The Golden Room

by Irving Wallace

  If the visitor was indeed someone with a minor complaint, Holmes felt that he could dispose of the patient quickly. On the other hand, if it was a true emergency, the bell ringer might not cease in the effort to gain admittance.

  Wanting to be alone and unhurried to savour the elimination of Cathleen and Karen, Holmes decided to answer the doorbell. Better to get his caller out of the way before indulging himself in the pleasures ahead.

  Dr Holmes turned away from his office, went back into the entry hall, crossed to his front door, took the knob firmly and pulled the door open.

  He was surprised to find himself facing two young men, both well-dressed and seemingly in the best of health. One was tall, husky, while the other was slightly smaller, but wiry.

  The husky young man spoke first. 'Dr Herman Holmes?'

  'Yes, I'm Dr Holmes,' the physician said, wondering who they were.

  'I'm Bruce Lester,' he said with a tinge of Southern accent. 'This is Alan Armbruster.'

  Holmes recognized neither one, and because of his tense state, their names were only dimly familiar.

  'What can I do for you?' asked Holmes impatiently.

  'We've been sent here by Minna Everleigh -'

  'By Minna Everleigh?'

  'Yes. The mayor has lifted his ban on the Everleigh Club. The Club is to be reopened today. Minna – my Aunt Minna

  – is frantically trying to get her place in shape. She's giving a banquet for the prince of Prussia tonight. All her servants, musicians, and girls are back. I am very grateful to you for taking care of Cathleen and Karen. My Aunt Minna told us to borrow her car to bring them back to the Club as soon as possible – especially since my friend Alan is going to marry Cathleen this evening. Sorry to disturb you, but here we are to take your guests off your hands.'

  Dr Holmes was momentarily confused. 'Well, I don't know – I mean, I'm afraid you're too late,' he said finally. 'Cathleen and Karen did spend the night in my house, but they're no longer here.' Holmes gestured behind him. 'You can see, I'm quite alone now.'

  Suddenly suspicious of the doctor's manner, Bruce went through the doorway past Holmes to see for himself. He was immediately followed by Alan.

  As Bruce and Alan turned towards the doctor's open office door, Holmes caught up with them.

  His hand swept the office. 'You can see it's empty. They left an hour ago. It's strange they didn't let Minna know they were leaving.'

  Alan shook his head. 'They left just like that? It makes no sense.' His eyes continued to rove about the office.

  Holmes, having recovered his poise, feeling easier about the intrusion, took Alan by the arm and led him to the desk. 'Sit down for a moment, both of you, and let me explain.'

  Alan sat down alongside the desk, and Bruce reluctantly seated himself across from the doctor, who had taken his swivel chair.

  Briefly, Bruce considered the doctor's office. On the surface, it appeared average enough – the flat oak desk, the examination table, the fireplace, the square table that was heaped with medical journals. Yet, Bruce's intuition told him, it did not have the feel of a real doctor's office. It seemed somehow staged. There was something indefinably creepy about it, as there was about Dr Holmes himself.

  Bruce's eyes met Alan's, and he sensed that Alan was having the same reaction.

  Nevertheless, here was Dr Holmes and here was his office, and there was actually nothing wrong with either.

  Bruce concentrated his attention on Dr Holmes once more.

  'You say they left an hour ago?' repeated Bruce.

  'Give or take a few minutes,' said Holmes.

  'They were supposed to stay here,' Bruce persisted. 'They were to wait for Minna to contact them. Why did they leave?'

  'I suppose it was uncomfortable for them,' said Holmes, fully composed. 'Perhaps they wanted privacy. They simply said they were leaving. I urged them to remain until they heard from Miss Everleigh. But no, they refused. Uh, maybe you will find them back at the Everleigh Club. Perhaps they wished to help your aunts with the packing.'

  Alan shook his head again, more vigorously. 'That's quite impossible, Dr Holmes. You were acting as their host because the Everleigh Club had been shut down. They'd have had no way to know that it was ordered reopened this morning.'

  Dr Holmes shrugged helplessly. 'Then I have no idea -not the faintest idea – where they went. Unless they were seeking you out, Mr Armbruster, because of the wedding.'

  'Not in a hundred years,' said Alan. 'For all they knew, the wedding was cancelled.'

  'Well, then it's all beyond me,' said Holmes.

  'And beyond me too,' agreed Bruce, rising. Alan came to his feet, and together they went into the hallway, still casting about, mystified, eyes on the blank wall.

  Holmes was hurriedly beside them. 'You can see – and hear – that I am quite alone. I have no idea where Miss Lester and Miss Grant went. I'm sorry you were put to all this trouble. You'll just have to look for the young ladies some place else.'

  'We're certainly going to,' said Bruce with determination. 'I don't know where we'll begin, but we are going to find them.'

  Holmes started walking the two young men to the door. 'Maybe Miss Everleigh gave the young ladies a means of contacting her, before she sent them off with me. At least I hope so. Anyway, neither of them told me where they were heading.' He opened the massive door. 'If I should hear of their whereabouts, I'll telephone Miss Everleigh instantly.'

  Bruce nodded. 'Sorry to have bothered you this long, Dr Holmes.' 'Good day and good luck,' murmured Holmes.

  Once they were gone, he shut the door.

  Outside the Castle, Bruce and Alan stood on the sidewalk before Minna's car.

  'What now?' Bruce said. 'Where do we go from here?'

  'Nowhere else,' said Alan enigmatically.

  Beckoning Bruce closer, Alan held a clenched fist in front of him. Slowly unclenching his fingers, he revealed a ring of keys in the palm of his hand.

  Puzzled, Bruce asked, 'What's that?'

  'Dr Holmes's keys, I hope. They were dangling from a hook under the edge of his desk. While we were talking, my knee bumped against them. When he turned his head, I slipped my hand under his desk and pocketed them. My guess is that his front door key is among them.'

  'Front door key?' said Bruce, bewildered.

  'To get us back in the house for a thorough look around.'

  'But what for?'

  Alan lowered his voice. 'Bruce, I don't like it. I don't believe that Cathleen and Karen left to go somewhere else. It makes no sense. They had no place to go, neither of them. They didn't know the Everleigh Club was open again. Karen had rented out her rooms. No hotel rooms were available last night. They had no idea where Minna and Aida might be staying. Why would they leave with no destination?'

  'What are you trying to say?'

  Alan came even closer to Bruce. 'I think they're still here.'

  'Why wouldn't the doctor tell us so?'

  'Maybe he wants to keep them here against their will for some reason like -'

  'Like what?'

  'Sex, white slavery, I don't know what. I only know I don't like him and I don't trust him. I say we go back into his house for another look.'

  'What if he catches us?'

  Alan jiggled the keys in his palm. 'I could say the ring got caught in my pocket and I just found it and wanted to return it.'

  'He'll never accept that.'

  'Then he can accuse us of trespassing and call the police.'

  'I doubt he'd do that,' said Bruce.

  Alan gazed at Bruce. 'Want to come along with me?'

  Bruce smiled, took the keys out of Alan's hand, and started for Holmes's front door. Alan fell in beside him.

  'This will have to be a very quiet operation,' whispered Bruce.

  He began sorting the keys and pushed the first one into the front door keyhole. It didn't turn. He tried the second key. Same result.

  The third key worked.

  Gently, Bruce eased th
e front door open, praying it wouldn't make a noise. Well oiled, the massive door yielded without a sound.

  As they squeezed inside, Alan's head tilted forward, indicating something ahead.

  Dr Herman Holmes was visible in the hall, his back to them, as if meditating.

  Silently, Bruce and Alan entered the shadowy foyer and closed the door. Bruce signalled Alan to duck behind the dark corner of a pillar with him and hide there.

  After a brief interval, although desperate to keep out of sight, Bruce risked peeking out from behind the pillar.

  He saw Dr Holmes still standing in contemplation where he had been when they re-entered. But now, Holmes was no longer looking towards his office. Instead, he was staring at the blank wall.

  Now that he had rid himself of the intruders, and was in complete control once more, Dr Holmes had come to a different decision about what he would do next.

  He had been about to lift the gas lever that would exterminate the two imprisoned women. However, with the visit of those two meddling young men, a delay had occurred. Dr Holmes could imagine how that passage of time had affected Cathleen and Karen. They had expected to die at once. Certainly, this waiting, trapped, had tortured them, weakened their resolve to resist him. Perhaps they were less ready to die. Likely, they'd had time to reconsider Holmes's demand, and probably now saw it as the lesser of two evils.

  Fantasizing what it was like to have Karen naked beneath him, that soft, fresh body, to be followed by Cathleen's body, Holmes changed the direction of his next step.

  He would give them another chance.

  Slowly, Holmes walked to the blank wall, reached behind the broad-leafed rubber plant to the button opening the sliding door. As the wall began to slide open, Holmes reached into his pocket for the Colt.45. He pointed it into the room.

  He observed Karen off to his left, on her hands and knees exploring the floor of the room, as if seeking a means of escape. He saw Cathleen seated on the examination table, crying quietly.

  Both women sprang upright at the sound of the opening door and, as they realized that Holmes had returned, looked at him with dread and disgust.

  'Karen!' Holmes shouted. 'Get over to the examination table where you belong, next to Cathleen!'

  Obediently, Karen straightened and marched back to the table and stood beside Cathleen.

  'All right, listen to me,' announced Holmes. 'I'm giving both of you a second chance. It's your last chance, and you'd be wise to take it. You, Cathleen, I want you to come up to my bedroom with me.'

  There was a long interval of silence before Cathleen began sobbing loudly. 'No – no, I can't -I can't do that.'

  Holmes spoke again. 'All right, that was Cathleen's death sentence. What about you, Karen? Do you want a reprieve?'

  'Get out of my sight, you lousy scum, and let me die in peace!' Karen shouted.

  Holmes grunted. 'You will now have your wish, each of you. I'm locking you in. I'm going to turn on the poison gas and leave it on until you choke to death. Goodbye, you fools!'

  With that, Holmes stepped outside the room and pressed the button, waiting while the wall slid shut on his victims.

  Pleased, he pocketed the gun, and in measured strides made for his office.

  Bruce pulled back into the shadows behind the pillar.

  'You heard that,' he whispered. 'We've got to act fast, right now.'

  'He's got a gun,' Alan whispered back. 'If he hears us, he'll shoot us dead and kill the girls too.'

  Bruce was already removing his boots. 'Take off your shoes, Alan. He's not going to hear us.'

  In seconds they were both in their stocking feet.

  'Let's go,' Bruce whispered urgently.

  They stepped out into the foyer and crept quietly down the central hallway.

  They paused.

  In the dim light off to their left, they could see that Dr Holmes had entered his office. He was rubbing his hands together as he headed towards what Bruce guessed was a control panel.

  Without another word, Bruce signalled Alan to follow him as he hurried on padded feet across the hall into Holmes's office.

  Dr Holmes was reaching up for a lever.

  Abruptly, Bruce gestured for Alan to circle around to Holmes's other side. Alan did so as Bruce closed in on Holmes directly from behind.

  Holmes's finger was already on the lever.

  Bruce cocked his head towards Alan.

  With a shriek, Alan leaped at Holmes, hammering one fist against the doctor's arm, knocking his hand away from the lever.

  Startled, wild-eyed, Holmes lunged at Alan with a fist as his free hand snaked into his jacket for the Colt.45.

  Behind him, Bruce saw the gun in Holmes's hand. Instantly, Bruce grabbed for Holmes's wrist, wrenching hard. The Colt.45 wobbled in Holmes's grip, then flew to the floor.

  Holmes whirled about to confront Bruce, slipped beneath a blow, and hooked out with a right and left to Bruce's jaw. The power of the punches rocked Bruce, momentarily paralysing him as he went down heavily on his back.

  In a flash, Holmes kneeled, swept up the Colt.45 once more, gripped it, and spun around to fire at Alan, who was coming at him.

  Bruce staggered to his feet, in a frenzy scanned the room for any heavy object – he saw the solid-looking Venus de Milo vase with its dried flowers on the mantelpiece. With both hands Bruce reached up for it and turned in time to see Holmes taking aim at the retreating Alan.

  Bruce lifted the vase high above him, and with all his strength brought it down with a loud thud on the top of the doctor's skull.

  The blow shattered the vase.

  Clearly, it also shattered part of Dr Holmes's head.

  Dr Holmes crumpled, and then pitched unconscious to the office floor. He lay spreadeagled between Bruce and Alan.

  Losing no time, Bruce dropped to his knees, released the Colt.45 from the doctor's slack fingers, and shoved it into his own pocket. Turning the doctor over, he could see that Holmes was totally unconscious and fresh bright blood was matting his hair.

  'He's out,' Bruce gasped.

  'Thank God,' said Alan breathlessly.

  With difficulty, Bruce came to his feet. 'The girls…' he croaked. 'Let's get them out of there before something goes wrong – before they die of fright.'

  Alan was already on the run, out of the office and heading for the blank wall. Alan searched desperately for the button to the sliding door. At last he found it, and pressed hard.

  The portion of the wall slid wide open.

  Alan peered inside the room.

  Cathleen and Karen were standing in front of the examination table, clinging to each other as they waited for death. At the sound of the sliding door, they both gazed with disbelief at the opening, as if they were seeing an apparition.

  'Oh, Alan… Alan… it's you,' Cathleen moaned. She pulled free of Karen and stumbled towards Alan as he entered the death chamber. She threw her arms around him and he hugged and kissed her.

  Bruce was in the room now, advancing on the shaken Karen. His arms went around her tightly and his mouth found her lips. He kissed her over and over again until she could scarcely breathe.

  'How… how did you get here?' Karen wanted to know.

  'Aunt Minna sent us to bring you back,' replied Bruce. 'Dr Holmes tried to bluff us into believing you weren't here, that you'd left, but we were suspicious of him. We managed to hide out and discover that he was trying to kill you. Then we overcame him.'

  Cathleen tore away from Alan. 'Where is Dr Holmes?' she asked, still fearful. 'Where is that maniac?'

  'Come along,' said Bruce.

  The four of them emerged from the death chamber.

  They crossed the central hall to the doctor's office. Stretched out on the floor, still unconscious, was Dr Holmes.

  Bruce looked at Alan. 'We've got to lock him up,' said Bruce. 'Help me, Alan. We'll carry him into the gas chamber. After we close the sliding door, we'll call the police.'

  They both bent down, Bruce taki
ng Dr Holmes by the armpits and Alan taking his legs, and they carried him away, as the two women, with hatred in their eyes, watched his body go.

  Minutes later, the four of them were gathered in the doctor's office.

  Bruce's gaze met Alan's. 'You know what I'd like to do,' said Bruce. 'Give the bastard a taste of his own medicine. But we can't do that.'

  'Why not?' said Alan furiously.

  'We just can't. We can't do what Holmes planned to do – commit murder. We've got enough evidence to see that justice is done under the law. I'm calling the police right now.'

  Rapidly, Bruce made his call to the police station, explained what had taken place, and when the police captain promised to send someone over, he hung up and turned to the two women. 'Are you feeling any better?'

  Karen and Cathleen nodded uncertainly.

  'You'd better sit down, both of you,' Bruce ordered. 'Since you left the Club, a great many things have happened. Alan, you start it off.'

  Alan feasted his eyes on Cathleen. 'Darling, we're getting married this very evening. My father gave us his blessing.'

  'What?' exclaimed Cathleen, half out of her chair.

  Alan went to her and kissed her, and settled her down. 'It was the price your Aunt Minna demanded to open the Everleigh Club again.'

  Karen was in mild shock. 'Minna bargained to open the Everleigh Club again? After all the work the mayor went to -to shut it down? How can that be?'

  Alan gestured to Bruce. 'You take over from here, Bruce.'

  Grinning, Bruce recounted the astonishing events of the past hours.

  'The prince of Prussia arrived in Chicago this morning. The mayor, Mr Armbruster, and an entire reception committee were there to greet him. What the prince did was to throw the mayor's complete agenda out the window. He would have none of it. He was very forthright. He told everyone what he did want. The only place he wanted to see in Chicago was the Everleigh Club.'

  It dawned on Karen first. 'Oh, no!' she blurted, and began to laugh. 'And the Everleigh Club was out of business, shut down, closed.'

  'Exactly,' said Bruce. 'Well, the mayor was on the spot. So was Alan's father, who wants to be our ambassador to Germany. They both knew that they couldn't disappoint him. They simply couldn't deny his one request. So the mayor and Mr Armbruster agreed, as one, that the Everleigh Club must be opened. But there were only two persons who could do that.'