Doc Savage - The Freckled Shark Part 4

"And they went downtown and entered an office building-"

"What address?"

The man furnished Horst with the address.

Horst cursed a third time, said, "There is where Monk Mayfair, the chemist of Doc Savage's organization, has his lab.

They've gone to get Monk.""What do we do?"

"Get them. Take them prisoners. I don't care how you do it, but get it done."

"How," the man asked, "will I know this Monk Mayfair?"

"Just look at him," Horst snarled.

Chapter V. IMPULSIVE MR. HENRY PEACE.

ANDREW BLODGETT-MONK-MAYFAIR was never mistaken for any other person. Upon occasion, when Monk was seen in dark alleys and other spots where visibility was poor-there had been one particular occasion when he was swimming nude in a tropical river-he had been mistaken for an ape. So definite was the resemblance that, on the swimming-in-the-jungle instance, a specimen-collecting naturalist had shot at him repeatedly with a rifle that fired mercy bullets.

Monk's face was fabulously homely, but fortunately it was a pleasant kind of homeliness. Dogs wagged tails at him, and children, who logically could have been expected to be frightened to death at sight of such a face, chuckled in delight. Babies always cooed and wanted to smack Monk's nose with their little fists, although much larger fists had already knocked the nose rather flat, as well as made some permanent changes in the shapes of Monk's ears.

Furthermore, there was some quality about the face that seemed to fascinate pretty girls. By grinning, smirking and crinkling his small eyes, Monk imagined he could increase his appeal.

He grinned, smirked and crinkled for Rhoda Haven.

The display moved Brigadier General Theodore Marley-Ham-Brooks to make a remark.

"The more I see of you," Ham said, "the more I'm reminded of a famous scientist."

"Who?"

"Darwin," Ham said.

Monk bloated indignantly. "Say, that's the guy who thought men came from monkeys."

The pair scowled at each other.

Ham Brooks was a wiry man, wide-shouldered, with an orator's large mouth, a high forehead-a man who was as completely Monk's opposite as one could be. He carried an innocent-looking, dark sword cane. He dressed always-he changed clothes a dozen times daily, if necessary, to be properly garbed for each different occasion or activity-in the most expensive and correct of attire fashioned by the most famous tailors. In fact, tailors had been known to furtively follow him down a street, just to watch clothes being worn as they should be.

Ham Brooks looked what he was, one of the most astute lawyers Harvard had ever produced-in contrast to Monk, who was one of the greatest living industrial chemists, and didn't look it at all.

"Who," Rhoda Haven asked Ham, "are you?"

Monk said, "He's an overdressed shyster lawyer named Ham Brooks, and while I hate to be disagreeably frank to another man's face, you want to watch him. He comes from a long line of ancestors who were not to be trusted. They were lawyers."

"Listen," Ham snapped, "my family springs from the best stock around Boston."

"My family never sprang from anybody!" Monk said. "They sprang at 'em!"

WHILE Monk and Ham halved their time impartially between scowling, giving each other man-eating glares, and smiling with utmost pleasantness at Rhoda Haven, the girl told the same story which she had earlier given to Johnny.

The story from which much truth was missing. The tale about persons unidentified attacking her and her father atTower Apartments for reasons unknown. She lied nicely throughout.

Johnny said, "The thing for us to do is go to Tower Apartments and see if we can pick up the a.s.sailants' trail."

"You're very nice to help me," Rhoda Haven said delightedly.

They had held the conference in Monk's penthouse, which was also his chemical laboratory, as well as an example of what a garish imagination could do with modernistic decoration.

"Wait'll I get my pig," Monk said, and called, "Habeas! Habeas Corpus!"

Habeas Corpus was a shote with long legs, wing-sized ears, and a snout built for inquiring into the bottoms of tin cans. Habeas was an Arabian hog, of indefinite age, who probably would never get any larger than he was-about the proportions of an average-sized bulldog. He was Monk's pet.

Habeas appeared, accompanied by Chemistry, who was Ham's pet.

Monk didn't care for Chemistry, probably because Chemistry was a chimpanzee-if not a chimp, then some member of the baboon family-which bore a disquieting likeness to Monk himself. Seen far apart, so that they could not be distinguished by size-Chemistry came little above Monk's knees-there was likely to be confusion of ident.i.ty.

Monk quarreled continually with Ham; Habeas Corpus squabbled perpetually with Chemistry.

"Let us," Johnny said, "extravasate."

Monk translated, "He means let's go to the Tower Apartments."

They extravasated to the penthouse elevator and eventually out on the sidewalk.

"We'll take a taxicab," Ham said.

While they were looking for a taxicab to flag, a man approached.

The man wore overalls, carried a huge paper-wrapped package on one shoulder. His face was soiled. A closer scrutiny would have shown that he was the same man who had been taking sidewalk photographs in front of Doc Savage's headquarters skysc.r.a.per. Unfortunately, no one gave him the closer scrutiny.

The man fell down. Flat on his face, he flopped. Directly in front of Monk, Ham, Johnny and Rhoda Haven. The man hit the sidewalk hard, and the box he was carrying hit even harder.

The box burst. Fumes came out. The vapor was the color of the insides of rotten eggs.

The fallen man took told of his mouth and nose with both hands and pinched, so he could not breathe.

Monk, Ham, Johnny, Rhoda Haven-all stared in astonishment until the fumes came up and enveloped them and were breathed into their lungs, when they realized what was happening-knew that the vapor was gas-after which they ran in different directions, but blindly, b.u.mping into things.

From a.s.sorted hiding places nearby came four men who wore gas masks and carried blackjacks, and a fifth man who drove a bakery delivery truck.

The gas-masked men with the blackjacks slugged Monk, Ham, Johnny and Rhoda Haven to the sidewalk. They loaded the senseless forms into the bakery truck.

By that time, there was a good deal of excitement around about, what with pedestrians who had walked into the tear gas, and people yelling for cops. But the bakery truck got away.

WHEN Monk was able to sit up, he felt of his left eye, and having had black eyes before, he knew its condition.

"Gave you a black eye," Ham said.

"They must have," Monk admitted. "I don't remember fighting for it.""That tear gas was a nice trick."

"Nice enough," Monk snarled, "that I'm gonna pull some legs and arms off some bodies."

"Don't be impulsive," advised one of the four men who had worn gas masks.

The vanlike inside of the bakery truck was larger than a casual exterior glance indicated. The four former gas-mask wearers stood in strategic corners holding large and unquestionably efficient revolvers.

The man who had dropped the gas package sat on the floor near the prisoners and rubbed his leaking eyes. Monk gave him a kick. The man yelped, whipped out a knife, stabbed the floor where Monk's leg had been an instant before.

Monk howled disagreeably-his fights were always noisy-and took the knife-wielder by the throat with a pair of rusty-haired hands that could straighten horseshoes.

A man stepped forward, smacked a revolver down on Monk's bullet-shaped head. Monk dropped.

"h.e.l.l, shoot him if he cuts up again," another man advised. "People will think the motor backfired."

There was silence, and no action except the jumping around of the truck as it moved fast. Judging from the lack of traffic noises, they were outside the city, and on a country road not too well maintained. Only twice did cars pa.s.s them, one of these blowing several times for a share of the road, which must have been narrow, judging from the swearing their drivers did. Finally the car stopped.

One of the men got out.

Five minutes later, he put his head back in the truck.

"Old homestead sure gone to h.e.l.l since I was raised here," he said. "But n.o.body ain't ever filled up the old cistern."

"Cistern?" Ham said.

"Deep, lined with old brick, and easy to cave in," said the man. "With large green toads in the bottom."

"Any water?" another man asked.

"h.e.l.l, don't need water. We can use a knife on them first."

The prisoners were now tied with white cotton rope, while the men stood by with ready guns.

They were dragged out of the bakery truck, whereupon they saw a very seedy-looking farm, the princ.i.p.al crop on which seemed to be five-foot-high weeds. The house, two stories, was leaning southward, and the barn had apparently laid down years ago. Both buildings were minus about everything that could be pried off.

The man had removed old rotting boards from the top of the cistern. The captives were dragged close enough that they could smell odor-probably of unfortunately curious rabbits-that came out of the depths.

"You've got," growled the man who seemed to be spokesman, "one chance to eat dinner tonight."

"What's that?" Ham asked.

"Prove to us that there's no need of killing you."

Ham looked at the man indignantly. "How do you expect us to prove something we don't know? We never saw you thugs before. We have no idea why you seized us."

"You haven't?"

"No."

"It was because you were with this girl," the man explained. "Now that we're being frank, suppose you answer a question for me."

"Shoot.""How much do you know? How much has old Tex Haven and the girl here found out? How much has Jep Dee told them?"

Ham said, "Who is Jep Dee?"

"Is that your answer?"

"The answer," Ham snapped, "is that we're completely puzzled. The girl just said mysterious men were trying to kill her and her father, and she wanted us to protect her."

Rhoda Haven said disgustedly, "And you can see how much protecting they did."

The girl, considering their situation, was remarkably calm. Much more so, in fact, than either Ham, Monk or Johnny; and they were accustomed to danger, having faced it with spasmodic frequency during the time they had been a.s.sociated with Doc Savage. They also liked excitement, it probably being the strongest bond which held them to Doc Savage, next to an intense admiration for the capacity and character of the Man of Bronze. But they had an embarra.s.sed suspicion that the girl was the calmest of them all.

They were beginning to see that Rhoda was a very remarkable girl.

"They don't know anything," the questioning captor decided suddenly. "The girl didn't tell them the truth. It's like Horst figured. She and old Tex Haven just tried to sick Doc Savage onto us."

"So now we do what?"

"Into the cistern with them."

"We could just as well have taken a machine gun to them when they came out of that office building near Wall Street."

"h.e.l.l, we had to learn how much they knew, didn't we? Give a hand."

They darted for Monk first, probably because he had made the most trouble. They had enough respect for Monk's fighting potentialities that all of them gathered around for the task of throwing him into the well.

The big red-haired stranger must have decided this was his opportunity. Because now he came out of the weeds. He did not make much noise.

The red-haired newcomer had two men disarmed practically before they knew he was with them. After that, there was no doubt about his presence.

THE fiery-haired stranger dived into the cl.u.s.ter of men surrounding Monk. Blow sounds, bleats of pain, profane yells, ripping clothes noise jumped out of what soon became a large ball of arms and legs and dust.

The stranger was big, much bigger than any man in the group. His shoulders were wide; his hips were lean. His strength seemed to flow as lightning. His actions were as flaming as the red of his hair.

His grin was big and cheerful through all. If he laughed once during the fray, he laughed a dozen times. Which meant that he laughed often, because it did not last long.