by Larry Kent
“Can’t tell me?” he said, disbelieving. “What kind of a deal is this? Look, we’re good friends and all that—but there’s a limit, pal! If you think I’m going to give you information about my secretary because some well-heeled client has paid you to do some snooping—”
“My client, Lee, is Uncle Sam.”
“The government?”
“Lee, you asked me something a few years ago. You heard a rumor that I did some work for the CIA every now and then. Do you remember what I told you?”
“You told me absolutely nothing.”
“Well, things haven’t changed. I can’t go into specifics, not even for an old friend. You’ve just got to trust me.”
Lee selected a briar pipe from a rack on his desk, stuck the pipe in his mouth, blew through it. “What’s she supposed to have done?”
“Maybe nothing.”
Lee opened a tobacco humidor, began to fill the pipe. “How much can you tell me?”
“More than they wanted me to, but not nearly as much as I’d like to.”
Lee looked down, tamped tobacco in the pipe with his thumb. “Maybe you’d better listen to what I have to say before you tell me anything.”
“Shoot.”
“I think I’m in love with her.”
“Then I hope she comes out clean,” I said.
“You don’t get the point, Larry. Feeling as I do, I think I present you with a bad risk.”
“You’re a risk no matter what happens. I’m just going to have to take a chance.”
Lee slammed the pipe down on the desk. “Don’t I have anything to say about this?”
“You have the same choice I’ve got: you either do what’s right or you don’t. Now stop trying to be so damned noble and listen to me. Rita Duncan worked as Professor Galek’s personal secretary for more than two years. She went along on every trip he made, and he did a lot of travelling—all over the world.”
“Of course he did; he was a famous man.”
“What was he famous for, Lee?”
“As a lecturer, a teacher, a researcher.”
“That’s the key word, friend. Researcher. Galek was the world’s foremost authority in the science of bacteriology. One year ago he announced to some friends that he had isolated a new kind of bacteria, one unknown to science, a cute little bug that made the breeding habits of the rabbit look like birth control. It was a new plague germ that killed every laboratory animal injected with it within twelve hours. Galek figured it would take twenty-four hours to kill a human. He was very worried about this little bug. He could find no antidote for its poison. He reckoned that one drop of water containing the bacteria, if dropped in a reservoir, would kill every person using that water supply within a week.”
Lee, his writer’s mind interested, leaned forward. “But our water is chemically treated.”
“Sure. Galek tried the chemicals on his bugs; they got fatter. And there’s something else about the bacteria worthy of attention: they look like first cousins to the harmless little critters you find in all water and food. A scientist not knowing of the existence of Galek’s bugs could study them under the microscope without seeing anything to give him a clue that he was observing the deadliest killer ever known to man.”
“Did he notify the government about this?”
“No. He was afraid to let the bacteria get outside his laboratory walls. He feared that someone might decide to use it on our enemies.”
“But that’s ridiculous! If we ever used such a thing without having discovered an antidote, it would boomerang on us.”
“That’s right, Lee. But even if we had an antidote, we wouldn’t use it. However, Galek didn’t believe this. He didn’t trust the hawks in Washington. At the same time, he was a scientist. He just couldn’t bring himself to destroy Strep 3—that’s the name he gave his little monsters; you might say he had a paternal instinct toward them.”
“What about the friends Galek took into his confidence?” Lee asked. “Did any of them go to the government?”
“Two. One to our government and the other to the enemy.”
“Russia?”
“We don’t know. All we know is there is a group of people in this country who are doing their damnedest to get their hands on Galek’s bugs. It’s possible that they’ve already succeeded, but we doubt it. If they have succeeded, we’re in bad trouble.”
Lee struck a match, got his pipe burning. The smoke had a pleasant nutty aroma. “I don’t see how Rita can be suspected in this thing,” he said. “Galek was associated with some government projects. Though I haven’t discussed her work with Galek, it seems to me that the CIA would have checked her out.”
“They did.”
“Then we must assume she got a clearance.”
“Lee, a CIA clearance is not an infallible certification of patriotism. Every man and woman in the State Department has to be cleared prior to joining the department. This doesn’t stop foreign agents from getting in.”
Lee bit hard on the pipe stem. “What makes you so sure Rita is a traitor?”
“I’m not sure. But she has to be checked out. Listen to the rest of what I’ve got to say and maybe you’ll understand. All you read in the newspapers was that Professor Galek held a gun against his temple and blew out his brains in front of ten witnesses. Nothing was said about the fact that he was sweating profusely, that his face and body were mottled with purple marks. What happened was this: while working on an antidote in his lab, he accidentally infected himself with Strep 3. As soon as he was aware of what had happened, he wrote a letter that was delivered—by hand—to a certain high-ranking Security official in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“The letter was written in haste. Galek did not explain how he had isolated Strep 3. But he pointed out one vital fact: from twenty-four to thirty-six hours after the Strep 3 bacteria enter a human bloodstream, death would certainly occur. But this was only the beginning. From Galek’s experiments on laboratory animals he discovered that the bacteria leave the body quickly after death, spreading themselves in the air we breathe. He made it clear that, if his body wasn’t cremated that very day, the United States would probably have a plague on its hands—a plague that couldn’t be stopped. So, without any news leaking out, Galek was cremated. There was no autopsy.”
Lee shook his head. “That doesn’t ring true, Larry. Our scientists would demand that they be given a sample of Strep 3 from Galek’s body.”
“Our scientists had nothing to say about it, Lee. The Security official took full responsibility.”
“But—”
“Listen to the rest of it.”
“Go ahead.”
“Galek destroyed all the Strep 3 in his lab at Yale. By fire. That wasn’t in the papers.”
“Why didn’t he destroy himself in the fire?”
“He explained that in the letter. He wanted the Security official to see what Strep 3 did to the human body.”
“That was foolish.”
“Sure. And very risky. But I think Professor Galek can be excused; you see, the first thing Strep 3 do is attack the brain. The man who wrote the letter was burning up with fever. By the time he shot himself he was a raving madman.”
“I don’t understand,” Lee said, shaking his head. “You say that Galek destroyed the Strep 3 bacteria in his lab.”
“Yes.”
“Did he leave notes or something?”
“No. That is, we don’t know of any notes.”
“Then where’s the problem? If the Strep 3 bacteria no longer exist—”
“Ah, but they do. Galek was a scientist. He wanted other scientists to study Strep 3. So he wrote two letters that day. The other was mailed to Dr. Percival Lamond, government bacteriologist, a man for whom Galek had the greatest respect. In the letter to Lamond, Galek explained that a vial of Strep 3 culture was locked in a refrigerated safe in a friend’s home outside Cambridge. In his letter to the Security official, Galek wrote that he was informing Dr. Lamond of the
whereabouts of the vial—but he didn’t tell the official where the vial was located. Dr. Lamond’s instructions were to pick up the Security official and go with him to take possession of the vial. Galek didn’t trust the government; he wanted to be represented by a man of science. Well, the vial was found in the safe and taken to a government laboratory in Virginia, near Washington D.C. Dr. Lamond, honoring the responsibility Galek had placed in him, made sure that Strep 3 would not be used as a military weapon before he agreed to experimentation. Receiving these assurances, he gathered a team of bacteriologists and went to work. The bacteria had been kept in a dormant state; now they were brought to life. The scientists were amazed—Strep 3 looked like ordinary food bacteria under the microscope. They injected animals with the bacteria. Nothing happened. Nothing could happen: it was ordinary food bacteria.”
Lee was thoughtful for a moment, then he took the pipe from his mouth and jabbed the stem in my direction. “A hoax,” he said. “There never was any Strep 3.”
“There are two things against a hoax,” I said. “One, Professor Galek was no nut. He was a responsible, respectable scientist. Two, he showed some of his friends an experiment with Strep 3. They saw its effects on dozens of laboratory animals. Each of these friends was carefully questioned. There was absolutely no doubt in their minds that he had discovered the deadliest bacteria in history.”
“Then why did the hidden vial contain only ordinary, harmless bacteria?”
“That, Lee, is the question we want answered. There was obviously a switch.”
Lee looked at me like I had an I.Q. of minus one. “You can’t possibly believe that Rita stole the vial of Strep 3!”
“Someone did. Look. Rita was Professor Galek’s personal secretary. It’s been established that they had a very close relationship. She was with him almost every day of the week. She wrote his correspondence. And I say ‘wrote’ advisedly. More often than not, he didn’t dictate answers to the many letters he received; she just typed them and he added his signature. When a secretary is trusted to that extent, we can take it for granted that her boss confides in her to a large degree. So isn’t it safe to assume that Galek told Rita about Strep 3?”
“No,” Lee said firmly. “I won’t grant an assumption like that. Galek didn’t even trust the government with his secret; why, then, would he confide in Rita?”
“He had to talk to somebody.”
“Well, he told some of his scientist friends, didn’t he? He even showed them an experiment. Why don’t you check them out?”
“They have been checked out. And they’re being watched. Rita’s being watched, too. Now she’s been assigned to me.”
Lee jammed the pipe back in his mouth, cursed under his breath because it had gone out, struck another match.
I said, “It could be that Rita never even heard of Strep 3.”
“I’ll give you that guarantee right now,” Lee said.
“I hope you’re right. But we’ve got to find out.”
“Why not just ask her?”
“Act your age, Lee.” I lit another cigarette. “If she has the vial, it would explain a lot of other things.”
“For example?”
“We’re pretty sure that the other side—whoever they might be—doesn’t have possession of Strep 3. They’ve been too active. If they had it, they’d clear out.”
“You’re not giving the other side much credit for intelligence,” Lee said, sucking on the pipe. “Maybe they don’t want our side to know they have it.”
“A good point,” I conceded.
“You’re damn right it’s a good point. If they have Strep 3, they’ll need time to put their plans into action. What better way to gain time than to let our side think the vial is still up for grabs? Incidentally, there’s a much better suspect—or suspects—than Rita.”
“Who’s that?”
“The occupants of the house where Professor Galek left the vial of Strep 3.”
“You can forget about them,” I said.
“Them?”
“A man and his wife. They went to London a few weeks before Professor Galek left the vial in the house. The man and woman—their names don’t matter—will be in London for another six months or so. They gave Professor Galek a key before they left so he could drop in and use their library whenever he liked. He left the vial in the house without their knowledge—he explains this in his letter to Dr. Lamond.”
Lee grunted.
“Look,” I said. “Don’t force me to make a speech about this thing being bigger than both of us.”
“Heaven forbid!” Lee smiled grimly. “Spare me that, please, pal. Not so soon after a big lunch.”
“Seriously—” I started to say.
“I know, I know.” He waved the pipe around. “I’ve got to help you. But ...” He held the pipe by the bowl and pointed it at me like a gun. “When this is all over—”
“I’ll apologize if she’s not implicated,” I said.
Lee moved his head back and forth in exaggerated deliberation. “You don’t get off as easily as that, pal. We both need a new golf bag. Remember the one we were admiring in Herman’s window? The kangaroo bag? Well, when you find out you’re wrong about Rita, I’ll expect you to deliver that bag here to the office.”
“It’s not a matter of being right or wrong,” I said.
“Hedging, Larry?”
“Just trying to explain how I feel about this. Okay, Lee, it’s a bet.”
“Good. Now, how do we go about this thing?”
“Do you still have that cabin in New Hampshire?”
“Matter of fact, I had two rooms added to it this spring. Why?”
“Well, it’d be the perfect place to keep Rita Duncan under surveillance. According to what you told me, the nearest town is eight miles away. Are there any other cabins on the lake yet?”
“No. A few people have bought lakefront property, but they haven’t built on it.”
“Couldn’t be better. That is, if you can get Rita to go up there with us.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Well, if she stays here in the city it’ll be a lot tougher for me to keep an eye on her—and a lot easier for her to make contact with the opposition.”
“What if she doesn’t want to go up to the cabin?”
“There’s no reason for her to refuse, is there? You could say it’s a kind of working holiday.”
Lee’s face seemed to lengthen. “Larry, I can almost hear your brain ticking over. If Rita says she can’t possibly go up to New Hampshire with us, you’ll consider it an indication of guilt.”
“Not necessarily. She may have a good excuse for not going.”
“But you’d be suspicious.”
“I’m suspicious now. Look, Lee, it works both ways. This is Monday. If she jumps at the chance to spend the rest of the week at your cabin, you’ll see it as an indication that she has no reason to stay here in the city, and therefore has nothing to hide. However, that needn’t be so. You see, if she’s mixed up in this Strep 3 business, then she may know all about me. If this is so, then she’d be smart to accept the invitation, particularly if you make it clear that I’ll be going along, too. Do you follow?”
“Only with great difficulty. Man, the way that mind of yours twists and turns!”
I smiled. “It’s doing some twisting and turning right now, Lee. Got a gun?”
“Why?” Lee made his eyes bulge, managed to look like a third-rate actor. “Say, you don’t think she might try to murder us in our sleep, do you?”
“If you don’t have a gun, I’ll get you one, funny man.”
“There’s a rifle in the cabin. Ammunition, too.” Lee knocked his pipe against the bottom of a huge brass ashtray. “Assuming that Rita agrees to go, how do you want to work this?”
“Well, pick her up in the morning and come to my place and honk your horn. I’ll follow you in my car.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“Fine. Well, let’s go
out and see what Miss Duncan thinks about the idea, huh?”
Rita thought it was a perfectly marvelous idea.
Chapter 4 ... surprise party ...
As I left the lobby of the Montpelier Building, which is Lee Howard’s business address, I saw a man standing on the other side of 46th Street. He was reading a newspaper. I headed west, toward Seventh Avenue. The guy folded the newspaper, tucked it under his arm and likewise headed west, walking slowly. When I reached Seventh Avenue I crossed 46th Street, walked south. A red light stopped me on 45th. I lit a cigarette, turning slightly to keep my Ronson out of the wind, saw the guy with the newspaper ambling along about fifty feet behind. He was small, thin, nondescript. The light changed. I walked to 44th, turned west, crossed the island that separates Seventh Avenue from Broadway at Times Square. Reaching the Broadway sidewalk, I headed south again. The guy with the newspaper was still on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk. I watched him turn left on 43rd Street when he reached Sixth Avenue, and then he disappeared from sight without a glance in my direction.
So he wasn’t a shadow. If he was, I would have walked him to a lonely spot near Twelfth Avenue; a place where I could go through his pockets while he had an involuntary nap.
I turned around, walked to the 44th Street corner drugstore, stepped into a phone booth, dropped a dime and dialed the number Baxter Dumbrille gave me in Washington. The phone buzzed twice at the other end before it was picked up.
“This is Kent,” I said.
“Grady here. What’s up?”
“It’s all arranged for tomorrow morning. Keep your eye on the lady in the meantime, eh?”
“Right. Did you leave her at Howard’s office?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Kent. You’re on your own now. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Oh. by the way—before I forget—”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for saving my life the other day.”
“Sure.”
Grady’s phone clicked in my ear. A strange guy.
I walked home after making the phone call. Mechanically, as I stuck my key in the apartment door, I looked up to check the little plastic circle I always wedge into the door when I’m working on a rough case. My left hand went up automatically to retrieve the circle; but the brown bit of plastic—brown to match the door—wasn’t there. It was on the carpet runner, about six inches from the door. I bent, picked it up, slipped it into my handkerchief pocket. It could have slipped from the door, of course. But, on the other hand ...
