29

there was great devilment afoot. Would being pulled. It was cold, and the cold took Spatny help him? In memory of old time hold of my nose and cheeks like somebody’s spent dodging Nazis, Spatny would. The mid-fingers. I thought that an estate like this night appointment was made, Spatny had should have servants enough around to keep kept it, and here he was—Gross naturally the sidewalks shoveled of snow.

hadn’t shown.

Savage said: “Here, Sammy. Better put That was what he had to tell us.

this on.” He was offering me a kind of a jacket; I took it and it was a lot heavier than a jacket should be, but not as heavy as I DOC SAVAGE chiseled on him for thought it should be when I found out what it more details. Savage asked: “What about was.

Miss Fenisong? You said she was related to “What’s this?” I asked.

Gross—his niece? Was that straight?”

“Bulletproof vest.”

He confessed he’d made that up. He

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Does anybody didn’t have the speck of an idea who Miss mind if I just start back to Kansas City?”

Fenisong was. “I didn’t know who you were, “Put it on,” Savage said, and leaned a and I was pretending to be the gatekeeper,”

finger against a button. We could hear a set he explained.

of chimes clanging, and no other sound for a “What about that chromospheric erup-while, and then a voice said loudly—and too tion tonight?” Savage demanded.

friendly—a greeting.

The old giant merely hung his mouth “Come in, fellows,” the voice said. “I’m open.

glad you got here.”

I said: “And a black scare-baby in the Savage looked at Monk. Monk looked street. Don’t forget that one.”

at Savage. There was a certain amount of No pay.

coöperation in the way their eyebrows went Savage asked him how he’d like to up, then down, questioningly.

help us pay a visit to the estate. He said he’d “Ham Brooks?” I asked.

like it fine, and wanted to know exactly how “His voice, anyway,” Monk said.

Albert Gross had died. Savage told him “What’s the matter?”

about it without really telling him anything—“Too friendly,” Monk said. “Watch.” He just that Gross had been found dead of little lifted his voice and called, “Ham, this is holes following some strange doings at a Monk.”

banquet for scientists. Meantime, Monk got “Well, come in, old pal, old pal,” said out and found the large iron gates were the deep oratorical voice. “Don’t stand out locked.

there in the cold, old friend.”

The gate-lock didn’t stump Savage Monk shook his head. “Something’s long. He picked it. He also found an alarm on wrong. Normally he’d invite me to freeze to it, and short-circuited the wiring so the thing death.”

wouldn’t do us any dirt. We drove up a lane We went in anyway.

that could have been the Pennsylvania Turn-pike, and came to the mansion, the greenhouse, the stables, a garage, servants’ quar-HE was a man I had seen at the ban-ters, tool houses, guest cottage and a few quet, and not remembered as well as I other buildings. It was still dark night; if any-should have. He had wide shoulders, a trim thing, it was darker than it had been. Clouds waist; a good-looking man except for an like soot rolls had moved in overhead.

overwide mouth and hair that was a little Savage radioed the police. He asked slick, too wonderfully barbered for my taste.

them to check up on Mr. J. Heron Spatny, He wore full dress—tails, white tie—and I Madison Avenue florist.

had supposed one monkey suit was about At that, the old man hissed once like a like another, but this one had class and snap.

viper.

I found out later Ham Brooks was reputed “I’m relieved to find you are affiliated one of the best-dressed men in New York, with the police,” he said, which didn’t fit with but I think I knew it then.

the hiss.

He sat in one of the parlors—there We got out of the car. The snow would be several parlors in a house like grunted under our feet, or squeaked like nails this—on a gold-brocaded, purple velvet, 30

DOC SAVAGE

fringe-edged divan that was large enough to My head came clear quickly, too; be-hold half a dozen other occupants. He didn’t cause at once I knew that Savage must have get up and the great pleasure in his voice used some of that gas they had talked about, was not matched by the expression on his the stuff that you couldn’t see nor smell, that face as he said, “Come in, come in. How would knock you, but not if you held your many of you are there? Just four of you? Is breath for as long as forty seconds. I hadn’t that all?”

held my breath. Savage had hit me with a Monk said: “We left the others outside hint that was as big as a scoop-shovel, but holding the reindeer. . . . What are you pull-my latch string hadn’t been out.

ing off Ham?”

“Never a dull moment. Oh, boy!” I said.

Ham Brooks said too loudly, “Nothing Monk Mayfair said: “You should have at all—unless I want to learn whether or not let me put him in the bathtub.” He was talking I’m bulletproof. I’m quite sure I’m not, so the to Ham Brooks, who was looking pleased test doesn’t appeal.”

with the world, and with as much of Miss “Huh?”

Fenisong’s leg as he could see.

“I have great faith in my judgment of Miss Fenisong still slept. Whoever had human nature,” Ham Brooks added. “I hope it picked her up and arranged her in the chair isn’t misplaced. Otherwise I’d have a rather should have been a window-dresser in one of sad opinion of myself for inviting you in.”

those Broadway shops I’d noticed that day, Monk got it. He said: “Male or female?”

the places where sexy black underthings “Who?”

seemed to be the principal article of trade.

“Behind the pretty divan,” Monk said.

Asleep, she was nice. I was wide awake in Ham Brooks sighed like the fellow who no time.

had decided he would have to swim the “We ought to get together on these creek where the alligator was. He said: “It’s things,” I said. “If you’ve got any more trick Miss Fenisong.”

gadgets, how about letting me know?”

“Ah!”

Ham Brooks examined me. He didn’t

“Indignant and well-armed,” Ham exactly fall on his face with approval. “Who is added.

this chap?” he asked. “A taxi driver?”

In the silence that followed, if frowns “What’s the matter with taxi drivers?” I had had magnetic properties, the divan demanded.

would have been lifted and suspended. Monk Savage told the dapper lawyer who I Mayfair said: “Sammy, would you care to try was. He could have made my character out the properties of your new bulletproof stand out a little more in the telling.

vest by being first to look behind the divan?”

“Miss Fenisong is reviving,” Monk re-

“Miss Fenisong wouldn’t shoot nice marked, and that put a stop to my history.

people like us,” I said. “But no thanks, any-We gathered around and waited admiringly.

way.”

Even the old giant, Spatny, had his shoulders Doc Savage said: “A tense situation back.

like this makes one hold one’s breath, She awakened the way I had. Quick.

doesn’t it?”

Clear-headed. She arranged her skirt more I missed the cue. The floor rocked a lit-decorously, disappointing Monk. She had a tle, steadied, came up and rested against my natural question. “What happened?” she face, gently enough. I slept, but I didn’t wanted to know.

dream of a thing.

Doc Savage said: “Mr. Brooks advises me that you took him unawares, menaced him with a gun”—he nodded briefly at a .25-Chapter VII caliber automatic, blue, lady-size, on the table—”and were holding him here, apparently AWAKENING was just as pleasant—I pending the arrival of friends.”

swam up out of nothing that was soft and not “Unawares—nothing!” she said. “He at all bad, and there I was, on a nice tiled had been trailing me. He had his eyes open floor, with ice-water flying into my face. No wide enough, particularly when I was getting headache. Not much dizziness. Just a feeling out of a cab and the wind blew my skirt. I of having been a fool.

may have outsmarted him, but he was clearly aware I was in existence.”

NO LIGHT TO DIE BY