OCR Text |
Show Adventurers' club S!l J IfiV -1 HEADLINES FROM THE IIVES fe Of PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! J& , TT "Fiend in the Night" J By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter HELLO, EVERYBODY: It would be bad enough for a man to have an adventure adven-ture like this one I'm going to tell you now. But for a woman --well it must have been at least ten times worse. ' raldine Gorman, R. N., of Brooklyn, N. Y., Is the woman who nt;the story In to me and also the woman who went through the ter-tible ter-tible ordeal it relates. But I'm up a tree to tell you who the hero of the yarn if. I don't know whether to say It's Geraldine, or Brownie, the dog. otoUf of them did a pretty good piece of work when the pinch came. to I' guess I'll have to hang a medal on both of them. !To begin with, Geraldine Gorman is a registered nurse. Back n 1932, when she graduated from her course of training, she went to work in a local sanitarium as night supervisor. And it was In this sanitarium, In the quiet hours of the winter night that Adven-t Adven-t ture caught up with her and gave her the shock of her life. V I Drug Addict Broke In. j There were three other nurses and a watchman on night duty at the anitarium, but they were in another building. It was about half-past Jever., and Geraldine was sitting at her desk writing up charts. It was fuiet deathly quiet in that room. Not a sound was audible except the jud, metallic ticking of the clock. But suddenly, Geraldine was startled jt of her chair by a crash of broken glass at the other end of the long 1L i Geraldine ran down the hall to Investigate, and stopped suddenly at be light of a hulking figure climbing through the broken window. She hlmost screamed In sheer terror when, In the moonlight that filtered hrough the shattered pane, she recognised the man as Karloff, a Russian Rus-sian drug addict, whom the sanitarium had discharged as a hopeless iase only a few weeks before. i "I stood rooted to the spot," says Geraldine, "and the first I thing my eyes encountered was a heavy steel cast cutter with a f knife-like edge and sharp teeth. Karloff's hand was closing over it. I Open up medicine room, or I kill,' he growled, shaking the thing at me." Geraldine knew what he wanted In the medicine room. Narcotics! )opel He was insane with the craving for it. But instead of opening he room, she turned and ran down the hall. If she could beat that WmzL wA -IP I "Now I Kill. Sure!" He Cried. ; t Ltaniac to the cellar, there was an underground passage to the next juilding, where the other three nurses and the watchman were con-regated con-regated over a midnight snack. j: J Chased Her Into the Morgue. c But before she was half way down the stairs, Geraldine knew she sould never make it. Karloff, with his long legs, was gaining on her 1th "every step, and as she reached the basement hallway he brandished ' heavy cast cutter and cried: "Now I kill, sure!" j Geraldine was frantic. She spied the door of the sanitarium morgue Ringing partly open, darted inside, closed and bolted the door. But the same time she heard the outside lock snap and knew that the Rus-en Rus-en had made her a prisoner. She was safe there, herself but how to aril the rest of the staff. If she didn't get word to them somehow, big, rug-crazed K-irloff could steal up on them when they weren't looking, ! sd slaughter them one by one with that big, saw-toothed weapon he i rried. i i Geraldine looked around the room she was trapped In. There ( was no chance of getting out. Both doors were securely locked from the outside. In the center of the room was an autopsy ; f tabic, and over at one side, near the ceiling, was a small, tiny window, set at the ground level. She dragged the table over to the wall, stood on it and, breaking the window, looked out on the co'd freshness of the winter night. She could get her arms through that window and no more. It was no use. She was in that morgue room to stay. f Rrownie to the Rescue. Suddenly. Geraldine saw something frisking about in the snow and ot an idea The frisking object was Brownie, the watchman's dog a J ig, shaggy animal with a lot of good dog sense. She whistled to him i nd he came scampering over to the window. Then Geraldine got busy. She drew a fountain pen from her pocket tore one of the starched tiffs from her uniform and began to write. "KARLOFF BROKE IN." ie wrote. "DANGEROUS HIDING IN CELLAR. I'M LOCKED IN HE MORGUE." Then she thrust the cuff in the dog's mouth and told im to take it to bis master. The dog seized the cuff in his teeth and I otted off. i Time'dragged on, and Geraldine lived in an agony of suspense So : iuch depended on Brownie. Would he carry the note as he had been ! ild to do? It seemed hours that the dog had been gone, and still there ! as o indication from the others that they had received her message and j eresafe. Then, at last, she heard a sound outside the door. The outer ' ckjwas snapped back and the voice of the watchman assured her ' at Karloff was in a strait-Jacket and all was right with the world, rowriie had come through. I Copyright.- WNU Service. |