Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray

professional reputation was such that practically the whole world knew him. Declaration of this made no great impression upon Janet Falcon, however.
    She attempted to slam the door in his sour face. Long Tom saw that coming, and inserted his shoe between door and jamb.
    As a consequence, he let out a yelp of pain when the panel collided with his shoe. The woman was stronger than she looked. Or anger lent her greater strength than normal.
    Long Tom dropped his box, which spilled its contents.
    This was unfortunate, for the box proved to contain an unusual pistol, looking nothing like anything that had ever come out of a gun manufacturer’s factory. The mechanism was neither that of a revolver nor an automatic. Its elongated barrel was distorted in a peculiar way. A ram’s horn ammunition clip jutted out from the walnut grip.
    While Long Tom was hopping on one foot, holding the other in both hands, the woman lunged down, took hold of the queer pistol, and lifted it. The weird barrel pointed unerringly. It could be seen that the hole from which bullets might be expected to emerge was unusually thin. Thin as a needle, in fact.
    “This gun,” she bit out, “tells me that you are lying. You mean to kill me.”
    Now, the normal response to having a weapon pointed at one is to raise both hands to show that you intend no attack. But the pain in Long Tom’s throbbing right foot made that reflexive gesture inconvenient.
    “Whatever you do,” Long Tom said, holding onto his throbbing foot, “don’t pull the trigger. That is no ordinary pistol.”
    The woman did not take him at his word. She directed the weapon at the glass on either side of the vestibule door and constricted her trigger finger.
    The gun made no sound, nor did it jerk about like an automatic and spit out spent cartridges. There was no kickback, no stream of gunsmoke, no outward indication of an operating mechanism.
    Instead, the door glass shivered into fragments, producing a cacophony of breaking glass.
    Long Tom made his move then, grasping fingers lunging for the weapon.
    Alas, he missed. The woman directed the strangely distorted barrel in his direction and suddenly Long Tom’s hands were in the air and he was trying not to keel over.
    “Upstairs!” she commanded. “March!”
    Having no choice in the matter, Long Tom obliged. His pallid face was beet red.
    Still keeping his open hands in sight, the slender electrical expert started up the stairs. The woman was canny. She stepped aside to let him pass, then dug the clumsy barrel into the small of his back, prodding him upward.
    “You’re making a mistake,” Long Tom warned.
    “I will add this error to the growing collection,” the woman snapped.
    When they reached the third floor, Janet Falcon directed her chagrined prisoner down a short hallway and pushed him into an apartment that was unlocked.
    Locking the door behind her, she said, “Sit down, please.”
    There was an overstuffed sofa upholstered in faded yellow damask. Long Tom sat. He did not look happy.
    The woman asked what was, under the circumstances, a peculiar question. “What kind of gun is this?”
    “It’s new,” supplied Long Tom.
    “I can see that!” the woman snapped. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
    “What I mean is, it’s a new invention. I devised it.”
    “This barrel of a thing—is that a silencer?”
    “No. But it’s complicated. It would take an hour to explain it.”
    Experimentally, Janet Falcon showed that she possessed a cool nerve. She directed the barrel at a horsehair easy chair that had seen better days, depressed the trigger.
    The weird weapon spit out bullets without any sound, gunpowder, or recoil.
    A furry of slim holes peppered the chair, which showed no other reaction to being shot up. Neither did it shake or quiver. Perforations were too numerous to count.
    “This is like no gun on earth,” she marveled.
    Long Tom grunted, “You have that right. I planned to show it off at the science