Doc Savage - The Pure Evil Part 6

"You'll be terrified."

"Not any more than you're going to be if you don't pop," Monk advised him.

Mr. Morand registered distraught excitement. He showed it with att.i.tudes of face, body, with poundings of his fists on the chair armrests. "Terrible ordeal. You'll see. Won't like it. Disbelieve, probably. But don't. Proveable, every word. . . . Perhaps shouldn't explain. Your minds unattuned. Skeptics. Ignorance a disaster." He stared at them, weighing, or looking as if he was weighing, their intelligence. Then he started violently, pointing at Doc. "Doc Savage! You! Why, certainly! Oh my G.o.d! How wonderful!How excellent! Perfect!"

And now the words poured out of Mr. Morand. Gail, her eyes on Doc Savage, listened to the leathery white-haired Morand begin building a story that started out innocently and gradually developed into a bloodcurdling and fantastic a thing as she had heard.

Mr. Morand's narrative was generally this: He had, from childhood, been interested in demonology. He was using the word demonology, Mr. Morand explained, in its obvious sense-the study of demons, spirits, ghosts and spiritualistc phenomena. His early quest led him to study in a religious seminary, a university noted for its psychology courses, and another known for its historical curricula-he gave in each case names of the schools, and dates, saying these could be checked.

It was Morand's theory, formed early, that there must be something behind the idea of ghosts and evil spirits. The thing that had convinced him of this, more than anything else, was the fact that all tribes and races had such tales and beliefs. The feeling about ghosts was as prevalent as the feeling about religion, if not more so. Mr. Morand was not a believer in G.o.d as a spiritual force taught in the Biblical sense. He said frankly that he could never remember having believed in the regular G.o.d. But he did believe there was a scientific explanation for both G.o.d and ghosts, and since the subject had a fascination for him, he had spent his life so far in pursuit of the theme.

The things he had learned in years of work, he said, had led him to become a graduate chemical engineer, then an electrical engineer. He gave the names of the schools where they could check him on this.

Here Monk Mayfair got on the telephone and placed long-distance calls to some of the universities which were being mentioned.

Science could explain and duplicate anything and everything, said Mr. Morand, and if they didn't believe this themselves now, they would find out he was right, although they might have to live a few hundred years to learn it. Science was an infant. It hadn't even solved a simple thing like gravity to anybody's satisfaction, and as for the psychiatrists and their understanding of the human mind, they were blind kids stumbling in a dark forest.

A little knowledge could be a dangerous thing. This was the theme Morand now began developing. . . .

He wasn't going to tell them how he had discovered what evil spirits were. That was what he had discovered. The existence, substance, composition and plasma of evil spirits. And he wasn't going to disclose his lines of research nor methods, because as a man of science, he was ent.i.tled to the fruit of his effort. He wasn't a philanthropist. He was a practical scientist, and going to reap the reward of labor, even if the reward was only prestige.

Evil spirits. He wanted to emphasize that. Because there were no good spirits. There were legends of good fairies and good spirits, but they were just that, legends and pap, mental oatmeal which silly writers of fairy tales had concocted for the mult.i.tude. There were only evil spirits.

The fact that there was nothing but evil spirits had an explanation too.

The explanation waited while Monk Mayfair asked some questions into the telephone. He was speaking to one of the schools which Mr. Morand had attended. Monk looked somewhat surprised with the answer he got over the telephone.

"He really went to those schools-or the one I just talked to, anyway," Monk said. "Set a scholastic record, too."

"Truth. Every word. Truth," said Mr. Morand sharply."Yeah," Monk said skeptically. "I want to be around when you start proving it."

"Indeed? You were."

"Huh?"

"Man in plane. Non-existent. You saw."

Monk slammed the telephone down. "By golly, I'm getting filled up on this!" he yelled.

Doc Savage, who had hardly spoken-Gail had gathered by now that Doc preferred to learn by watching the effect the impulsive and blunt-mannered Monk had on others-Doc now suggested that Mr. Morand's story was interesting, and should be heard through.

So Morand continued. All spirits are evil. This was entirely logical, because of the factors that accounted for their existence. These factors, he wanted them to understand, had nothing to do with heaven, h.e.l.l, nor religion. None of this was connected with any religion in any way.

It was, however, connected with the construction of human beings, and in the following way: People when they were born were equipped with a body, or the immature makings that would develop into a body. They were also equipped with less tangible things which can be lumped under the general heading of character-in other words, they had things in them that would cause them to be good people or bad people, regardless of environment. Environment was a factor, all right, because a kid who had crooks for a father and mother was rather apt to develop into a crook himself or herself, and n.o.body would be fool enough to deny that. But this was artificial. It was some carpentering that was done on character by environment, and just a misleading factor when one approached the whole matter of why some persons were evil and some weren't.

The answer to evil was one of the intangibles. Evil was something that the growing mind absorbed the way plants absorb the effects of sunlight. Where was it absorbed from? Well, that was what Mr. Morand had discovered after about thirty years of study and applied concentration-evil was abroad in the world just as much as sunlight is abroad. Or darkness, rather. Because it would simplify things to regard evil as the night, and the other nicer abstract mental qualities as the sunshine.

Now, if this was beginning to sound like spiritualism or religion, don't be misled. It was a fact, a scientific one, that Mr. Morand had learned. He even believed that evil and good had different times for a.s.sailing the growing human being, the way there is daylight and night-time. He had unearthed some proof of this, but it was not too definite.

Better give this whole character-essence a name, said Mr. Morand. Call it penetralia mentis, which was a Latin term for the soul, and would do as good as any for a name. They ranged from good to indifferent to evil. There were varieties of penetralia mentis just as there were varieties of germs, some harmless, some beneficial, and some pretty bad. These existed. If they didn't seem real-or if this whole story sounded c.o.c.k-and-bull-it was because people didn't know they were there, just as for numerous centuries no one knew atoms were there. Anyway, there were penetralia mentis that were good, or at least nothing to worry about. But there were penetralia mentis awfuls, also. These last were giving the trouble.

It was most unfortunate-and it had happened by accident, really-that Mr. Morand's research had centered on the penetralia mentis awfuls. Because he had discovered how to bring one of them out of his disembodied environment for clinical research.

Didn't they see how wonderful it would be to convert one of these things from a tangible to an intangiblefor laboratory examination? Well, that was what Mr. Morand had thought. So that was what, after years of work, he had managed to do. He had fixed it up so the penetralia mentis awful, the one he had chosen for research, could manifest itself without needing a body to do so.

Mr. Morand was afraid, horribly afraid, that the penetralia mentis awful had escaped and was rampant.

They mustn't underrate the frightfulness of this! The thing wasn't just evil afoot. It was evil without any restraining goodness whatever, and therefore it was pure evil, evil such as the world had never known.

Because penetralia mentis awfuls in human beings had always been restrained and tempered by the fact that the human being had some other penetralia mentis who were good, and they fought the bad one.

To put it in a nutsh.e.l.l, a thing of pure evil was loose in the world. In the world of concrete things as we understand it, that is.

Now did they comprehend?

Monk Mayfair finally said, "Personally, I think I've just listened to fifteen minutes of the d.a.m.ndest lying I ever heard."

Mr. Morand had woven a spell with his story, and Monk's blunt skepticism didn't entirely disperse it.

Gail was quite affected. She felt completely creepy. She had been thinking of her brother's weird death, of Cooper's apparently equally strange demise, and the disappearance-the impossible vanishing-of the man who had tried to kill her. This, and Mr. Morand's odd short-worded eloquence, had her wondering what to believe.

Gail glanced appealing to Doc Savage. He hadn't changed expression. And somehow she was shocked when he spoke to Monk Mayfair.

"We'll take him down to headquarters," Doc said. "And let him put that yarn up against a lie detector and truth serum."

Gail started, a little stunned by the practicality of this.

Mr. Morand surprised them all. "Good. Willing. Perfectly agreeable."

"Well I'll be daggoned," Monk said.

Mr. Morand sniffed. "Mr. Savage eminent. Scientist. This matter terrible. Humanity threatened. Needs competence. Savage can cope."

Shaking his head, Monk said, "There's bound to be a catch in this. Got to be. But we'll give you plenty of chance to cooperate, boy."

Mr. Morand glanced around nervously. "Careful. Must be watchful. Utter evil. You understand? Utter.

Unpredictable."

"Oh, you think this runaway spook will try something?"

"Not spook. Has nothing to do with spiritualism. Nothing! Absolutely!"

Gail shuddered. "Mr. Morand, you think my brother saw this creature on the radar scope screen?"

The cone of white hair bobbed affirmation. Radio microwave-lengths were one of the methods he'd beenusing to observe penetralia mentis.

"Oh, holy cow!" Monk complained. "I don't believe a single word of-"

Gail was pointing. She was trying to scream also, but was getting out very little breath, so that the only noise she was making was similar to a hard yawn.

There were two desks in the room, and what was happening around the smaller one not far from the door was a full and effective climax for Mr. Morand's lengthy story. The air around and above the desk was turning an iceberg shade of blue, and this was darkening to purple of a progressively deepening shade that approached black, and for all practical purposes of visibility, was black.

Doc Savage moved toward the desk. Then changed his mind, and stopped.

"Gas, probably," he said.

Then he went to the window, picking up a chair as he did so, and threw open the ventilating portion of the metal sash. He glanced out and down, seemed satisfied they could depart by that route, and noted that the hinged part of the window did not give room for quick exit, and used the chair to knock a larger opening into the window.

Doc was being completely practical, Gail realized later. And, under the circ.u.mstances, he thought very quietly and directly.

But at the moment Gail fell victim of the most complete sort of supernatural terror. The earlier death of her brother and Cooper, the attempt on her life, and the whole affair followed by Mr. Morand's story, had set her up for blind fear of the unknown. She didn't scream. She couldn't. She was still trying.

Monk Mayfair began throwing articles at the desk. He threw a chair, a typewriter, a paperweight, three books. Which seemed pointless, because there was no evidence the purplish ma.s.s-vapor, if it was that; a new kind of evil spirit manifestation, if it was that-was coming from the desk. It wasn't, apparently, emanating from anywhere. It was just materializing in the air. And it was going to fill the room. Fill it blindingly, completely.

Gail felt herself seized. Doc Savage had laid hold of her, lifting her, and carrying her toward the window and safety. But hysteria took her now; she couldn't accept any fact other than terror, not the fact that Savage had her and he was her friend, not anything. The screams came now, great ones like strips being torn from canvas, one following the other, and she could not stop them.

Half the office was full of purple now. It was spreading with fabulous speed, a great unbelievable outpouring that was without sense nor explanation, and as purple-black in its core as ink.

It enveloped Mr. Morand. He had just stood. His mouth was wide, teeth showing; his hands were up at shoulder level, palms-out, the fingers bent back as if weights pressed against them.

Monk Mayfair started for Mr. Morand just as the purple enveloped him. Then Monk changed his mind.

Monk looked scared. Possibly the only time, Gail learned later, that Monk had ever looked scared. And, as he confessed afterward, he was twice as frightened as he could possibly have looked.

Now Doc Savage had Gail outside. This was a second-floor office, the brickwork was sheer, the concrete sidewalk below suggested broken legs, and Gail felt herself swung into s.p.a.ce. She still screamed. She was helpless to aid herself. They were dropping. It was an incredible jump downward, not less than twenty feet, but Doc Savage landed without too much jar, and kept Gail in his arms, an accomplishment that a professional acrobat no doubt would have considered adequate. Gail, lookingback on it, rated it impossible.

Monk landed beside them. Loudly, not as gracefully. And he staggered about weirdly, trying to walk without the formality of letting his stinging feet touch the sidewalk.

"Morand?" Doc demanded.

"The thing ate him," Monk said.

"Watch this window."

Monk promptly sat down to get his weight off his feet, and put his eyes on the window.

Doc Savage told Gail, "Get hold of yourself. If you can walk, you had better do that." He planted her on her feet, then dragged her with him, running to the right, then through the door, and up a long flight of stairs. They were stared at, shouted at, and people ran with them. The screaming and window-breaking had stirred up excitement.

It was farther to the corridor door of the office they had vacated so hastily than Gail had thought, but they got there. She had stopped screaming now; she had no breath for it anyway; from being hauled along by Doc.

She heard him tell someone, "Keep away from that door. There may be poison gas in there!"

She saw him produce from his clothing somewhere a small notebook which seemed to have variously colored pages and a.s.sorted-colored sections on these pages. She watched him tear out different colors and shove them into the crack at the bottom of the door, then pick them out again and inspect them.

It dawned on her finally that he was making chemical tests for poisonous vapor, and that the slips he was using must be some variation of the old-time litmus-paper used for testing for acids and alkalis.

She did notice that he kept each slip carefully, and that he seemed not unduly upset, with not, certainly, the air of a man who was dealing with a manifestation of rampant evil.

Doc tried the door. It seemed to be locked. He drew back, lifted a foot, and brought the foot and his weight behind it against the door slightly above the lock. The door popped open, the lock torn from the wood, and the interior of the office was clearly visible.

Clearly visible. The purplish substance was gone. There was no visible trace of it. Gone. And Mr.

Morand was gone also.

Chapter VII.

THE office had only one door and that had been locked, Gail thought blankly. Locked inside.

Doc Savage went to the window, thrust his head out and called down, "Monk, anyone come out this way?"

Gail heard Monk yell, "Not a soul, and I mean soul. Also spirit, spook, penetralia mentis, or what haveyou."

"The door was locked."

"So what?" Monk wasn't impressed. "The key was on the inside. I noticed it."

"It was locked on the inside."

"And Mr. Morand was no longer present."

That got complete silence from Monk.

Doc asked, "Where did the purplish stuff go? Did it drift out of the window and away?"

"Not much of it," Monk said foolishly. "There was a little, some tendrils kind of, that swirled around the broken place in the window. I wouldn't say any actually drifted out."

"There was none in the room when I came back in," Doc said dryly.

Monk didn't have any word for a while. When he did, he sounded as if a few st.i.tches were beginning to pull.

"Right now, I'd buy almost anything anybody had to sell," he complained. "Including dematerialization."

The confusion around the place died down, largely because Doc Savage and Monk Mayfair offered no true explanations. Doc gave none at all. Monk said it was nothing, they had just seen a mouse and they didn't like a mouse, was all.

When he had cleared the office, Doc Savage made a few additional chemical tests, using a lot of devices from a small portable case that seemed to be practically a chemical laboratory in a handbag. Gail watched his face curiously. But no one could have told whether he found anything of further interest.

"You should have something to eat, and get some sleep, Miss Adams," Doc told her.

Gail shuddered. "I couldn't sleep! Never! Not after all these weird things have happened."

Doc didn't insist. He told Monk, "I'll be gone a few minutes. You keep an eye on Miss Adams in the meantime."