“You don’t mean they have been kidnapped so something can be done with their knowledge?”
“Exactly! In that vision of yours you saw a surgery and your brother with a shaven head. Heads are shaved before brain operations—”
Lloyd’s small face was set into granite lines now.
“Graviora manent, my young friend—the worst is yet to come. The man who made the synthetic bodies is a first-class modeller—and we may assume the disappearance of Crandal, the sculptor has something to do with that. A first-class surgeon would be needed for the synthesis. And that—”
Dr. Lloyd broke off and glanced in the rear-view mirror as the roaring of a powerful car became evident behind them. Rex Thomas twisted round in his seat and was met with a dazzling blaze of headlamps.
“Doing sixty, I’d say,” he cried. “If he’s not careful— Hey, what the devil—”
He fell back in his seat and stared ahead in wild alarm at the narrow road. Almost at that moment an immense sedan swept alongside and suddenly drove inward.
Lloyd’s small hands missed the steering wheel of his roadster entirely. The car twisted sideward, careened over the bank, then went smashing helplessly through a mass of scrub and dust to the base of a deep ditch. It brought up with a crash on its side.
Head singing from the impact, Thomas eased his position and listened for a moment. For the time all was quiet—then at a sudden flash and crackle of flame from the engine Thomas came to life.
“Dr. Lloyd!” he yelled. “Hey, where are you—”
“Here!” the scientist panted, struggling to free himself. He became visible against the rapidly gaining flame, his Derby jammed down onto his nose.
“My foot— Give me a tug, dammit! Can’t see where I am—”
Thomas fell out onto the grass, caught the little scientist round the waist and heaved with all his strength. They both fell clear as the ignited gasoline spurted and crackled over the remainder of the car.
With a sudden effort Lloyd tore his hat free, stood glaring at the flaming wreck and stabbing his still safe umbrella fiercely in the ground.
“Deliberate!” he breathed, his bass voice quivering. “Now we know there is something definite. Scum! Servum pecus! Servile herd! That car cost me plenty— However, the insurance is paid up.”
“We’re losing time,” Thomas told him anxiously. “Whoever was in that car was heading Clayton’s way. Incidentally”—he frowned—“I got the number just before we went over the bank. What was it now—XJ 4782.”
Lloyd looked vaguely surprised. “So, there are times when another brain can be quicker than my own. Remarkable! Now stop drivelling and help me up the bank. Swine! They’ll pay for this!”
At the top of the bank Lloyd stared grimly down the dark road.
“About four miles further yet to the Clayton place,” Thomas said.
“I am quite aware of it. Come on.”
As they trudged Thomas said, “Wonder how they knew it was us in your car?”
“You mean me!” Lloyd retorted. “You don’t count, Mr. Thomas. The enemy has nothing to fear from you, whereas they stand appalled at my genius. Seeing you, the brother of the missing Brian Thomas, and me in close company for several days—for I do not doubt we have been surreptitiously watched—and finally seeing us emerge from police headquarters and head this way, it would be sufficient for the dumbest criminal to grasp that we threatened danger.
“We were singled out for destruction by ‘accident’. Plenty will probably happen now.”
“You’re right. We’d better hurry—”
“I am not a track-runner—nor have I legs like an ostrich. Ultra posse nemo obligatur—none is obliged to do more than he can.”
After that they trudged on wearily in silence, for something like forty-five minutes. Then they moved quickly to the side of the road as a fast car came speeding up from the distance with headlights blazing. To their surprise it stopped beside them and Inspector Branson’s familiar voice came forth.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Brutus himself! Out of gas? Or isn’t that possible?” the inspector finished with malicious meaning.
Lloyd ignored the challenge. “Where the devil are you going?”
“To the Clayton residence. Got a call from there a few minutes ago from the head servant or somebody. Old man Clayton’s been stabbed and—”
“And you sit there making wise-cracks?” Lloyd roared. “Get a move on, man! Quick!” he bawled at the driver. “Get in, Thomas—don’t stand there gaping.”
The car shot forward again. Pinched beside Branson, Lloyd said briefly,
“They had the impudence to run me off the road. It was a black sedan, number XJ 4782. Send out a squad car to nab it, and you will also probably get the man we want—and Dr. Clayton.”
“But he’s stabbed—”
“More model work, I fancy. Anyway, we’ll soon find out.”
IV. AMBITION DIABOLICAL
Once they got to the house and were shown into the library by a worried manservant, they found Beryl there alone, pacing nervously up and down and twisting a handkerchief in her hands. In a moment Rex Thomas ran from the group and clasped her in his arms.
“Okay, Beryl, take it easy,” he murmured. “You’re all right. We are all here now—”
“I am here,” Lloyd stated didactically, with a flourish of his umbrella. “And I still pin you to your two-hour promise, Branson. I’m going to do the talking here.”
“That’ll be a change, anyway,” Branson admitted sourly.
Lloyd’s eyelids drooped cynically, then he swung to the girl.
“Now Miss Clayton—or rather Miss Kimberley—where is the body?”
The girl looked at him in tearful surprise.
“But—but Dr. Lloyd, why so official? You usually call me ‘Beryl’—”
“Where,” he repeated calmly, “is the body? I am here as a specialist, not as a guest.”
“Do you have to be so damned blunt?” Thomas snapped.
“Yes. Necessitas non habet mores—necessity knows no manners. I—”
“Father’s in—in the laboratory,” Beryl said quietly; then with a sudden hysteria,
“It’s so horrible! Awful! Parker—that’s the manservant—heard a crash in the laboratory and went in to investigate. It’s terrible to think dad might have lain there all night otherwise.”
“And Parker phoned for the police?” Branson asked curtly.
“Of course. In fact, he had done it before I knew of the tragedy.”
Branson gave a sympathetic nod. For his part Lloyd turned briskly, and from familiarity with the house went straight through the hall and into the laboratory—that same laboratory in which the gathering had taken place only the previous night.
Without pause, the scientist went to the sprawling figure lying face upward on the floor, knife buried in its heart.
The moment he held the dead wrist Lloyd gave a grin.
“More rubbish for the garbage can, Branson,” he announced briefly. “Body’s stone cold, even though it has been dead for supposedly only an hour or so. Synthetic, like the others.”
“W-what?” Beryl gasped in amazement, hanging onto Thomas’ arm.
“A phony!” Lloyd said. “See—” And ignoring the girl’s cry he yanked the knife out of the breast and drove the keen blade across the outflung hand. In response the first finger was sheared off clean. But it was as hollow as the finger of a glove.
“It’s horrible! Horrible!” Beryl whispered, gazing.
“At least you might be more considerate in your stunts, Lloyd,” Thomas snapped, noting the girl’s white face.
“Do not presume to dictate procedure to me, Mr. Thomas!”
“What does it all mean?” the girl broke in urgently. “Where is my stepfather?”
“Kidnapped,” Lloyd said briefly. “Branson, have some of your men look the grounds over. There ought to be footprints this time.”
His keen eyes went round the labora
tory and finally focused on the unlatched main window and an overturned instrument stand below it.
“Clumsy fools,” he murmured. “That is what startled the manservant, obviously. That fallen stand. Had the body remained until morning, as was intended, its coldness would have seemed natural— Hm-m!”
“What?” Branson asked, as he saw Lloyd gazing at an instrument case. As the scientist made no answer, the inspector went over to him and looked upon the glittering array. Then Branson’s brows knitted. Of ten scalpels, five of them were missing from their clips.
“Beryl,” Lloyd said, more familiar again, “how often did Dr. Clayton practice surgery?”
“Not very often—except sometimes when Professor Eliman used to call and they made experiments together. Why?”
“Each of the knives that have been stuck in these four—or rather five—model bodies have come from here!” Branson retorted. “That’s why!”
“But—” The girl looked mystified; then Lloyd said slowly,
“Since Dr. Clayton was not heard to call for help, it is possible that he was threatened with a gun by somebody at this window here. Hm-m— Beryl, your stepfather was the only inventor of synthetic flesh in this country, wasn’t he? Or I should say, isn’t he?”
“So he led us to believe, yes. But surely, Dr. Lloyd, you are not trying to suggest he made a model of himself, are you? That he is behind all this?”
Lloyd glanced at the instrument case and stroked his chin,
“No, I think he has proved himself innocent,” he said. “Nor would he be likely to kidnap himself. That clear to you, Branson?”
“Well, yes—though I have known criminals to apparently rub themselves out in order to make themselves appear one of the victims.”
“Semel insanivimus omnes—we have all been mad at some time,” the little scientist observed. Then with sudden decision,
“No—not Dr. Clayton. I’ve known him a long time and he’s on the level. But somebody else, close to him, is not!”
“Well?” Branson waited expectantly, as Lloyd pulled his “J” of hair resolutely and muttered to himself.
“Quaestio vexata—a vexed question. Give me time! A great brain hastens slowly—”
“Yeah, and while you’re spouting Latin, Dr. Clayton is probably in danger of his life! That reminds me—I’ve got to send out a call for that squad car. Be back in a minute.”
Branson went out vigorously; and presently Lloyd said,
“Your father—stepfather—made no secret of his synthetic invention, Beryl; but he did suppress the formula, to the best of my information. That right—or did anybody else know the formula besides him?”
“Why, yes—practically all the scientists who came to see him—most of whom have been murdered since, or kidnapped.”
“Hm-m,” Lloyd mused. “And to scientists synthetic flesh would appeal from the scientific and not the diabolic point of view. The only man closely acquainted with Dr. Clayton who is not a scientist is Joseph Clough.”
“The financier? Yes,” Beryl admitted. “But aren’t you forgetting that he helped to finance many of father’s inventions?”
Lloyd gave a grim smile. “Ubi mel, ibi apes—where the honey is, there are the bees! I am just recalling that Joseph Clough also knows from this telescopic mirror here that there is gold on the moon—”
“Gold on the moon!” echoed Branson, coming in. “What’s going to happen next?” he demanded. “Anyway, I’ve given that car number to headquarters; they’ll put out a tracer for it. My boys tell me there are footprints about the grounds, all right—heavy ones, as though something had been carried by the person whose feet made the impressions. And—”
“If you have quite finished—” Lloyd said coldly. Then in the surprised silence he went on talking.
“Clough, from his long association with Dr. Clayton, must know all about synthesis, just as he knows the physical details of the other scientists he kidnapped. Don’t you see? He knows from that mirror that there is gold on the moon—a vast fortune, if he can only get it!
“Gold is the one bait a man of finance would fall for, whereas a scientist would not.”
“Some day,” Branson said, “I shall know what you are talking about. You mean Joseph Clough, the Wall Street bigshot?”
“None other. My unerring judgment leaves no other conclusion.”
“Except the one that the critics are right when they call you nuts,” Branson commented. “Anyway, where’s the proof?” He waved his hands helplessly. “What is all this about gold on the moon?”
Lloyd told him. The inspector nodded dubiously.
“Maybe, but that gold is an awful ways off.”
“Two hundred and forty thousand miles,” Lloyd stated calmly.
“And the only way to get there is by spaceship—and only the government has them! How do you figure any individual could get hold of a spaceship?”
“That,” Lloyd said, gazing around under drooping eyelids, “is what puzzled Joseph Clough! So he kidnapped five of the best scientists to have them work it out! I recall a remark made in this laboratory last night, to the effect that Clayton had refrained from trying to invent a new, cheaper system of space travel for fear of possible after consequences.”
“And I remember something too,” Beryl put in, thinking. “Sometime ago, though, Mr. Clough once asked father and some of his scientist friends if they would pool ideas and try and work out a way to get at the gold lying on the moon—that and the other valuable ores.
“They refused for the same reason as father—because it might invoke wars and crime. Besides, they were pretty sure they couldn’t figure out a method—anyway, not individually.”
Branson murmured, “They wouldn’t do it of their own free will, so they may be having to do it by force.”
“Couldn’t figure it out individually,” Lloyd breathed. “But if it were done collectively— My God!” He stared blankly in front of him. “If a surgeon were fiendish enough, he could—”
Lloyd swung around. “If five of the greatest brains in the country were brought together to give a common result, there is no end to what might not be done! Science would leap ahead at terrific progress!”
“You mean mechanically pooled brains?” Rex Thomas asked slowly.
“Yes! You saw the operating theatre, didn’t you? The fake bodies were stabbed with surgical knives, and they were taken from here with the obvious intention of deflecting guilt onto Dr. Clayton—until it came time for him to be taken as well.
“A—Joseph Clough is the money behind the enterprise; B—Crandal, the sculptor, has been ‘appropriated’ to make models; C—we are still short of a scientist to do the actual brain surgery, if any. Whom else but Professor Eliman, the renowned wizard of brain surgery? He, of all men, has avoided being attacked so far! Of course—because he is the culprit!”
“I believe you’ve got something there,” Thomas said. “Remember how damned sure Eliman was last night that he wouldn’t be overtaken like the rest of the scientists?”
“I’ve got to admit it, Lloyd, you know your surgeons,” Branson said reluctantly. “Next thing we do is head for Eliman’s place and rope him in for questioning.”
“No!” Lloyd shook his head adamantly.
“What d’ya mean, no?”
“Give me time to speak!” Lloyd retorted. “Rushing to his home won’t do any good—besides, you’d need a warrant anyway, or maybe you know that. Clough isn’t the kind of mug to come because you ask him. What we need to know is all important—namely, the whereabouts of the laboratory where all the dirty work goes on!
“Fons et origo malorum—the source and origin of our miseries. There’s one way to find out—make a phone call to Clough and play my hunch. If it’s right, he’ll unwittingly lead us to his laboratory.”
“We’ve a phone here—” Beryl began, but Lloyd waved her aside.
“I shall phone within watching distance of his house. You stay here. There may be danger. Come, B
ranson!”
* * * * * * *
Twenty minutes later Dr. Lloyd was making his call. Branson crammed into the phone booth beside him with his ear to the outside of the receiver. Lloyd covered the mouthpiece with his handkerchief and raised the pitch of his rumbling voice a little.
After preliminaries with a servant, Clough spoke.
“Well? Who is it?”
“Something’s gone wrong,” Lloyd said briefly. “Better get to the laboratory right away. I’ll see you there.”
Clough seemed to hesitate. “If you mean that clown Brutus Lloyd is on the track, don’t let him worry you.”
Lloyd glared at the instrument and said gruffly,
“I can’t explain any more now. Hurry up. It’s urgent!”
He hung up and asked laconically, “Well?”
“Guess your hunch was right. He’s in it all right,” Branson admitted. “Seems to have summed you up pretty well, too. Think he’ll fall for the gag?”
“We’ll soon know.”
They climbed back into the car, moved farther up the road and into a side street. Sure enough, a monstrous limousine drew up after a while outside the Clough residence and the financier himself came hurrying out. After a quick glance up and down he jumped into the car and it moved smoothly away.
“Follow it,” Branson snapped at the police driver. “And don’t be seen tailing it even if you have to kill your lights. Lose him and I’ll kick you off the force!”
The driver did not lose his quarry, though it was difficult keeping track through main streets and intersections, but at last they drew clear of the city and finally struck a country road. At Branson’s orders, the police car lights went out. Far ahead the red light over the limousine’s rear license plate had become stationary.
Lloyd stared out into the night with Branson beside him.
“Nothing there, except an old house or something with all the windows dark,” the inspector said.
“What did you expect—the Sphinx and the pyramids?” Lloyd asked sarcastically. “Clough probably owns the property anyway. We may find plenty. Let’s go—and have your revolvers ready!”
“What about you?” Bronson asked ill-humouredly.
“My umbrella, man, my umbrella! Come on!”
A Case for Brutus Lloyd Page 7
