Free (1988) The Golden Room by Irving Wallace Page A

side on the examining table.’
    ‘Together?’ Fanny asked. ‘Both of us at the same time?’
    ‘Do it,’ Holmes replied sharply.
    Turning his back, he left the room. Once outside the room, he secured the heavy door.
    He walked leisurely to his office.
    Once at his desk, he took up a pipe, filled it, lit it and smoked, taking his time to give them the interval to undress. Their nakedness would save him a lot of time later.
    After three or four minutes, he put his pipe down in a copper ashtray, and strolled over to the concealed levers.
    Coolly, he flipped on the lever that would send gas into the room where Fanny and Varney awaited his reappearance. The poisonous gas would begin to pour from four jets into the airtight room. In seconds Fanny and her friend would become aware of it. In a minute, they would realize that something was amiss. In a few minutes, they would begin choking, strangling, crying for help.
    But no one anywhere would hear their pleas.
    Dr Holmes smiled broadly. He pulled out his watch. In five minutes they would be asphyxiated. First one, then the other, would drop to the floor.
    He peered at his watch.
    One more minute and they would be dead.
    The Everleigh Club would be safe for Dr Herman Holmes.
    The watch in his hand ticked on. A full minute had passed.
    The two of them were dead. The double-crossers had been silenced for ever.
    Dr Holmes turned off the gas. Then he pressed a second lever upward to open the narrow windows on top of the secret room. This clearing process usually took about ten minutes.
    In fifteen minutes, the chamber would be safe for the return of Dr Holmes.
    Waiting, Holmes shuffled through several medical journals, but had no patience with them. He had recently purchased two novels by E. P. Roe and George Barr McCutcheon. He picked up the Roe book and tried to begin reading, but his excitement made it too hard to continue. He brought up his watch twice, and after twelve minutes had passed he threw the novel aside, walked out of his office, and made for the lethal chamber.
    Parting the sliding doors, he stepped inside. A faint aroma of gas was still in the air. Inhaling, Holmes was satisfied the chamber was clear enough. His eyes held on the two bodies crumpled on the floor in front of the examining table. Fanny was nude, but, curiously, the man named Simon had not undressed.
    Holmes went to them, kneeled, and felt for a pulse.
    No beat in either.
    Dead. Both dead.
    Pleased, Holmes took hold of Fanny underneath her armpits and dragged her to the trap door leading to the basement. Lowering her to the floor, Holmes tugged open the trap door. Unceremoniously, Holmes lifted Fanny’s corpse, settled it into the chute, and let go. It slid down and away and out of sight. Then he sent her clothes down after her.
    Holmes decided he’d dispose of Fanny first, before coming back to get rid of Simon. Holmes strode to the second trap door, yanked it free, and carefully descended the staircase.
    Once downstairs, Holmes opened the furnace and started a fire. He turned to lift up Fanny’s body, carried it to the tank of quicklime, and lowered it inside. After a short interval, he emptied the tank, and, donning long rubber gloves, picked up Fanny’s corpse and carried it to his dissection table. He stretched the remains out flat, peeled off his gloves, picked up a scalpel, and resumed his work.
    Slowly, with considerable precision, Holmes dismembered the body part by part, until seven parts lay before him.
    Opening the furnace, he took each part and tossed it into the blazing kiln. Then he threw in her clothes.
    He shut the furnace. While the remains were being cremated, Holmes carefully washed and cleaned the dissecting-table. When he was satisfied, he went to the staircase and climbed up into the secret chamber.
    There was still the man to be dealt with. Holmes headed for this second corpse, prepared to cast it down the chute, when he hesitated.
    Simon’s complete disappearance might not