The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess (13 page)

“Don’t get too sentimental about it, doctor,” advised the Avenger. “You killed the real Dr. Bouchey and took his place.”

“Things like that have to be done. It had nothing to do with the man . . . he happened to resemble me, and he was a widower with no family. Perfect for our purposes,” said the bent old man. “You must realize,
Herr
Benson, that when I was sent here by my homeland, a much different group of people were in charge of my country. Hitler and his followers were not yet—”

“Yes, I know. The ‘I only work here’ excuse,” cut in Benson. “I think we’ll be hearing it a lot in the next few years. You could have quit at any time, doctor. Quit before Rodney was corrupted and murdered, quit before Mrs. Andrade was allowed to kill anyone, quit before Elizabeth was drugged and nearly killed.”

“Yes, yes, when you are young, it is easy to talk like that,” said the old man. “As you grow older, it is more and more difficult. You know,
senhor
Benson, back in Germany I was a music teacher. That was what I wanted to do with my life, to teach little children to—” He threw his drink into the Avenger’s face, kicked him hard in the shin, and then shoved out of his chair.

Benson took off after him as soon as he’d wiped the stinging drink out of his eyes.

The professor was nearly across the car, pushing people aside.

“Hey, take it easy!”

“What’s your hurry, gramps?”

“Hobart, that old man stepped on my sore toe.”

The Avenger angered the club car customers all over again as he followed after the old man.

Dr. Bouchey shoved the heavy door open and got out between the two cars.

He went no farther.

Cole was waiting there for him. “Game’s up, professor,” he said.

The old man brought his hand up toward his mouth.

“No more suicides,” said Cole, grabbing for the wrinkled hand.

Dr. Bouchey dropped his hand before Cole caught it. He let the pill fall to the metal floor. “No, never mind,” he said in a thin voice. “I cannot do it, anyway.”

“Good for you, professor,” said Cole. “You’ve finally realized that life has some value.”

Smitty thudded across the office and flicked the table radio on. “Geeze, I almost missed it.”

The radio said, “. . . again it’s time for the heartaches and triumphs of Mary Joyce, M.D. The everyday story of a lovely surgeon who must face the choice between love and duty. As you remember from yesterday’s episode, the news of what happened to little Jerry has spread through Willow Corners like wildfire . . .”

“What happened to him?” Smitty demanded of the radio. “What happened to him?”

“. . . meanwhile Mary Joyce, M.D. is wandering the streets of San Francsico, dazed, not knowing who she is . . .”

“Huh? Since when?”

“. . . and only wealthy playboy David Ackroyd knows where the beautiful and gifted surgeon is. But for reasons of his own he isn’t telling. Can he be in some way affiliated with the mysterious man in the brown overcoat? We’ll learn the answer to this and other questions right after this message from Socko Soap . . .”

“Boy, go away for a few days,” complained the giant, “and you get all disoriented.”

Josh Newton was the only other member of the Justice, Inc., team in the room at the moment. “Little Jerry’s only got frostbite, that’s all.”

“That’s a relief,” said Smitty. “I didn’t know you were a fan of the show.”

“I’m not,” replied the black man. “But Rosabel has gotten fond of it since she’s been home looking after the twins.”

“Proves it’s an intellectual soaper if they got people like you and Rosabel listening in.”

Setting aside the report he’d been reading, Josh said, “You ran into an honest-to-goodness vampire down there, I hear tell.”

“Naw, she wasn’t a vampire. Only a screwball.” He motioned for silence as the commercial ended and the soap opera returned.

MacMurdie entered. “Whoosh, is that medical lass still suffering?”

Smitty ignored the question, turned down the volume, and pressed his ear to the speaker.

“No real vampires,” said Josh to Mac, “is that a fact?”

“Nary a one.” Mac took a seat. “Nonetheless, ’twas a bloody case, and I’m glad it’s over.”

“What was the girl like, Dick’s old college sweetheart?”

“A fine-looking lass, what little I saw of her,” said the Scot. “ ’Tis rumored she’ll soon be residing in Connecticut. Mayhap we’ll all see more of her.”

“Of whom?” asked Cole as he strolled in.

“The Bentin lass.”

“Ungrateful wench.” Cole settled into a soft chair. “I fought my way through fierce and formidable Nazi agents, grappled with blood-crazed vampires to rescue her . . . and I receive for all that a polite thank-you.”

“That’s what knight-errants usually get.” Nellie Gray had arrived. The little blonde took a chair near Cole’s and made a face at him.

“Ah, pixie, it’s good to see a plain homespun girl again,” he said, grinning at her. “All those exotic women down in Panazuela were too much for me. Basically I am the Jimmy Stewart type, preferring plain ordinary girls such as yourself to sultry—”

“Nerts,” she said.

“Holy smoke,” muttered Smitty. “They might have to cut off one of little Jerry’s toes.”

“He’s got ten,” said Cole.

Nellie took a steno pad out of her purse and tapped a mechanical pencil on its cardboard cover. “I think Dick’s got a new assignment for us.”

“I have to admit I was a little disappointed in this vampire case,” said Cole. “Not one real authentic vampire in the whole shooting match. When I get into an occult case, I like it to stay that way. Now, that zombie thing I handled out in Hollywood was better, because there I—”

“You may get your wish this time,” said the Avenger. He crossed the room and took a seat behind his desk.

“Another weird one, Richard?” asked Mac.

“I’m not sure yet.” He placed several sheets of yellow paper on his desk top. “I’ve been talking to Washington. Some people there think this might be something for Justice, Inc., to look into.” He steepled his fingers under his chin. “You’ve heard of Dr. Gardner Dean.”

Josh said, “The physicist? He got a Nobel Prize in ’37 or ’38 for his researches into the nature of light. Haven’t heard much about him since.”

“Gardner Dean has been working on a very secret government project since late in 1940,” said the Avenger. “Two weeks ago he vanished.”

“That’s nae very weird-sounding,” remarked MacMurdie. “Seems the FBI or Don Early’s agency would be the ones to go beating the bush for him.”

“Depends on how you interpret the word vanished, Mac,” said Richard Henry Benson.

Nellie looked up from her open notebook. “You don’t mean he went up in a puff of smoke?
Poof!
That kind of vanishing?”

“It’s nothing quite that magical,” said the Avenger. “Dr. Dean, though, had been at work on developing a means to . . . well, to turn things invisible.”

“Hout,” said Mac, “ ’tis nae possible. I’ve thought about the problem m’self . . . ever since I was a wee bairn and read H. G. Wells. But it canna be done.”

“Dean thought it could,” said the Avenger. “No one else on the project knows if he succeeded or not. All they know is that he’s gone. Without a trace.”

“Where is the lab they were using?” Cole asked.

“In New Mexico, near a small town called Nolansville.”

“Well, they’d be able to keep the security lid on pretty tight, then,” said Cole. “It’s not like being in Manhattan, where you’ve got eight million people to think about.”

“Yes, security is tight,” said Benson. “Yet Dr. Dean is gone.”

“There’s something more to it than that, though?” said Nellie. “Otherwise, as Mac says, they’d get J. Edgar Hoover.”

The Avenger placed his hands on top of the sheets of yellow paper. “Several strange things have happened out there since Dean disappeared,” he said. “Things that could only have been done by an invisible man.”