Invisible Death Read online

  For another thing, rumors were rife that Streiger had virtually become a recluse in recent weeks, shutting himself away behind the stone walls and iron gates of Twelve Oaks like a man who fears his life is in danger. Never exactly the most gregarious of men even in the best of times, Streiger’s curious reclusive behavior lifted eyebrows among those who had known him. It just had not been like Jerred Streiger to behave in such a manner.

  Finishing his task, Doc Jenkins sorted the stack of newspapers out on a long inlaid table and turned as a remarkably short man with a cheerful pug-nosed face and bright blue eyes came strolling into the room. The unmistakable stamp of the Emerald Isle was written all over the diminutive, swaggering redhead. All he needed was a long gray beard, buckled shoes and a fresh shamrock in his lapel, and you would have instantly taken him for a pugnacious leprechaun, strayed somehow from the misty glens and bogs of Ireland.

  His name was Aloysius Murphy Muldoon, and he was indeed of pure Hibernian descent. But men who permitted his slight build and scanty inches to fool them frequently had cause to regret their error while spending the next few weeks in hospital beds. For under the sobriquet of “Scorchy” Muldoon, the peppery little Irishman had been a bantamweight pugilist of world renown. His flying fists had laid out men nearly twice his size, both in and out of the prize ring.

  “Hi, Doc, is the chief come up yet this mornin’?” inquired the little redheaded boxer cheerfully.

  “Nope,” said Doc Jenkins in his dull, heavy voice. “You’re up early, Scorchy. Couldn’t sleep?”

  The small man shrugged irritably. “It’s this everlovin’ inaction is after gettin’ me down, Doc. When, oh when, are we goin’ to see a little action? Faith, I’m gettin’ so rusty I don’t know when wuz th’ last time I mixed it up nice an’ hot!”

  Doc Jenkins chuckled. It was all of three weeks since their last adventure had thrust them into dire and deadly peril in the mysterious caverns of a hollow mountain, among weird red-robed cultists who worshiped a messiah of evil called “Lucifer.” They had been alternately gassed, trapped, kidnapped, carried off in invisible helicopters, and nearly slain by the uncanny “Hand of Death” — and Doc, for one, had been happy to have a little comfortable leisure in which to rest up before their next adventure began: but here was Scorchy, chafing for the next adventure with the last one scarcely over!

  Doc was about to remark on this when the telephone rang. The big man took the call while Scorchy helped himself to breakfast from the covered dishes on the sideboard. He was busily munching ham and eggs when Doc joined him for a third cup of coffee.

  “Who wuz that on the horn?” inquired the fiery-thatched bantamweight:

  “Ricks of Homicide,” mumbled Jenkins around a mouthful of hot coffee. “The chief took it on his extension.” Scorchy’s bright blue eyes gleamed even brighter.

  “Homicide, is it? Faith, is’t possible we’re about to see a little action around here at last?”

  “It’s more than possible; I’d call it probable,” said a voice behind them.

  The two men turned to look at the man who had just come through the secret door behind the bookshelves, where a private elevator had carried him from his sanctum below the building.

  Prince Zarkon, chief of the Omega men, was tall and long-legged, with a superbly developed body whose musculature was of such marvelous symmetry as to go unnoticed by the casual glance. He was attired from head to foot in gun-metal gray, from his suede shoes to his whipcord jacket and slacks and gray turtleneck pullover. Even the meticulously arranged fringe of locks which adorned his lofty brow were of the same shade of gray. The manner in which these locks were curled over his high forehead gave him a curiously antique look, like one of the ancient Roman portrait busts in the International Museum.

  But nothing could be further from the facts. No antique Roman, Zarkon was a man from the very distant future, sent back in time to undo the grim and terrible future world in which he had been born as the last of a line of experimental supermen. That distant world was a dying one, its resources exhausted from millennia of war, its dwindling populace brutalized by centuries of subjugation to cruel overlords, its winds and waves poisoned to the point of sterility from ages of neglect and rampant pollution. It had been the sudden rise to power of ruthless supercriminals preying on the superstitions of the masses through scientific trickery that had brought the dying world to so grim a twilight. To destroy such masterminds of supercrime before they could bring all of civilization down in a succession of feudal dark ages was the task to which Zarkon, Lord of the Unknown, had dedicated his life.

  The five men who fought with him knew the astonishing secret of his uncanny origin in the far future. They looked upon him as their leader with reverence and awe, but also with love. Each of them had come to the end of his tether; one by one he had rescued them from the living death of drugs or alcohol or crime or madness. Together they stood against that future world of horror and impending doom: together they would rewrite the future by changing the past.

  Zarkon studied them, keen magnetic black eyes under towering brows in a golden face of heroic masculine beauty. A superman bred to this purpose over centuries, he was always ready to take up his unending battle against evil anew.

  “That was Detective Inspector Ricks of Homicide on the phone,” said Zarkon. “He wants me to look into the death of a wealthy man named Jerred Streiger. Do the morning papers have anything on it?”

  “Do they! They’re full of nothin’ else,” said Doc Jenkins cheerfully. “I got ‘em already marked for you, chief.” Zarkon crossed to the big inlaid table and looked through the newspapers, one by one.

  “I see by the obituary in the Times that Streiger used to belong to the Cobalt Club,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. Doc, I need a car. Is anybody up yet? What about Ace?”

  “Haven’t heard a peep outa him yet,” admitted Jenkins. “But from the early hour he and Menlo got back from the Club Galaxy last night — this morning, I mean! — I’m not surprised. But Nick was prowlin’ around just a while ago. Guess he can drive you where you want to go —”

  “Hey, chief, what about me?” demanded Scorchy, aggrievedly.

  “Poo!” snorted Doc Jenkins, “the chief wants to get there in one piece, you pint-sized pugilist! I’ll call Nick to drive you, chief.”

  “That third-rate vaudevillian?” grumbled Scorchy, but only by way of automatic reflex. It was a standing joke among the men of Omega that the bantamweight boxer was such a bad driver that he could hardly go thirty yards without bumping into something — or somebody.

  Doc thumbed a switch on the P A system and his voice went booming out through the laboratories and workshops and research facilities of Omega, summoning Nick Naldini to the garage. A moment later the hoarse whiskey-voice of the former stage magician and escape artist came rasping over the same hookup:

  “Righto, Doc! I’ll be delighted to have a little action at last.” Then he added, with a nasty chuckle, “Eat your heart out, Scorchy Muldoon!”

  CHAPTER 3 — Who Will Be Next?

  Zarkon selected from among his private fleet of automobiles a long black Supra limousine. With Nick Naldini at the wheel, they drove across town to the elegant marble façade of a turn-of-the-century building designed by Stanford White, which stood on one of the quiet side streets off fashionable Fifth Avenue. A discreetly lettered bronze plaque announced that this was the exclusive Cobalt Club.

  Leaving the car and nodding to the silver-haired doorman, Zarkon entered the building, crossed the foyer, and entered the high-ceilinged lounge where the members generally gathered for cocktails before luncheon. The room was huge, dark, quiet; parquet floors were covered with superb, Oriental rugs, the walls bore mahogany bookshelves lined with fine-tooled leather bindings agleam with gold. Elderly waiters brought drinks on silver trays to members ensconced in old-fashioned leather armchairs.

  Zarkon glanced about, searchingly. The membership of the Cobalt Club was by no means
limited to old families, wealthy socialites, and millionaire clubmen. True, the oldest, wealthiest, and most socially prominent families of Knickerbocker City were represented, but so were the ranks of the law, medicine, the arts and sciences. Men of importance and distinction in all branches of endeavor were numbered among the membership of the Cobalt Club; Zarkon himself had been elected a member during his first year in the city.

  Across the lounge five men whom he knew were seated in a circle, chatting over cocktails. They were trim, tanned and fit, keen-eyed athletic men in their prime, despite the touches of gray in their hair which suggested they were well past their first youth. Zarkon crossed to greet them.

  “Hello there, Wayne, Reid. Wentworth, Brooks, good to see you again. Cranston, how are you? Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all, please do,” murmured Cranston, waving to an empty chair. He was a tall, hawk-faced man with lazy, hooded eyes and dark smooth hair flecked with gray; his long lean legs, impeccably attired, stretched out before him. On the third finger of his left hand a rare girasol smoldered in a plain gold ring. He twisted the ring on his finger absently as he chatted with his friends.

  Zarkon seated himself and let Cranston order him a dry martini.

  “We were discussing old Streiger’s death,” remarked Wayne, a square-jawed man going gray at the temples. “Presume you read about it in the morning papers?”

  “Yes, I have,” Zarkon acknowledged, accepting his drink from the waiter and lifting the glass in salute. “I was wondering about it, in fact. The newspaper accounts were rather sketchy. Did any of you happen to know him? Wayne, don’t you and your ward have a summer home out in that part of Long Island?”

  “That’s right,” nodded the square-jawed millionaire. “Dick’s been away at college for some years now, and we hardly use it any more. I used to run into Streiger now and again, mostly out in the Hamptons. But we moved in very different circles and I hardly knew him.”

  Zarkon nodded, sipping his martini. He knew that the wealthy clubman very largely confined his interests and activities to the nearby metropolis of Gotham City, so this came as no surprise.

  “I believe Cranston knew him,” added Wayne. The lazy, hawk-faced man shrugged, moodily twisting the girasol on his long finger.

  “We used to run into each other at the country club now and then,” said Cranston absently. “He made a fourth for bridge, sometimes played a round of golf. Just a nodding acquaintance, though; as Wayne said, he kept pretty much to himself and moved in other circles.”

  “Which country club was this?” inquired the Prince.

  “The Beechview Country Club, near Long Island Sound. I go out there for golf occasionally. The courses out my way are very inferior.” Zarkon absorbed this thoughtfully: he knew Cranston’s estate was out in the country, near the town of Merwyn, New Jersey.

  “Queer, his dying like that,” Cranston added. “Man was strong as a bull. Looked as though he would outlast us all. If I weren’t flying to San Francisco tomorrow, I might just look into it.”

  Cranston had an amateur’s interest in criminology, Zarkon knew, and sometimes lent his aid to the police commissioner as a sort of consultant. Zarkon asked if Cranston’s friend the commissioner had any leads on the case that hadn’t been mentioned in the news. The tall man shrugged indifferently.

  “Afraid I don’t know the commissioner as well as I should, although I was on quite good terms with Weston, his predecessor. Perhaps Reid has some inside stuff; his paper has been playing up the case.”

  Reid, the wealthy publisher of the Daily Sentinel, shook his head reluctantly. “I’m afraid not, Prince. But I have some of my best reporters working on the case, and they may turn up something soon. I have to leave the city myself for a few days, but I can have my secretary, Miss Case, call you if any promising leads turn up.”

  “I would appreciate that very much,” Zarkon said. “I’m particularly interested in the cause of death. I understand the coroner ascribes it to a blood clot —”

  Reid chuckled suddenly. “Yes, my Filipino house-boy, Kato, has a theory on that which might amuse you. He puts it down to what he calls ‘jungle devil magic’: Seems, in the islands, when a man dies mysteriously and from no known cause, they put the blame on the Filipino equivalent of voodoo.”

  The men chuckled. Brooks, the dapper lawyer with the prematurely gray hair, laughed, twirling his slim black sword cane. “That would hardly be admissible in a court of law,” he grinned. “But it’s an interesting theory! My associates and I are leaving for Peru day after tomorrow, or we might look into the mystery ourselves.” Brooks, the senior partner of the distinguished law firm of Van Dusen, Drew, Brooks & Rummel, had a hankering for adventure and divided his time about equally between forensic problems in the courtroom and exploits and explorations in the far corners of the globe.

  Wentworth, seated next to that Harvard-trained vision of sartorial splendor, spoke up next. “Personally, I’d like to know if there’s any truth to the rumor that Streiger had been receiving threatening notes.”

  “What kind of threatening notes?” inquired Zarkon.

  Wentworth shrugged. “My servant, Ram Singh, knows a fellow-countryman in Streiger’s employ, a chap named Chandra Lal. Chandra Lal says the rumor among Streiger’s staff is that the old man had been getting anonymous notes warning that unless Streiger signed over his stock holdings to a third party, he would perish from the ‘Invisible Death,’ whatever that may mean.”

  “That’s the first I’d heard of this,” admitted Zarkon with interest. “Did Streiger have extensive holdings?”

  “I believe he did, mostly in Worldwide Steel,” murmured Cranston. “I happen to know that because we both have the same investment broker, Rutledge Mann. His offices are in the Badger Building, and I used to run into Streiger’s attorney, Josiah Seaton, in Mann’s offices.”

  “That sounds like a promising lead for you, Zarkon,” suggested Britt Reid. The Ultimate Man nodded thoughtfully. Wentworth glanced at his watch, downed the rest of his drink at a gulp, and rose to his feet.

  “Have to be going,” he said offhandedly. “Leaving for Chicago tomorrow, myself ... have an, ah, a social engagement first.”

  Cranston smiled sardonically. “To be sure, Richard! Oh, would you be kind enough to give my warmest regards to Miss Nita Van Sloan during your, ah, social engagement? And my sincerest sympathies, as usual.”

  This parting shot made Wentworth flush; then he grinned good-naturedly and left. His long-standing engagement to the attractive young woman in question, which had been going on for some years, was a standing joke among his friends.

  Zarkon turned to the dapper lawyer with the slim black cane.

  “Brooks, do you happen to know where Streiger’s lawyer has his offices?”

  “Certainly, my dear Prince! He maintains a suite of offices in the Grandville Building,” said the impeccably attired lawyer.

  Zarkon thanked him quietly, finished off his drink, made his farewells, and was about to leave when Cranston, still twirling his girasol ring moodily, spoke up in a somber voice.

  “I’ve an intuition Streiger was only the first,” the hawk-faced man said, staring broodingly into the lambent radiance of the fire opal.

  “Perhaps,” Zarkon agreed.

  “And that makes me wonder ...” murmured Cranston, broodingly.

  “Wonder what?” asked Wayne.

  “Oh, nothing; nothing really,” said Cranston, stretching lazily like a great cat and rising to his feet. “I do believe it is time for luncheon, and I am famishing for a bit of Antoine’s filet of sole ...”

  The others finished their drinks and rose to join him. Zarkon alone would not be lunching at the Cobalt Club that day, for the mention of threatening letters and of Streiger’s lawyer, Josiah Seaton, had given him a hot lead which he wished to pursue without undue delay.

  He strolled with his friends into the foyer and shook hands with them there. Cranston lingered behind while the other m
en went into the dining room.

  “You intend to pursue this matter seriously, then, Prince?” inquired the wealthy amateur criminologist.

  “I believe so; in fact, the authorities have asked for my help. The Long Island suburb where Streiger lived is out of the jurisdiction of the city police, but the Holmwood force is poorly equipped for this sort of an investigation. I had a call this morning from Detective Inspector Ricks of the Homicide Bureau, asking if I’d be interested in taking a look out that way. Nothing much is going on right now, so I see no reason not to help them out.”

  “Good man, that Ricks,” murmured Cranston. “He did brilliant work on those Mandarin murders some years back ... a pity I have to make that trip to San Francisco! I’m more than half inclined to look into this thing myself. Still, business is business; and I’m leaving the matter in the very best of hands, if you and your team are going to handle the investigation.”

  “Nice of you to say so,” smiled Zarkon. “I’d still like to know what it was you were wondering a minute ago.”

  “I was wondering who will be next,” said Lamont Cranston somberly.

  CHAPTER 4 — The Grim Reaper!

  Nick Naldini was stretched out lazily on the front seat of the limousine, smoking a king-sized cigarette in an even more king-sized holder, when Zarkon came over. The lanky stage magician straightened up with alacrity.

  “Any luck, chief?” he queried Zarkon in his hoarse whiskey-voice. “Any leads, I mean?”

  Zarkon climbed into the car. “I don’t know, Nick. It’s just possible. Let’s go.”

  “Righto! But where?”

  “The Grandville Building. It’s on the corner of —”