Doc Savage - Terror and the Lonely Widow Part 7

Doc picked himself up ... Impossible, he saw, to enter the house from the back. The whole back of the house seemed suddenly ablaze.

He leaped, got the top of the fence, hauled himself up. He helped Bert over.

"Get the police," he repeated.

"But poor Mr. Chapman-"

"The best way to help," Doc said sharply, "is get the police. And hurry! The fire department, too. But the police first!"

She said, "All right!" and ran away.

The house, as nearly as Doc could estimate, was located in the middle of the block. It was one of a series of houses jammed wall to wall. There was no way of going between the houses to the front, to the street. No pa.s.sage. No areaway, no alley.

He ran toward an adjoining house. The door was locked. He kicked at it. A shocked, frightened fat woman looked through a narrow window beside the door. The door began to give. That fat woman screamed shrilly and continued screaming on an ascending scale.

Over the screaming, like drum taps accompanying flute music, four measured shots sounded in the house which was afire. A man shrieked in agony, the shriek deeper-toned than the woman's screaming, the two comparing about the same as trombone to flute.

Another explosion, greater than any before, sounded, and many second-story windows were driven out of the house. Fire followed the falling gla.s.s. The roaring of flames grew in volume, be- came like a storm of wind and rain in the tropics.

The door Doc was kicking gave way. He entered the house. The screaming woman without stopping her outcry seized a kettle of stew off a gas stove and hurled it at him. He dodged, but not with entire success, for he was scalded slightly. He went on through the house. The front door was unlocked. He pa.s.sed out.

A man had fallen or been thrown, from the second floor front windows of the house. His body was afire.

The flames made it unrecognizable, like a wrapping of red tissue paper.

In the house, on the second floor, more explosions. More flame. A part of the house roof lifted, folded over, blazed furiously. Doc ran back into the house through which he had pa.s.sed, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a small rug which he had noticed, ran with the rug out the front door. He threw the rug, nap down, over the burning body of the man. The body was not dead. It was twitching, squirming.

Masking the flames as best he could, m.u.f.fling them, but burning his hands somewhat in the process, Doc got the man and dragged him clear He pulled the man into the street. He rolled the rug about the body tightly and extinguished the flames at last. Carefully, he unrolled the rug ....

The man was dead. He had at least three bullet holes in vulnerable parts of his face and chest. It wouldhave been hard to tell who he was, except that he wore a neat dark suit, and Chapman had worn such a neat dark suit.

The house continued to blaze. There were more explosions. Plumes of flaming gasoline squirted into the air, over the neighborhood. No one else came out of the house. If there was screaming, the fire made too much noise to allow it to be heard.

Chapter VIII.

PEACE, like a startled bird, fled the conference room in the police station. Two uniformed cops dashed outside, and in a moment could be heard giving solicitous orders to the elevator operator. Lieutenant McGinniss, tiring of this solicitude for his welfare, suddenly yelled, "d.a.m.n it, I'm not dead!" Following which, he was wheeled into the conference room amid embarra.s.sed silence.

Doc Savage saw that the Lieutenant, although considerably bandaged and not exactly clad for action-he was wearing a hospital robe and hospital pajamas-seemed in good health.

"Curiosity bring you over?" Doc asked.

"That's right," said the Lieutenant. "You couldn't keep me away. So you finally wound the thing up?"

Doc didn't say anything.

"It is," said a business-like well-dressed young man, "wound up."

The Lieutenant eyed the speaker. "Who're you?"

The business-like well-dressed young man explained that he was Brigadier General Theodore Lowell.

"From Washington," he added.

The Lieutenant's opinion of Washington evidently had not improved, because he snorted. "I seem to remember your signature on some of the credentials that bright guy, Chapman, had."

Brigadier General Lowell snapped stiffly upright. He said, "Chapman is dead. He died in the service of his country as genuinely as any man in uniform."

"Yeah, and a lot of cops get shot in the service of the public, too," the Lieutenant said. "A lot of guys died in the war. Okay, that makes them nice guys. Your department, nor the FBI, nor the Army nor the Navy, has got a corner on dying. Let's understand that. And let's not try to push each other around."

The Brigadier General did not unbend very much.

Doc Savage said, "Have you identified the fingerprints of the body I found under the window?"

"That was Chapman," the Brigadier General said.

"What about the fingerprints?" Doc persisted.

"Listen, I know Burt Chapman! I should, because he has been one of my trusted men for five years. He was also my friend."

Doc said wearily, "What about the fingerprints?"

"I haven't the report on that yet."

"That's what I asked you," Doc said.Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks looked at Doc Savage thoughtfully. Renny Renwick was examining his large hands, also with speculation. The three of them were collectively puzzled. Chapman was obviously Chapman and he was dead, and why was Doc Savage overdoing it about identifying the body as Chapman's. At least it seemed to them that Doc was overdoing it. They were quite sure that he had a reason. They couldn't see what it was.

Monk leaned over, punched Ham, said, "It strikes me the thing to be interested in, and concerned about, is that good-looking babe."

Miss Berthena Gilroy had disappeared. No one had seen her since Doc had sent her to summon the police.

BRIGADIER GENERAL LOWELL looked at them woodenly, said, "Burt Chapman was completely reliable." He paused as if to let that sink in, to let them see that he meant it unequivocally. He added, "Why Burt Chapman disappeared, and worked by himself, for a matter of twelve hours, I do not know, and probably may never know. But I am sure that he was doing what he thought wise."

Doc said, "But you had had no report prior to my call to Washington after the house burned?"

"Not for about twelve hours ... Why are you so interested?"

"I wanted to know," Doc said briefly.

Renny Renwick caught Monk Mayfair's eye and asked a question by wrinkling his forehead. The wrinkles asked: Why is Doc upset about Chapman not reporting to his chief for twelve hours before he was killed?...Monk pushed out his lips as if he had tasted something sour. This said: I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what Doc is upset about.

Everyone else seemed to think Doc was quite placid and, if not satisfied, at least resigned to the way things had come out.

Two men from the medical examiner's office entered, and one of them said, "The fire department got the ashes cooled off enough to do some poking around."

Brigadier General Lowell looked up quickly, asked, "How many bodies did you find?"

The medical examiner's man snorted. "Look, there must have been ten or twelve five-gallon cans of one-hundred-octane gasoline, not counting those they threw down the stairs before the fire started. Do you know the kind of fire that sort of gasoline makes? It makes a first-cla.s.s crematorium, that's what it makes."

"Then you'll never know whether they all burned!"

"I didn't say that. We'll run tests on the ashes as soon as we can."

"Human ashes can be identified-"

"We know our business!" the medical examiner's man snapped. "But you don't just toss off a laboratory job like that. It takes time."

"Human ashes can be identified by proper laboratory a.n.a.lysis, and I wish to offer you the facilities of my department's laboratory," the Brigadier General continued patiently. "I'm not calling the police dopes. I'm offering full cooperation. This matter, as some of you gentlemen know by now-some of you don't seem to get it yet, though-is incredibly important. The future of many people might be involved. Indeed, thefuture of nations might be involved. You can hardly imagine the full extent of the tragic consequences that might be involved."

He struck an att.i.tude that said: if you gentlemen would only conceive how enormous a matter it is. He had sounded like a preacher trying to convince a congregation there was a real h.e.l.l, and me it was just around the corner.

Lieutenant McGinniss closed his eyes. He seemed tired and weak from his wound. "May I ask a question? he demanded.

Some one said go ahead, ask it.

"If four men died in the burning house, is this job all wrapped up and done?" the Lieutenant inquired.

"It would depend on who the four men were-" the Brigadier General began.

"I mean Cavendish, Mr. Moore, Skeeter and Rice," McGinniss snapped. "If their bodies were burned is it finished."

"Finished, but somewhat unsatisfactorily," the officer admitted.

"What's unsatisfactory about it?"

"No bomb," said Brigadier General Lowell. "We haven't got the bomb."

"But those four had it hidden, and now they're dead, and so n.o.body knows where the bomb is."

"We all know that!"

"What I'm getting at," McGinniss said sharply, "is this: is the bomb hunt over?"

"It probably is," the government man admitted wearily. "We'll continue, of course, the investigation. For instance, we'll have to find Miss Gilroy. I have no doubt but that there is some sensible explanation for her disappearance." He looked at Doc Savage. "You are sure, absolutely sure, Miss Gilroy was going for the police when you last saw her?"

Doc decided that the man's tone cast some doubt on his veracity.

"Certainly," Doc said briefly. He made an impatient gesture, added, "You fellows might be winding this thing up too quick, mightn't you? Take the girl's disappearance ... There might have been more members of the gang than just the four who were in the house. Miss Gilroy might have b.u.mped into one of the gang on her way to the police."

"The gang was small, by all our information," the Washington man said. "About four members would fit it. Five, including Davey who was killed by my men resisting arrest. No ... I'm inclined to believe the gang are all dead, thanks to poor Chapman."

"Just the same, I d like to satisfy my curiosity," Doc said. "Have you pictures of all your agents who have been working on the case?"

"Well, I...Frankly, that's out of the question."

"I'd like to look at some pictures," Doc said. "Maybe I've seen some people following around and thought they were agents, whereas they weren't agents."The Washington man was disturbed. "Showing any outsider pictures of our agents would be irregular as h.e.l.l," he said. "It just isn't done."

Doc looked at him levelly.

"Look, I want to see those pictures," Doc said. "Either I see them, or there is going to be some fuss made." Doc's voice lifted slightly, and he added, "I don't mind telling you I'm getting tired of being called into this thing, then having every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry toss obstacles in my way!" His voice got quite a lot firmer without getting louder. "I want those pictures here, and I want them here quick," he said.

WHILE they were waiting for the photographs-Brigadier General Lowell a.s.sured them they would not have to wait unduly long, after all-Doc Savage got Renny, Monk and Ham aside. He talked privately to his three aides.

"I think," Doc said, "that we've had something put over on us. And I think we're going to have to move fast, or be made awful suckers."

Renny Renwick hazarded a guess. "The babe," he rumbled, "was one of them. She double-crossed them."

Doc shook his head. "I doubt that." He added hastily, as if to avoid an argument, "Renny, I want you to get down to the hangar and get our fastest plane fueled for a long trip ... Better take it around to La Guardia Field for the fueling."

"There's gas at the hangar," Renny said. "And La Guardia is pretty prominent. What I mean, if anybody were trying to keep track of you, La Guardia would make it easy."

"Then use La Guardia by all means," Doc said.

"This isn't a secret trip, then?"

Doc nodded. "The more un-secret this flight is, the closer it will come to do what I want it to do."

"You want me to make a commotion?"

"Exactly. While you're at it, check the weather to San Francisco. And don't make any secret about that, either."

Renny scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "There's bound to be some newspaper reporters around. Most of them are pretty decent guys. But that tabloid, the Planet, has some stinkers on it. The best way to get something advertised would be to tell them guys on the Planet you didn't want it published. They don't like us. That's just an idea. Or should I go that far?"

"Too obvious," Doc said, and shook his head. This doesn't want to be too stupidly done."

"Okay, it was just an idea," Renny said.

Doc turned to Monk and Ham. "You two," he said, "get busy and book us pa.s.sage to Hawaii on the first clipper plane leaving San Francisco-the first one we can catch by flying to Frisco in the ship Renny is going to have ready, that is."

Monk was skeptical. "The way travel is, they got them planes crammed with reservations a month ahead.

Grabbing four seats won't be any snap."Doc was pleased.

"It'll give you a chance to create a commotion and draw some attention, he said.

"Yeah, but what if we get turned down?"

"You'd better see that we don't get turned down."

Ham Brooks was puzzled. "Are we really going to Hawaii?"

"You bet we are."

Monk was not so baffled. "I bet we're going to the island to get that bomb," he said.