Chapter IV

20

STRANGE FISH

The part about the police was only technically correct. He had a commission in the New York police department, but it was honorary.

A moment later, he heard a pop of a noise from the front of the house. The light bulb had shattered. He went around the house, taking long strides.

A small sheep of a man was standing in the door, looking nervously at the broken light bulb. When he saw Doc, he started to run. But after he had taken three or four nervous jumps, he stopped.

He stared at Doc.

“By any chance,” he asked nervously, “are you someone named Savage?”

“That's right,” Doc said.

The small man made worried gestures with both hands.

“I don't know what to do!” he wailed. “Maybe I had better talk to you.” He began to sidle back toward the front door of the house, taking short steps. “Will you—won't you come in?” he asked uneasily.

THE living−room had a very new, very cheap sofa and chair set and a new, cheap rug. There were two straight−backed chairs, a floor lamp, a table and a radio which weren't new and didn't match. The place didn't, somehow, look lived in. The old furniture had different degrees of gloss.

The small man proceeded to flutter. He jiggled his hands, changed feet, and actually seemed so disturbed that his ears moved.

“I have a brother,” he said. “That's the whole trouble.”

He fluttered some more, did some glaring at objects in the room, and finally fell into a chair.

“Dammit!” he said violently. Then, still more violently, he said, “Dammit! I'm not going to tolerate any more out of him!”

Doc Savage gave part of his attention to the man and the rest of it to the room. The walls were papered, and the paper was not new. There were patches on the paper here and there where the color was different, spots where pictures had hung.

The small man had blue eyes, hair about the gray of a cottontail rabbit's back, and a soft−looking mouth well−shaped for pouting. He looked as if he wanted to beat his fists against something.

“Chapman,” he said. “Do you know my brother Chapman?”

“The name isn't familiar,” Doc said.

“He must know you,” the man said in a distressed voice. “He must.”

“What is your name?”