Miles didn’t argue. On the other hand, he wasn’t wholly convinced.
He was still worrying the thought when he pulled up in front of the station house and deposited his square-shouldered friend on the sidewalk. Griffin leaned in through the open window of the car and worriedly said:
“If I were you, Doc, I’d forget that wild idea you had in the courtroom. Korpuli and Gus Martin don’t play the game the way you do. You start mussin’ around with them and you’ll wind up in the river, too. Screwy as it sounds, they’ve got the law on their side. Martin was cleared. Take a piece of advice from somebody older than you are. Mark that idea on the ice. Like Peter de Gaul says: ‘It’ll wash out in the rain.’”
Doc smiled, but the smile was forced. He slammed into first and quickly spurted away from the curb. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when he got to his Swank Street quarters. Dale Jordan met him as he came in. She advanced slowly, looking up at him with emerald green eyes which were deep with concern.
Dale was tall and gracefully slender, with long, reddish-brown hair framing a cornflower face. Even in her spotless, stiffly starched uniform, men looked at her and grew wistful.
She had heard of the jury’s unjust verdict.
In a hushed voice, she said sympathetically:
“I’m sorry.”
Doc looked down at her with hollow, troubled eyes.
“Come upstairs, please.”
Without comment she followed him up to the studio. The rest of the staff was busy in the downstairs laboratories, or tending patients. Doc locked the door behind him, laid his hat on the table and hung his coat on the rack.
Dale looked down at his hands. The flesh was drawn white across his knuckles. That spade over his right eye seemed destined to stay there permanently now. Though she had been with Doctor Murdock almost since he first took over this big house, she had never seen him in such a dark mood before. He told her to lay out materials on the table beside the workbench he used for modeling. He turned and went into the adjoining bedroom. Dale prepared the table for him to work upon. He returned to the studio in his earthen-colored smock, sleeves rolled to the elbows. In his right hand was a photograph.
Dale craned to see. It was the morgue picture of John Murdock after he had been fished from the river, a three-way study of the hideously scarred face before Doc had rebuilt it. Miles had obtained this duplicate picture from the police files for his own records, he had said.
He placed the picture on the desk.
His eyes were narrow and sultry, his mouth firm with determination.
“Your materials are ready, Doctor,” Dale said, perplexity added to the concern in her eyes.
“Thanks. You can go now.”
She did not move. He turned to face her.
“I said you can go,” he repeated.
She came forward with hesitant steps.
“I want to help you,” she pleaded.
He frowned. “Help me? Help me do what?”
“I don’t know. But I believe you’re going to try to find the people who murdered your brother.”
He looked at her stonily. Had it been anyone else, he would have followed through his pretense, but Dale was more than just another nurse, or even a good friend. In fact, Doc had come to wonder just how much she really did mean to him. Was it only her resourcefulness, her efficiency that seemed to bring them so closely together?
“I’d rather you didn’t help, Dale,” he said. “I don’t know for sure just where it’s all going to lead.”
“I’m not afraid,” she declared.
“But you don’t realize what you’ll be letting yourself in for. These people are ruthless murderers.”
“All the more reason why you’ll need someone to help you and work with you.”
Doc was still looking down into her pretty, oval-shaped face. He knew it would be useless to try to dissuade her.
Besides this, he wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to. He would need someone to assist him in this dangerous work besides Tommy Pedlar, who was at work for Doc on the outside.
He could think of no one he would rather have working with him than Dale.
“Set up enough clay for a life-sized head,” he said.
Chapter VII
Birth of the Purple Scar
First Doc made a full-size head of his dead brother out of clay, following the mutilated face in the picture, which he had tacked up on the wall before him. Every scar, every torn line, every mangled tissue he followed until he had an exact duplicate of the face. It was so perfect in detail that it was positively blood-chilling.
He hardened the clay face with a specially-prepared drier. Then from it he made a plaster of paris cast. This he also prematurely set with the drier. Next he prepared a solution of melted gum elastic, coloring it with a faint purple dye.
Into the finished mold he poured the sticky, hot elastic. It set instantly. When he removed it from the mold, he had a perfect reproduction of his brother’s scarred face in the purple pliable rubber mask, which he fitted over his own face.
It drew a shudder of repulsion from Dale. Anyone entering the room at that moment would have thought it was John Murdock, returned from his river grave. The acid-destroyed face had been so skillfully copied that the dullest, least sensitive eye would recoil at seeing it. It was the face of a corpse!
“I don’t intend it to be merely a horrifying sight,” Doc explained as he peeled it off. “I won’t hide behind it to intimidate people, either. When possible, I’ll work in ordinary disguise, using the mask only when I need its protection, or when I want it known that the Purple Scar is on the trail.”
“The Purple Scar?” repeated Dale in an awed whisper.
“It’s a name that the underworld will find easy to remember,” said Miles grimly. “And if they have any trouble with their memories, the exploits of the Purple Scar, as well as the sight of him, will jolt their minds into remembering.”
“But why did you choose purple?” she asked.
“Principally because I wanted to imitate my brother’s features as closely as possible for this case. Flesh that has been eaten by acid and submerged in water turns a dark purple, as — as John’s was. But there’s also a practical reason. Purple becomes black at night, which will make my face invisible, instead of a betraying pale glow in the darkness.”
He sat down before a mirror. From the bottom drawer of his desk he had taken a make-up kit. He opened it and set to work. When he was finished Dale’s gleaming blond hair swung from side to side as she shook her head in admiration.
“I’d never know you in a million years!” she exclaimed.
Doc Murdock had assumed a character similar to the one who had visited Spider Kelly’s hotel. A sharp-nosed, sallow-faced individual who seemed none too bright, he was dressed a little better than before in a discarded suit with all marks of identification removed. Deliberately he had made himself the type of man who would attract little attention wherever he roamed. Under his coat he stowed a revolver in a hip holster.
“I hope I never have to use old Betsy,” he said, “but it’s going to be comforting to know she’s right there if I need her.”
“And what about me?” asked Dale. “When do I help?”
“I have to relieve Tommy Pedlar on a job I assigned him to,” Doc replied. “After I learn how he’s made out, I promise to call if I need you.”
“I’ll be at my apartment,” she said.
He nodded, placed the purple mask in a carefully concealed pocket in his coat. It made not the slightest bulge. He clipped a small pencil flash to his vest.