Chapter XII

71

STRANGE FISH

“How long,” Ham asked, “before this explosion is coming?”

“It may be immediately, and it may not be for days,” Doc told him.

“Just what shape will the blow−up take?”

“First the fat man will show up,” Doc said. “He will have his friends with him, or close behind him. There will be several of them. The ones who were in New York have probably had a chance to get out here by now.

So there will be a hatful of them.”

“After the fat man comes, then what?”

“Then it will be every man for himself. This is the way you had better look at it: Anything can happen. You have no friends. You had better believe nothing you hear and half what you see, and act accordingly.”

“Why,” Monk asked, “aren't you telling us the whole story?”

“Because your job is to take care of Paris Stevens, and I don't want you distracted,” Doc told him. “And the other reason is that I don't know the whole story.”

“You're sure acting as if you do.”

“I just kicked the bush,” Doc told him. “Now I'm waiting to see if anything in the shape of a skunk pops out.”

Monk and Ham moved away silently, and Doc heard them tapping softly on Paris' bedroom door. He heard whispers, then heard Monk and Ham being admitted.

Doc himself went outdoors. He stood there in the darkness. Some clouds had gotten in front of the moon, and the night had suddenly become sooty. The odor of the distant oil wells was heavier, oppressive.

The heaviness that had come into the night suddenly got on Doc's nerves, putting him on an edge. In a moment, he was perspiring. And there was the tightness in his stomach.

Now he had the unreasoning, sickening conviction that he had made a mistake. Made a fool of himself.

Jumped at something that was utterly improbable and untrue. There was no reason for him being less sure now than he had been before. But he was much less certain.

He went back into the house. He knocked on the door of Uncle Bill Hazel's room.

Bill Hazel hadn't been asleep. He hadn't undressed. He had a bathrobe around him, however, and looked as if he might have been trying to sleep.

“Yes?” Hazel said. “Something wrong?”

“No, everything is fine,” Doc told him, trying to put hearty casualness in his voice. “I just thought I would tell you we checked up and found your story was true.”

“Checked?”

“Telephoned to Johann Jon Berlitz, in Europe,” Doc said.