The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum (The Magnetron Chronicles) Read Online Free Page A

He was undamaged, but demanded to know what had become of his body, and expressed a strong desire for clothing, though he was unable to account for the logic of this request.
    I shooed away the cats and retrieved a top hat from my dressing room, placing it at a rakish angle on the doctor ’s crown. I deliberated aloud as to the efficacy of a bow tie, but Dr. Hogalum cut me short with a volley of thorny questions.
    “ What has happened to me, Magnetron? Where is my body?”
    I gingerly addressed his recent expiration, and explained that his body had suffered a corresponding fate, buried headless as it was. I commented in abstract on his subsequent reanimation and the stimulating venture I had planned for his revivified head. I made every attempt to mollify him to the extent I might broach the topic of his murder without appearing insensitive to his current predicament, but he continued to pepper me with questions.
    “ I do not wish to appear ungrateful after having been raised from the dead,” he said in a beleaguered tone, “but I must ask why you did not see fit to include my body in this enterprise!” I made the observation that his head was his most significant appendage, whereupon he replied dejectedly that he had become rather fond of all of his appendages.
    I did not wish to explain that an arithmetic al miscalculation on my part regarding the mass of his body vis-à-vis certain physical laws had necessitated the admittedly gruesome measure, and I anticipated he would not be satisfied with my explanation anyway.  Therefore, I side-stepped the matter by responding simply that it was an unavoidable bit of hard cheese which was also quite irreversible.  He fell silent long enough for me to interject, “Petión has said you were murdered. Is this true?”
    “ Murdered?” Hogalum was aghast at the mere suggestion, despite the fact that he was already dead. “Certainly not, Magnetron! I killed myself.”

Chapter 10 ~ Magnetron Uncovers a Secret
    “ I want you to explain in detail how it has come to pass that my severed head is now displayed in your laboratory, and I want you to do so now!”
    Suicide? The concept was too alien, and insufficiently buffered to gain entrance to my consciousness. I stammered like a dithering cretin for several interminable seconds until I was able to stammer a superfluous response: “K-k-k-illed yourself?”
    “ Yes, yes, killed myself. It was an accident, of course.” Dr. Hogalum offered a brief and dispassionate account of his death occurring after ingesting a powerful medication of his own formulation. I absorbed little of the detail, so relieved was I to hear he had not purposely taken his own life.
    But what of Petión ’s contention, that his spirit was profuse with the fervor of retribution?
    “ Twaddle!” was Dr. Hogalum’s reply. “I had formulated a remedy potent enough to rid me of a pernicious case of cancer, but also so concentrated as to teeter on the brink of toxicity. Sadly, I miscalculated the dosage. So you see, your Petión fellow is mistaken, Magnetron, as are you if you think you can sidestep my line of questioning by initiating your own. I want you to explain in detail how it has come to pass that my severed head is now displayed in your laboratory, and I want you to do so now—without delay!”
    I was quite unable to resist asking about his cancer —an explosive and hitherto undisclosed confidence—but Dr. Hogalum once again arrogated control of the exchange, forcing me to apologize again for my circumlocution.
    I attempted with some difficulty to untangle the intricate sequence of events. “As my plan advanced,” I said at some point during my explanation, “I often felt as if I were in a complex labyrinth weighing innumerable options, each presenting itself unbidden. As one course of action proved untenable, another potentiality arose to take its place, and at length, I arrived at an end I had scarcely foreseen at the outset.  And yet, looking