Pulp crime, p.572
Pulp Crime, page 572
“Say!” he exclaimed suddenly. “What’s that smoke?”
Quickly he got out and ran down the sidewalk and around the side of the house, with the startled Catherine following. From behind, Orr had seen trails of smoke go up into the late afternoon sky.
The weird chattering of excited monkeys came from the gardens now. Turning at the rear of the house, Orr stopped shortly.
Vic Culler was piling wood on a large fire. He whirled frightenedly.
“What’s the idea?” Orr demanded. “Why, I—I’m going to destroy these two dead monkeys,” Culler explained. He indicated a gunny sack at his side. “Mr. Spight said I should. They’re infected. Dr. Nelson was experimenting with ’em.”
“You’d better go,” Orr said grimly. “We’ll take care of the monkeys.”
A slow smirk crossed the youth’s face. “Suit yourself,” he said. He hurried to a battered flivver behind a gate by the monkey gardens; then he was driving off.
The fire was now going out; Orr threw dirt on it. Some twenty yards behind him, in the monkey gardens, the little jungle beasts were whimpering and jumping around their large cages.
“Sorry, fellas,” Orr grinned at them grimly, “but we’re going to have to take your two dead pals to town.”
It was late that night when Catherine Orr looked up from her microscope. Stretching a little, she said, tiredly: “That’s the last of it. There’s an undue amount of the Vibrio coma in the blood of these monkeys. Then their skins are punctured in several places—and not from bites or bruises.”
Orr came to his feet, eyes hardening. “Some one must have injected the disease into ’em! Nelson never did; he always let ’em get it much as a human would—through contaminated food or water.” He tapped a thick medical book.
“Then it says here this cholera Vibrio seldom if ever invades the blood stream.”
Catherine nodded. “Yes, and another thing is, the disease gains entrance by way of the gastro-intestinal tract. That would mean we should have found cholera perms in the mouths. But my findings there are all negative.”
Muscles knotted in Git’s throat. He knew now that if the two monkeys had been given cholera germs by Nelson, his specific therapy had made them immune to the disease. And they would have had the germs in the intestinal tract—not the blood. He said tonelessly:
“The more I think of this, the more I believe it’s murder.” Seething rage rode his brain with the thought. “And if it is murder,” he went on bitterly, “we’ve got to prove it!”
Half an hour later, they were back at the dead Dr. Nelson’s monkey farm. The night was moonless, ominously dark. They went around the house to the monkey garden.
Catherine had learned the cage number of the dead animals earlier in the day. They neared the place now, hoping for a new lead.
Catherine suddenly stopped dead still. She grabbed Orr’s arm, whispered: “I—I think some one’s coming!”
From behind the garden, there was the faint but unmistakable sound of footsteps. Abruptly, as though warned by this, the caged monkeys began a frantic, maddening chatter. Orr gave silent thanks that he and Catherine had driven in without lights; that they’d made little noise.
Some ten yards away from them now, a low voice ground out angry curses. The footsteps continued.
Straining his eyes, Orr saw a shadow go toward the two-story house. The intruder faded into the blackness. Behind, the monkeys ceased their jabbering; became sepulchrally silent.
Then, from the direction of the towering mass of darkness that was the house, there came the whack-whack-whack sounds of something striking dirt, “He must be digging,” Catherine breathed fearfully into her husband’s ear.
“We’ll see,” Orr breathed back tightly.
He waited for what was at least ten minutes, while the digging continued. Then, as it stopped, he slid forward. Catherine followed.
Orr, gun and flashlight now out, kept moving. But just as he was about to snap the light, his foot caught over something—the pile of unburned wood with which Vic Culler was going to destroy the monkeys.
There was a loud, cracking snap. Orr’s foot had crushed a stick. He instinctively stumbled forward, half jumping to prevent his falling.
Before him, the unknown newcomer was darting toward the side of the house. Simultaneously a gun was roaring thunderous flame in his hand.
Catherine screamed. Orr dropped, blazing back at the fleeing shadow. He dared not turn on his light, for fear of offering too good a target.
And then something struck him on the temple with savage impact; lightning seemed to dance madly in his skull. Then he was going down into a pit of horrible nothingness.
He came to with the screeching cries of the terrified monkeys in his ears. Some one was shaking him, saying:
“Oh, darling, are you hurt? Are you hurt?”
Orr sat erect. Catherine wiped blood from his cheek and head.
“I—I’m all right,” he said dazedly. “You?”
“I lost my head,” she sobbed. “I—I couldn’t help screaming.”
He felt his head. The bullet had grazed his right temple.
“What became of him?”
“He got away,” Catherine explained. “Drove off in a car he had parked down the road. I got your gun and fired back—but I’m sure I missed.”
Orr stood up, and he and Catherine went to the side of the house. He flashed his light on the spot where the other had dug.
“Don’t get too close!” Orr warned.
Dug against the side of the house, was a hole about two feet deep. Around it in spots, the dirt was slightly tamped, as though with wires. But what caught Orr’s eye was a small, ironclad box at the bottom of the hole—chained to several water pipes.
“Dr. Nelson’s formula!” Orr gasped. “That’s what the fellow who came here wanted. It’s beginning to look more and more like murder.” He turned to his wife. “What did that car sound like?”
“I didn’t hear it very well, for worrying about you. But it didn’t sound like Culler’s car.”
“He could have used another one,” Orr said.
He stared wonderingly at the ironlike box. It was the same size as a nickel match box, but the padlock under one of its rungs was nearly twice as large. Orr kept staring at this and the freshly dug dirt. Then an icy thought struck his brain, and he snapped:
“We’ve got to act quick, Catherine. I think I know how we can get this guy.” He led Catherine to the front of the house. “This isn’t exactly legal,” he announced, “but we can’t take time to be too careful!”
With his gun muzzle, he poked a hole in a window, turned the window-latch. He went in and made three phone calls. Coming back out quickly, he said:
“One was to Vic Culler. He lives at the Lincoln Hotel in Carbondale, about three miles away from here. Hotel operator says he ain’t in. I called Dr. Torgerson’s house—it’s about two miles down the road—and he’s not in. Spight, who lives with him, says he’s in town on business. I also got the sheriff.”
“What do you plan to do?” Catherine asked tremulously.
“I’m going to round up everybody. They should be here within forty-five minutes.”
The sheriff, bringing two deputies, came first. “Wait here with my wife,” Orr ordered. “I’ll be back soon.” They were waiting for him, impatiently, when he got back—Dr. Torgerson, Dennis Spight, and Vic Culler, together with the county lawmen.
Catherine had turned on the lights of the coupé, and everyone stood before these.
“See here, Orr,” Torgerson rapped. “You can’t keep us here. I had important business in town; the sheriff brought me here much against my will.”
“You were in town,” Orr cut in, voice edged. “And you, Spight?”
“Why, I was home, reading.” Dennis Spight shuffled his feet uneasily.
“I don’t have to believe that,” Orr commented. “What about you, Culler?” The red-faced youth had trouble speaking. “I—I had stepped out to buy a paper when you called. The sheriff got me, too. I—I don’t know what this is all about!”
“Well, tell us, Orr,” muttered the burly sheriff. “Your wife says yuh got somethin’ important.”
“Yes, sheriff,” Orr began, “it is important. Dr. Nelson didn’t just die accidentally. He was murdered!”
There was a stunned silence. Then Torgerson cried thickly: “Murdered! Ah—why that’s insane, man! What proof have you?”
“I’ve got proof,” Orr said, voice steely. His eyes drilled into the three suspects; watched every move they made.
“Yes,” he went on. “Nelson finally found this specific therapy for the cure and immunizing of cholera. You, Torgerson, and Spight, were to share in the prize money from the foreign government. Culler here was just working for wages. Then one of you got greedy—and killed him.”
Questions and oaths leaped to the others’ mouths. Orr held up his hand.
“One of you injected cholera germs in those two monkeys. The idea was to make it look as though they’d bitten him and given him cholera. The thing backfired. Nelson died from cholera all right, but he didn’t get it from a monkey bite. One of you slipped him the disease, in a very clever but simple way.
“Being kind of old and having been given a large dosage, the infection was I extremely severe.” Orr’s tone took on a harder vibrancy. “He died before he could help himself or before he could get help!”
“You—you can prove all that?” Vic Culler stammered.
“Yes. Tonight the killer came back. He’s somehow or other found out where the cholera formula was. But when he got his hands on it, he found it was locked to waterpipes. I know who that Spight eyed Torgerson and Culler suspiciously. “Who is it?” he asked.
“It’s you,” Orr barked. “Culler’s killing the monkeys wrecked your scheme; they wouldn’t have showed postmortem signs of cholera. So you told him to burn ’em. They wouldn’t have showed signs anyway; they’d been immunized. You didn’t—Take him, sheriff!”
At those startling words, Spight had moved back, then darted toward the dark. But one of the sheriff’s two men, surprisingly fleet-footed, tripped him. Snarling, he tried to fight back. He was quickly handcuffed.
“I—I don’t have anything to do with this,” Torgerson wheezed.
“No, I don’t think you do,” Orr said. “He worked at it alone. He wanted to hog the formula for himself.”
Spight babbled out a curse. “You can’t prove anything.”
Orr pulled out a carefully wrapped bottle. “Wine,” he said. “This was in your room.” He smiled at Torgerson. “I took the liberty of checking this with your microscope, Doc. The wine’s loaded with cholera germs.”
Why, yes!” Torgerson cried at Spight. “You did give him a drink of that yesterday. He was pretty tired, and you said that would pep him up. It killed him instead, eh?”
“And he’s the man that tried to dig out the formula from the side of the house,” Orr said. “A check-up of his fingernails will show the dirt under ’em matches that alongside the house.” Spight cursed savagely, jeered: “Yeah, Yeah, you got me all right. Don’t rub it in. But if it hadn’t been for you, wise guy, these other punks wouldn’t have figured it.”
The sheriff jerked him away angrily. “We got it figured now,” he growled.
Alone with Catherine and Torgerson later, Orr said: “About Nelson’s share on this formula—I think we’d better turn it over to some hospital for research purposes.”
“Good idea,” Torgerson agreed. “He would have probably done that himself.” Catherine slipped her arm under her husband’s. She said, “Darling, I still can’t understand how you tagged Spight.”
“Those wirelike impressions on the dirt around that hole he dug,” Orr explained. “Only one thing could have done that—corduroy pants. I noticed that’s what Spight was wearing this afternoon. In his hurry to get his fingers on the formula, he knelt in several spots. He left knee marks. The fool tagged himself!”
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