"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 rushing 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.
Monk opened his mouth, then closed it. He hadn"t thought of getting diving equipment, as a matter of fact. There was nothing much he could say about that.
"But just the same, you shyster," he howled, "you"d better let me be the one that goes down. Sharks like pork, and if I lost you, I really would have a job explaining to Doc."
Still squabbling, the three piled into a taxicab and set out to find a hotel, charter a boat and rent diving equipment.
Even Ham forgot that they had agreed one of them should keep an eye on their grimy-faced pilot.
No one else paid any attention to the pilot, either. But he seemed greatly interested in the story of the murder.
As soon as the plane was housed in a hangar, the pilot took a small bag and entered a washroom. When he emerged, he looked far different.
For one thing, his features were no longer grimy. He wore a neat blue serge suit. A dilapidated hat replaced the cap he had worn. Horn-rimmed spectacles even gave his face a different appearance.
Checking his bag, he hailed a cab. About half an hour later, he appeared at the office building where the slaying had occurred.
REPORTERS had already left the building. So had all the police and detectives, except one. That one was left to guard the premises.
He was a very disgruntled detective, with the disposition of a bear just roused from his winter"s sleep.
His ears still were red from a tongue-lashing from the chief of police.
It was the sympathetic detective who had permitted Alice Dawn to slip away. Alice was still missing.
When the mild-appearing man in blue serge and horn-rimmed spectacles appeared, the detective exploded. He tried to toss the mild-appearing man out.
Much to his surprise, the other caught him by the wrists, held him so he couldn"t move. "Take it easy, copper," the mild-appearing man said. "Maybe I can help you out of the doghouse."
The detective"s jaw dropped. The other let go, dug out a police card. It was a New York police card, issued to "Jack Warren, of the New York Press."
"Give," Warren advised briefly.
The detective drew in a deep breath, prepared for a new outbreak. Then he looked at Warren and changed his mind. He started talking.
Warren listened sympathetically. That really opened the floodgates. The detective talked at length and in detail.
"I thought she was on the level," he concluded at last. "I didn"t see how anyone that pretty could lie."
His face became doleful. "But she did. A shot had been fired from the closet. Maybe it was even the murder shot. Now she"s hidden out."Jack Warren didn"t say anything for a while. He walked about the two office rooms, inspected the closet.
He asked a great many questions. In particular he went over all the walls very closely.
The detective watched him hopefully. There was something about this guy that gave him confidence. He made no objection at all when Warren opened the drawers of Gadberry"s desk, inspected all the contents.
Few papers seemed to be there. In fact, here was little evidence that Gadberry had done any work in the office at all.
"He rented this place a couple of months ago, but spent little time here," the detective explained.
Jack Warren nodded. He was inspecting a map he had found in one of the drawers. It was a very good map.
"The secretary here often?" Warren asked.
The detective nodded glumly. "Every day. But no one seems to know what she did."
Jack Warren slipped the map into his pocket unnoticed. He turned to leave.
"Hey," the detective cried in alarm. "You said you might help me. Did you find out anything?"
The mild-appearing man paused. "If I were you," he said slowly, "I wouldn"t waste time looking for a small man in baggy clothes as the killer. I believe I would hunt for a tall man, probably as big as Gadberry."
The detective started to speak. Warren beat him to it. "Since you already know the girl lied on some things, doesn"t it sound reasonable she might have given you a description exactly opposite of the truth?"
he asked reasonably.
A slow grin spread over the detective"s features. That was so. Maybe he could get out of the doghouse yet.
Warren started to close the door behind him, then stuck his head back in. "I think you might investigate, also, to see if there might not be a connection between this killing and the "sea serpent" that was seen several days ago," he advised.
The door slammed shut. The detective"s grin vanished. He started forward angrily. He"d been played for a sap again, he thought bitterly. Now, how could there be a connection between a sea serpent and a murder?
THE mild-appearing man made his way to the street rapidly. He found a telephone booth and put in a call for New York. He did not call the New York Press.
It was almost dusk when he went to the Kirkland Hotel.
The clerk on duty was the same one who had seen Hahln leave the hotel several days before. He was wondering what had happened to Hahln when Jack Warren appeared.
The mild-appearing man explained he was an amateur photographer. He was looking for a hotel where he could fix up his own dark room. Was that permitted here?
The night clerk beamed. The Kirkland Hotel desired permanent tenants. Certainly, it could be arranged if Mr.-"Jackson," the other supplied.
"We have a Mr. Hahln here now who also is an amateur photographer," the clerk added.
The mild-appearing man seemed interested. He suggested he would like to see how Hahln had arranged his room.
The clerk looked disappointed. He didn"t believe Hahln was in. "Call 651," he instructed the telephone girl.
There was no answer. The mild-appearing man seemed undecided. Then he said he would come back later. He left the building.
Across the lobby a man rose casually, went to the elevator. He asked for the seventh floor. After the elevator left he went down the hallway to the stairs, then walked down to the sixth floor.
The mild-appearing man did not know that. When he came back into the hotel through the service entrance he made his way direct to the sixth floor, found Room 651.
The door was locked. He took a small metal object from his pocket, put it in the keyhole and manipulated it swiftly. The door opened.
He had closed the door behind him and was reaching for a light switch when the two men hidden inside jumped on him.