(1988) The Golden Room by Irving Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t have the same problem of modest resistance in examining a prostitute, would you?’
    ‘No, I wouldn’t. That would make it much easier for the patient and myself. I merely look into the vagina with a speculum. If I find a chancre, I will prescribe the standard medication - mercury, in pill or ointment form. It will not be difficult for me.’
    Minna stood up. ‘Dr Holmes, you sound capable and I feel you can be trusted. You have the job, if you want it.’ Dr Holmes came to his feet. ‘It would be an honour and
    my pleasure to serve you and your ladies. Definitely a great opportunity.’
    ‘There’s still the matter of your fee. If you will come to the Everleigh Club at eleven tomorrow morning, you can meet my sister Aida, and she will work out a satisfactory arrangement. Then I’ll take you around and introduce you to our girls. Is this agreeable?’
    ‘Most agreeable, Miss Everleigh.’
    Minna allowed Dr Holmes to see her to the door, then walked to her Model A Ford, where Edmund was waiting to assist her into the seat.
    As they drove away from Dr Holmes’s Castle, Minna felt pleased. Dr Holmes was a professional, a gentleman, and her instinct told her he would be trustworthy in protecting the Club against Mayor Harrison’s incursions.
    As the Ford continued away from the doctor’s Castle, Minna glanced back at it. The third storey could still be seen from a half-mile’s distance. The chimney was visible also, and it was odd that the chimney was emitting smoke.
    Crazy, Minna thought, to be using a furnace in the spring. Still, admittedly, there was a chill in the air, and whatever he was doing to warm himself, Dr Holmes certainly knew what was best for his own health as well as theirs.
    The minute Dr Herman Holmes was certain that Minna Everleigh had departed the area, he hurried to his office, reached under a drape beside the fireplace, and pressed up a lever on a concealed panel to release pent-up gas.
    After a while, he strode into the hallway to a metal wall with a wood grain finish over it, reached behind a thick-leafed rubber plant, pressed a button, and watched the door slide open to his secret soundproof chamber in the rear. He went inside the dimly illuminated, gloomy room, sniffed to be sure the gas had cleared, and found his sixth wife, Georgianne, still sprawled on the floor where he had left her.
    He had decided at noon, after he had learned Minna Everleigh was coming to interview him, that once he had the job, Georgianne would no longer be useful to him. She would be in the way when Minna appeared, and create too many problems when he had access to the Everleigh Club and its fantastic girls. As Georgianne had bent her thick head of hair over her lunch, Holmes had come up behind her and whacked her on the back of the head with a crowbar. He had caught her before she slumped to the floor, dragged her into his gas chamber, stripped off her clothes, then sealed the windowless chamber lined with sheet iron. From his office he had turned on the gas.
    Minna had arrived punctually and - as expected - he’d earned the job at the Everleigh Club. Getting the job thrilled him. It would be a feast. He would have all those flawless young women to choose and pick among — some for love, some for money — and when necessary, he would dispose of them too.
    Now, staring down at Georgianne’s corpse, Holmes suffered no remorse. She had served her purpose, given him her money and many nights of acrobatic love-making. Alive, she would have been in the way. Georgianne was just another corpse. There had been so many before her, a few men, mainly women, whom he had bilked of their savings or used for the pleasures of his body. One human being more or less meant nothing to Holmes. There was pleasure in taking advantage of stupid human beings, using them, and getting rid of them when they became burdensome. He had read in a medical book that all serial killers were insane. Holmes felt positive that he was