Doctor Death Vs. The Secret Twelve - Volume 1 Read online

  “Come back—if you’ve got the guts!” he thundered.

  Shamefacedly, they trooped back into the room, casting fearful glances at the dead thing in the chair—the thing that was dead and was yet alive.

  “Cowards!” the Inspector snapped, a world of sarcasm in his tone. “Examine him again, doc.”

  The medical examiner stepped forward and touched the dead man’s wrist with fingers that trembled. Then, jerking a stethoscope from his pocket, he applied it to the chest over the heart and to the jugular vein. His task completed, he straightened up, a puzzled expression creeping over his beefy face.

  “In spite of what we saw—what I saw myself,” he said slowly, “the man is dead—as dead as he will ever be until the resurrection comes. He’s—”

  He leaped backward with a startled scream.

  For again the dead thing was rising.

  “Oh, God, stop it!” Conners, the devout, exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.

  Ponderously, laboriously, John Stark came to his feet. For a moment he stood there swaying as if seeking to gain his balance, his one arm thrust stiffly forward, the other hanging by his side. Then from his gray lips came a sound as from a great distance.

  “I am Doctor Death,” a hollow voice said “I speak through this, my chosen instrument. I have demonstrated my power. Now I relinquish my hold over him, for I have no wish to punish this man who was my friend.”

  The living dead man toppled forward and fell, as stiff as a board, to the door at their feet.

  Chapter IV

  From Beyond the Veil

  FOR a moment there was a tense, awed silence. Then Ricks reached forward and, seizing the whimpering Conners by the coat collar, jerked him to his feet.

  “Be a man, you hound!” he roared.

  He turned to the others, glaring at them with cold gray eyes.

  “Policemen!” he snarled. “Women! Babies! Scared of a dead man. You’re a disgrace to the force—all except Holm.”

  He turned to the one man who had remained by his side.

  “You were wished onto me, Jimmy Holm,” he said in a more kindly tone. “I’m making no apologies when I tell you what you and all the rest of the department already know—that I didn’t want you. I’ve got as much respect as the average policeman for scientific methods of detection—fingerprints, ballistics and the like. But when it comes to telling me that science can go farther than that, I say now, as I told the mayor to his face, that it’s bosh, flapdoodle and poppycock.

  “And yet,” he continued, “I’ve seen what I’ve seen. I’ve seen that which I never expected to see on this earth. I’ve seen a dead man walking and talking. And I’m man enough to acknowledge that I’m licked. I, the senior member of the force, am willing to admit my inability to cope with this crime. I’m asking you, the newest member, what the hell it’s all about? Can you answer me?”

  All eyes were focussed on Jimmy Holm. He flushed slightly. Then he nodded.

  “I thank you for your confidence, sir,” he replied. “If I may venture an answer to your inquiry, I would say that this is an occult crime—a murder that can only be solved by occult methods. Has it occurred to you, sir, that this man might have been killed by the power of suggestion?”

  Ricks scratched his stubbly chin reflectively.

  “Power of suggestion?” he said wonderingly. “You mean that—that he was hypnotized into thinking that he was dead—that he isn’t dead, but just imagines that he is? Or do you mean that we—me and all the rest of us—are hypnotized and that we’re just dreaming that we’re seeing what we’ve seen?”

  Jimmy Holm smiled in spite of himself.

  “Neither, Inspector,” he answered. “It is not the first time that men have been killed by the power of thought. There are death cults in India who kill by concentrated thought. Right here in America, according to the press reports, an organization of strange people was recently uncovered in one of the large cities—Boston, I think—which, for a certain stipulated sum agreed to make way with a person. The man who killed Stark is, in my opinion, a master of concentration—a thinking machine, if you will. In plain words, he thought John Stark to death. And he retained his hold over him, dead though he was, until he had served his purpose.”

  “Meaning—what?”

  “That when John Stark was being killed—thought to death, certain things were impressed upon his dying brain. At a certain time he was to rise and walk across the room. At a specified moment he was to say certain things. His dead brain cells still obeyed the dictates of a master mind in spite of the absence of life.”

  FOR a long time there was silence. Inspector Ricks paced the floor nervously, his huge teeth clamped upon a cigar. His men, unused to seeing him in this mood, gazed at him wonderingly, their gaze shifting from his face to that of the young man who had made the startling statement.

  Every instant they looked for Ricks to explode. Under ordinary circumstances his withering sarcasm would have been turned loose upon the head of any man who dared make such a suggestion. And, too, they knew that Holm was far from being a favorite with the martinet who ruled the detective bureau.

  It was as Ricks had said: Jimmy Holm had been forced into the bureau against the wishes of the man who commanded it. Left an orphan at an early age as a result of an automobile accident, his father, dying, had placed his guardianship in the hands of his closest friend and attorney, the man who afterward became mayor of the great city.

  From childhood, the boy had shown an inclination toward the occult, the bizarre, the scientific. He had rounded off a career in college, distinguished by his achievements in chemistry, psychology and occult research, by taking a trip to far off lands. There, for several years, be had delved in his hobby to his heart’s content. Returning to America to take over his fortune, he had astonished his guardian by asking for a place in the detective bureau. And the mayor, after considerable argument, had finally acquiesced.

  And now Jimmy Holm, several times a millionaire—a man who might have droned through life to at least a comfortable old age without turning a finger—found himself, less than a month after his appointment, being consulted by the man who ruled the department with a mail fist. A man who, under ordinary circumstances, would never have even noticed his existence was asking his advice.

  Ricks slowly lighted his cigar, the wrinkles around his eyes growing deeper. Turning, he gazed down at the body of his dead friend again. Then he whirled and once more faced Holm.

  “His condition?” he snapped. “Does that go with this voodoo curse you’re talking about? And what about Sergeant Ryan’s story? The yarn about the giant ghost that sucked up the automobile with Atherstine in it. Do they all go together?”

  Holm shook his head.

  “I’m puzzled, sir,” he said frankly. “There seem to be three elements entering into this case. Have you ever heard of elementals, sir?”

  Ricks shook his head.

  “No,” he said savagely.

  “An elemental,” Holm said calmly, “is a spirit form that has not evolved. They exist along with other spirit forms on the other side of the veil that divides the spirit world from this in which we live. Sometimes it becomes possible for a spirit form to break through this veil and manifest itself on the human plane.

  “Because of their inferiority, elementals hate humans. But they must draw their sustenance from humans in order to exist. Usually they establish contact with someone whose vitality is at a low ebb—the sick, the weak, the injured—drawing their vitality from their victims somewhat as a vampire draws blood.

  “That appears to have been the case here. This man was stricken down in a manner unknown to us. Afterward, although still alive to a certain extent—for certain organs continue to function after the dead are made Zombi—he was turned over to the elementals. You see the result.”

  “Am I daft?” Ricks growled.

  “To get to my case of Atherstine,” Holm went on. “There are many elementals. Among them are air elementals�
��vast things that extend as high as the clouds. What are they? I do not know. Possibly there was a race of giants here on earth in days gone by. If so, these air elementals are their lost spirits wandering through the maze. They are said to suck up human beings—to lift them from the ground as a magnet picks up a pin. There are hundreds of people in the north woods who can vouch for this and for the fact that anyone who has ever gazed upon one of them dies before the next sunrise.”

  INSPECTOR RICKS leaned forward. “Sergeant Ryan passed away just before we left,” he said. “I thought that it was the heat. And I’m beginning to think you’re a bit cracked yourself, Holm. Where does this Doctor Death come in? There’s nothing ghostly about his letter.”

  “Elementals are ghosts in a malignant form,” Holm said quietly. “Just as a spiritualistic medium can materialize those who have gone to the other world, so are occasional humans able to materialize these wandering spirits. Doctor Death may be one of these people who has developed his uncanny ability to an incredible degree.”

  Ricks grunted. Suddenly he bestirred himself. He glanced down a second time at the body of the murdered millionaire, then at a little knot of reporters who had entered the room in the wake of the police and who had been listening intently to the conversation.

  “You’ve heard him, boys,” he snapped. “For the first time in my life, I’m willing to admit that I’m stumped. Maybe Holm’s theory is correct. Maybe it’s all wrong. In any event, it’s as good as any for the present. I’m playing along in the regulation way and trusting to luck and God Almighty to help me solve this mystery. And, meanwhile, I’m giving Jimmy Holm a free hand. Get that. If he can figure out the solution by means of his knowledge of the supernatural, I’ll be the first to take my hat off to him.”

  “Holm, the supernatural detective,” someone sneered in a loud whisper.

  “I’m telling you that the man who killed John Stark is going to be caught!” Ricks snarled. “I’m going to fry him, damn him—this man who calls himself Doctor Death—if I have to break down the doors of hell to get him.”

  The sudden entrance of the butler halted his tirade. Plugging in the extension telephone, the servant handed the instrument to the burly policeman.

  For a moment Ricks barked into the receiver. Then, handing the instrument back to the other, he turned to them.

  “They’ve got Spafford.” he said, his voice dry and husky, his face drawn. “Got him in his own door yard while two of my men looked on. That was one of them now—scared to death. Says that the professor simply disappeared—vanished into thin air. Just as Atherstine did.

  “There’s no human agency in the world that could snatch Spafford away from the two men I had assigned to guard him,” he went on. “I’m trailing along with your air elemental, Holm. Trailing along, I say. For if the spirits of hell are turned loose on this world, there’s no chance for an ordinary copper like me.”

  Inspector Ricks was his own blustering self when he faced his men at the roundup next morning. For a moment he said nothing, gazing from one to another as if seeking in their faces an opportunity to single out some one offender more guilty than his fellows.

  “And you call yourselves detectives!” be said finally. “Detectives, bah! Two murders have been committed within the last twelve hours. Both of them big men—not only the biggest men in this city, but the nation as well. And not a clew turned up. Not an arrest made. And this man, Atherstine. When the matter was first reported to me, I thought that Mulrooney and Ryan had been drinking. From indications. Atherstine and his chauffeur were killed the same as the others.

  “I told you last night,” he went on, “that I’d string along with Jimmy Holm. He’s the only one of us that knows anything about the supernatural. But that’s not saying that this is a supernatural killing, just because we don’t understand it. You’ll agree with me that the chances are a million to one that when we get at the bottom of it, it will be so simple that we’ll be ashamed of ourselves for not thinking of it in the beginning. And there’s no excuse for any of us laying down.”

  Chapter V

  Death Calls to Jimmy

  HE paced back and forth for a minute, his bulldog jaw outthrust, his big lists doubled belligerently.

  “There’s a devil loose in this town, boys,” he said finally in a more kindly tone. “A devil who is bent upon the wholesale destruction of the big men of the nation. Since the death threats received by Stark and Spafford got into the papers, several other men—men of prominence, scientists mostly-have appealed to me for protection. I’ve got half the harness bulls on the force guarding them. Meanwhile—”

  He stopped and turned at the entrance of a sergeant bearing a letter.

  “Pardon the interruption, sir,” the latter said, bringing his hand to his forehead in a brisk salute. “But this letter just came, special delivery, sir. It’s addressed to you, as you’ll notice and marked, ‘Important information in re. the Stark murder’. I thought it was best that you should have it immediately.”

  Ricks seized the envelope from the sergeant and tore it open. For an instant his eyes took in the contents of the page. Then he turned to his assembled detectives again, his face livid with rage.

  “Listen to this!” he roared. “It’s from him—the man who calls himself Doctor Death. Listen:

  Inspector Ricks:

  The body of John Stark was not destroyed as were those of Spafford and Atherstine because, had he, too, disappeared, you might have imagined my letters merely a hoax. I left his body to demonstrate to you that I have the ability to perform miracles.

  I am, as I stated in my letters to Stark and Spafford, as well as several other gentlemen who have probably already consulted you, bent upon the destruction of the world of science. We have become a nation of machines. We must return to the old half-toned simplicity in order to survive. I am the chosen weapon of this generation to bring this about.

  Within the next few days I will kill others. I will continue until every scientist and inventor has been wiped out, or until the hum of the factories ceases and the grass grows upon the streets as it did in the days of our fathers.

  The next to go will be Doctor Karl Munson of New York University. He is number three. The others already selected are, in order or precedence, as follows:

  No. 4. Amos Bosworthy, financier.

  No. 5. Thomas Whipple, the airplane magnate.

  No. 6. J. P. Hamilton, the automobile king.

  No. 7. Professor Phineas Drexell of Yale University.

  No. 8. Professor Levi Henworthy of Harvard.

  No. 9. Professor William Munz, the electrical wizard.

  No. 10. Dr. Daniel Darrow, chemist of Philadelphia.

  No. 11. James Peabody, head of the experimental dept. of Eastern Electric.

  No. 12. Herbert C. Hallover, head of the department of chemistry of the same company.

  Respectfully yours

  Doctor Death.

  P.S. It may be necessary that others be killed, too. I sincerely hope, however, that the deaths of these twelve men will prove sufficient.

  For a moment there was an awed silence. Munson, Bosworthy, Whipple, Hamilton, Drexell, Henworthy, Munz, Darrow, Peabody, Hallover! The brains of the nation. And all marked for slaughter! It was astounding. Incredible. A grizzled captain forgot discipline and gave vent that which was uppermost in the minds of all of them.

  “My God!” he exclaimed. “He’s liable to strike at the President himself.”

  There was no answering rebuke from Inspector Ricks. Instead he shook his shaggy head.

  “And what the devil can we do to prevent him?” he questioned.

  Detective Jimmy Holm was puzzled. Scientist though he was, delver in the occult, the weird outrages already performed by the uncanny creature who called himself Doctor Death surpassed belief. Was there such a man? Or was he of the spirit world? No. The letters he wrote were those of this sphere, insane though the writer might be.

  What reason did he have in murderin
g the best brains of the nation? Was it jealousy? Or was he telling the truth when he said that he was inspired solely by a desire to force the world back to the simple life? Was there some other unaccountable purpose behind this wholesale murder plot that was driving the police force of the country frantic? Already every man of prominence was under a heavy guard. And Holm knew, as did his colleagues, that a guard meant nothing. Doctor Death was a monster—a fiend. But he was possessed of some strange power which enabled him to kill at long range—to cause those at whom he had pointed the clammy finger to disappear at will.

  The soft whir of a motor close at hand drove the problem momentarily from his brain. He looked up with a start.

  “Jimmy Holm!” a woman’s voice drawled. “Don’t tell me that you intended passing me without speaking.”

  HOLM raised his hat with a smile and gazed into a pair of amber eyes that filled him with a sudden thrill. She was, he decided, a more than ordinarily pretty woman. A taunting smile rested upon her full, red lips. Watching her as she half reclined against the cushions, the thought flashed over him that Sappho or Aspasia must have been such a woman as this.

  Her smooth skin was slightly tinted—the color of ivory, he decided. The eyes, which gazed into his own, seemed filled with knowledge of the buried past, yet they were brimming over with life. Slightly inclined to the oblique, they set off to full advantage the delicate oval of the rest of her face—a face that was filed with strength in spite of its beauty. She was attired in the height of fashion from the tip of her tiny shoe, above which appeared a glimpse of a delicately turned ankle, to the top of her smoothly coiffured black hair.

  Suddenly he recollected that he was staring at her. His gaze shifted from her face to the hand, delicate as the petals of a rose, that rested lightly on the wheel.

  “Don’t tell me that you have forgotten me,” she exclaimed with a tiny pout.

  Holm smiled whimsically.

  “I’ve a rotten memory for names,” he told her. “I recall your face, however.”