The Avenger 34 - The Glass Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

brought here.
    “I should have told Alan and Dr. Coopersmith, but I wanted to run a few more tests first,” he said. “I hope, if I don’t get out of this alive, they’ll be able to realize that I did break through to an answer.”
    His objective had been to find a way to render a human being completely invisible.
    “And I’ve succeeded. The first man, the only man at the moment, who knows how to make a man invisible.”

CHAPTER VIII

Sleuthing
    The college campus reminded her of the Perseus Project setup. It consisted of a scatter of large buildings and strips of greenery sitting in the middle of flat, orange-brown desert.
    Or an oasis maybe, Nellie thought as she parked her rented car in the visitors’ lot.
    The several dozen students roaming the campus were mostly girls, with here and there a young man. And some of the boys were in uniform.
    After consulting the map of the campus she’d acquired back in Nolansville, the little blonde went striding toward the two-story brick-and-tile building which housed the administration offices.
    The late morning heat didn’t follow her into the cool corridors. Nellie located the records office and entered.
    An old woman, very small, sat behind the room’s only desk. A nameplate on her desk read MISS SAGENDORF .
    “Miss Sagendorf?” said Nellie, halting near the desk.
    “She’s in the WACS,” the old woman said without looking up from the open file folder on her desk. “Stationed at Fort Estling, Kentucky, if you wish to—”
    “Actually I want some information about a former student here at the university.”
    The small old woman lifted her head to study Nellie. “You’re not with the FBI, are you? We get all sorts of FBI people coming in to check on boys who—”
    “No, I’m more of a private investigator.”
    “Like Nick Carter? My, women are getting into all kinds of dangerous work since this war came along.”
    From her large handbag Nellie extracted the photo she’d borrowed from Byron Price’s widow. “Have you been with the university for some time?”
    The old woman smiled. “Since it was founded twenty-three years ago. My husband, the late Dr. Heimdahl, was the first dean of men.”
    “I’m trying to find out something about the fellows in this picture.” She held it out.
    Mrs. Heimdahl closed the folder and took the framed picture to study. “Oh, yes. There’s poor Byron Price. He was just killed, you know. It all sounded very unusual, the manner in which . . . but that must be what you’re investigating, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “And there’s Ted Napton,” said the old woman. “He’s been killed too. In that terrible rundown movie house of his. He was such a promising young man, with a great deal of potential, until . . .”
    “Until what?”
    Mrs. Heimdahl set the photo aside, then reached over to run a finger over the face of the freckled boy. “It was because of him . . . He was the bright one of the group, one of the brightest boys on campus then. That was . . . fifteen years ago at least. I remember that Dr. Heimdahl was quite upset about his death.”
    “He died back then, while he was in college?”
    “The others didn’t mean anything by it; Dr. Heimdahl and I agreed on that,” said the old woman, closing her eyes and seeing the past. “That’s why none of them were asked to leave school, though a couple of them did quit.”
    “Tell me about his death.”
    “It was intended as a prank . . . In those days boys were a lot less serious than they are now; it was before the Depression.” She leaned back in her chair, eyes still closed. “They’d seen some movie or other . . . about the Foreign Legion, as I recall. It got them to speculating about how long one could survive in the desert. Well, what they did—only as a joke, you understand—they carried this boy off and left him out in the desert. Out near the old abandoned pueblo villages. . . . Have you seen them?”
    “No, not as yet.”
    “Not many people go