by Harold Ward
“Metempsychosis!” Jimmy Holm said in a low, awed voice.
Again a scowl crept over the face of Elise Lando.
“Silence!” the bass voice snapped. “Did I not tell you that my time was limited? I am trying to tell you my story in my own words. I staggered across the floor with the dampened rag and hastily swabbed up the spot on the marble where I—where my body—had fallen. Then I threw the rag in the toilet and watched it float into the sewer. That task performed, I turned to this—this thing that was me and yet was not me.
“‘Now no one will know that Horatio Hallenberg is dead,’ my body chuckled. ‘And I have need of this body of yours, Hallenberg. For I, I—Doctor Death—will now become Secretary of the Treasury.’
“I stared at him in amazement. I was baffled—bewildered—my mind in a turmoil. I was dead. He had said so. But who had said so? Was it not Horatio Hallenberg who had made that peculiar statement? And was I not Horatio Hallenberg? I shook my head. No. To all outward appearances I was the shell that Doctor Death had occupied.
“Why did I not cry out? I sense your thoughts, my friends. Because I could not. There is something about this spirit world that demands a medium through which to work. I lacked that medium. I could think—yes, and reason. I knew that I was Horatio Hallenberg and that Horatio Hallenberg was dead and inside the bodily shell of another man, while the fiend who calls himself Doctor Death occupied the framework of Horatio Hallenberg.
“But I knew, also, that Death was my master. His thoughts were to be my thoughts, my wishes, his wishes. I wondered regarding the Treasury. I knew that it was to be looted. Yet I lacked the power to stop it. And, wondering, I saw him button his coat over his chest—my chest, if you please—to hide the blackened spot where the bullet had entered and which was fringed with red, that I knew was my blood.
“‘My car is at the entrance,’” he snapped. ‘My mind will—tell you which it is. Take it. The driver knows where you are to go.’
“I nodded understandingly.
“As I left, I heard him turn to my secretary—to Horatio Hallenberg’s secretary—and ask that the Egyptian minister, who was in the outer room, be admitted.
“I obeyed his instruction like a little child. I—”
There was a sudden snarl. A second voice seemed to come from the throat of Elise Lando. It was high pitched—rasping. It mingled with that of Horatio Hallenberg.
“Back! Damn you!” it snarled.
Jimmy Holm leaped to his feet, his eyes blazing.
“Doctor Death!” he shouted. “The voice of Doctor Death!”
For an instant the two voices commingled in an indistinguishable uproar, the one pleading, the other snarling commands. Elise Lando’s face was a study of conflicting emotions. Suddenly she leaped to her feet, her mouth frothing, her teeth clicking madly.
Then she pitched forward at the feet of the three men—her breath came sobbingly for a moment, then her beautiful body was still. Elise Lando was dead.
Chapter VI
King of Terror
ELISE LANDO was dead—struck down in some mysterious way by the man who called himself Doctor Death—forced to pay the penalty for being the medium through which Horatio Hallenberg had told his weird, unbelievable story.
For a long time there was silence. Jones, the dead girl’s manager, dropped to his knees beside the frail body and made no secret of his tears. For the moment dull resignation gripped the others. How were they to fight such an enemy—a man who was able to strike through the air—a man who caused the dead to rise from their graves? Black fear chilled them to the bone. Then Jimmy Holm, for one of the few times in his career, gave way to blind fury.
“May his foul soul be damned!” he cried, his fists doubled, a red mist dancing before his eyes.
“We must work all the harder,” Ricks said stolidly, leading the way toward the door. “Again, Jimmy—if you have stopped to realize it—Nina Fererra has saved the nation. Had it not been for her will working against that of this monster, the national treasury would have been looted. Perhaps an all-seeing providence made it possible for Death to capture her in order that she might thus thwart him.”
Blake nodded.
“Hallenberg was on the verge of telling us more,” Ricks went on as they waited for the elevator. “In another moment we might have found out from him where Death has his lair.”
Again Blake nodded in confirmation.
THE police department car was standing at the curb. They were about to enter the machine when a young man dashed across the street, dodging through the congestion, risking his neck a dozen times. Motors ground and brakes shrieked; drivers cursed; street cars came to a jolting, jangling stop with a force that threw their passengers into the aisles.
The air was redolent with the fumes of scorching rubber and burned oil. Police whistles smote the ear with lacerating stillness. A hundred hands were reached out to stop him. He dodged them all and miraculously escaped unscathed.
“Inspector!” he shouted. “Inspector Ricks!”
Ricks turned. The youth was panting as he reached the curb.
“Thank God that I caught you before you got away!” he exclaimed. Then: “I called your office,” he hastened on. “They told me that you were at Miss Lando’s apartments. I ’phoned there and they said that you had just left—”
Ricks held up a restraining hand.
“Get a grip on yourself, youngster!” he commanded. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“I forgot. I thought that you knew me,” the young man said quickly. “I’m Craig—Tommy Craig—”
“I get you now,” Ricks interrupted. “Your engagement to Carolyn Decker, Horatio Hallenberg’s niece and ward, was announced in the papers recently. The marriage will bring together the two greatest fortunes in America and all that rot.”
The boy nodded excitedly.
“You’ve got it,” he said. “And it’s about Carolyn—Miss Decker—that I wanted to see you.”
A little catch came into his voice and he seized the automobile for support.
“She’s—dead!” he went on. “Murdered!”
Inspector Ricks swung on his heel.
“Say that again!” he roared. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s little to tell,” the youth responded. “I found her lifeless when I called half an hour ago. She—but see for yourself. The penthouse where she and her uncle made their home when not in Washington is atop the building just across the street.”
Ricks and his companions followed the young man across the pavement to the magnificent Hallenberg Arms, the huge apartment hotel that Horatio Hallenberg had completed only a few months earlier as his contribution to the recovery program. This time a traffic officer held up his gloved hand and made a path for them through the congestion.
At the end of the row of elevators was the private cage that the country’s wealthiest man reserved for his own use. They stepped into it and were whisked to the roof. Ahead of them was a richly appointed foyer. They followed it and, a second later, were inside the Hallenberg penthouse.
THE maid who stood just inside the reception hall was weeping. Craig led them through the magnificently furnished drawing room and through a short hallway into a boudoir where a tall, professional appearing man was bending over the form of a young girl on the bed. The doctor looked up as they entered. Then, recognizing his visitors, he stepped forward and shook them warmly by the hands.
“Dead?” Ricks asked shortly.
“Frankly, I do not know,” he answered. “To all appearances, yes. Yet I’ve sent for the ambulance to take her to the hospital. The body lacks the rigidity of death. And, once or twice, I have thought that I caught an indication of a faint heart beat.”
“Poison?”
The physician shook his head.
“If it is, it’s a drug of some kind that I’ve never met with,” he answered. “I’m not a toxicologist, but I’d be willing to wager my diploma against a dollar that it’s not th
at. I’ve asked Hastings, the best authority on poisons in the city, to meet me at the hospital, however. Meanwhile—”
“Who discovered her?” Ricks interrupted.
Craig nodded toward the weeping maid.
“The maid,” he answered. “It is the night off for all of the other servants. Miss Decker called me up and asked me to come here immediately. We are, as you know, engaged. I had just arrived home from a trip to Texas and had just heard about Secretary Hallenberg. Naturally, I responded despite the lateness of the hour.
“The maid admitted me and stepped in here to call her mistress,” the youth went on. “A second later I heard her scream. I rushed and found Carolyn just as she is now. I immediately summoned Doctor Penningten. Then the idea of murder flashed across my mind. Or, at least, I imagined that there was some connection between what had happened to her and the disappearance of Secretary Hallenberg.”
“Did she say anything regarding Secretary Hallenberg’s disappearance when she ’phoned?” Holm interposed.
Craig shook his head.
“Nothing,” he responded. “She asked me to come immediately, saying that she would explain when I arrived—”
The sudden entrance of the maid with a telegram interrupted him.
“For you, sir,” she said, holding the salver out to him.
Young Craig tore open the yellow envelope with fingers that trembled in spite of his obvious efforts to hold himself together. He glanced over the yellow sheet, then handed it to Ricks and dropped into a chair.
“My God!” he exclaimed. “The fiend! The inhuman monster!”
Inspector Ricks glanced at the signature. Then he read the message aloud:
Horatio Hallenberg is dead. I have been using his body for the past few days—until I could realize on some of his stocks and securities. Many of them were in such shape that I was unable to negotiate their sale.
As Secretary of the Treasury, I had all arrangements made for a coup when it was halted by one of my female assistants. I need money badly for a gigantic project on which I am about to embark. I need not go into details. Suffice to say that I am still of the belief that the world of science and invention must be destroyed if mankind would progress. To this destruction I have dedicated my life.
You are a wealthy young man. Every dollar you possess was earned by someone else. I need your money. Yet I will be charitable. There are others who must pay the same as yourself. Here, therefore, is my proposition. I demand one million dollars for the life of the woman you love. I have extracted her soul from her beautiful body. As long as I so will, her form will remain in its present condition. The moment I withdraw my power over it, dissolution will set in. For the body without the soul—ego—call it what you will—cannot exist.
If you are interested, insert an advertisement in the Star Personal Column within the next week. Address it merely to Doctor Death as follows: “Doctor Death. Yes. Craig.”
If I have not heard from you within that time I will consider that you do not care enough for this woman to restore life to her now inanimate body.
Inspector Ricks is with you now. So is my former assistant, Holm. And so, too, is Blake of the United States Secret Service. One and all, they will bear testimony to my ability to carry out my threats; also, I am certain that they will tell you that I never break my word.
Sincerely,
Doctor Death.
There was no attempt made on the part of any of the little group to temporize. While the frail form of the beautiful girl was rushed to the hospital where the best specialists that money could hire were brought into consultation, a hasty conference of the officers was held. It ended by Craig inserting the advertisement in the Star according to instructions.
WITHIN an hour after the paper had gone to press, he was called on the telephone and given his instructions.
“You will have all of today in which to raise the money in cash,” Death informed him. “Be at the hospital tonight between the hours of midnight and two o’clock. I will telephone you there giving you instructions.
“Meanwhile, I have no desire to inflict needless suffering on an innocent girl. On the stroke of midnight I will restore her to consciousness. I expect you to have the money with you so that you can immediately hand it over when I so instruct you. I give you my word that neither you nor Miss Decker will again be molested by me. If any crooked work is attempted by you, however, or if the million dollars is short even a penny, she will return to the condition she is now in and dissolution will immediately set in.”
At the suggestion of Jimmy Holm, endorsed by the other members of the Secret Twelve, the latest atrocity of Doctor Death was kept out of the public press. A conference of the heads of the various newspapers and news agencies was held daily and, while all news was given to these men, they agreed to withhold this latest horror.
There was a fear that the public, already stirred up to a point of frenzy, might panic, and this was to be avoided at all costs.
As a result of these precautions only the three officers, Craig, and a small group of specialists and nurses were present when the zero hour arrived.
“Dead. Dead beyond a matter of doubt,” Billings, one of the specialists said after a final examination. “There is not a trace of a heart beat.”
“Yet you must admit that there is no indication of rigor mortis,” Doctor Pennington interposed.
Billings shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m admitting, gentlemen,” he said, that I’ve never seen a case like it before in all of my thirty years’ experience. Yet the girl is dead.”
All of the other physicians present nodded agreement. According to every test known to modern medical science, Carolyn Decker was a corpse. Yet her limbs were flexible and her flesh soft and elastic. There was not, as Pennington had asserted, any sign of the rigor that ordinarily accompanies death.
And so they stood around the bed, a silent, white-faced little knot of men and women.
“Bong!”
A distant clock chimed the hour. Eleven times more the chimes rang out.
“Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!”
They counted the strokes, their eyes never leaving the beautiful face of the girl who lay between the sheets.
On the twelfth stroke the door suddenly opened and a woman entered.
For the infinitesimal part of a second she stood there staring at the little group, her eyes wearing the glassy, faraway look of a sleepwalker. Doctor Pennington, the physician in charge, half turned as if to order her out. Jimmy Holm halted him with a gesture.
“Wait!” he whispered.
“I bear the soul of Carolyn Decker,” the woman said in a sepulchral whisper.
ONE of the nurses who had been bending over the dead form of the girl on the bed screamed.
“Orla Lambosky!” she shrieked: “She’s dead! Dead! She died two weeks ago—in the charity ward! I attended her. She’s dead! Dead, I say—and buried!”
The woman stared at her fixedly. Then she crumpled in a little heap to the floor.
From her body arose a grayish, vaporish fog. It twisted, gyrated, danced for an instant. Then it swept across the room to the bed where Carolyn Decker lay.
“Enter!”
The voice came from nowhere, yet from everywhere. It boomed against their ear drums, filling the room. Yet none of them had spoken.
“Enter! I, Death, so command!”
The fog-like vapor spiraled over the still, white form of Carolyn Decker. For a moment it hung there. Then it disappeared, seemingly absorbed by the slender body of the dead girl.
Carolyn Decker’s eyes opened. She sat up in bed, a startled look creeping over her face.
“Where am I?” she demanded.
Her eyes fell upon Doctor Pennington. She cast a quick glance around the room.
“Have I been ill?” she asked. “Was there an accident? I have no recollection of coming here.”
Pennington held up his hand for sil
ence. Stepping forward, he and the other physicians applied their stethoscopes. They shook their heads in bewilderment.
The girl was apparently as well and healthy as any normal American girl of her age could be. Yet only a few seconds before they had pronounced her dead.
It was Craig to whom was delegated the task of telling her what had transpired. She listened in wonderment.
“I have no recollection of anything since the moment that I entered the room to dress,” she said.
Had they all been hypnotized? Holm believed so, remembering as he did, the uncanny power of the weird Doctor Death. There was no other way of accounting for what had happened. Yet it was more than mass hypnotism. The girl, Orla Lambosky, for instance...
It was Pennington who first noticed her. For a moment they had forgotten her existence. Now, recalling his duty as a physician, he whirled and took a step toward her.
He stopped suddenly, a startled look creeping over his clean-cut face.
“My God!” he ejaculated.
They turned. The nurse who had first recognized the girl screamed again.
“I told you that she was dead!” she shrieked, rushing from the room.
The face of Orla Lambosky was becoming black and mottled, it was the face of one who has long been dead. A fungus growth was appearing on the flesh—a grayish, whitish mold—the mold of the grave. Dissolution, far advanced, had attacked the body.
The odor became unbearable. Carolyn Decker leaped from her bed and ran shrieking from the room.
They crowded through the doorway into the hall in an effort to escape seeing and smelling—the horrible transition that was going on before their eyes. Billings, the last out, closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.
“Almighty God!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I have been an unbeliever all my life. But now I believe—that there is a devil.”
To which Pennington added a fervent, “Amen!”
Chapter VII
Lair of Death