Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 312 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub

VI

BUT FOR the doors in the walls, which might well have been file drawers, there was nothing in the room at all. To one side, forming part of it, but separated, there was an alcove. In the center of the alcove, in a patch of semidarkness, there was a high table. It was black stone topped.

Cranston walked closer to it and could see the channels cut in the sides of it. The channels led down to one end. Hanging on one end was a bucket.

Next to the table there was an instrument cabinet. Gleaming steel sent off glints of lambent coldness. From the cursory glance that Cranston gave it, there seemed to be all the usual surgical instruments there. The scalpels were laid out in serried rows.

Behind him, Cranston heard small crashing sounds as Bennit pulled out and shoved back six feet long drawers and then sent them slamming back into place.

Weston, Cranston saw when he turned around, was paying in a great deal of attention to the careful re-lighting of his cigar.

His eyes were focussed on the narrow perimeter of the flame of his lighter. He was taking no chances of seeing into one of those long steel drawers.

Bennit said, and he sounded querulous, "We'd get this done faster if you helped me, Cranston. You know what Barren looked like."

"Right."

Cranston pulled out the nearest drawer. As he did so, Weston gasped. He hadn't been able to avoid this. In the drawer, piled helter skelter, were heads. Just that, heads. No bodies at all. Clipped into the right ears were identification tags.

Weston said around his cigar, on which he was puffing rapidly, "What in the name of the seven toes of Beelzebub are those for?"'

The doctor glanced around impatiently. "Those? Examination of carcinoma of the brain."

"I see... but why... why are they like that?"

"Because the cancer is just in the brain. We're not interested in the rest of the body."

"But..."

"Oh, I see. The usual question. When we've finished the serological examination, the heads are sewn back on their respective bodies. They're not patients. They come from the city morgue. Does that satisfy your qualms?"

None of the heads had in any remote fashion resembled the poker face of Jesse Barren. Cranston pushed the drawer to. He went on around the room.

Finally, but a single row of drawers were left between Dr. Bennit and Cranston. They paused and looked at each other.

Bennit sighed. "If he's not in this last set, he's not here, and my brainstorm was abortive."

They both paused a second as they came to the last drawer. Then Cranston shrugged and yanked the handle. It was Jolas' body. The autopsy scars had been nearly sewn up.

"That's that. It was a good idea but that's all," Weston said and left the room.

Cranston paused for a last look around. The morgue was about the only unfrequented part of the hospital. It was the sensible place for a hiding place of any kind. He finally followed Weston's broad back out of the morgue.

Bennit came along behind him.

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