The Avenger 5 - The Frosted Death by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online Page B

night raid on the Sangaman-Veshnir laboratory, old August Taylor was not enjoying the beauties of his surroundings.
    August Taylor was dead!
    Four doctors, distinguished specialists whose names were known wherever medicine was practiced, were gathered around the body.
    Taylor had died of something that no one of the four of them knew anything about. It was something that made his body look like it had been covered with powdered sugar. They were busy examining the strange phenomenon now, fascinated as specialists always are by something new in diseases, and at the same time feeling a little afraid.
    A gray-haired doctor with rimless spectacles scraped some of the white stuff from the dead millionaire’s cheek. In a moment the cheek was covered again, with no clear space showing.
    “It’s a kind of mold,” he marveled. “But mold is usually bluish gray—this is white. And what is mold doing on human flesh?”
    There was a silence; then a man named Caldwell said: “The mold evidently gets into the lungs, too. That accounts for the symptoms resembling those of pneumonia.”
    They all looked pretty grim. The whitish mold, that looked like fine snow, or powdered mica, was pretty dreadful stuff. And they recalled reading about an odd fungus death in New York. As physicians, they had more than an inkling, now, of how terribly they had misjudged when they touched the whitish stuff.
    As if on signal, they all turned and raced for the luxurious bathroom. They washed in carbolic solution, so strong that burns resulted. Caldwell suddenly looked at his right hand. It seemed that the middle knuckle of his second finger was whiter than it should be. But that might have resulted from the powerful disinfectant he had just used.

    Fergus MacMurdie could have told them that carbolic did no good. He had experimented with every known germicide in an effort to get hold of something that would be an antidote for the frosted death. And as yet he had found nothing.
    Any disinfectant strong enough to kill the fungus was more than strong enough to kill living flesh, too; to eat it away, burn it up, shrivel it.
    The mold was a low-grade organism practically indestructible. You could freeze it at two hundred degrees below, Fahrenheit, and it didn’t hurt the spores. In this respect, it was not too unusual: there are several low-grade organisms able to stand even the absolute zero, and the airlessness, of outer space. But in addition, this whitish stuff could take treatment that would destroy any other known form of life.
    Yet there must be an antidote for it. There must be something to combat it! MacMurdie dared not let himself think otherwise. There had to be—with the white death loose in the great city. If not—chaos!
    So Mac, with eyes black-rimmed from lack of sleep, was working night and day in his drugstore laboratory to find the answer.

    Meanwhile, The Avenger was tackling the thing from the human angle.
    At the moment, he was in the anteroom of Veshnir’s big top-floor office. He had passed the door of the laboratory in which he had been so busy the night before, with his eyes impassive and inscrutable. He had given his name to Veshnir’s secretary, in the anteroom.
    Veshnir came out himself, staring at the white, dead face and the colorless eyes of his visitor with his own face benevolent, sad and kindly-looking.
    “I’ve heard a little about you,” he said. “And I’ve heard that you were interesting yourself in the tragedy we have had around here. I’m very glad to see you at such a time. Come in.”
    He stood aside for Benson to go into his private office, then followed him in and closed the door.
    “I can hardly realize all the things that have happened,” Veshnir went on, as he waved Benson to a chair, and seated himself behind his desk. “Terrible. Terrible!”
    “Yes, they are,” said Benson, icily colorless eyes fastening on the man’s kindly face like diamond drills. “Especially the frosted