Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 038 - Men Who Smiled No More

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THE MEN WHO SMILED NO MORE
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. TONY QUITS LAUGHING
? Chapter II. A MILLIONAIRE QUITS LAUGHING
? Chapter III. WITHOUT EMOTIONS
? Chapter IV. ANOTHER FROZEN BRAIN
? Chapter V. THREAT IN THE NIGHT
? Chapter VI. HAM'S BLIND TRAIL
? Chapter VII. MURDER ON THE HILL
? Chapter VIII. BLOOD OF A DUCK
? Chapter IX. THE RED-HEADED MAN
? Chapter X. STRANGE RECOVERY
? Chapter XI. VANISHED KILLERS
? Chapter XII. ELUSIVE FORTUNE
? Chapter XIII. PAT'S MIND IS STRICKEN
? Chapter XIV. POISON FISH
? Chapter XV. VANISHING POND
? Chapter XVI. THAT DUCK MAN
? Chapter XVII. DOC'S STRANGE ATTACK
? Chapter XVIII. DOC'S MISTAKE?
? Chapter XIX. DOC'S FROZEN BRAIN
? Chapter XX. THE CRUSHING DEATH
? Chapter XXI. END OF REVENGE
Scanned and Proofed by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. TONY QUITS LAUGHING
"
SMILING TONY" TALLIANO was the first to quit laughing. That was only about an hour before he committed
the murder. A murder of cold-blooded horror. A murder which had less than one slow second of
premeditation.
When Smiling Tony quit laughing, a bronze giant of a man was seated on the stone coping of a downtown
Manhattan park. Smiling Tony was shining this man's shoes with an extra flourish and snap to his polishing
rag.
Other shoe shiners along the row looked upon Smiling Tony with envy. The bronze man's hair was only
slightly darker than his skin. It lay upon his head like a smooth, metallic mask.
The shoe shiners of the row knew the man was Doc Savage.
Doc Savage's own eyes of flaky gold were observing the artistic industry of Smiling Tony. Therefore he was
first to see the change coming over the swarthy Neapolitan face.
For the famous smile of Smiling Tony had suddenly become a grin. It was a fixed and frozen expression. It
gave him suddenly the appearance of a death's-head. Then it became a horrible, vacant leer.
The expert hands of Smiling Tony slowed in their task. He did not speak. He did not look up. He finished the
shining of the bronze man's shoes mechanically. It was as if he had abruptly become the subject for a slow
motion picture.
Doc Savage's eyes roved swiftly. He sought for some logical cause for the sudden, sinister change in Smiling
Tony. There seemed to be no reasonable explanation. Of the shoe shiners in the row along the park, those
not busy were watching only the bronze man himself.
No person had paused. None had spoken. The evening stream of pedestrians flowed unbroken toward the
elevated stairways near by, or toward the subway entrances.
Yet the bronze man lingered a moment after he had left a quarter in Smiling Tony's hand. The leering grin was
still fixed on the face of the shoe shiner. Always before this, an expansive smile had accompanied the
completion of Smiling Tony's task.
Now he only mumbled, "T'anks, Mr. Savage," and stared into the springtime park with his black eyes as cold
as ice.
Doc Savage was due in a few minutes at an important meeting of directors of a shipping line.
Before the bronze man there had been other customers. One had been a multi-millionaire. He had handed
Smiling Tony a gilt-banded cigar from the half dozen in his pocket. This had been his almost daily habit.
The man of wealth would have been amazed to know these were not the same cigars he had purchased at
his favorite stand. In a subway crush, adroit fingers had removed the original cigars. These were substitutes.
This man was due at the same directors' meeting Doc Savage was on his way to attend. Smiling Tony had
immediately stuck the cigar between his white teeth. He was smiling then.
The man of bronze made a note mentally. His interest in humanity was broad. Tomorrow he would drop by
and discover if the shoe shiner he had known for years had recovered the smile that had given him his name.
BUT Doc Savage was to see Smiling Tony again only after a thousand witnesses had seen the sudden
murder on the elevated tracks.
More than ten thousand windows around the park square took on a pinkish, sunset glow. The air was mellow
with the new season. The pockets of Smiling Tony jingled with an unusual amount of silver.
Smiling Tony should have been happy. But a well-dressed customer paused and glanced at him. This
customer was an old one. He was about to take the seat on the white stone. Suddenly he seemed to have
changed his mind.
"Never mind," he mumbled quickly. "There's a fella I gotta see."
As he moved on, the customer shot a look over his shoulder. The eyes of Smiling Tony followed him. The
shoe shiner expressed no particular emotion. He just stared after his departing customer.
But Smiling Tony's lips had thinned out over his teeth. His dark jaws were set and rigid. His dark eyes held
something unfathomable. Except for his sleek, black hair, Smiling Tony's head might have been only the skull
of a dead man.
Trade abruptly fell off at Smiling Tony's shoeshine box. Prospective customers glanced at the rigid, forbidding
face and moved on. This should have aroused some outward emotion. Smiling Tony came of an expressive
race. But he only stared fixedly at those who paused, changed their minds and departed.
The dusk on the ten thousand windows of the park square changed the mirroring panes to purple. Crowds
surged up the stairs of the elevated railway. Trains rumbled like the rising of a slow thunderstorm. The ground
shook with the rolling of subway cars. Manhattan was beginning to move homeward.
FOR more than an hour, Smiling Tony had shined no shoes. This cessation of business apparently failed to
excite him. He did not so much as give one shrug of his shoulder. He only stood, staring at the slowly
darkening windows.
Sam Gallivanti came along. Sam was a friend and neighbor of Tony's. Sam swung his shining box jauntily by
a strap. He jingled coins in his pocket. His stand was a block from Tony's.
"Hiya, Tony!" he greeted blithely. "You ready we go home now?"
"I guess I'm-a ready," said Smiling Tony. "Yes, Sam, we go home now."
Smiling Tony was looking straight over Sam's head. His grin had become a death's-head leer. His swarthy
cheeks seemed to have taken on a grayish cast.
"Wassa matt'?" said Sam. "You seek, Tony?"
"I don't feel-a seek, Sam," replied Tony. "She's what you call-a nothin'. I don't feel nothin'."
Smiling Tony gathered up his polishes and rags. He stuffed them haphazardly into the foot-rest box. Sam
stared at him. Smiling Tony usually was the soul of order. He always put away his implements with the
greatest of care. Now he just pushed them into the box and put the box over his shoulder.
The shoe shiners were jostled together in the crowd ascending the elevated steps. They were on the side
where they would take the train to the East Side.
Sam turned with a wide grin. As they pushed through the turnstile gate where a nickel must be dropped, Sam
generously supplied the extra nickel.
Smiling Tony's expressionless face failed to indicate any appreciation of his friend's gesture. Sam might have
only been rubbing the sore spot of his friend's lost business of the late afternoon. It did not seem so.
One train slid its doors shut and pulled out before they could make it. But at that hour, the human stream
continued flowing through the turnstiles. Several hundred persons crowded the platform.
Another train followed the departing string in less than a minute. Sam stuck close to Smiling Tony. Now and
then, he glanced at Tony's face. Then he shivered in spite of himself.
"When you get-a home, maybe you call-a da doc, Tony?" Sam queried sympathetically
Smiling Tony did not reply to this. He was looking straight across the elevated tracks into an open window.
This window was on the third floor of a vast building of steel and stone. The tracks of the elevated were
slightly below the third-floor level.
Smiling Tony could see the head and shoulders of one man inside the window. The shoe shiner gave no
evidence of recognizing the man as Doc Savage, the last man whose shoes he had shined that day.
Doc's wide shoulders filled almost all of the window space. The upright head glistened oddly in the last glow
of the setting springtime sun. It much resembled the head of a golden statue.
Though Smiling Tony did not seem to know it, the man of bronze was studying him closely. Doc's flaky gold
eyes had singled him out in all that black mass of humanity packed on the elevated platform near the edge.
For after the bronze giant had entered the ship line directors' room, he had seen the same death's-head grin
upon the face of another man. The association of the double occurrence was of somewhat weird significance.
For the other man was the multi-millionaire whose shoes Tony had shined less than an hour before. And this
man of wealth was as much noted for his jollity and his laughter in his own circles, as was Tony for his ready
smile among his customers.
Doc Savage was now giving Smiling Tony's countenance a more thorough reading. Just as his keenly trained
vision could read words on lips at a greater distance than other men, so he could also interpret emotion.
Smiling Tony's face lacked all emotions.
And this same vacuous expression had replaced the usual hearty humor on the face of Simon Stevens,
shipping line president.
THE long string of the elevated train roared closer. The motorman peered straight ahead. His eye ran along
the platform and took in all of the jostling crowd. Passengers were jockeying for positions from which to rush
the doors when they slid open. Perhaps the first persons in would find seats.
Sam Gallivanti kept on talking. Though his friend's face was possibly frightening to others, Sam had known
him for years. Now Sam dug an elbow roughly into Smiling Tony's ribs. It was a violently delivered blow,
though it was meant only as a jest.
"Snap outta da dream!" joked Sam. "You look-a like-a da funeral, Tony!"
Smiling Tony's expression did not change. His eyes only turned slowly upon Sam Gallivanti. His right hand
reached to the strap attached to his heavy shoeshine box. The box was hung over his shoulder.
Smiling Tony uttered not a single word. His movement was as if he were merely acting to return in kind the
poke in the ribs Sam had given him.
Sam screamed once.
"Tony! You no hit-a—you—"
The words of the scream were lost in the wilder crescendo of a shriek. The higher scream echoed and
communicated itself to the tongues of a hundred women. The motorman of the elevated train jammed on the
air brakes with such force he hurled passengers in the cars from their feet.
The motorman was too late.
Smiling Tony's shoeshine box flew over and downward. Its arc caught the skull of Sam Gallivanti. Probably it
was merciful that the screaming of many women and the hoarse oaths and shouts of many men submerged
the horrible grinding of bones and flesh under the wheels of the train.
GUARDS slapped open the doors of the train. Several hundred passengers had heard the screaming. Men
and women thrust themselves onto the platform, adding to the bedlam. Those who a minute before had been
eager to catch a train, now were rushing back toward the stairs.
Two men had seized Smiling Tony. The shoe shiner still held his box by the strap. Polishing rags dribbled out
of it. The men dragged Smiling Tony roughly back into the crowd.
A uniformed traffic policeman from under the elevated was the first cop to lay hands on Smiling Tony. Others
were arriving. Already the elevated employees were at work trying to recover the body of Sam Gallivanti.
Of all the persons the arriving police pushed back to form a ring around Smiling Tony Talliano, none was as
unexcited as Smiling Tony himself.
"What happened?" demanded a copper. "Why'd you give that other guy the works?"
"I no geeve ‘im the works," said Smiling Tony calmly. "Sam, he's my friend. He push-a me in da ribs. I smack
‘im with the box. It is all good-a fun maybe."
Smiling Tony was grinning at the policemen. That death's-head grin. He did not shrug his shoulders or
gesture with his hands. His black eyes looked straight ahead. His lips were thinned to a leer over his white
teeth.
"Holy saints!" exclaimed one of the policemen. "He knocks the guy under a train because he got a poke in
the ribs! An' he calls it good fun!"
"Something's wrong," said the copper who served as traffic policeman at this intersection. "I know this fella,
Tony Talliano. He ain't ever been in trouble, an' he's worked that one spot for years. Everybody likes the guy.
"Tony, listen! Why'd you smack Sam like that?"
Smiling Tony looked at the copper calmly, fixedly.
"He push-a me in da ribs," he repeated. "So I push-a ‘im back!"
"Good grief!" ejaculated the traffic man. "Just like that! It looks like he's gone off his nut!"
"Smiling Tony looked at him and said, "I'm not-a crazy in the head. I know all about it. I'm all-a right!"
The shoe shiner meant every word of it. He was all right, as he felt about it. He must have been feeling no
emotion whatever. The horrible death of his friend, the certainty he would be accused of murder, left him
wholly unaffected.
Chapter II. A MILLIONAIRE QUITS LAUGHING
SIMON STEVENS was a hearty, roaring, rollicking man. His many millions had never made him smug or
dignified. When he laughed, his big body rocked with his humor. And he nearly always was laughing.
Not that he wasn't shrewd. No man, regardless of how often or heartily he laughed, could have acquired
Simon Stevens's fortune without being canny and shrewd. Nor could any man without a full supply of the
keenest brains have been head of the World Waterways Shipping Corporation.
Simon Stevens had been president and controlling stockholder of the World Waterways line for more than
twenty-five years.
And no matter how serious the directors' meeting, Simon Stevens could, and did, take time out to regale his
associates with the latest in funny stories. The World Waterways directors could afford to listen to these
stories, for the past years had not affected the shipping line's splendid profits.
Today, Simon Stevens had not told a single story. When the directors convened, their president was less
hearty, less good-humored than usual. He was smoking one of the fat cigars which had been so adroitly
changed in his upper pocket. One of the directors quickly noted the millionaire's apparent
absent-mindedness.
Simon Stevens's deep voice had not roared once with laughter since he had entered the third floor room
where the directors met. For once, the shipping line president appeared to be somewhat preoccupied.
When he entered the board room, he sat down immediately in a big chair at the side. He stared reflectively at
his feet. They were, like all of Simon Stevens, ample.
And the millionaire's shoes had been newly shined. For it had been Simon Stevens who had sat on the white
stone coping of the park fence. It was he who had left the generous cigar in the grimy hand of Smiling Tony
Talliano.
THIS directors' meeting was more important than usual. Recently, the affairs of the World Waterways line had
reached somewhat of a crisis. Some Oriental freight contracts had been cancelled because of trouble in
China. European affairs had disturbed shipments to the Mediterranean.
Simon Stevens sat, rather somberly for him, looking at his newly polished shoes. It was disturbing. The
eleven other directors, or at least ten of them, felt that the crisis might be more serious than they imagined. If
so, why hadn't Simon Stevens roared his way into the room as customary?
The eleventh director observed the president of the board more closely than the others.
For this director was Doc Savage. The man of bronze held some stock in the World Waterways, as he did in
many other enterprises. This was especially useful to the noted adventurer. For the World Waterways line
owned a small group of islands in the South Pacific.
These were the Domyn Islands. Doc Savage's interest, as usual, was humanitarian. In his many encounters
with criminals, the man of bronze caused them to be treated at his sanitarium in up-State New York. Doc's
vast surgical knowledge had developed a minor operation on the brain which caused criminally warped minds
to heal.
After becoming good citizens, with their criminal careers forgotten, many of these former criminals were left
without homes or occupations. The Domyn Islands had become a haven of refuge for the rehabilitation of
these men. There they had been given well paid employment in the nitrate mines.
DOC SAVAGE did not often attend meetings of directors. His time was nearly always engaged in some
enterprise of much more excitement and danger. Yet in this apparently prosaic meeting of shipping line
directors was to arise a situation of the most astounding consequences.
Doc Savage must have felt this, for he took up his position beside an open window. From this place, he could
look directly down upon the tracks and platform of an elevated railway station.
One of the lesser directors coughed apologetically.
"Mr. President," he offered, "I expect we ought to get underway and have it over with. All of us know why we
are here."
"Yes," replied Simon Stevens, "we know why we are here."
His voice fell oddly flat, without expression. Indeed, one might have said he was merely a curious bystander
without great interest in the proceedings.
The one who had spoken prefaced his next remarks with another cough.
"The idea seems to be that we will save ourselves from heavy losses by retiring about half the ships of the
freight fleets," he said. "Our dividends probably will be reduced somewhat. But we can carry on and still show
a profit."
"Yes," said another director, "that's the general idea. It's much better than attempting to maintain the whole
organization at a loss. We are lucky in having the Domyn. Islands. The big boost in nitrate prices brought on
by national armaments ought to keep our net operations about up to the usual figures."
Simon Stevens said nothing.
A director pulled them over the embarrassing lull.
"Well, then I suppose all of us here favor the retirement of as many of the ships as necessary?" he
suggested. "Then perhaps we should concentrate on the operation of the Domyn Islands. I would favor
doubling our output, or employing more men there."
DOC SAVAGE spoke for the first time. He was watching Simon Stevens closely.
"I had hoped that might happen," said the man of bronze. "As usual, I would like to pass my own dividends to
help place more men at work in the islands."
Simon Stevens lifted his eyes to meet the flaky gold orbs of Doc Savage. Doc noted then that the millionaire's
face seemed wholly lacking in expression.
Simon Stevens spoke. His words were drawn from some deep well of effort. But his tone was colorless. His
announcement was to strike into that luxurious directors' room like a bolt of lightning. He was about to blast a
shipping line organization that had been foremost in its earnings over a period of three generations.
Yet his speech was calm, most casual.
"The Domyn Islands?" he said. "Oh, yes. I just now recalled. I sold the Domyn Islands yesterday."
For a full thirty seconds, Doc Savage could clearly hear the ticking of watches in the room. There was one
deep, indrawn breath for ten pairs of lungs. At the end of the half minute came the released gasp of all the
directors.
"Sold the islands?" spoke one, as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"Fifty per cent of all our stock is wrapped up in the islands!" ventured another. "It's never been
mentioned—never even proposed. You couldn't have done anything like that! This board wouldn't stand for it!"
Simon Stevens must have heard. But he did not glance at his fellow directors. He was looking at his polished
shoes. The shipping line president was entirely unaffected by the amazement of his colleagues.
Doc Savage spoke quietly.
"If the president wanted to sell the islands, it was not necessary to consult any of us," he said. "A vote by the
board is no more than a matter of form. Of course, this is a time when a handsome price would be offered.
Several nations would like to have control of the nitrate supply."
SIMON STEVENS looked at Doc Savage. Usually, the president's jowls were shaking with some inward mirth
when he wasn't laughing aloud. But the big, rounded face now had assumed lines as stiff and hard as granite.
"Just thought of a good one," he said unexpectedly, and without referring to his own momentous
announcement. "Did you ever hear the one about—"
A pointless story rambled along aimlessly for several minutes. Afterward, a director couldn't hold himself any
longer.
"Well, if you sold the islands, chief, does it mean we are getting out of business temporarily?" he asked. "Our
ships could only operate at a loss. There would be a melon of at least fifty millions to cut from the islands.
What was the price?"
"I accepted half a million dollars for the whole outfit," said the shipping line president. "I signed the sales
contract at once. We now will vote on the sale of the Domyn Islands. All in favor say, ‘Aye.' Those opposed,
‘No.'"
"No! No! No! No!!!" shouted ten directors.
Doc Savage was silent. He was watching Simon Stevens.
"The motion is carried," said Simon Stevens, without raising his voice. "The Domyn Islands are sold."
TEN amazed, unbelieving minority stockholders surged from their chairs. For the minute they forgot they were
only holders of minority stock in the World Waterways Shipping Corporation. Forgot they were conservative,
middle-aged business men. At this instant, they were a mob of ten, cursing, bitter men.
The director nearest to Simon Stevens was a tall man. He so far forgot himself as to brandish his fist under
the president's nose.
"You dirty double-crosser!" he shouted. "Nearly all I've got is wrapped up in World Waterways! You can't sell
me out!"
His fist whipped out. Simon Stevens was a bigger man, if he was an older one. The tall director's knuckles
rasped across the president's bulging jowls.
No emotion whatever appeared in Simon Stevens's countenance. His eyes, half hidden in rolling wrinkles of
good-natured fat, remained as cold and unperturbed as those of some fish. Only his big hand went
methodically to a heavy inkstand of carved silver beside him.
The hand went up with the inkstand. The thing weighed enough to have brained an ox. And the millionaire
shipping line president was putting the weight of a beefy arm behind the swing. The tall director was off
balance. The inkstand could not have missed his skull.
None could have told how Doc Savage had whipped across that room. The bronze giant had lifted to his toes.
He was moving with incredible speed, as the inkstand went over Simon Stevens's head. One immense bronze
arm became a swiftly shooting steel piston.
The inkstand descended with a crash. The tall director went off his feet. His lanky body flew half the length of
the room before he collapsed. But the blow that had caught him was delivered by Doc Savage's fist. It was
lucky for the director that Doc had picked out the tall man's shoulder as a target.
Taking the full straight-arm from Doc Savage would not have been much of an improvement over being brained
by a carved-silver inkstand.
SIMON STEVENS sat down. Even now, he showed no emotion. Instead of hurling a murderous inkstand, he
rolled the fat cigar with his teeth, chewing its end calmly.
Doc Savage was looking directly into the man's eyes. What he saw there was not pleasant.
But the bronze man said to the other directors, "Perhaps we should talk this over more calmly. I am
convinced you will feel differently when we know more of the circumstances. Simon, no doubt, has not
informed us of all to be told in connection with selling the Domyn Islands. I have as much interest as any of
you. We will listen."
The directors resumed their seats. Doc Savage returned to his chair beside the open window. For probably
two minutes, there was the shuffling of men a bit ashamed of giving away to their emotions.
Doc was looking from the window. He saw a swarthy man with a shoe shiner's box over his shoulder. Even at
that distance, the fixed, horrible, death's-head grin on the man's face was clear to Doc. His eyes, like the rest
of his senses, had been trained from childhood to excel those of other men.
Doc whipped his glance back to the face of Simon Stevens. The pair of faces—that of the multi-millionaire
who apparently had just accomplished his own ruin, and that of an East Side shoe shiner—were strangely
similar.
One of the directors made talk.
"Then, if I might inquire," he said, with some sarcasm, "who has been lucky enough to buy the Domyn
Islands for half a million? That's hardly bird seed!"
Simon Stevens rubbed one hand over his big round chin. His voice indicated he hadn't even an office boy's
interest in the fate of the Domyn Islands.
"I signed a contract of sale," he said, casually, "but it's funny I can't recall offhand who I sold the islands to."
DOC SAVAGE heard these strange words. But he was looking down upon the platform of the elevated
railway. The other directors let out amazed gasps for the second time that afternoon. The bronze man was
gliding from the room toward the building corridor. He gave no word of explanation.
That announced itself through the open window. Piercing screams of women came from outside. A crowd on
the elevated platform was roaring. The World Waterways directors crowded each other at the open window.
One man let out a choking oath. He pulled his eyes from the scene below. He had seen a man's hand stick
out from under the truck wheels of a train coach. The fingers of the hands were still writhing. They seemed to
be reaching for something that might pull the victim from under the ruthless iron and steel.
Chapter III. WITHOUT EMOTIONS
DOCTOR BUELOW T. MADREN pursed his small, round mouth in puzzlement. When he shook his head,
the electric light shone on it as on a polished billiard ball. His hairless skull and the pudgy roundness of his
face gave Doctor Madren a cherubic, angelic appearance.
But his eyes were deepset and glowed brilliantly. There was deep, probing intelligence there which belied the
contour of the rest of his countenance. For half an hour, he had been asking casual and seemingly
meaningless questions.
Smiling Tony Talliano showed no disposition to evade replying to any question he understood. The sudden
killer of the elevated platform had been brought to the observation prisoners' ward in the psychopathic section
at Bellevue Hospital.
The presence of Doctor Buelow T. Madren, eminent psychiatrist, was to be expected. He was a regular visitor
to the psychopathic wards of New York's big hospital. There seemed to be few vagaries of the human brain
with which Doctor Madren was not familiar. Yet now he appeared to be plainly stumped on a diagnosis.
Smiling Tony had replied normally to questioning. Yes, he understood that his friend, Sam Gallivanti, was
dead. Yes, he knew Sam had fallen under a train when he had hit him with his shoe-shining box.
But what of it? This seemed to be the attitude of the swarthy man with the death's-head grin.
Doc Savage had been listening to this examination for many minutes. Three other physicians, all devoted to
psychology, were in the ward. One of these spoke to Doctor Madren.
"Well, what do you make of it, doctor? I've seen some funny cases come and go, but I've got a theory of my
own for this one that I'd be afraid to express."
Doctor Madren smiled at the Bellevue physician. His intense blue eyes twinkled some.
"I'm not a mind reader, doctor," he said, "but I'm willing to venture your theory agrees with my own opinion."
DOC SAVAGE also had formed his theory. In the first few minutes of the examination of Smiling Tony, he
had arrived at an amazing deduction. But the man of bronze seldom expressed an opinion. And he never did,
unless the proof was irrefutable. He was interested in knowing what the trained minds of these psychologists
had brought out.
"We'll write down our opinions," suggested the Bellevue psychologist. "Then there won't be any thought of
either of us merely deferring to suggestion of the other."
Doctor Madren produced a gold-headed pencil. He scribbled on the leaf of a notebook. The Bellevue physician
followed suit.
A third physician smiled and read the results aloud. The wording was almost the same.
"It is my opinion this man is not insane," Doctor Madren had written. "Perhaps it would be better for him if he
were. He is suffering from the complete loss of all emotions. In his present state, he could not have murdered
in anger, because he would not become angry. Neither could he become joyous, nor sad, nor disturbed in
any way by outside influence. While in this condition, he can neither laugh nor cry."
In only slightly different words, the Bellevue physician had given the same opinion. They summed up to the
same thing.
Smiling Tony Talliano was held to be a sane man. And as such, without any emotion whatever, he had killed
his friend. He could not now feel the emotion of grief or regret. Soon he probably would cease to remember
the death.
"So, he is a sane man without emotions," announced Doctor Madren. "And as such, he is unique in the
annals of psychotherapy. He could, and would, kill his best friend without feeling any reaction whatever."
The man of bronze now knew Smiling Tony was not a unique case.
Simon Stevens, multi-millionaire shipping man, a respected, trusted citizen, a man who had been filled with
jollity, a love of life, had only missed by the fraction of a second becoming exactly that kind of a murderer.
Doc's analytical brain was beginning to evolve some amazing theories. The bronze giant never overlooked the
smallest trifle.
THE bronze man knew what the pronouncement of the eminent Doctor Madren would mean for Smiling Tony
Talliano. The emotionless shoe shiner would be declared sane. As such, he would be tried and convicted of
killing Sam Gallivanti.
The case was made doubly amazing by the queer conduct of Simon Stevens. Doc Savage could not ignore
the strange coincidence of the cases. He had almost immediately determined that Smiling Tony, the shoe
shiner, and Simon Stevens, the World Waterways president were victims of the same dire influence.
And the bronze man felt this influence must have come from some external source. It was impossible to
believe that the brains of two men so far apart in life could have been affected thus by mere chance.
Doc Savage was out of the hospital before the others realized it. He went directly to the crowded public
square in which Tony worked. Well directed inquiry developed that Simon Stevens always had his shoes
shined by Smiling Tony Talliano. The bronze man had no means of knowing about the cigars the millionaire
and shoe shiner had smoked.
The man of bronze was given instant attention at the nearest police precinct station. There they had the
unusual murder weapon. It was Smiling Tony's box of shoe-shining equipment. The inspector in charge of the
homicide detail was courteous.
Doc asked for and was given samples from the polish in Smiling Tony's shoe box.
As Doc Savage was leaving the precinct station, he recalled that "Monk" was at this time carrying on a
technical chemical experiment. He was isolated somewhere far out on Long Island.
Monk was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Monk didn't look as if he had a spoonful of brains.
But he was one of the world's leading industrial chemists.
Doc Savage attempted to get in touch with Monk as soon as he reached his own working headquarters. This
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