The Avenger 32 - The Death Machine (6 page)

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“Probably a pet of your neighbor’s died,” said Benson.

“Exactly what I thought. But when I dropped over the next morning to pay my respects, their cocker spaniel nearly bowled me oyer. The hearse hadn’t been for them at all. And there’s no one else nearby with a dog. Old Mr. Marcus has a parrot, but I doubt they’d take a parrot into Puppy Paradise.”

“Did you,” asked the Avenger, “see who was driving the hearse?”

“It was a young man, very neatly dressed,” replied Mrs. Nichols. “He was carrying a small black case and I remember thinking at the time it was much too small to hold that cocker spaniel.”

The two tan-uniformed policemen separated to allow the plainclothes officer to enter Dr. Heathcote’s house.

“I’m Sgt. McElroy,” he said to Cole and Nellie. He was a blond man, about forty, somewhat overweight.

Cole got out of the rattan living room chair he’d been reposing in. “I’m Cole Wilson, and the young lady is Miss Nellie Gray.”

“I’ve heard of you, Wilson.” From the pocket of his coat he took a pack of cigarettes. “And of you, Miss Gray.”

“I didn’t realize our fame had spread this far west,” said Cole.

McElroy smiled at him. “Get all the cute stuff out of your system now, Wilson,” he said. “Maybe you got the Manhattan cops hoodooed, but out here in the sticks Justice, Inc. is only a name.”

“A pity,” sighed Cole.

“What do you know about that kid out there?” the sergeant asked him.

“Beyond the fact that his name is Lawrence Munn, that he’s a sophomore at UB and a member of the Delta Tau fraternity . . . nothing much.”

“You searched his body?”

Cole grinned. “That would hardly have been proper.”

McElroy turned toward Nellie. “What were you two doing here?”

“We came to pick up some papers for Dr. Heathcote,” she answered. “He’s the uncle of one of our associates.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” said the sergeant. “What do you think the kid was after?”

“Kids,” corrected Cole. “There were two of them.”

“What was it they wanted here?”

“I have no idea,” said Cole. “I intended to put that question to Master Munn, but he chose to commit pharmaceutical hari-kiri before I could ask.”

“We get a few suicides around the campus every semester,” said the policeman, “usually around finals time. I’ve never run into one like this, though, where the kids kills himself in the middle of what looks like an attempted burglary.”

Cole had been glancing at an oil painting over the mantel. His face was imitating the sober expression of the nineteenth Century broker in the portrait when he turned toward McElroy. “Perhaps there was more than robbery involved, sergeant.”

“What else?”

“As to that, I can only offer conjectures. This kind of suicide, swallowing poison on capture, belongs more in the realm of espionage. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“That fraternity kid in there was a spy, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“I merely suggest the possibility.”

McElroy’s eyes narrowed, his chin seemed to grow larger. “You and Miss Gray can go now, Wilson,” he said. “I know better than to expect any cooperation from you. My men already have your statements and address.”

“Are you absolutely certain you don’t want my aid, sergeant?” asked Cole. “I have a splendid reputation as an amateur sleuth back home and Little Nell here is—”

“I don’t need anything further from you.”

“Let us then wish you a pleasant good evening.” Cole offered Nellie his arm and the two of them left the house.

When they were near their car the little blonde said, “You and the sarge didn’t hit it off so good.”

“No, we hardly laid the foundation for a lifelong friendship,” agreed Cole. “Makes me glad I didn’t tell him what I found in that deceased lad’s pocket.”

A dog was floating up in the mist, about fifteen feet from the ground. He glowed a bright neon yellow, wagged his tail with metronomic regularity.

“Sometimes I think,” said Smitty as he drove their car through the gates of Puppy Paradise, “California ain’t quite civilized.”

“San Francisco is a very cosmopolitan city, Smitty.”

“A cemetery for mutts is bad enough, but then to hang a neon pooch up there . . .” The rest of the sentence became a grumble.

Puppy Paradise was on the unsettled outskirts of San Francisco, bordering the Daly City area. It covered two and a half acres and was backed by a forest of pines. At the opposite end of the cemetery from the gate sat a cluster of three Old English-style cottages. The lights of the center cottage were visible through the night fog.

After parking the car in a gravel circle beside the cottages, Smitty said, “I hope this lead pays off. We talked to six neighbors of death machine victims tonight and the old dame with the cookies is the only one who maybe saw a darn thing.”

“She saw more than just the hearse,” Benson reminded. “There was the young fellow carrying the black box.” He opened the door and eased out of the automobile.

“Yeah, that sure sounds like it was Unc’s halfwit invention.” Smitty unfolded himself out into the fog.

A screen door slammed. “Would you like to step inside and tell me all about it?” The man who’d come out of the middle cottage was tall with a high furrowed forehead and crinkling blond hair. He wore rimless spectacles and a short-sleeved white smock.

“All about what?” asked the giant.

“Why, your poor departed dog friend,” said the blond man, smiling understandingly. “I assume it’s the recent departure of a loved one which brings you to Puppy Paradise at this late hour, gentlemen.”

Benson, trailed by Smitty, walked over to him. “I’m Field Inspector James Ivey,” he said, “working out of the Sacramento Vehicle Center.”

“Death can visit anyone, no matter what his station.” The man held out his hand. “I am Dr. Lloyd Friessen. Now tell me about your late lamented—”

“We ain’t customers,” explained Smitty. “We’re with the SVC and we want to chin with you about one of your trucks.”

Dr. Friessen backed up against the screen door. He took off his glasses to wipe them on the hem of his medical smock. “You mean one of our Puppy Paradise vehicles has been involved in an accident, gentlemen?”

“How many hearses do you operate?” asked Benson.

“Uh . . . three.”

“And where are your record books?”

“Right inside here, gentlemen.” He held open the door, beckoning them to enter.

The office was mostly a living room, with a desk plopped down amidst furniture and bric-a-brac.

Smitty eyed a fox terrier who was standing quietly beside the couch. “That’s an awful well behaved dog, doc.”

“He’s stuffed,” explained Dr. Friessen. “Some of our clients prefer to have their loved ones mounted rather than interred.”

“Do they now?”

Benson took a notebook from his pocket. “We’re investigating a report one of your hearses was involved in a hit-and-run incident on the . . .” He read Dr. Friessen the date and time that Mrs. Nichols had seen the Puppy Paradise hearse.

“I can hardly believe that,” said the doctor. “All our drivers are very careful and gentle young men.”

“Which of your vehicles were out that evening?”

Dr. Friessen, after polishing his spectacles, crossed to his desk and moved behind it. “The records are all kept in this drawer here.”

Smitty was crouched down beside the stuffed dog, inspecting it more closely. “Pretty darn lifelike.”

The doctor opened a drawer, thrust his hand into it. The hand came out holding a revolver. “Now, gentlemen, if you’d be so kind as to put up your hands.”

Uncle Algernon, shoeless, paced a circle on the rug of Smitty’s room. Alone, he was walking and reflecting. Out on the Bay the foghorns were hooting.

“A machine to neutralize the Heathcote Ultrasonic Brain Control Box,” he murmured. “Not a difficult task, for one with my capabilities. Let’s see . . . first we need . . .” He halted next to the coffee table, bent and grabbed up a cocktail napkin. He unfolded it, began searching his rumpled clothes for a pencil. “Do we want something which will work from up close? Or would it be best to keep a safe distance . . . ? Those halfwit foghorns are certainly loud tonight.”

Locating a stub of pencil, he began nibbling on the end. “Hate to be accused of cowardice, a man of my courage . . . yet in this case keeping a safe distance from . . .” He straightened up, spit out the pencil, and slapped his wrinkled brow. “Excelsior!”

Dr. Heathcote hopped around the room in search of his discarded shoes. He paused, sniffing. “There you are.” He’d invented a spray which waterproofed shoes. It was highly effective, but unfortunately had an odor similar to that of aging seafood.

“Foghorns,” he muttered as he sat upon the floor to tug on his shoes. “Foghorns . . . remind me of a man with a foghorn voice. Why didn’t I think of him earlier? He was at at least a dozen of my lectures and after my talk in El Cerrito he bumped into me, apologizing profusely. Ah, yes, it all comes back to me now. Moments later he handed me my house keys, explained I must have dropped them when we collided. What a halfwit I’ve been. Obviously he pickpocketed the keys and made a quick wax impression before returning them to me.”

The inventor stood up, made a dash for the door. “Fortunately for the future of mankind, I have a pretty good hunch about where to find him.”

He rushed out into the hall.

The rented car progressed across the Golden Gate Bridge somewhat fitfully. Whenever Dr. Heathcote shifted gears there was a woeful grinding sound and the blue coupé made a swaying bound forward. “An auto which would shift its own gears,” mused the doctor. “Yes, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.”

The fog was thinner on the other side of the bridge. Dr. Heathcote stayed on the main highway, passing Sausalito by. He began to hunch at the wheel when the Tiburon turnoff came up on his right. “Where’s that halfwit sign?”

There it was. Wollter’s Landing—Turn Rt.

Turning right, he took the machine along the curving up-and-down road which led to the little bayside town he was seeking.

When he’d remembered the foghorn man, he also remembered a conversation he’d overheard between the man and another at a cocktail party after one of his lectures.

“How’s the renovating coming along?” the other man had asked.

“Very well,” Foghorn had replied. “We’ll have the Pirate Castle ready for business before the end of autumn.”

“Pirate Castle indeed,” muttered Heathcote now as he and the car came rolling down the last hill and into Wollter’s Landing.

Uncle Algernon’s habits had made a wanderer of him; he’d been all over the country in the past decade or so. Been in Northern California many times, and he remembered that the Pirate Castle had once been a well-known restaurant. It had stood on a wooded hill overlooking the Bay.

He parked his jittery car in the small public square. “Excelsior!” he said aloud. “There it is up there, still standing. And with lights burning in the windows.”

Two seagulls came walking across the cobblestone square. One of them, with a skittering hop and a few flaps of its wings, rose up and perched on the hood of the rented coupé.

“Makes rather an attractive hood ornament,” said Dr. Heathcote. He began walking. To reach the Pirate Castle you had to cross the town and then climb up a narrow road which cut up the hillside. Since Wollter’s Landing consisted of only four square blocks of low wood and brick houses the crossing of it was only a matter of minutes.

“A seagull decoration,” reflected Uncle Algernon as he started up the hill. “Yes, it would be a conversation piece surely, especially in seaside towns. If one could make the wings flap now and then . . .”

The hillside was thick with oak trees and scrub brush. He paused to wipe his forehead with the tail of his tie. The restaurant building was visible through the trees now: a once stately Victorian house, gabled, three stories high, decorated with intricate wooden gingerbread. Three windows on the second floor glowed with light, one on the ground floor.

“My nephew will no doubt be envious when he learns that his doddering old uncle is capable of stealth and subterfuge himself,” Heathcote thought.