Chapter X

60

STRANGE FISH

Bill Hazel was still looking at Doc.

“What,” he asked, “do you think of a man who tells half a story?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“It depends,” Doc said, “on what he does with the other half.”

Bill Hazel nodded. “I wish I had the other half. I surely do.”

He squirmed comfortably in the chair. He loosened his tie. Then he took some papers and a small folder from his inside coat pocket. He held these documents in his hands, idly, and began talking.

“THIS story,” said Uncle Bill Hazel, “is a part of the present situation in Axis Europe. So I'm going to review the Axis European situation for you, so you'll understand.

“The first point to get in your mind is that Hitler is out of the picture. He's a cooked goose, and Germany is licked. I hardly need tell you that. The Hitler gang is out on its ear—supposedly.”

He looked at them dramatically for a moment.

“Supposedly. Get that—supposedly,” he said. “There is a lot going on in Germany. Under cover. Wolves trying to be sheep. Nazis carrying olive branches. Devils trying to look like angels. You've heard of Johann Jon Berlitz?”

Doc Savage nodded. “The man the Allies are apparently going to accept as a satisfactory new German leader?”

“That's right. I work for him.”

Doc Savage looked intently at Bill Hazel for several seconds. He couldn't read the man's face at all. Hazel, big−voiced and at ease, was inscrutable.

“You are here in Oklahoma,” Doc asked, “but you work for Johann Jon Berlitz, who is going to be the new political head of Germany?”

“Sounds a bit far−fetched?”

“Yes.”

“It's true.”

“You'd better prove it,” Doc said.

“I can't,” Bill Hazel said. “I can't prove a word of it. But you can. You can get on the telephone to Berlin in Germany—if you can, and I imagine a man of your consequence could—and check on me. You'll find I work for Berlitz.”