Chapter IX

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Johnny Toms had pulled down the windows. Apparently he hadn't locked them.

Doc moved rapidly, picked a window that hadn't squawked when it was put down, and lifted it gradually. He put it up about a foot. There wasn't enough breeze to stir the shade.

He hesitated, wondering what to do about the shade. He didn't feel it would be safe to raise it. Finally he got his pocket knife out, opened the sharp blade, and deliberately made a slit in the shade. He got away with that.

An eye to the shade, he discovered he was looking into Johnny Toms' living−room. It was a rustic−looking place, the decoration motif being western and Indian. Headdresses on the walls, moccasins, Indian clubs, drums, a few bows and arrows and spears. The chairs were bottomed with buckskin.

Johnny Toms was moving a floor lamp to a corner of the room. He adjusted the shade so that it would throw its strongest light into a glass tank of an affair on a rustic stand table.

The tank was a small, home aquarium.

Toms scowled into the aquarium for a while. Then he moved away and came back with one of the arrows off the wall. While he was getting the arrow, Doc saw that the sole occupant of the aquarium seemed to be a fish.

Toms deviled the fish for a while with the arrow. The fish attacked the arrow industriously, fiercely. Toms started to put a finger into the aquarium, changed his mind, and dug up a buckskin glove.

Thrusting his right hand encased in the glove into the water, he finally cornered the fish, brought it out, and began inspecting it.

He examined the fish from all angles, intently, carefully.

He swore.

He put the fish back in the aquarium and returned the aquarium to where it had been standing in the corner.

He undressed, turned out the light, raised the windows and the shades, and went to bed.

Chapter X

DOC SAVAGE went back to the ranch house. He found that no one had gone to bed, that Monk and Ham were keeping Paris Stevens up and talking an ear off her. Doc listened to Ham talk.

Ham was telling a story about the time they had made a forced landing in an African jungle, their plane having been forced down. The story, during the first part of the telling, was mildly complimentary to Monk, who was listening with a puzzled expression.

Doc could understand Monk's puzzlement. The whole story was a preposterous lie. But Ham, as he made it up out of full cloth, did a convincing job. He used names of places and times, and put in little anecdotes of what had happened to give it convincing color.

After he had listened a while, Doc believed he saw the motive behind Ham's lying. He was surprised that Monk didn't see it, too. But Monk was taking it in. Monk smirked when Ham described little feats of heroism Chapter X

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and common sense which he, Monk, performed.

When Ham got to the point of describing the pygmies which had made them prisoner, Monk was so sucked in that he nodded emphatically at each point, confirming the whopper. The pygmies, Ham explained, were vicious little characters. Utterly vicious. The strange part of their character makeup, Ham explained, was that they approved and admired nothing which was not nasty, vicious and unwholesome. Monk, and Ham and Doc, Ham explained, had languished in the captivity of these filthy, abhorrent little people for some time.

At this point, Monk woke up. For a moment, he had a ghastly expression.

“Yes, indeed,” Monk said hastily. “Let me add a few details which Ham is leaving—”

“I'm telling the story,” Ham protested hurriedly.

“I was there, too, wasn't I?” Monk demanded. “Let me tell about the feasts which the pygmies prepared.”

Ham wasn't enthusiastic. He started to object.

Monk rushed ahead with words, saying that the feasts were an important ceremony with the pygmies. They celebrated the adoption into the tribe of someone the pygmies admired, someone of the same depraved character as themselves.

“Imagine our horror,” Monk said smoothly, “when we discovered that they were adopting Ham, here.

Ham closed his eyes tightly. He had been sucked into his own trap.

Paris Stevens gasped, and stared nervously at Ham.

“We never could figure out why the pygmies got the idea Ham was a brother under the skin,” Monk said blandly. “The little fellows were excellent judges of character, we had noticed, as most rascals are. You may have noticed yourself how mean, nasty−minded people show a dislike for nice people which seems almost instinctive. We couldn't see why they took a liking to Ham.”

Ham turned somewhat purple.

“That's a lie!” he muttered.

Monk looked falsely contrite. “Oh, I'm sorry I told that part of it,” he said, giving the impression he was protecting Ham.

Doc Savage joined them. This sort of thing was frequently getting started between Monk and Ham. It was the bane of his existence.

“Miss Stevens is tired,” Doc said firmly. “She didn't get any sleep last night.”

AFTER Paris had gone into the house, Ham gave his personal opinion of Monk at the moment. It was a complete opinion. Ham left nothing out, using about fifty words to express himself.