RGL e-Book Cover 2019©
RGL e-Book Cover 2019©
Secret Agent X, December 1934, with "Museum Sinister"
Time and again Roger Norvale had fearlessly risked his life stalking big game in the tropical jungles. Yet never had he felt such a sense of foreboding as this night in the famous museum of mounted animals that he himself had killed.
ROGER NORVALE experienced a strange feeling of disquietude as he stepped from the train. Even when stalking big game in the denseness of the tropical jungle, he had never been aware of the precise sensation of foreboding that now assailed him.
The train had hardly stopped to allow him to descend to the darkness of the deserted platform before the conductor waved his lantern. It pulled out of the station, leaving him in solitude.
Valley Junction was one of those stations that are marked with an asterisk in the time tables; a footnote explaining the asterisk to the effect that "train stops to discharge passengers only."
Uncultivated land, thickly overgrown with rank grass, stretched on both sides. To the west a dirt road led along an upward slope of the terrain to the low hill upon which sat the estate of Donald Weston.
Norvale, in the infrequent periods when he visited civilization, never failed to wonder that the wealthy Weston should have chosen such a gloomy spot to erect his costly home. He now perceived a pair of bright headlights approaching along the road from the hill. They almost blinded him, then were dimmed. The car swung in alongside the platform, and stopped.
Norvale picked up his small bag and got in. Hex Parker, Weston's secretary, was the driver. He was thirty-odd, with a weak chin and shifty eyes. He turned the car and headed back up the hill, saying, "How do, Captain Norvale? Glad to see you again. Your skins arrived yesterday."
Norvale had always disliked Parker instinctively. But he was courteous to him because he felt that he was also, in a sense, an employee of Weston's. He said, "Yes, I sent them ahead from the boat. I was anxious to get the panther skin here as quickly as possible. We had run short of preservative when we killed the panther, and I had to let the natives cure it with wood ashes. They didn't do such a good job, and I was afraid it wouldn't last till Doctor Loring could get to work on it. Do you know if he's mounted it yet?"
Parker seemed preoccupied with the task of guiding the car up the hill. "Why—yes. I think he mounted it today. I—we've—been having other troubles, captain. Though Mr. Weston doesn't seem to be bothered much by them. He was all excited about the skins—says he doesn't regret a single dollar he's spent to finance your expeditions."
Norvale glanced sideways at the secretary. Again the night, for some unaccountable reason, seemed to exercise an uncanny spell of depression upon him. "You say—you've been having trouble?"
Parker laughed nervously. "I guess you can call it that. We may all be out of jobs. Weston made all his money in a bear market, you know, and he's never been cured of selling short. Well, he sold short once too often. He was caught flat when the market jumped. He's cleaned out—five millions, gone overnight!"
"Tough luck," said Norvale. To him the loss of money did not appear as a calamity. He had lived for months at a stretch in places where money was no good.
Parker said gloomily, "This is a rotten time to be out of a job."
Norvale restrained an expression of contempt. Parker had been with Weston for several years. Now he had no thought of sympathy for his employer—only worry about his job.
Norvale said aloud, "I don't suppose Weston's down and out. His private collection up there is worth a million dollars if it's worth a cent. Some of the specimens I've sent him are considered very valuable. And Doctor Loring has prepared them so skillfully that any museum would be glad to have them. In my opinion, Loring is the best taxidermist in America."
Parker was silent. He drove slowly, as if he were trying to kill time. Suddenly he asked, "Did you bring a gun along, captain?"
"Of course not," Norvale said, surprised. "Why do you ask that?"
"Well—there's something else—more trouble. It looks bad. And Mr. Weston is so wrapped up in his specimens, he refuses to get excited about it."
"What is it, man?" Norvale demanded impatiently.
Parker hesitated—then said, "You remember Brenda Ewing?"
"Weston's ward? Sure I do. She's been living here with him since her parents died. They were distant cousins of Weston's, if I recall right. Sure I remember her. Last time I saw her she was a kid. Brown hair, big eyes—"
"She's not a kid any more. She was to celebrate her twenty-first birthday in a couple of weeks."
"Was?"
Parker nodded, staring straight ahead. "Was. I'm afraid she won't, though. She's been carried off. Last night she went to bed as usual. About two hours later, her maid was passing in the corridor and heard a sort of muffled cry. Before she had a chance to do anything, the door of Brenda's room was flung open and a man with a handkerchief over his face came tearing out. He was carrying Brenda over his shoulder. Before the maid could cry out, the man struck her in the face and knocked her out. When she came to, the man had disappeared with Brenda."
Norvale whistled. "No trace of her in the countryside?"
Parker grinned sourly. They were coming through the massive gate of the estate. The gate had been opened for them by a man who stood on guard.
"There's no sense in searching the countryside," Parker stated. "Brenda's somewhere inside the walls. The man could never have got her out. There are a dozen guards on the grounds, besides the dogs at night. And there's a wire running around along the entire circumference of the wall; from dusk to dawn it carries enough electricity to kill a man. It was put up for the protection of the museum specimens. No, she's in here, and so is her abductor. But the grounds have been turned upside down without finding her!"
"Well," said Norvale, "it looks as if I should have brought my gun!"
THEY passed several other guards between the gate and the
house. Parker, leaving the car in the driveway, conducted Norvale
inside, past the single officer left on guard by the state
troopers.
Donald Weston was in the combination study and library on the ground floor. It was here that the millionaire spent most of his leisure, poring over ornithological tomes. He was a short, thin man of fifty who looked more like a bookworm than like the reckless market plunger the world knew him to be. His recent tremendous loss in the market did not seem to have affected him particularly. He was the kind of man, Norvale thought, who could be as careless of other people's lives and money as of his own. The abduction of his ward, Brenda Ewing, might not mean as much to him as the loss of one of the precious skins in his private collection.
He greeted Norvale warmly, motioned to Parker to leave them alone.
Parker asked, "Any word of Miss Ewing, Mr. Weston?"
"No," said Weston shortly.
Parker said, "I'll have your bag taken up to the same room you had last time, Captain Norvale."
When he left them, Weston swung around to Norvale. "Look here, Roger. I'm more worried about this business of Brenda than I appear to be. I don't know whom to trust." He took off his glasses, waved them in the air. "Every inch of the estate has been searched." He thrust out his hands appealingly. "Help me, Roger, won't you?"
"Of course," said Norvale. "But don't expect much of me. I'm not a trained detective." He thrust his hands in his pockets, began to pace slowly up and down. "What about Parker? Can you trust him?"
"Certainly. The police questioned him. But I'll swear he had nothing to do with it. He's in love with Brenda—was hoping to marry her."
Norvale's nose twitched disgustedly. "How did Brenda feel about that?"
"I can't say she was enthusiastic. I don't think she—ah—encouraged his suit."
"Good for Brenda," Norvale laughed. "I see she has grown up to be a young lady of discrimination." Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Why was Parker so eager to marry her—outside of being in love? Has Brenda got money in her own right?"
Weston nodded. "Brenda inherits the bulk of her mother's estate in two weeks, upon reaching her twenty-first birthday; that is, with the exception of minor bequests which have long ago been paid to relatives in Australia." His eyes became filmed with moisture, and he hastily donned his spectacles to hide the sign of emotion. "You've got to help me find her, Roger. I brought that girl up from childhood. I have been more than the executor of her estate. I have felt—like a father to her!"
Norvale crossed over to the other, put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "We'll find her. Suppose we take a look around."
Weston nodded. "We'll stop in and see how Doctor Loring is getting on with your skins. Then you can wash up and I'll show you Brenda's room and let you talk to the maid."
Weston's private collection of mammals was in a wing at the west side of the house. The door was locked. Weston rapped, and frowned when there was no answer. "Strange," he said. "I've never known Loring to lock himself in."
"Can we get in any other way?" Norvale asked.
"Yes. This is Loring's work room. There's another door through the museum proper."
HE led the way around a bend in the corridor, and into a large
high-ceilinged room. This room had been built into the house, the
two upper floors being torn away, so that the room extended up to
the roof. It was the contents of this room that had been valued
by Norvale at a million dollars. It contained specimens of almost
every mammal known to man, and they had been mounted and arranged
in expert manner by Doctor Loring.
"I suppose Parker mentioned to you about my—er—losses?"
"He did," Norvale said.
"Well," defiantly, "I may be broke, but I'll never sell this collection."
They crossed the exhibition room, passing groups of animals arranged in lifelike pose. They represented the consummate skill of Loring, the taxidermist. There was one group of black-tailed deer in the center. They were placed in a setting of imitation rock and foliage, and seemed to be in the very act of grazing. Behind them was a long, vicious-looking panther, crouching to spring upon them.
"That's Loring's masterpiece," Weston said enthusiastically. "The panther is one of the skins that arrived yesterday. He mounted it first. It completes that group perfectly."
"I had a close call with that cat," Norvale told the older man. "He almost got me."
There was a door at the other end of the room. "That's the other entrance to Loring's work room," Weston explained.
The door was unlocked. Weston pushed in first. The place was in darkness. Weston felt for the switch along the wall and clicked it. The light revealed a compact little room. Every inch of space had been utilized. There were racks on which skins were being stretched. There were frameworks on which clay models were being built up. When the skins were ready, they would be sewed on to these clay models.
And on the floor in the center of the room lay the body of Doctor Loring! He had been stabbed through the eye with a long glover's needle—one of the implements used in sewing the skins—and it had pierced his brain.
Weston recoiled from the body, his face draining of color.
Norvale controlled himself with an effort. He had known Loring for years. He knelt beside the body and assured himself that Loring was beyond aid.
"Good God," Weston said hoarsely, "there's a murderer somewhere in the house. And yet it seems impossible with all the protection I've got." He glanced fearfully over his shoulder into the museum room and shuddered. "For all we know, the murderer may be hiding out there."
The indirect lighting in the museum left many corners in darkness. The figures of the mounted animals threw weird shadows.
Norvale said, "You better tell the trooper outside, Mr. Weston, so he can notify his headquarters."
Weston nodded. "I'll do that right away."
"I'll look around here in the meantime," Norvale told him.
Weston went out, peering nervously into the shadows around him.
Norvale stooped once more to the body of Doctor Loring. The taxidermist's face betrayed no fear or surprise. It was settled calmly in death. The body had become rigid already. There was a lump at the back of his head. He had been hit first, probably knocked unconscious, and then deliberately stabbed with the needle.
Norvale examined the rest of the room, finding nothing of significance. He went out into the museum and walked from one end to the other, searching out all the dark shadows. He climbed into the enclosure in which the panther was crouching to spring upon the black-tailed deer, and examined carefully the mounted jungle cat which he had caught on his last trip.
Loring had done a sloppy piece of work there. The cast had not been properly made, the completed specimen had not been well posed. The skin had been stretched hastily, and the head was askew.
IT was not like Loring to work so carelessly. He must have
been under some strain, or else in a great hurry. Had he known
something of Brenda Ewing's disappearance, and been in fear of
being killed for his knowledge?
Norvale looked at his wrist-watch and frowned. Weston should have been back by this time. Casting a last glance at the body of Loring, visible through the doorway of the smaller room, he went out into the corridor. He came around the bend into the main hall and heard voices raised in heated anger. Near the front door stood Parker wearing his hat and coat, with two bags on the floor beside him. The state trooper was standing silently just inside the door, while Weston, red in the face, shouted at the secretary.
"You'll not leave this house, Parker, till the police talk to you again. I don't care how you feel about it—you stay right here!"
Parker towered over his little employer. His voice drowned Weston's. "I tell you I had nothing to do with Brenda's disappearance. You know damn well I wouldn't hurt her." His eyes blazed with sudden hate. "Why are you down on me all of a sudden—because I'm quitting? I'm not a slave. You don't own me!"
They saw Norvale and stopped.
Norvale came up to them, said to the secretary, "You leaving, Parker?"
"Damn right, I am. There's nothing for me here. My job'll be gone here, and I have to look out for myself. I don't owe Weston a thing; I worked hard for my pay!"
Norvale turned to Weston. "Have you told him about Loring?"
"I didn't get a chance to," Weston said. "I came out here and saw him leaving. My first thought was to stop him."
The state trooper shifted his bulk a little, and displayed interest.
Parker asked sulkily, "What about Loring?"
"Doctor Loring," said Norvale quietly, "has been murdered."
The trooper stiffened to attention, frowned at Parker, and put a hand on his shoulder. "And you were scramming, huh?"
Parker's face became a pasty white. He wet his lips with his tongue, and exclaimed, "I swear to you—I'm not the one that stabbed him!"
Norvale smiled grimly. "I didn't say he'd been stabbed. How did you know?"
Parker seemed to have realized his mistake even as he spoke. He bit his lip now, said desperately, "I looked in to tell Doctor Loring that you were here. I saw his body. Good God, Norvale, I didn't do it. I just found him that way. I—I didn't want to be mixed up in the whole thing any more, so I packed my bags—"
The trooper's hand clamped tighter on his shoulder. "So you figured you'd walk out, huh? I guess you better stick around a while." He shook the pale secretary, and looked at Weston. "Will you phone headquarters, sir? I'll take this bird up to his room and look through his bags. Might find a clue to Miss Brenda's disappearance."
Weston nodded, seeming too stunned to speak.
The trooper drew his gun, motioned to Parker. "Get upstairs, you!"
Parker said nothing. He glared at Weston and Norvale, picked up his bags and went up the stairs, followed by the trooper.
Weston looked pale and drawn. Deep shadows lay under his eyes. "God!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe it's possible—that Parker should be capable of murder!"
"Did he and Loring ever have any trouble?" Norvale asked.
"None that I know of. They seemed to get along all right." Weston was suddenly struck by a thought. He clutched Norvale's sleeve. "Brenda! If he's killed Loring, he must have killed Brenda too. God! Where do you think he's hidden her?"
Norvale shook his head. "I'm not a detective. Let's leave it to the police."
Weston said wearily, "Well, I guess that's about all we can do. I think I'll lie down on the couch in the study after I phone. It'll take them a little while. Milford, the county seat, is eighteen miles from here. You going to wash up?"
"Not yet. I want to look in the museum again. There's something—"
Norvale stopped in mid-sentence as there came from above the sudden slamming of a door and the sound of the trooper's voice raised in an angry shout: "Open that door, damn it!" Then the sound of something battering against wood to the accompaniment of curses.
NORVALE lunged up the stairs followed by Weston. In the upper
hall they saw the trooper banging away at the closed door of one
of the rooms with the butt of his gun.
"What's happened?" Weston shouted.
The trooper turned an apoplectic face to them. "We were steppin' into his room. Parker went in first. It was dark, an' he just slammed the door in my face!"
"Let's break it down," said Norvale.
"Shoot the lock out!" Weston shouted. "Before he gets out the window!"
The officer nodded. He placed the muzzle of his gun close to the lock and fired. Then he shoved against the door, and it swung open.
The room was in darkness.
The trooper shouted, "Come out!"
There was no answer.
Norvale slid past the uniformed man into the room, felt along the wall for a light switch, found it and clicked it on.
The room was empty. The window was open.
The trooper leaped to the window and fired in the air. Shadowy figures ran across the grounds toward the house. They were the guards who had been scattered about the place. Norvale recalled that Weston had always provided himself with plenty of protection.
Dogs barked in the darkness outside.
The trooper raised his voice above the noise of the dogs, calling to the men who ran towards them. "Look out for Parker. He's a murderer. He jumped out of this window. He must be outside!"
Somebody called up, "Okay, officer."
Half a dozen servants were peering into the room from the corridor, their faces frightened. Weston ordered them to go back to their rooms. "There may be shooting," he told them. "Parker has killed Doctor Loring and escaped. We fear he has also killed Miss Brenda. If any of you see him, give the alarm at once!"
The servants dispersed.
Norvale rapped out, "We've got to search the ground floor immediately. Parker may have doubled back into the house."
"That's a good idea," said the trooper.
Norvale led the way out. "You and Mr. Weston take the front of the house. I'll take the museum. There's something I want to look at in there anyway."
Weston asked him, "Have you got a gun?"
Norvale remembered that Parker had asked him the same question. "No," he answered impatiently. "I didn't expect to walk into bloody murder when I came here!"
"Wait a minute," Weston said. "I'll get you one. I have a spare automatic in my room."
He went down the corridor, and the trooper started down the stairs.
Norvale was left alone for a moment. Once more he felt that queer feeling of disquietude. Somehow this house and the whole neighborhood seemed to carry an unsavory aroma.
Weston came back with two automatics. He gave one to Norvale.
"I don't need to tell you to be sure the safety is off before you shoot," he said with an attempt at lightness.
Norvale said nothing, led the way downstairs.
The state trooper was in the front of the hall. "Go along with him," Norvale told Weston.
"All right," the little millionaire said. "I'll take this part of the house, the officer can go through the east wing, and you can cover the west wing and the museum."
The trooper called back, "All the servants are upstairs. If you see anybody, shoot first and ask questions afterwards."
Norvale left them and made his way around the bend in the corridor to the door of the museum. He opened the door.
The interior of the museum was dark.
He remembered distinctly that he had left the light on. He felt along inside the doorway until he found the switch, and pushed.
THE mellow indirect lighting illuminated the interior, casting
deep shadows in many corners. From outside, through an open
window, came the hoarse shouts of searching men, and the baying
of the dogs.
Norvale advanced into the room, leaving the door open behind him. He held the gun ready.
And then he stopped, eyes narrowed. The door of Doctor Loring's work room was open, but the little room itself, where lay the doctor's body, had no light. Norvale had left the light on.
He crossed the museum floor, past the mounted group of grazing black-tailed deer and stalking panther, and stopped just outside the work room. He could hear no sound now, but he knew somehow that a living person was in there with the corpse.
Swiftly he stepped into the little room, and crouched. From his left there was a sudden quick flurry, and a dark shape slammed into him, two hands were clamped about his throat, the fingers contracting mercilessly.
Norvale swung the automatic in a wide, vicious arc, and brought it down on his attacker's head. There was a gasp, the fingers opened spasmodically, and the hands fell away from his throat. A body slumped to the floor.
Norvale stood up, found the switch, and turned on the light. Parker lay on the floor, unconscious. The blood was coming freely from a nasty cut in the top of his head. Evidently he had doubled back into the museum, realizing the futility of escape from the guarded grounds.
Norvale let him lie there, stepped purposefully past the body of Doctor Loring, and picked up from the work bench a sharp edged skinning knife.
He went out into the museum, climbed into the enclosure where the panther was stalking the deer.
He turned the mounted cat over on its back, and slit the skin along the seam where it had been sewed, from the edge of the lower lip to the tip of the tail.
His eyes gleamed as he uncovered the plaster mould under the skin. With the edge of the knife he chipped at the plaster till chunks of it fell away. What he saw underneath caused him to work frantically till he had gotten most of the plaster off.
When he finished, his eyes were bleak.
For the plaster had covered the dead naked body of Brenda Ewing!
And suddenly the outside door of the museum room slammed shut; there was a click, and the lights went out.
He whirled, saw nothing in the darkness.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see into the work room, which was still lit. The body of Doctor Loring still lay in the center, and Parker was huddled near the doorway, stirring feebly.
Norvale picked up his gun, which he had laid on the floor beside him.
Someone was in the museum, moving quietly—someone who had put out the light. Why?
Norvale started to move away from beside the body of Brenda Ewing.
But a flashlight clicked on, bathing him in light. It came from close by him. Whoever was in the room had crept up.
Norvale leaped aside, and at the same time fired at the flashlight. An involuntary oath escaped him. He was a dead shot, and should have put that light out.
But the gun was loaded with blanks.
There was a chuckle from the one who held the flashlight. Norvale stopped alongside one of the black-tailed deer. There was no use dodging, the light was following his every move.
There was a click—the sound of a safety catch being shoved up on an automatic.
Norvale said, "Weston?"
There was another chuckle. "How did you guess?"
Norvale was sparring for time. "I didn't—until I tried to shoot this automatic."
"But you came back here to open up the panther?"
"I knew that Loring couldn't have done such a poor job. It had to be either you or Parker. And I recalled that you had often helped Loring."
"I am sorry," Weston said silkily, "that my skill at taxidermy wasn't greater. It might not have been necessary, then, to kill you."
Norvale exclaimed accusingly, "You killed Brenda Ewing—your own ward—so you could remain in control of her estate until it's settled. You were going to use her money to play the market again. And you killed Loring because he found out!"
Weston's voice carried a tinge of self-satisfaction. "You are very astute for a young man who has lived in the jungle most of his life. You see, I could never bear to have all these specimens sold at auction. What is a silly girl's life compared to these treasures?"
Norvale said tensely, "God! I wish I were back in the jungle, where things are clean!" He saw Weston move forward slightly, and he spoke quickly, preparing, meanwhile, to leap at Weston and die fighting. "And now you plan to kill me, too; and blame it all on Parker. He certainly played into your hands by getting panicky when he saw Loring's body. They'll never suspect you now."
Weston chuckled once more behind the flashlight. "Resourcefulness, Norvale, resourcefulness!"
NORVALE clamped his jaws shut. He ducked behind the mounted
deer, Weston's gun barked, and a bullet smashed into the stuffed
animal. Two more followed it.
But Norvale had gotten out of the glare of the flashlight. He swung behind a second deer. With the glare out of his eyes, he could discern Weston's figure. He stood up and hurled his gun just as Weston fired a fourth time. He felt a tugging at his side, then a burning pain. But he saw Weston stagger. He had hit Weston squarely on the face with the gun.
He gave the millionaire no time to recover, but lunged out at him.
Weston fired blindly. The bullet went wild. Norvale had forgotten the low rope around the enclosure. He tripped over it just as Weston's finger, clamped tightly on the gun, sent two more slugs past his head.
Norvale landed outside the enclosure on his hands and knees, and lunged out in a flying tackle that caught Weston above the knees and floored him.
Weston clubbed his gun and struck at Norvale's head, but Norvale brought his fist down in a powerful swing. It caught Weston on the side of the head and he sucked in his breath sharply and slumped down, dropping the flashlight.
There was a tumult and a shouting in the corridor, and a dozen men broke into the room, headed by the state trooper. Someone put on the lights.
The trooper shouted, "What've you done to Mr. Weston?"
Norvale stood up unsteadily. He felt his side and brought his hand away bloody.
"Nothing much," he said.