll do all we can to get them back, Mr. Perrin,” he said. “But there’s something screwy about all this. I think we’ll trot your watchman up to Bellevue for a once-over. There’s only one man who might give you some information. I don’t know why, but Doc Savage has been digging into that shoe shiner’s case. If anybody can find answers, the big bronze guy can do it. I’d talk to him, Mr. Perrin, if I were you.”

Less than an hour later, the lapidary arrived at Doc’s address.

Harris Hooper Perrin gave many gasps of surprise. These began with his admission to Doc Savage’s headquarters. A door bore small, simple letters. These were in bronze. They read, “Clark Savage, Jr.”

Doc admitted him. The first thing the lapidary noticed was the library.

The library contained thousands of volumes. Many of these dealt with precious stones and valuable minerals. Doc Savage knew more about gold craftsmanship than did Harris Hooper Perrin.

The bronze man also knew more about Harris Hooper Perrin himself than the lapidary could have imagined any one discovering.

Perrin stood in the middle of the immense laboratory. He fiddled with his lock of wiry hair.

“I don’t see how you can help me much,” said Perrin. “But my night watchman seems to have gone crazy. And I think maybe I’ll go crazy, too! One of my safes has been cleaned out. A man was shot and my watchman don’t even remember doing it. They’ve got him up at Bellevue, under observation.”

Doc’s flaky gold eyes flickered with the tiny whirlwinds in their depths. He was thinking. Smiling Tony, the shoe shiner. Simon Stevens, the shipping president. Now a humble watchman by the name of Henry Hawkins?

And Perrin was pouring out his trouble.

“First of all, you might sit down over here,” directed Doc. “Are you interested in tropical fish? I have nearly a hundred varieties in this tank.”

“For Heaven’s sakes!” gasped Perrin. “I’m telling you I’ve been robbed of ten hundred carats in diamonds that aren’t insured! I’m a ruined man! I’ll never get any more work!”

“Yes, I understood all of that,” said Doc, quietly. “You are working yourself into an extremely nervous state. If you will sit here and look at the fish, I would like to make a telephone call. I may be able to help you.”

“I’ll pay you anything—anything you ask!” moaned Perrin.

Doc Savage merely smiled and said nothing.

Outside in his other office, Doc made a telephone connection.

“The case is so unusual, coming immediately after the strange affair of the afternoon, I thought you might be interested in seeing this Henry Hawkins, the watchman,” said the man of bronze to the party at the other end.

The man he had called from bed replied, “Yes! Yes, indeed! It was thoughtful of you, Mr. Savage! I’ll go up to Bellevue and see the man at once! This queer mental condition may be only temporary, but I hope to get at its origin!”

“I’m sure you do,” said Doc Savage. “And doctor—there is another strange case I believe to be the same as this one, a case in which I am greatly interested. The victim is Simon Stevens, the shipping magnate. He, too, was attacked this afternoon, but has since gone to his Southampton home. I would appreciate if you would attend him, also.”

Excitement whipped into the other man’s voice. Then he said, “I’ll go to Bellevue, and will then leave immediately to drive to Southampton.”

Doc Savage returned to the laboratory. The man he had called was Doctor Buelow T. Madren.

Having been left alone, Harris Hooper Perrin had composed his nerves somewhat. Perhaps the brilliant, flashing colors of the tropical fish swimming in the nearly transparent tank had a soothing influence.

Perrin could not know this tank of fish was in itself merely a blind for one of Doc Savage’s secret exits.