The face that stared back at him from the table — the face he had just rebuilt — was that of his brother, John Murdock!
Inside, he had known all along who it was. Like every other human being in a similar situation, he had tried to make himself believe he was mistaken. Now it was impossible to doubt. This was his brother, dead — murdered!
It took all the self-control Miles could command to keep from going wild then. Teeth clenched together, fists tight granite balls, he snatched up his hat and coat, pivoted and went through the door.
Dan Griffin was at his heels, followed him down the stairs and into the street.
Parked at the curb was Doc Murdock’s flashy roadster. They walked to it and climbed inside. The detective-captain was amazed at the rapidity with which Doc Murdock had mastered his emotions. That brief walk down the stone steps of the morgue was all the plastic surgeon had needed to restore him to normal.
“Griff,” he said bitterly, “who killed my brother? Why was it done?”
Griffin’s black brows came together in a dark frown.
“I wish I knew, Doc.”
“We’ve got to find out.”
“Cop-killers don’t brag about it.”
Miles put his foot on the starter and shot the roadster into traffic. He drove, hands tight on the wheel, eyes glued straight ahead, lips a cold line.
“Stripped him, didn’t they?” he asked. “Took everything?”
Griffin nodded slowly.
“John had a ring,” Miles said.
Griffin remembered. “An onyx with a ‘J’ in it!”
“It was worth a lot more than it looked. I don’t think the one who took it would hold onto it very long.”
“No. You’re right about that. If they were picked up with that black baby on their person, it would call for an awful lot of tall and fancy explaining. But no fence or stoolie is going to sing a piece about that, no matter how much pressure you put on ’em.”
Miles continued to stare straight ahead through the windshield.
“Maybe I know one who doesn’t need sweating.”
Leaving Dan Griffin on the sidewalk in front of Police Headquarters, Doc Murdock swung his roadster into the narrow, dark corridor that was Mullen Street. Sullen, gray tenements walled in each side, housing noise, dirt and poverty. This was where Doc Murdock had learned life in the raw.
After graduating from medical college, he had served his internship in the city hospital, located in the worst and filthiest section of the slums. Here he gained the vast storehouse of knowledge that had proved so valuable to him in his work.
When success came to him, and moved him over to the more prosperous part of the city to tend the fashionable sick, he did not go with an eye to personal wealth, or to fire an overzealous ambition. There was no greater glory in his mind than making the sick well again, whether they be rich or poor. But most of the poor who so badly needed him could not afford to pay, and money was essential for him to carry on.
Even in the slums a doctor needs supplies with which to work, people to assist him. That costs money. It was a case then of making the right hand pay for the left hand. The rich he could charge big fees, which they would never miss. These fees would buy those things which the poor needed.
On Down Street, in the very heart of the slums, Doctor Miles Murdock had built himself a clinic. A white-faced building, it stood out like a beacon of mercy in contrast to the surrounding gloom. It was free, yet those who came received the same expert attention for which the swells on the other side of town paid dearly.
This work had brought Doc Murdock many friends here in the slum section — true friends, people he could call upon whenever he needed them. He was on his way to visit one of these friends now.
He shoved down the brake pedal in front of a bleak seven-story tenement house, one in a row of several. A rusted fire-escape crawled up the sheer face of the building like a tangle of heavy, black vine. Dull yellow squares, which were the shadeless windows, looked out.
Doc went up the four steps of the front stoop. He studied the bells. The party he sought lived on the sixth floor.
He was reaching for the doorknob when it turned and the door opened. A man came out. Doc Murdock knew him even in the dim light.
“Hello, Wisply,” he said.
Arnold Wisply was a tall, fat man. Lard bulged unpleasantly beneath his black clothes. The lowest of his triple chins almost hid from view his soiled, wrinkled, white collar. His eyes had deep bluish satchels beneath them and his mouth was a weak, wet gash beneath dilated nostrils.
Wisply was the close-fisted owner of a great percentage of these slum tenements. A vulture who preyed on the poor, he charged as much as he could squeeze out for these fire-traps.
It was no great surprise that Doc should meet this man here. One was forever meeting him everywhere in the slums, mainly because he was a penny-pinching skinflint, too cheap to hire an agent. He worked night and day, collecting his own rents and answering incessant complaints.
Chapter III
Search for a Ring
Murdock and the miserly landlord were not entirely strangers. Doc had conducted an open, unending war to clean up the slums, but the fight had been in vain. Wisply not only had money, but the unfortunates who lived in his buildings seemed to fear him. Moreover, they were so resigned to their unsightly surroundings that they offered no support to Doc in his fight.
Wisply squinted his beady eyes. When he saw who it was standing before him in the gloomy vestibule, he sniffled insultingly and went past. Doc Murdock watched him until he went down the stoop. Then he turned around and opened the door.
He went up the stairs briskly. While at school, he had taken time out from studies to gather in four letters — football, boxing, swimming, and rifle. If he had come to college solely to collect letters, he might have added several more to the list, but those four were plenty to earn him a scholarship.
He hadn’t permitted himself to soften since. On the top floor of his Swank Street mansion, adjoining his studio, was a completely outfitted gymnasium. There he managed a daily workout to keep his reflexes quick, his muscles firm and to prevent fat from thickening his lean middle.
Reaching the sixth floor landing, he walked toward a little door in the rear. A conglomeration of smells and sounds filled the ill-lighted hallway. Knotting his fist into a big ball, Miles banged it against the door.
Nimble, hurried footsteps scampered over the bare floor inside. The door opened. A little girl stood on the threshold before him.
“Doctor Murdock!” she cried.
“Hello, Janie.”
She jumped into his arms and he caught her, as if it were something they were both quite accustomed to doing. She hugged him and planted a big kiss on his cheek as he carried her across the threshold into the poorly furnished room.
“Daddy,” she cried out, “look who’s here!”
A thin little man with sparse hair pushed his chair back from the table, came forward hurriedly. He had a skinny face, furtive eyes, but his smile was as warm and sincere as the little girl’s.
“Doc, what the devil’re you doin’ here?”
He grabbed the young surgeon’s hand and shook it vigorously.
“I came to ask you a favor, Tommy.”
“A favor? You askin’ me a favor?”
The man’s face was a question mark. It seemed impossible to him. Doc set the little girl down.
“Janie, suppose you run into the front room for a minute. I’d like to talk to your Daddy.”
She gave him exactly ten million dollars’ worth of dimpled smile and then danced away through the railroad flat.