Alexander Key
Formula for Death
A gripping G-Man Novelette
The G-man did not question his orders. He knew his information was correct. Something was wrong.
I.
Only certain privileged ones in Washington had ever heard of the Bureau of Special Intelligence. Its members were few; it took precedence over all other departments of criminal investigation, and its powers were extraordinary. If the occasion required it, any one of its members could have demanded a private train or a battleship – and would have obtained it almost immediately.
In a small, bare office near the headquarters of the Department of Justice, General Hyde went quickly through his morning mail. It was voluminous, and many of the letters were long and contained important information. General Hyde read each through once, then thrust it into a small asbestos-covered burner which stood by his desk. The secrets which came to the door of the Bureau of Special Intelligence were not the kind to be kept on paper – and General Hyde’s memory was phenomenal.
He was a little man, past middle age. The hair on his great dome of a head was stiff, close-cropped, and iron-gray. He had eyes like blue ice, and small, hard, ferocious features that reminded one of a bull terrier.
He pressed a button and listened while a mechanical recording device built into the, desk ran off the past night’s conversations of the seven telephones before him. When finished, he destroyed the wax disk inside, then whirled to pick up the receiver of an eighth phone on the wall at his left – the line which connected him with the world at large. It had been ringing for half a minute.
“Yes,” he spoke tersely. “Hyde speaking.”
The strained, excited voice at the other end of the line was that of a high official in the war department.
“Enough,” Hyde interrupted presently. “Do not waste time telling what you think happened. A man who will introduce himself as Captain Youngblood will be there in eleven minutes. Keep nothing from him, and allow no one to leave until he arrives.”
General Hyde slammed down the receiver, picked up a telephone on his desk marked with the number “7,” and waited until a tiny red light at its base flashed seven times.
“Zero,” he spoke into the mouthpiece.
“Number Seven ready,” came the smooth reply.
“Go to the laboratory of Marcus Van Deusen across the river. You know the place. Robinson Thayer is your man; he has just phoned from the laboratory. Lost something of great value. He’s standing by till you come. Have Operative Eddy follow. There will be trouble. Be ready for it. Report in exactly” – General Hyde’s eyes flicked to the wall clock – “forty-nine minutes. Hurry.”
He pushed the phone back to the desk. Lighting a long brown cigar, he settled comfortably in his chair for a quarter hour’s concentrated thought before the alternate reports of his various and unrelated cases began coming in over the other private wires.
II.
In a small brick house an arrow’s flight from the Potomac, the lean, dark man who was known in certain circles as Captain Youngblood gave quick orders to a squat Negro servant, and thrust an army pistol into the built-in holster in the vest of his baggy but fashionable tweed suit. He slipped into an overcoat, pulled a gray crusher hat down to his high-bridged nose, and picked up a black bag as he left the room. He appeared unhurried, but not a motion nor a second’s time was wasted.
A powerful car with the Negro at the wheel was waiting for him when he went out of the side door. “Step on it, Rook,” he said to the Negro.
He glanced back once as Rook turned the corner and roared toward the river. Following them out of the drive of the brick house was a battered coupé that kept pace with them easily. In the coupe, he knew, was a neat young man who might have passed as a clerk in a bookstore – except that his eyes were a trifle too hard and alert.
The Van Deusen laboratory was in a large, apparently empty ware house that stood in a neighborhood of old buildings beyond a congestion of railroad tracks. Grimy and soot-blackened, with gray streaks of snow clinging to its boarded windows, the place was forbidding – and incongruous. Behind those dark windows worked the greatest experimental chemist in the country.
Rook stopped the car behind two expensive machines near the entrance. Youngblood swung out. His glance swept the deserted street, the cars, and the great dingy building. He waited a moment until the following car had pulled over to the opposite curb, and then pushed open the wide steel door and entered a dimly lighted vestibule.
The reek of chemicals struck his nostrils. There was something else in the air, a something that brought a sudden tightening of muscles in his narrow, saturnine face, and emphasized the strong trace of Indian blood showing in his high cheek bones. He felt an indefinable sensation of danger – and death.
With a quick gliding motion, his right hand hooked to dart instantly to his gun. He pulled open a second steel door at his right and entered a small office.
* * *
The place was brilliantly lighted. Of the three people in the room, his attention was immediately caught by the slim, pretty, redheaded girl who stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. Only puzzlement and annoyance were on the faces of the two men behind her. The one in a white smock was Van Deusen, a round, paunchy, bald little man whose name was a legend in the scientific laboratories of the world. The other – a tall man with unusually strong features and a gray goatee – was Dr. Messinger, a well-known medical adviser in government circles.
Without appearing to do so, Youngblood took in every detail of the room. He bowed and spoke suavely. “I am Captain Youngblood, here at the request of Mr. Robinson Thayer. Where is Mr. Thayer?”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, then closed it upon her lower lip. Deathly fear was in her face.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” drawled Dr. Messinger. “Thayer left here a few minutes ago. He failed to mention that any one was calling for him.”
Youngblood’s narrow eyes went half shut, but his suave composure remained unchanged when he looked at Van Deusen. The fat little chemist peered back at him blankly. “If it is anything important, I suggest that you try Mr. Thayer’s apartment. He’s probably there by now.”
“Hardly. Thayer phoned from this office not a quarter of an hour ago. The matter was extremely urgent. Are you trying to tell me that a man like Robinson Thayer would have left without seeing me?”
Youngblood smiled. He always smiled when he found something wrong with a picture. It was inconceivable that a man as important as Thayer would have called for help, and then vanished without explanation. Not Robinson Thayer, diplomat, high official in the war department, right-hand man to the President.
For a moment there was silence. The girl choked, turned, and dropped into a chair facing a typewriter. She began typing rapidly. Out of the corner of his eye, Youngblood saw that she was striking blindly at the keys.
“See here,” Dr. Messinger growled, “I don’t know what you’re after, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. Mr. Van Deusen is a busy man. Get out, and stay out!”
Youngblood flashed a badge on his vest. His voice became flint-hard. “Enough out of you! I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’ll soon learn. Van Deusen,” he rasped, “where’s Thayer? What’s happened to him?”
The bald little chemist started. “You are troubling me at a bad time, my friend. I have work to do. Mr. Robinson Thayer arrived a short while ago upon a government matter. He left almost immediately when he discovered he had forgotten to bring his dispatch case. Furthermore, he made no telephone call from this office. There is no reason to doubt my word. My daughter, Lili, was here every moment, as well as Dr. Messinger.”
Van Deusen was obviously speaking the truth; he was not the type of man who could lie gracefully.
But Youngblood swung to the others. “Is this straight?”
“Certainly,” snapped the doctor. “Tell him, Miss Van Deusen.”
The red-headed girl stiffened in her chair. When she faced about, she had achieved some measure of control. “It – it is just as my father says. Mr. Thayer had an appointment here at ten o’clock. He was here hardly a minute, and then left. I saw him go out of the door, and heard him drive away in his car.”
* * *
Youngblood glanced at his wrist watch and smiled again. It was not a pleasant smile. “Whose cars are those parked outside?”
Messinger took a step forward. “One is Mr. Van Deusen’s. The other is mine. For a fool detective you’re becoming damned inquisitive. Go on; get out!”
“Not until I’ve had a look through this laboratory – and also found out why your car has a West Virginia license plate.”
A pistol appeared in Messinger’s hand. He thrust it against the intelligence officer’s belt. “Start moving! No man enters this laboratory without a permit from the war department. Anything more from you and I’ll see that you’re out of a job.”
Youngblood snorted, and with the speed of light the pistol was transferred from the doctor’s hand to his own.
Messinger fell back, cursing at a sprained finger that had been caught in the trigger guard.
“Now, will you answer questions, my good doctor? I might add that you are in a bad position, and that it would take a signed order from the President to have any effect on my job.
“At the time Robinson Thayer was here, he made a telephone call telling where he was. He couldn’t have made it any other place because there wasn’t time for it. Yet you say he made no call.”
Van Deusen interrupted. “I assure you, captain, that Thayer did not use the phone. He was here only a minute, and I was talking to him all the time. Furthermore, this is the only phone in the building, and the only one available for some distance. There must be a mistake somewhere.”
There was no mistake. General Hyde did not make mistakes.
Youngblood peered strangely at the chemist. He could not shake the conviction that the man spoke the truth.
“And you saw him walk out of this office – heard him drive away?”
Van Deusen showed his exasperation. “I not only saw him go out, but I followed him to the door and watched him leave! When your car drove up, I thought it was Thayer returning.”
“Then how do you account for the fact that Thayer’s car is outside now – has been outside all the while?”
Van Deusen’s jaw hung open. Messinger gave an angry bellow and darted forward. “I’ve had enough of this insanity! I—”
A padded door in the farther wall flew open, and a gaunt giant of a man burst into the office. With him came a stench of chemicals, and a heavy, nauseating odor that instantly filled the room.
“That reserve tank!” he cried thickly. “Boiling! Gas—”
“Good Lord!” Van Deusen whirled, vanished in the dark cavern beyond the padded door.
Abruptly Youngblood leaped after him. The movement was instinctive – the instinct of an Indian who knew without reasoning that death lay in the laboratory.
Youngblood was three steps behind Van Deusen when the giant crashed into him and hurled him to the office floor. Messinger’s pistol spun from his hand. “No, you don’t, snoop!” the giant grunted. “Do you want to get killed?”
The thing was unexpected; but before he fell, Youngblood managed to twist his body, pantherlike, to bring up his left knee. As he lighted on his back, his foot whipped into the big man’s stomach. The giant went down.
Youngblood rolled sideways; his right hand flashed for his gun. His fingers touched it, then a great force descended upon his head, blotting out thought and movement.
III.
The room was still revolving around him when he got drunkenly to his feet.
“O. K., chief?” said a hard voice.
Youngblood jerked his head, and his thoughts cleared.
“Thanks, Eddy,” he replied to the neat young man who stood beside him. Eddy had an automatic in his hand. Flattened against the wall, with arms upraised, were Messinger and the pasty-faced giant from the laboratory. Lili Van Deusen was huddled in a corner, white, bloodless hands pressed to her throat.
“The dame conked you on the bean with a dictionary,” said Eddy. “You ought to be more careful about redheads.”
“I will,” growled Youngblood. “She’ll have some explaining to do soon.” Deftly, and before any of them realized what he was doing, he had linked the girl and both men together with two pairs of handcuffs. “Eddy, call information and verify the license plates of the cars outside. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Gun in hand, he kicked open the laboratory door.
The reek of acids and unnamed gasses nearly stifled him. He went through a dark supply room packed to the ceiling with bottles. Beyond it lay a great laboratory, glaringly revealed by a dozen daylight lamps in the ceiling. The walls and shelves on either side were an orderly chaos of phials, retorts and test tubes, and costly scientific apparatus. A long work table ran down the center of the place. The smell of gas was stronger. Van Deusen was nowhere in sight.
At a sound, Youngblood whirled to an opening on his right. It was a smaller room, containing scores of cages – rabbits, guinea pigs, white rats – doomed creatures waiting for experiments.
But there was no sign of the chemist – nor was there space for any one to hide.
There was another door at the other end of the laboratory. He ran toward it, kicked it open, and recoiled. Gas fumes stung his eyes, burned his nostrils, clawed like hands of fire in his throat. He fell back into the laboratory, holding the door shut.
His glance covered the laboratory again, rested upon a six-foot box of plate glass built into the corner at his left. A glass vent led upward through the ceiling, and there was a glass door in the side. Several gas masks hung on hooks beside it.
A lethal chamber for testing gasses.
* * *
Suddenly Youngblood pulled one of the masks over his head and pushed open the door again.
Through the veils of vapor he made out the fat figure of Van Deusen, grotesque as a creature from Jupiter, in smock and gas mask. He was dancing erratically between a row of great glass vats, shaking the contents of a bottle over the floor.
“Get out!” came his muffled shout when he caught sight of Youngblood. “Acid – on the floor!”
Youngblood cast a quick look around him and started back the way he had come. Within a step of the door he stopped, rigid, staring with a horrible fascination at the nearest vat, from which a thin stream of steaming liquid had run downward.
Through the thick glass was a shadow – a vague, scarcely recognizable shape. Youngblood’s eyes crept to the top of the vat, fastened upon the grisly thing that seemed to be clutching the edge where the cover was displaced. It was a human hand.
The chemist saw it at the same time. The bottle crashed to the floor. He shrieked, tottered to Youngblood’s side, pointing at the band.
Even as they watched, the shadow beneath it became formless, settling to the vat’s bottom as though it were drifting silt. The hand above relaxed. As it slid downward into the liquid, there was a hissing, boiling sound and fumes rose from the edge of the cover. Quickly, the hand disintegrated; for a while frothy skeleton fingers appeared to claw at the glass, then slowly settled to a gray nothingness.
Youngblood snapped his head back as if to break the spell of horror hanging over him. Abruptly he grasped Van Deusen by the shoulder and jerked him into the laboratory. The men tore off their masks.
“So,” Youngblood began quietly, “you have succeeded in destroying the evidence, eh? Pretty fast work after that phone call. You killed Thayer – and you placed his body in a vat of aqua regia, knowing there wouldn’t be so much as a bone or a tooth filling left in a few minutes. The stuff boils, of course, when it starts eating on anything. It ran over, filled the place with fumes, and scared your assistant out of his wits. You came back and threw ammonia over the floor to counteract the acid.”
He shook Van Deusen as he would a child. “Come on, out with it! Why did you kill Thayer?”
* * *
The chemist stared at him dazedly for a moment. Then reason returned to his honest, intelligent blue eyes. “Captain, please, sit down a minute. This business is past comprehension. You know as well as I do that it couldn’t have been Thayer we just saw. I don’t know what’s happened here, or why, but I’ll try and answer any questions you ask.” He turned, pressed a switch on the wall, and fresh air began to flow through the laboratory.
“Why did Thayer come here this morning?”
“I can’t answer that. I – I mean, I’ve forgotten why. You don’t have to believe me, but that’s true. All I remember is that it was a matter of vital importance.”
“Is your memory usually so faulty?”
“Captain Youngblood, please do not mistake me. I’m neither an absent-minded man nor a forgetful one. Nor do I have to remind you that I have an exceptionally high mental rating, I am amazed and considerably alarmed that I cannot think of the reason for Thayer’s visit this morning. And I am frightened.”
“What is Dr. Messinger doing here?”
“Messinger is a medical representative from the war department. I have been developing various gasses and chemicals for army use, and it is Dr. Messinger’s duty to make notes and perform autopsies during lethal experiments.”
“I see. You must have been working, then, upon a new type of gas. It is undoubtedly finished, and Thayer came this morning to see the final test and to get the formula for the war department. How many people work here in the building with you?”
“Only my daughter, and Jan Luce, my assistant. Dr. Messinger comes two mornings a week. I have known both of these men for many years, and I assure you they are absolutely dependable. If either Jan or the doctor are somewhat violent with strangers, you must remember that our work here is secret and we cannot afford to take chances.”
“Then why weren’t the doors locked when I arrived?”
“Thayer had just left a few minutes before. His departure was so unexpected that it upset Messinger and myself. For once, we forgot all about the doors.”
“Thayer couldn’t have left, you fool! His body—”
Youngblood stopped, cursed. The thing was impossible – a mass of contradictions. Shortly after Thayer’s arrival, he had called Hyde from here and asked for help. Hyde could have made no error, for he knew Thayer well and had helped him before. Yet, three competent witnesses. swore that Thayer had left immediately and had made no call.
The logical assumption was that they were lying, and that Van Deusen or Messinger had murdered Thayer, the others assisting. It was so easy; it explained the girl’s fright, the body in the acid vat, the impossible story of Thayer’s departure—
No, it was too damned easy. It explained nothing adequately, and there was no reason for it. Thayer, Messinger, Van Deusen, all were important men working on an important project. Van Deusen was a simple soul at heart, a scientist, and he lived solely for his work. Cold murder was out of his line. No, there was something else, some sinister thing beneath it all; he could feel it beating heavily upon his senses. There was death in the air.
“Come on,” he snapped at Van Deusen. “Back to the office. And let me do the talking.”
IV.
In the office he found Jan Luce and Messinger indignant over their handcuffs. The girl, linked to Messinger, was silent. Eddy looked up from the phone.
“The smaller car outside,” he said, “belongs to Van Deusen. The other’s Thayer’s.”
“Then Thayer took my car!” cried Messinger. “Ours are the same model and the same color. In his hurry to leave, he probably didn’t notice he’d taken the wrong one.”
Youngblood glanced at Eddy. “O. K.,” said that hard-voiced young man. “I asked about Messinger’s car. He’s telling the truth.”
Youngblood sat down helplessly. He reached for the phone, and called Robinson Thayer’s apartment. A Japanese servant answered. The fellow knew little. Thayer had left in his car that morning, was not expected back for a week. No one knew where he had gone. Youngblood slammed back the receiver.
He frowned and swung to the girl. “Miss Van Deusen, why were you so frightened when I arrived?”
“I – I had been helping Jan Luce feed the animals. Coming out of the cage room, I accidentally upset a container of explosive gas father had been working with. If – if it had gone off—”
“Excellent story,” growled Youngblood. “But you’re lying. Things like that aren’t left around to be upset. A man was killed in this place. You saw it done!” He whipped toward her suddenly. “Who killed Thayer – Messinger or your father?”
The girl stifled a scream. She tried to speak, failed. Messinger lunged forward, dragging the giant Luce and the girl behind him. “I’ve had enough of this infernal nonsense,” he roared. “Take off these handcuffs! And if there’s any one dead here, it’s my right to see the body!”
“Show you the body, eh? You know damn well it’s too late to do that now. Aqua regia works pretty fast.”
Messinger stared, uncomprehending. “What – what in Heaven’s name are you talking about?”
“We saw it!” Van Deusen blurted out. “In the vat! But who he was – how he got there-—”
The chemist elaborated, and his eyes roved fearfully about the room and toward the laboratory. It was as if he, too, felt some unseen presence in the place, knew that death hung close about them.
* * *
There was surprise and incredulity on Messinger’s face. “I don’t understand it. Unless – unless—” He looked at Van Deusen.
“Do you think it had any connection with what happened last week?” the chemist asked.
“What happened last week?” growled Youngblood.
“Some one broke into the laboratory a few nights ago,” Van Deusen replied. “They took nothing, and I would never have known they were here except all my notes were disarranged.”
“You missed nothing – not even a formula?”
“I am extremely careful about such matters, Captain Youngblood. No one, not even my daughter or my assistant, ever knows what I am working upon. My notes relate only to small details of an experiment. When that part is done, the notes are destroyed. Any final experiment is conducted alone; I memorize the formula and write it down only when Mr. Thayer calls for it. My work is too valuable to the war department to risk any slip. Thayer tells me what he wants developed, or desires to have analyzed. Even Dr. Messinger knows nothing of what I have achieved. He merely studies the effects of my developments on living organisms.”
“I see.” Youngblood frowned and glanced at his watch. In a few minutes he would have to report to General Hyde. As yet there was nothing definite or conclusive to report. Thayer had vanished. A body, which may or may not have been Thayer’s, had been destroyed in the vat. Establishing its identity, or even the fact of its former existence, was now practically an impossibility.
But he had to find out, somehow, if it was really Thayer’s body he had seen. Should Thayer be alive, it would change everything; the mere fact of murder was not particularly important. The important thing was to recover what Thayer had lost. A formula, of course. A deadly new gas, or a counteractive one. With the thing in improper hands, a million lives might be at stake. Men did not call General Hyde on ordinary matters.
* * *
“Luce,” he said to the giant assistant, “did you see Thayer this morning?”
Jan Luce stared at him with eyes that were suddenly glazed with fright Something had come over the man in the last few minutes. His white, bony face was like that of a corpse.
“I – I did not see Mr. Thayer this morning. I was busy taking care of the animals.”
“Did you see any one else – a stranger, say – or hear anything unusual while you were in the cage room?”
Luce’s eyes strayed fearfully to the ceiling. “I heard something upstairs.” he mumbled. “It was like a large animal moving slowly, clawing at the floor over my head. I – I can’t account for it. The upper floor is empty.”
“How do you get to it?”
“Through the back door. There’s a small stairway in the corner behind the vats.”
“Is there more than one entrance to the building?”
“Just the one in front,” Eddy interrupted. His voice was uneasy. “Rook checked that before I came in.”
Frowning, every sense alert, Youngblood took a flashlight from his bag, slipped it into his coat pocket, and started back into the laboratory. With each step his speed increased. He burst into the vat room, found the stairway, and climbed soundlessly upward. Luce might be pulling a fast one to draw attention from something else. No, the fellow was frightened, too frightened to be telling anything but the truth. If there was another presence in the building-
He reached the top of the stairs, listened a moment, and cautiously pushed open the door. He stopped, listened again; his fingers sought a light switch on the wall, found it, and pressed it. The gaunt, bare space of the entire upper floor was revealed.
The place was empty, the floor thick with dust. One glance showed that no one had entered here for a long time.
Still, there might be another entrance at the other end. Youngblood pressed ahead, watchfully. He had not taken three steps when he heard a muffled noise from the region of the office. An instant later the lights went out.
He whirled on his toes and reached the doorway. Below him the vat room was a black pit. Without using his flashlight, he crept down the stairs as quietly as a panther, slunk between the vats and came to the laboratory door again. Skin drawn tight across his jaws, he waited. Some one, something was coming. He could hear nothing, and the black dark around him seemed a solid thing. But his instincts told him he was not alone. He was not the hunter now – but the hunted.
The white blood in him no longer dominated; he was suddenly a savage, pulses drumming with a strange eagerness to meet the thing that had come to test his skill.
He grasped his pistol by the muzzle, stooped swiftly, and darted into the laboratory.
V.
A blow grazed his shoulder and he leaped sidewise, catlike. His left fist streaked out, slammed into solid flesh; his pistol hand followed it and the butt of the weapon struck home. He struck again, but touched nothing.
Suddenly he dropped to his heels, and came up whirling the pistol around him. The trick did not work. It was as if his assailant had eyes that could pierce the blackness, see his every move.
Once more he crouched, slid across the floor, and his left hand reached for the flashlight. Before he could get it out, a heavy form lunged upon him.
Youngblood brought up his knee, and his foot kicked viciously before he went down. He heard the fellow crash beyond him.
He whirled to his feet and the flashlight came into his hand. But the thing was useless. The bulb had probably broken in the fall. He weaved across the floor, groping for the man that lay there.
There was a movement behind him, and a tinkle of glass. He spun abruptly – and a fine spray of suffocating liquid stung his face.
His senses reeled, seemed ready to tip into a realm of nothingness. He gasped for breath, sought to keep his knees from buckling under him, and knew he was falling. He didn’t mind fighting something tangible, but this stuff—
He crumpled to the floor, but strangely his head had cleared. He tried to move, and found he had lost all control of his muscles. The stuff had paralyzed him, but it had left him conscious. Irrelevantly, it flashed across Youngblood’s mind that it was about time to report to General Hyde. If he failed to do so, Hyde would wait fifteen minutes and then dispatch some one to find out what had happened. He had never before muffed an assignment from that caustic general, but he had surely bungled this job. If he lived, Hyde would have a few things to say.
“You are slow,” a muffled voice intoned monotonously. “It is time to make the experiment with X32. Place the subject in the lethal chamber.”
The man who spoke was Marcus Van Deusen!
Youngblood heard a groan beyond him, and then the scrape of feet across the floor. Powerful hands seized him by the shoulders, dragged him several feet. He was pushed through an opening; under his lax finger tips he felt the smooth surface of glass. An instant later there came a click as of a small door being closed.
“The subject is ready,” replied a second voice, barely audible beyond the glass walls of the lethal chamber.
It was Jan Luce. Then it was Luce who had attacked him! But it was insane, impossible – a few minutes ago Luce had been securely cuffed to Messinger, and Eddy had been standing guard over them with an automatic. It wasn’t like Eddy to be caught napping.
Now here was Luce, calmly helping Van Deusen as if it were part of the day’s routine. Only, they were working in the dark – jet, total darkness!
Youngblood tried to move, tried to cry out. He could do neither. He was helpless. But he could think, and that made it all the more horrible. This was no way for a man to die.
Outside, Luce spoke again. “I thought Mr. Thayer was to watch this test. Isn’t he coming?”
“Mr. Thayer has already arrived.”
“I did not see him.”
Van Deusen’s voice droned on, monotonously. “No, I was careful about that. Mr. Thayer is dead. I killed him.”
“You had to do it, I suppose?” Luce’s tone was flat, without surprise or curiosity.
“Yes. It was necessary. I do not know why. But no one will ever find out about it now.”
Youngblood tried to move again. Had he heard correctly, or were his senses playing some ghastly trick?
There was no mistaking the voices. It was Van Deusen and Jan Luce. They moved back and forth, bringing things from the work table, and they moved surely, definitely, as if they could see clearly everything about them in the cluttered laboratory – in the dark – black, impenetrable dark.
Youngblood's mind raced furiously. There had to be some reason for it all, some logical pattern by which it could be explained. He had all the pieces, all of them. He felt the answer drumming in the back of his consciousness. His mind was clear, clearer than it had ever been before.
The phone call, where did that fit in? Messinger? Messinger had lied, of course. But why? To save his friend, Van Deusen? Lili had seen her father kill Thayer; that was reason enough for her fright. And, naturally, she would do anything to avert suspicion from him.
The car outside belonged to Thayer. Messinger and Thayer must have arrived in the same machine, thus explaining the absence of a third car. Thayer had entered the laboratory, received the formula from Van Deusen, lost it under peculiar circumstances, and called Hyde. Immediately after his talk with Hyde, Thayer had been killed – probably by a dose of gas – and his body thrown into the acid vat.
But who had the formula now? And why had it been necessary to kill Thayer? Because he had suddenly suspected the truth, guessed at some secret plot to steal the formula? That was partly it.
Only, why would Van Deusen, of all people, be the one to kill Thayer? The two men were friends; besides, if the chemist had been bribed by some foreign agent, he could have easily turned over the formula without resorting to Thayer’s murder.
No, there was another reason. Sharply, Youngblood saw again the four faces in the office: Van Deusen, mild, puzzled, honest; the girl, frightened; Messinger, cold, dominating, power in his face; Jan Luce, frightened, eyes glazed queerly.
* * *
The answer came like a flash. And, unconscious of the movement, it brought Youngblood upright. It was so simple, so appallingly simple – and horrible. It proved, too, that the formula was still somewhere in the building, that the person who had stolen it had not yet had time to recover it and make his escape – escape, of course, in a way that would leave no breath of suspicion on him.
Youngblood lurched to his knees. The shock of his discovery must have tipped the balance of his paralysis, sent life creeping through his muscles again. But every movement was slow, painful.
He beat upon the glass door, calling to those outside. They paid no attention to him, and went obliviously on with their preparations.
Youngblood managed to stand upright. There was only one way to get out of the place. But did he have strength enough to do it? His fingers probed the glass walls, then he tottered backward to the far end of the chamber.
Suddenly he lowered his head, and with elbow protecting his face, lunged forward with every ounce of energy he could force into his legs.
There was the crash of glass, the sound of flying fragments among the test tubes, and he was in the laboratory. His leap knocked over some one in his path, and he started running drunkenly in what he judged was the direction of the office.
Abruptly the lights came on again. He whirled, momentarily blinded, and seeing his pistol on the floor, managed to pick it up. His hand felt heavy and clumsy, he could hardly hold the weapon.
The chemist was on the floor, staring at him stupidly. Big Jan Luce was half crouched, the queer glaze still in his eyes.
Youngblood wasted no time with them. As Luce leaped toward him, he brought the pistol butt down on the fellow’s head. Van Deusen clutched at him feebly, and the pistol descended a second time. Youngblood ran for the office.
When he burst into the supply room he found Lili Van Deusen by the main light switch near the office door. Her lips were trembling and she seemed ready to faint. She did faint as he brushed past. The intelligence officer paid no attention to her. His eyes were on Messinger, getting unsteadily to his feet in the office. Beyond him was Eddy, stretched out on the floor.
* * *
There was a faint smell of gas in the air. What had happened was clear enough. Some one had touched off a hidden gas cartridge. It had been rigged for burglars, probably, and trained on the hall door. Its charge had caught Eddy full in the face. Van Deusen had relieved Eddy of the keys, and unlocked the bracelets holding the others together,
Youngblood smiled. “The game’s up, Messinger. Where is that formula? No, don’t act surprised or dazed. You're perfectly all right, and I know it.”
The doctor stammered in bewilderment. The intelligence officer cut him short.
“None of that now! You’re a medical man – and a psychiatrist. That means you know a great deal about hypnotism. Van Deusen and Luce are both under a hypnotic trance. Men can do strange things under that influence – and they have absolutely no memory of it afterward. Even in the dark they—”
“Enough!” screamed Messinger, watching the muzzle of the pistol pointed at him. “I'll grant you that Van Deusen and Luce are acting queerly; but if I had wanted to steal a formula, it would have been far easier if I’d placed Thayer under the influence.”
“Not at all. I know a thing or two about the science myself. Many people are immune to hypnotic suggestions. Thayer was one. Miss Van Deusen is another. Van Deusen and Luce are fairly easy subjects. Even so, you probably had to work with them a long time to get them to respond properly and still not know what was happening to them.”
“Don’t be a fool!" Messinger spat out. “If what you say is true, I could have hypnotized Van Deusen by himself, obtained the formula when no one was armed, and I’d never have been suspected. Neither would I have had to kill any one. So, you see—”
“Wrong, doctor. Van Deusen does the final work on his projects alone; he probably finished what he was doing late last evening, and made an appointment with Thayer for this morning. Van Deusen never writes his formulas down except in Thayer’s presence.
“You arrived with Thayer, in Thayer’s car. Therefore, your only chance of getting the formula was this morning while Thayer was here. You got it; Thayer suspected a trick, may have even discovered the truth after he phoned for help. So you had Luce and Van Deusen kill Thayer and throw him in the vat. Miss Van Deusen saw it doner and preferred to back your story rather than see her father charged with murder.
“But there was a slip. That was Van Deusen’s denial of the phone call Thayer made. When an hypnotic subject is relieved of control, you can’t always tell what improvisations the mind will make in order to fulfill directions given it. And it is well known that the subject improvises – and absolutely believes he speaks the truth.
“I arrived sooner than you thought I would, and I learned enough to put you in a tight spot. Hence the red herring you had Luce pull to get me out of the office. But enough of that. Where’s the formula?”
“I haven't the formula," snarled Messinger. “If you don’t believe it, search me! And don’t think you can pull any bluff. You haven’t a scrap of evidence against me and no court in the world would ever listen to you!”
The skin was drawn tight across Youngblood’s mouth. “You forget. The cases that come to General Hyde never reach court. His men know how to settle them adequately. I give you five seconds. Where is the formula?”
Messinger’s fist came like a streak of light.
* * *
Youngblood was waiting for it, knew it would happen, and at any other time his hand would have responded instantly. But the effects of the gas had not yet worn off; his muscles were slow, too slow.
The blow caught him on the point of the chin. Before he went down, the pistol was torn away from him. He sprawled beside the inert Eddy; he was gasping for breath.
“Clever, aren’t you?” sneered Messinger, training the weapon upon him. “But not clever enough. Oh yes, I have the formula. See?” He reached behind him and drew a torn envelope from a clutter of papers on the desk. “You’d never have found it, nor would you have known what it was had you seen rit. It takes heat to make the writing show. One of Van Deusen’s little precautions. I know a foreign government that will pay a great deal for this – a counteractive gas that will render other gasses harmless. And you won’t live to tell—”
Messinger laughed and pulled the trigger.
The room roared with sound. Youngblood stiffened; his body seemed to recoil as Messinger shot again, and again.
Suddenly Youngblood’s arm, which had fallen across the folds of Eddy’s coat, streaked upward. In his hand was Eddy’s automatic. The thing spat once.
Youngblood got to his feet slowly. He picked up an envelope, stuffed it carefully into his pocket, and mechanically touched the close-spaced holes showing in the outer fabric of his bulletproof vest. Messinger had been an excellent shot.
He walked unsteadily to the telephone. One minute later, and Hyde would be sulphuric. When a connection had been made, he clicked the hook seven times.
“Number Seven reports,” he spoke into the mouthpiece. “The article has been recovered; the case closed in the usual manner.”
1936
(Clues Detective Stories, vol. 36, #3, August, pp.8-23)
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