Doctor Palermo shrugged his shoulders. Burke was inwardly pleased. He had forced the physician into a position that made a quick reply impossible.
He waited for the doctor to speak. But Palermo artfully changed the subject.
“You must pardon me for a few minutes,” he said. “I can discuss this with you later. I was working in my laboratory when you called, and I must return there.”
He started away, then motioned to Burke.
“Come along, if you wish,” he added. “My laboratory may interest you.”
He led the way through two curtains at the side of the room. He unlocked a strong door, and Burke followed him. They entered a large room, fully equipped with apparatus.
Doctor Palermo stopped at a white-porcelain table where a bowl of green liquid was boiling above a gas burner. The physician took a small vial from a shelf, and poured a few drops from it into the bowl.
Immediately the bubbling ceased, and as the liquid simmered, it changed from green to a deep red.
“One of my experiments,” explained Doctor Palermo. “It may develop into a great scientific discovery.
Hassan!”
His last word was a loud exclamation. It startled Burke. He could not understand its significance, until he saw a huge brown man appear through a door at the side of the laboratory.
The man was dressed in a white robe, and wore a white head-covering. To Burke’s imaginative mind, he might have been a jinni of the “Arabian Nights,” summoned at his master’s command.
Doctor Palermo uttered a few words in a foreign tongue. The servant bowed. He removed the glass bowl with his white gloved hands, and carried it into a smaller room that adjoined the laboratory.
“Hassan is my assistant,” explained the physician. “He is an Arab who does not understand a word of English. More than that, he has lost the use of his tongue and cannot speak.”
“That must be a disadvantage,” observed Burke.
“Not at all,” returned Palermo. “In my studies of the human mind, I have noted that the loss of one faculty invariably develops the others.
“A deaf man uses his eyes better than the rest of us. A blind man has a wonderfully keen sense of touch.
Those who cannot speak become wise because they are silent.
“Hassan is faithful, willing, and — necessarily — discreet. Come.”
HE took the newspaperman to a corner of the laboratory, and showed him a row of glass jars, each containing a mass of white substance. He brought down one of the jars, and opened the top.
“A human brain,” he said. “A human brain, with its furrowed surface. A brain that once had ideas — that once created thoughts— now nothing but a mass of idle mechanism.
“This brain”—he set the jar upon a table—”may have caused all types of impulses; but now one could not identify it from another.
“Let us suppose, for instance, that this is the brain of Horace Chatham. Can you see anything that would indicate a mind for murder?”
There was a daring challenge in Palermo’s voice. Burke suddenly remembered the words of George Clarendon — that unended sentence which had led to the supposition that Chatham had suffered ill at Palermo’s hands.
Burke became suddenly tense, and suspicion surged through him. Then he caught Palermo’s steady gaze.
Burke laughed.
“The police would like to have Chatham’s brain in a glass jar,” he said. “If they ever catch him, and give him the third degree, his brain won’t be much use to him after they are through.
“By the way, doctor”—Burke was artful as he changed the subject— “where do you obtain all these brains?”
“From various sources,” replied the physician quietly, “but those that I prize most highly are willed to me.”
“Willed to you!”
“Yes. By patients whom I have benefited. I have often made that bargain with them.
“Their brains are useful to them when they are alive. I have enabled them to overcome mental disorders.
More than one has agreed willingly that some day his — or her — brain may repose in my collection.
“Here”—he went back to the shelf—”is the brain of an eminent lawyer. This”—he indicated the side of another brain—”is the cerebral mechanism of a man who was once a most prominent artist.
“I don’t believe I have the brain of a journalist in this exhibit. Perhaps —” he looked speculatively at Burke.
“Perhaps newspapermen have no brains?” questioned Burke, with a forced laugh.
“No,” replied Doctor Palermo seriously, “not that. All men have brains. I thought perhaps you might be willing to some day contribute your brain to my collection — provided, of course, that you should die young.”
Burke was silent. There was something ominous in the physician’s tone. The ex-reporter felt ill at ease.
He decided to bring the discussion back to the subject of his visit.
“Regarding Chatham—” he began cautiously.
“Ah, yes,” interrupted Doctor Palermo. “Horace Chatham. I was just mentioning his brain. I already have the brain of one murderer.
“But you are interested in the living, not the dead. Therefore you would like to discuss Chatham as he was the evening he called upon me. My experiments are finished. Come.”
As Burke followed the doctor from the laboratory, he recalled a subtleness in the man’s last sentences.
Palermo had said that he would discuss Chatham “as he was.” Did that mean that Chatham no longer lived?
The newspaperman realized that he was dealing with a genius who spoke with double meanings.
Therefore, he resolved upon extreme discretion.
Hassan met the men outside the laboratory. Doctor Palermo made a sign with his right hand. The servant assisted him in removing his laboratory garments. Then he brought out an Oriental robe of deep crimson, embroidered with gold dragons. Evidently a Chinese dress, thought Burke.
Doctor Palermo donned the robe, and his whole appearance changed. He looked more like a mandarin than a physician. A strange man, thought Burke. Yet Palermo’s next action was more remarkable.
He snapped his fingers, and as though in answer to a command, a panel slid open in the wall beside the laboratory door. It revealed a circular staircase.
With a motion to follow, the crimson-clad physician went up the staircase, with Burke at his heels.
They reached a penthouse on the roof. Here was a gorgeous room, bizarre in its Oriental furnishings.
Doctor Palermo seemed to fit into the surroundings, while Burke felt out of place. The physician sat in a large chair that was almost thronelike, and Burke took his position on a high-backed couch.
“This impresses you as odd?” questioned Palermo, with a smile. “You would not wonder if you understood. It is my method of complete relaxation.
“I realize the dire results of high nervous tension. When I have completed work in my laboratory, I invariably come here. It completely changes my mental attitude. Hassan!”
At the command, the Arab seemed to appear from nowhere. Like his master, he was clad in Oriental garments. He seemed to know what Doctor Palermo desired, for he went to the French doors at the end of the room, and swung them open.
Burke could see out over the city below. Myriads of twinkling lights shone in the distance. It was a wonderful vista that was beyond the most imaginative dream of an ancient writer.
“Come!”
Burke walked to the roof of the building. It was flat, with a railing. Doctor Palermo led his visitor to the rail, and pointed out beyond.
“Here,” he said, “I am monarch of the world. The trivial affairs of mankind”—he pointed to the street below, where toylike automobiles rolled along a street that seemed no wider than a ribbon—”those affairs seem very small and futile.