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pens, Paula, you can bet on Albert. Now, them, and Miss Fenisong hadn’t seen them. .

Albert was afraid of someone, and the per-

. .

son he was investigating was Doc Savage.

Monk Mayfair, the big chew, came into That must have been what Albert was do-the library yelling, “Sammy! Hey, Sammy!

ing—investigating Doc Savage. That’s Where are you, shining-eyes?” And I had a probably why he wanted Savage on the ter-busy three seconds moving down to the race of the hotel at 7:15. He wanted to watch other end of the library where I could call, “I Savage’s reaction. Albert probably felt that, was just coming in here to get a book. What by observing Savage, he could see whether do you want?” As innocent as anything.

the man was guilty.”

“You couldn’t understand any of these Miss Fenisong was silent. A shocked books,” Monk said. “Doc says you can beat it silence, I gathered. Like my own.

if you want to. He’s decided you’re innocent “Because of what he had done, Albert enough.”

got killed,” said McGraff. “Albert was investi-

“On what theory does he figure I’m gating Savage, and he got killed. Now, who honest?”

would be likely to kill him? Let’s be practical.

“Search me. On the theory no evil can Let’s not dream. Let’s say the logical one to grow in an ivory ball, I guess.”

knock him off was Savage.”

From the other end of the library, be-She must have looked pretty upset at hind the big bookcases where the Macs had that, because the long Mac jumped into the been doing that selling job on Miss Fenisong, selling job. His voice sounded as if he had there wasn’t a sound. They were as quiet as been oiling and preening it while he waited.

the mouse after the cat ate it.

McCutcheon said: “Mr. McGraff and I

“No, thanks,” I told Monk. “I’ll stick have discussed this Spatny chap, and we’ve around.”

concluded he must be what he said he was—

“No need to trouble yourself,” he said.

another good friend of Albert’s. And he, too, “Oh, you’re real educational, and I like met foul play.”

it,” I said, and leered, meaning to let him “But Mr. Savage didn’t have anything know that I knew the main idea with him was to do with what happened to Spatny!” she to get me out of competition for lovely-voice.

objected.

I knew what the Macs were doing with the silence—sneering.

SAVAGE listened to me patiently—but

“How do you know, my dear?”

without, I had a feeling, removing more than McCutcheon asked. “You were unconscious, two per cent of his attention from something were you not? You had fainted from the purplish that was happening to something shock of learning Albert was dead.”

liquid yellowish in a glass thing I had heard Her indrawn breath was like fear going called a wash bottle.

into a cold room.

I said: “You’re being sold down the

“Uh-huh,” said McGraff. “That’s it.

river by two termites. The Macs are boring That’s the point we’re making. . . . We, the from within.”

three of us, may be in just as much danger He asked what I meant, and I told him.

as Albert was—and not from some mysteri-

“Indeed?” he said.

ous mumbo-jumbo. From Savage!”

“The rats,” I said.

McCutcheon laughed about as ugly a

“Oh, they were only doing some natural laugh as you could take out of a coffin. He conjecturing,” he said.

said: “You don’t for a moment believe this “They were conjecturing a coat of tar mumbo-jumbo about black things fifty feet on to you, as far as the girl is concerned,” I high, do you?”

said. “If you’ve got a baseball bat around That was something Miss Fenisong here I can borrow, I’ll do a little missionary hadn’t thought of. It was a good argument, a work on the Macs.”

fine clincher, too. The best argument is one Savage said: “The technique of you can’t answer without seeming a fool, and Bushido judo which McGraff demonstrated this one was that. Who was willing to believe includes quite a repertory of moves for dis-there were black spooks fifty feet high? They arming an opponent armed with a club, in were hard to believe when you had seen case you are interested.”