The Avenger 34 - The Glass Man (5 page)

Smitty clicked off the radio. “Afternoon, Dick.”

After seating himself behind the desk the Avenger said, “Nellie phoned me a few moments ago.”

“She okay?” Smitty dropped his radio to the floor.

“Nellie’s all right,” answered Benson. “We’re not sure about Cole, however.”

Josh asked, “What’s happened to him?”

“That’s what we’re going out there to find out,” Benson told them. His eyes were narrowed, glowing with determination.

“Give us the details,” requested the giant.

“Cole and Nellie went out there to New Mexico to find out why Dr. Dean disappeared. Now Cole seems to have disappeared as well.”

“Turned invisible maybe?” said Smitty.

“I don’t think so. Nellie doesn’t know exactly what happened.” He repeated the details the girl had given him over the phone.

“A dame’s involved,” said Smitty when the Avenger had finished. “Might have known.”

“And she’s missing, too,” said Josh.

“Could be they eloped.”

“I’ve read most of Jenny Keaton’s stuff,” said the black man. “She’s plenty shrewd, and she really does have a knack for digging out details. Been in some pretty tough scrapes.”

“So it ain’t likely she’d do anything foolish.”

“More likely she was following up some kind of news lead and got in trouble.”

“Cole must have been with her.”

The Avenger said, “We don’t even know if Cole ever saw the girl. Remember, Nellie found his trail leading from their hotel to Jenny Keaton’s hotel and from there to the Continental Club. Apparently Cole didn’t make contact with the girl at any of those places. It’s possible he never did.”

“Both of them vanishing at about the same time,” said Josh, “seems like too big a coincidence.”

“That makes three disappearances out there,” said Smitty.

“And two murders,” said Benson.

“Two?”

“There was a second invisible-man killing last night. Nellie heard the details on the local radio station just before she called.”

“This new victim got anything to do with the Dean’s Perseus Project?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“That makes it twice as spooky,” observed the giant. “You got this invisible killer, and on top of that what looks like a series of senseless killings. Jack the Ripper stuff.”

The Avenger steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Nellie thinks there may be some connection between the two victims.”

“Like what?”

“She’s going to do some more digging,” said Benson. “By the time we arrive in New Mexico she’ll be able to tell us if her theory proved out.”

“We’re heading west, huh?” Smitty rubbed his hands together.

“MacMurdie is up in Connecticut looking into that poison-gas business,” said the Avenger. “He’ll stay there. The three of us will take off in one of our airships in two hours.” He got up and left the room.

Dr. Gardner Dean had no idea where he was.

It was always dark. And he had the feeling that he might be underground. The room was rock-walled, possibly even some sort of cave which had been converted into a dwelling. Geology and archaeology were not his specialties. He had, however, the idea that he might be in one of the abandoned pueblo towns which lay some twenty miles out of Nolansville.

He’d been here seven days at least. He could tell time fairly well by the changes of temperature from day to night, and from his body functions.

Exploring more than a ten-foot circle of his prison was impossible. He was chained, with an ankle chain, to a ring set in the floor. Seven days of effort had not loosened the ring or the chain.

Dr. Dean had not seen anyone.

There were two large jugs of water within his circle. He’d located them soon after waking up down here. There was a carton full of dry biscuits and beef jerky. Not sufficient for a balanced diet, but more than enough to keep him alive. At the edge of the circle was a portable canvas privy.

Whoever had knocked him out, from behind, as he was walking toward his house that night was thoughtful. He hadn’t wanted him to die. Not right away anyhow.

The physicist was puzzled as to who had kidnaped him. German agents was the most logical answer. Yet they’d have surely been questioning him by now. Keeping him locked up in a dark hole wasn’t doing the Nazis any good.

Unless they simply wanted to keep him from doing any further work on the Perseus Project.

That was why Dr. Dean had come to New Mexico nearly two years ago, the month after Pearl Harbor. To work on the project at the guarded base outside Nolansville.

“It seems very unlikely they even know what we’ve been up to,” he said to himself. “Security’s been very good.”

The unfortunate part was that he’d solved the problem. Solved it only two days before he’d been brought here.

“I should have told Alan and Dr. Coopersmith, but I wanted to run a few more tests first,” he said. “I hope, if I don’t get out of this alive, they’ll be able to realize that I did break through to an answer.”

His objective had been to find a way to render a human being completely invisible.

“And I’ve succeeded. The first man, the only man at the moment, who knows how to make a man invisible.”

The college campus reminded her of the Perseus Project setup. It consisted of a scatter of large buildings and strips of greenery sitting in the middle of flat, orange-brown desert.

Or an oasis maybe, Nellie thought as she parked her rented car in the visitors’ lot.

The several dozen students roaming the campus were mostly girls, with here and there a young man. And some of the boys were in uniform.

After consulting the map of the campus she’d acquired back in Nolansville, the little blonde went striding toward the two-story brick-and-tile building which housed the administration offices.

The late morning heat didn’t follow her into the cool corridors. Nellie located the records office and entered.

An old woman, very small, sat behind the room’s only desk. A nameplate on her desk read
MISS SAGENDORF
.

“Miss Sagendorf?” said Nellie, halting near the desk.

“She’s in the WACS,” the old woman said without looking up from the open file folder on her desk. “Stationed at Fort Estling, Kentucky, if you wish to—”

“Actually I want some information about a former student here at the university.”

The small old woman lifted her head to study Nellie. “You’re not with the FBI, are you? We get all sorts of FBI people coming in to check on boys who—”

“No, I’m more of a private investigator.”

“Like Nick Carter? My, women are getting into all kinds of dangerous work since this war came along.”

From her large handbag Nellie extracted the photo she’d borrowed from Byron Price’s widow. “Have you been with the university for some time?”

The old woman smiled. “Since it was founded twenty-three years ago. My husband, the late Dr. Heimdahl, was the first dean of men.”

“I’m trying to find out something about the fellows in this picture.” She held it out.

Mrs. Heimdahl closed the folder and took the framed picture to study. “Oh, yes. There’s poor Byron Price. He was just killed, you know. It all sounded very unusual, the manner in which . . . but that must be what you’re investigating, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s Ted Napton,” said the old woman. “He’s been killed too. In that terrible rundown movie house of his. He was such a promising young man, with a great deal of potential, until . . .”

“Until what?”

Mrs. Heimdahl set the photo aside, then reached over to run a finger over the face of the freckled boy. “It was because of him . . . He was the bright one of the group, one of the brightest boys on campus then. That was . . . fifteen years ago at least. I remember that Dr. Heimdahl was quite upset about his death.”

“He died back then, while he was in college?”

“The others didn’t mean anything by it; Dr. Heimdahl and I agreed on that,” said the old woman, closing her eyes and seeing the past. “That’s why none of them were asked to leave school, though a couple of them did quit.”

“Tell me about his death.”

“It was intended as a prank . . . In those days boys were a lot less serious than they are now; it was before the Depression.” She leaned back in her chair, eyes still closed. “They’d seen some movie or other . . . about the Foreign Legion, as I recall. It got them to speculating about how long one could survive in the desert. Well, what they did—only as a joke, you understand—they carried this boy off and left him out in the desert. Out near the old abandoned pueblo villages. . . . Have you seen them?”

“No, not as yet.”

“Not many people go there anymore . . . They left him there, tied up. Told him he’d have to get free and walk all the way back to campus. It was a joke, only that. They really just drove a few miles off. When it got dark they were going to go back and pick him up.”

“But there was an accident?”

The old woman sighed and opened her eyes. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault really . . . although they possibly should have anticipated something like that. The poor boy was bitten by a snake—I forget the name of it now—but it was a venomous snake. He never lived long enough to even untie himself, so it must have happened soon after they left him there alone. We do such foolish things when we’re young . . .”

“And what was his name? The boy who died.”

The old woman told her.

Agent Pike was trying to read a copy of
Detective Story
magazine. He dropped it into a big ashtray next to his lobby chair when Nellie came in. “Been out sleuthing?”

She nodded. “Any word about Cole?”

“No, nothing yet on him or the Keaton girl,” answered Pike. “But maybe the sheriff’s got something on the disappearance of Dr. Dean. I’m dubious.”

“What is it?”

“Well, some old coot out on the edge of town just got back from a week’s visit to his kin in Taos,” said the government agent. “Left his car in his garage, with the keys in it. Not too bright, this old coot.”

Nellie took the wicker armchair next to him. “Somebody swipe his car?”

“So he claims. The car’s right there in the garage still, but he swears it was borrowed and used by somebody. Came in and complained to the sheriff,” explained Pike. “See, despite being careless about the keys, he’s fastidious about mileage. He writes down the figures off the speedometer. So he maintains that since he left somebody drove his car sixty miles.”

“Did he take off on his vacation the day Dr. Dean vanished?”

“Yeah, that’s it. A long shot, but it could be someone glommed his car to haul the doc somewhere. I don’t know . . . we haven’t been able to find any vehicle that could have been used.
If
one was used. I guess I’m clutching at straws.”

From her purse Nellie took a gas-station map of the area and a six-inch ruler. She unfurled the map, spreading it on the magazine table beside her. “If the car was used, that would mean a round trip of sixty miles. So we’ll use a radius of thirty. Where’s the old gentleman live?”

Pike leaned, jabbed at the map. “About there.”

“Okay, we’ll use that for the center of the circle.” She drew as she talked.

“Our project facility falls within the circle,” noticed Pike.

“And so do the pueblo ruins,” said the little blonde.

“What’s old Indian buildings got to do with any of this?”

“Maybe nothing,” said Nellie. “But I’d like to have a look at them.”

Cole Wilson shook his head forlornly at the empty belt loops of his trousers. “A pity,” he said.

“You wake up in a dungeon,” said Jenny Keaton, “and the first thing you worry about is your clothes.”

Cole rose up further from the linoleum floor. “A room with linoleum on the floor can’t technically be called a dungeon, dear lady,” he said. “It’s more a storeroom, from the looks of it. As to my missing belt, I’m saddened for other than sartorial reasons. Inside the buckle reposes a very small yet efficient two-way radio.”

The red-haired reporter said, “Very thorough, these boys, to have spotted it.”

“I’ll have to resort to my native wit to extricate us.” He rubbed the upper part of his left arm. “Though I’m wondering how astute I am, since I let that sweet old lady jab a hypo into me.”