“Yeah. You’re a new man on the Gazette, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. They just gave me a city job. Used to be an out-of-town correspondent. First time I’ve ever been in this place. Woozy, isn’t it?”
Griffith laughed.
“I never felt it that way,” he said. “Guess I’m used to it.”
He glanced around him, as though conscious for the first time of his surroundings. He realized that the place was indeed forbidding. The walls of solid masonry made it a sound-proof dungeon. The rows of trucks, a few of them occupied with bodies, lent a sinister aspect to the situation.
The detective noted that the reporter was sniffing, as though trying to recognize the peculiar, pungent odor which saturated the atmosphere of this hideous room.
“Formaldehyde,” explained Griffith.
“Oh, that’s what it is,” replied the reporter, removing his hat, and displayed a shock of black hair. He shook his head as though to fight off a feeling of nausea; then he glanced toward the body of Frank Jarnow. The sight of the murdered man did not seem to annoy him.
“I’ve seen a lot of dead ones,” he explained. “It wasn’t that that bothered me. It was walking into the place with that smell of formaldehyde hitting me so quick. It seemed like I was out of the world, just cut off from everything.
“The lights are bright” — he looked at the row of brilliant incandescents — “outside of that, it’s the gloomiest place I ever saw.”