Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (14 page)

“Who is he?”

Before they could examine the man, their attention flew to the dirigible, which was fast sinking to the ground.

For the latest member of Doc Savage’s fleet of aerial conveyances was coming to an ignominious landing.

The craft settled along the nest of tree crowns and draped itself there, looking forlorn and pitiful as it slowly deflated. The gondola banged about as it struck high branches, but the cabin maintained its structural integrity.

Soon the knotted rope was lowered and Doc’s men came sliding down like firemen down a firehouse pole. All but their prisoner, the one the bronze man had called “Big Neck.”

Renny was the first to arrive at the scene. He took in the unconscious shotgun man, and Monk, who had decided to sit down.

“Who is this lunk?” the big-fisted engineer wanted to know.

Doc Savage told him, “He is with a man named Wes Snow who claims to own this property.”

Renny grunted, “So why did he shoot at us?”

“Evidently he thought that we were trespassers.”

“Maybe he’ll be relieved that no one got seriously hurt,” Renny suggested hopefully. “Once he finds out who we are.”

“Oh, won’t he?” Monk gasped. “He didn’t fool around long about trying it.”

Ham said, “There is another man. Wes Snow. He’s disguised.”

Renny peered about. “That makes it different. Where is he?”

Ham looked stricken. “I was guarding him,” he croaked.

“Was?”

The resplendent barrister turned around and fled back to his post, heels kicking up dirt.

Ham’s voice came bouncing back, greatly relieved. “Still here. Out cold.”

“What happened to him?” Renny wanted to know.

“His jaw encountered my fist.”

“Nothing to worry about then,” thumped Renny, looking up at the forlorn sight that was the deflated dirigible.

“Should we go and fetch that red-handed scalper out of the cabin?”

“He will keep,” advised Doc Savage.

The others trotted up, brandishing supermachine pistols, and went searching for enemies. Finding none, Johnny and Long Tom holstered their weapons.

“We are in a fix,” suggested Long Tom querulously.

Renny said, “It isn’t that long a walk to a highway. From there we can get a ride to our planes back at the airfield.”

“First,” Doc Savage said, “we will await the return of the house that vanishes every time a photo-electric cell is tripped.”

Explanations were made as they went back to the man with the flour face.

But when they reached the spot, he was no longer there!

Ham Brooks lay supine in the shade of an elm tree. Elms were the most plentiful tree growth in this section of forest, although there were oaks and even maple trees.

There was a lump the size of a robin’s egg forming on his forehead.

“Looks like he got whacked on the head by his own cane,” Long Tom observed.

They conducted a search for the assailant and the missing man with the pancake-floured face. There was no doubt in their minds that he had taken advantage of Ham’s temporary absence, and ambushing him suddenly, ripped his cane from his hand for the purpose of braining the dapper lawyer with its heavy gold knob of a head.

The search took quite some time. Doc Savage had the most luck.

He trailed the man carrying the insensate Wes Snow to the bank of the river. Deeply indented footprints told that tale. There, the tracks ended.

There were signs that a canoe had been beached there. A third man had been guarding it, by the look of footprints in the soft mud of the riverbank.

Doc offered, “Explains how they came up on us unheard. By water.”

There was no point in trailing any farther. On foot, they would be no match for a canoe being paddled downstream.

When they gathered back at the spot where the shotgun man had been laid low, they discovered a new problem.

He was dead. From the look of him, his neck had been broken while he lay oblivious. His head was sitting on his shoulders so crookedly that it made them feel uneasy to look upon the angle at which it hung askew.

There was a circular patch at the exact top of his head, red and raw.

Renny blurted, “Holy cow! Scalped!”

Chapter XIII

GUILTY!

ONE OF THE Highway Patrolmen left the filling station with the three-edged knife, was gone about half an hour, during which thunder gave many great whooping laughs in the night sky, inappropriately enough. Gulliver waited, but he entertained no hopes; the officer had not said where he was going, but hadn’t needed to—Gull knew he was taking the knife down to compare it with the wound of the slain telegraph operator. Nor was he wrong, for the cop returned with the information that the telegrapher, slain so that the text of Box Daniels’s telegram concerning Christopher Columbus would remain a secret, had evidently been killed with this knife. Gull was informed he would be placed in jail without delay.

The returning officer picked up the heavy death shoe and tried the heel in the depression of the murdered man’s temple. It fit.

“This shoe was definitely used to kill him,” the officer decided.

These fellows, Gull thought grimly, work faster than machine guns. The quickness of their operations, the efficiency that it betokened, did not cheer Gulliver. Bad business to try to fool these fellows with tricks such as burying murder weapons!

“The wildcats got you,” Spook Davis told Gull.

An officer growled, “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t mind me,” said Spook. “I’m just quaint.”

The policeman stabbed a finger at Gull. “You’re under arrest on suspicion of slaying the telegraph operator and Box Daniels, then bringing the murder knife back here and sticking it up a tree, thinking it wouldn’t be found. Also, of burying this shoe, with which Daniels was slain. What have you got to say for yourself?”

“Whew!” was all Gull could manage.

“Don’t you think you want to confess?”

“What I want is a lawyer,” Gull said gravely.

“What you need is a genuine magician to get you out of this,” said the cop. “The only good a lawyer will do you is maybe make out your will.”

It would be hard to find a lawyer who would wax enthusiastic over a client who only had four dollars and two cents to his name, Gull thought. He had never looked at a blacker future.

Lightning glared and thunder continually whacked over Old Duzzit’s filling station. Ivan Cass loitered nearby. His stony face kept its cold expressionlessness; he offered no commentary. Harvell Braggs had remained in his limousine, complaining of his feet.

Spook Davis stood at one side, alternately opening his mouth and scratching his head. As his agitation grew, he began to resemble a man who was holding a deadly cobra by the neck and wondering how to let go.

“Oh God, I don’t know wha-what to duh-do!” he wailed suddenly. “If—if—you policemen would only protect muh-me!”

The cops stared at him. So did Gull.

Spook shook and flopped his mouth open and shut.

“Huh—huh—he’ll kuk-kill me if I talk!” Spook moaned.

A cop roared, “What are you talking about?”

“The green-haired man!” Spook gulped.

“Who?”

“The murderer,” Spook emphasized.

The officers stared at him with pop-eyed attention. “You—know—the—killer?”

“A green-haired man,” Spook said excitedly. “I saw him! Knocked Box Daniels in the head, he did! Discovered me watching him. Threatened to kuk-kill me if I told anything. I’ve buh-been—afraid!”

A State Highway Patrolman scratched his head. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

“I can prove it,” Spook declared solemnly.

With this, he went to the filing station safe, turned the knob, made the combination work, and opened the safe—to Gull’s astonishment. Gull didn’t know the combination of old Duzzit’s rusty safe himself, was surprised that Spook Davis knew it. But Spook often knew things no one expected him to know.

Out came a green wig.

“See,” said Spook. “I got the killer’s wig.”

GULLIVER teetered on his heels, seeing complications coming. The strange chartreuse hairpiece felt like a finger of suspicion pointed directly at him. Since Gull’s hair had gone white the year before, the unfortunate consequence of habitually using special greasepaint for stage purposes, he had transformed a liability into a spectacular addition to his magician’s act by dyeing his snowy crowning glory the exact hue of spinach for his performances, giving him a unique trademark. The Great Gulliver, the Magic Genie with the Green Hair, was how one New York critic had ballyhooed him.

They would not know that in La Plata, Missouri. But an investigation would bring out this unique fact.

Spook Davis meant well with this stuff—this exaggerating. That’s what it was, of course, although it had deceived Gull for a moment. Spook Davis was a skilled prevaricator, and it was natural that he should resort to such an insane ruse in an emergency. For Spook was the victim of a strange psychological condition. Some people are kleptomaniacs and cannot help stealing things, but with Spook it was telling whoppers. As for that green wig, it was part of a disguise which Spook wore when working as Gull’s stage assistant during the illusion where The Great Gulliver got into a steamer trunk on the stage, which was then made to appear empty by means of mirrors, while an instant later Gull appeared in the audience. This was affected by the simple ruse of Spook, and not Gull, appearing in the audience, Gull really being still in the stage trunk. This stunt invariably brought down the house. Gull thought of all this in a rambling way as he waited for the worst to happen.

The officers passed the wig back and forth between them, holding it gingerly by the hair as if it were a skunk hide still retaining some of the aroma characteristic of polecat hides. While they considered, the sky became noisier with approaching storm.

It was obvious to Gull that Spook had produced the wig from one of his pockets via sleight of hand, but the patrolmen never suspected that, so slickly was it accomplished.

“You want to be protected from this killer?” an officer asked.

“You bet!” Spook said, ill-advisedly.

“Then we’ll put you in jail too,” another officer said helpfully. “The town of La Plata has reason to be proud of their jail. It is a very substantial little jail.”

Spook Davis’s mouth fell open and he couldn’t seem to get it closed. Ivan Cass, who had been staring at them intently, shook his head and sucked at his lips.

Spook was handcuffed and placed beside Gull. Spook now wore an injured expression.

“How do
you
like it in the wildcat den?” Gull asked.

“To you,” Spook said gloomily, “the fruit of the pecan tree, and many of them.”

The Great Gulliver found himself resisting a strong impulse to determine just how much force would be needed to kick in his stooge’s ribs. Then fate arrived. Fate in the person of one known as Tonky Duzzit, who was short, wore gum boots and overalls the year round. And who carried the reputation of being the toughest old scamp in Macon County; he owned the One-Stop-Duzzit filling station, which made him Gull’s employer. Tonky Duzzit glared at Gull, opened his mouth….

“I quit,” Gull said.

Old Tonky Duzzit made it unanimous by going ahead and telling Gulliver he was fired.

One of the patrolmen added with grim humor that Gull and his pal were taking a little vacation with expenses paid. And in the midst of that, Gull emitted a piercing yell.

He pointed out into the thundering night, using both handcuffed hands to do so.

“Look!”
he yelled.
“The green-haired man!”

The officers spun, “Where?” Lightning glare washed them.

Spook began bellowing, and scampered forward, stabbing his arms ahead, shouting, “I told you I saw a green-haired man! There he is! Look! There!”

An officer ran forward, seized Spook, restraining him; everyone was changing positions, craning necks and trying to see the marauder. This went on for a few moments, with the lightning winking mighty red eyes noisily.

Then two patrolmen discovered that Gulliver Greene had taken his departure into the very black night.

“He’s gone!” a cop bawled wrathfully. The handcuffs that had been encircling his wrists now reposed—open and empty—atop the office safe. “Picked!” he guessed, correctly, as it seemed obvious.

“Hunt for him!” an officer ordered violently. “He can’t just walk off from us like that!”

“That trick,” Spook Davis said triumphantly, “is known to conjurors as misdirection.”

Ivan Cass came over and knocked Spook senseless with his fist.

In the confusion, no one noticed that the office safe door, which had been ajar, was now firmly closed. Nor did the excited officers possess the presence of mind to peer inside for a huddled man. Only a contortionist could fit inside the small space.

Besides, Spook Davis had earlier worked himself into position so that he stood in front of the safe door, concealing its condition from view.

THE TWO patrolmen hunted Gulliver Greene for half an hour. Then nine more policemen arrived in three patrol cars, and they all hunted an hour longer. Two farmers who were fox hunters were routed out of bed, their foxhounds borrowed, but the animals refused to trail anything but foxes as good foxhounds should. Disgusted, their faces long, the patrolmen returned to their cars and stood a while discussing ways and means, not only of catching Gulliver Greene, but of keeping the newspapers from printing the story of how ridiculous had been the ruse by which he escaped.

Spook Davis, back among the living, remarked, “You don’t need to feel so put out. Of course it was an old trick, but you must remember The Great Gulliver and myself—especially The Great Gulliver—are two of the fanciest escape artists since—”

“Gr-r-r-r!” growled a cop.

They loaded Spook Davis into a car and headed him for the La Plata jail, after first confiscating the bent hairpin they noticed dropping out of his mouth for lockpicking purposes.

IVAN CASS and ponderous Harvell Braggs got into their limousine and also drove into town, where they registered at the small hotel, getting separate rooms.