Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (18 page)

“Why did you run off from me earlier in the night?”

She did not answer.

Gull said, “I’ll turn you loose.”

He did this.

“Why did you run off before?” he asked.

Her silence continued.

“Where is Christopher Columbus?” Gull questioned.

Sky fire showed her tightly compressed mouth.

“What is the mystery about Columbus?”

The storm noise seemed to be getting louder.

“Where did I hook into this thing in the first place?”

He waited vainly for a reply.

“She ain’t very talkative,” Spook Davis said dryly. “That makes her unique among women.”

Gulliver put a hand on the girl’s arm, held it and found that it quieted a little under his fingers. He retained his grip and with the other hand patted Ivan Cass’ clothing, located a lump that was a flashlight, then moved the girl behind the big maple tree—with the tree between themselves and the vacant lot and the trailer. The light on the girl’s face showed very wide eyes, paleness, lips that shook each time she could not hold them tightly together.

“Scared,” Gulliver decided.

Spook Davis stated firmly, “Young lady, we have no intention of harming you, so you needn’t be afraid.”

“She’s not scared of us.” Gull dabbed the flashlight beam on Saint Pete’s face again. “Are you?”

She stared into the flash glare and her lips loosened to shape the beginning of a word. The word did not come. She lifted both hands and pushed the wealth of cinnamon hair back from her forehead, then her palms pressed tightly to her temples and remained. As if squeezing a horror within.

“Listen,” she said huskily, “I’ll tell you something.”

Gulliver waited.

“You had no real connection with this in the first place,” the girl told him.

“No?”

“Box Daniels got mixed up in it. He tried to extricate himself, and discovered he not only couldn’t but that he was to be killed because the rest of them were afraid of him. Box couldn’t go to the police because—well, he had his reasons. He thought of you. You were a famous magician. He admired you. So he tried to come to you for help.”

“We figured that much already,” Gull said. “All but the reason for his not going to the police. Go on. What was Box Daniels mixed up in?”

The girl insisted, “Turn me loose.”

THE WIND pushed against them harder and harder. The sky kept exploding as if shotguns were going off. A big drop of rain hit Gull’s face like a watery pebble, then another; the drops came faster, got smaller, slowly turning into a wall of water that beat them, filled their pockets and speedily came up around their ankles.

Gull held on to the girl.

“Keep talking.”

She leaned close to him, screaming over the storm, “If I am not with Cass’ men, they will think I am working with you.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“They will believe I’ve told you what little I have learned.”

“Little?”

“And they’ll kill Christopher Columbus,” the girl shrieked.

Gulliver seized her shoulders, pulled her close to his face.

“What is this Columbus stuff, anyway?” he shouted.

“Let me loose!”

Gulliver roared at Spook Davis, “Where’s the rope that was on her wrists?” They had some difficulty locating the rope in the streaming rain, but succeeded, and Gull found it long enough to tie Saint Pete’s wrists in one cluster. He propelled her against the maple.

Meantime, Spook Davis searched Ivan Cass. He found a roll of greenbacks, licked his lips, glanced quickly at Gull and observed Gull had seen the money. Reluctantly, he replaced the roll in Cass’ pocket. He shoved his hand under Cass’ armpit, jerked it out as if stung, and straightened.

“We ain’t learned a heck of a lot so far!” he shouted.

“Get Cass’ gun!” Gull directed.

Spook Davis shuddered, reached back into Cass’ armpit, and brought out his compact dark revolver. He held it gingerly with thumb and forefinger, and started to throw it away, for he would rather handle a snake than a gun.

Gull seized the weapon and said, “Finish searching him.”

Going back to the girl, Gull couched beside her and yelled over the rain, advising her to talk freely. He made rash promises about protecting her from danger. He was saying that they would find Christopher Columbus, if he was in danger, and protect him, too, when Spook Davis stumbled to them in excitement.

“Cass had the rest of old Box Daniels’ telegram!”

GULLIVER GREENE and Spook Davis pressed against the tree and jammed their shoulders together to make an ineffective tent in which to inspect the telegram—the message which Ivan Cass and the small man with the big voice had tried to keep unknown by murdering the La Plata depot agent.

It was long.

IM REALLY JAMMED UP OR I WOULDNT HOLLER HELP TO A NEPHEW I HAVE NEVER SEEN BUT YOU HAPPEN TO BE MY ONLY LIVING RELATIVE AND A BIG SHOT SO HERE GOES STOP I HAVE BEEN A FOOL WITH MY MIND-READING AND GOT IN SOME TERRIBLE DOINGS WITH A MAN NAMED IVAN CASS AND SOME OTHERS STOP THIS IS NOT PLAIN CROOK BUSINESS AS YOU MAY THINK BUT A LOT WORSE AND SO BIG ITLL AMAZE YOU STOP DONT THINK IM CRAZY STOP I SLIPPED AWAY WHEN CASS AND THE REST THREATENED ME STOP NOW THEYRE TRYING TO BURY ME SO I NEED HELP AND AM COMING TO YOU STOP IN CASE I DONT MAKE IT YOU BETTER HAVE DOC SAVAGE INVESTIGATE THE SILENT SAINTS AND THEIR PROMISED LAND NEAR LAKE OF THE OZARKS STOP UP TO YOU NOW STOP I
KNOW POSITIVELY THAT CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS ALIVE.

UNCLE BOXTON

In reading the telegram, Gulliver Greene supplied the last seven words from memory. The seven missing in this wire being the portion of the message which he had torn off while fighting Cass’ runt assistant for the missive.

“I’m disgusted,” Spook Davis said.

Gulliver felt likewise. The telegram itself explained Ivan Cass’ desperate efforts to apprehend it. The message made it unnecessarily clear that Christopher Columbus was involved. It implicated the Silent Saints. It mentioned their Promised Land, located near the Lake of the Ozarks. That part at least was a new development. It also suggested that they sic the famous Doc Savage onto the mess. That was perhaps the queerest part of all. Gulliver Greene, of course, knew who Doc Savage was. He was a trouble-buster of Herculean proportions. Although he had never met the famous Man of Bronze, Gull always felt a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw Doc’s picture in the newspapers. It was as if he had met the man—although his memory was notably blank in that department. Still, Gull was an admirer of Doc Savage, although he never liked to talk about it.

But the element still lacking was the thing Gulliver wanted most to know. Spook voiced it when he muttered:

“But what’s the shooting all about, anyway?”

Gulliver said sourly, “You better watch Cass in case he comes out of it.”

“Oh, he won’t. I hit him a couple of more times with my brick.”

Gulliver sank beside Saint Pete. The roaring violence of the wind was easing. But even more rain was coming down; it rushed against them in clammy strings.

Gulliver held the flash ray briefly on the girl’s garments—the dark, plain, coarsely woven cloth. He fingered the fabric speculatively, eyes narrowed, while he blew the rain off his lips and shook his head to get it out of his ears. Definitely burlap.

“You had best forget this and let me go,” the girl said unexpectedly. “It is none of your affair.”

“No. I’m just the guy who got two murders hung on him. Who are the Silent Saints and what is the Promised Land?”

She gave him silence.

“Who is Christopher Columbus?”

Saint Pete said suddenly, wildly, “You won’t believe me! You’ll think I’m crazy. But Christopher Columbus is the great navigator who discovered America.”

Gull straightened and his back felt bowed and tight not alone because of the beating rain. The rain running over his tall body was like something alive and moving. He winked water out of his eyes and blew it off his lips.

Spook Davis croaked, “Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America! Listen, who’s going crazy around here?”

Gull sank to the girl’s side. “Let’s have the story.”

She did not answer.

Picking up Cass’ hat, Gulliver used it to cover the revolver, which he held in one hand. Talking loudly over the storm, he directed Spook Davis to remain with Ivan Cass and Saint Pete and watch them.

“I’m going to corral that little runt and the others,” he ended, “then we’re all going to be sensible and go to the police.”

“If you find Columbus, grab him,” Spook Davis suggested wryly. “I’d like to talk to that long-haired zombie.”

GULLIVER strode off, hunched against the cold rain, keeping behind the maples. When he had covered a score of paces, there was foot-slapping noise behind him. Then Spook Davis’ hand was on his arm.

“The girl says call you back. She’s got something to say.”

Gull took long running steps back through the dark storm. He collided with one of the maples in his haste, and thereafter had the feeling that his nose was mixing scarlet with the water pouring down his face.

The girl’s voice had a strangeness.

“Those are not ordinary men.”

Gulliver asked, “Why?” and sounded puzzled.

“They have extrasensory perception.”
³

“They’ve got what?”

“Extrasensor—they are mind-readers.”

Spook said dryly, “Oh, fan me, mother!”

Gulliver was silent. He put the light on Saint Pete’s face, turned it off quickly, not liking the wide-eyed horror he saw.

“Mind-readers,” Saint Pete repeated. “Watch them. They can tell what you are thinking, what you know.”

The expression on Gull’s tanned face must have conveyed his doubt, for the girl seemed to reply to his thoughts.

“You are wrong,” she said calmly. “Scientists, many of them at least, agree that the ability does actually exist.”

Spook Davis blinked foolishly at the young woman in the burlap frock. The one-way conversation had him puzzled. He opened his mouth….

The amazing girl said, “No, The Great Gulliver is not whispering to me or anything.”

Spook started. “Hey! That is exactly what I was gonna ask you!”

Gull snapped, “Keep your shirt on, Spook.”

Spook said, “Whew!” blankly. “Somebody wire Dunninger that his act’s been stolen!”

Impatiently, Gull demanded, “What is back of this mess?”

“Have you any idea?” Saint Pete sounded as if she really wanted to know about that.

Gull had no idea; but he did not have to say so.

“I see.” The girl seemed relieved. “You’ll be amazed when you learn. But if I told you the truth now, you’d think—well, human credulity is controlled subconsciously by retrospection.”

“Huh?” Spook Davis grunted. “Use little words. What you just said means as much to me as abracadabra-hocus-pocus-presto-chango.”

“Your mind is like your stomach—it often does not like to digest strange food,” Saint Pete elaborated.

Spook’s “Oh!” showed he still didn’t understand.

Gulliver waited for a while before he said, “Go ahead.”

“That is all.” She closed her eyes tightly in the light which he put on her again. “I hope—wish you luck.”

Gull doused his flash. A lightning flash came at just the right moment to show the burlap-clad girl in the middle of a violent shudder.

A little later, Gulliver Greene arose and moved away in the black rain. Spook followed for a short distance. Understanding began to dawn upon his confused thinking.

“That girl!” Spook gasped. “She is—duh-do you realize—she has the power that so few in the world have.
She actually has it!”

“I feel sorry for her,” Gull Greene muttered. “She’s so awfully pretty to be insane.”

Spook went back. Gulliver continued on toward the vacant lot and trailer, feeling cold and clammy inside and out.

Chapter XVIII

THE ANNIHILATION OF TIME

THEY STOOD IN the center of the empty octagonal parlor, awaiting the unknown.

Doc Savage began speaking. “You may safely expect certain psychological symptoms to occur during the reversion process.”

Almost as soon as the bronze man spoke those words,
it
happened.

First, there was an alarming flickering of the house lights, followed by a pins-and-needles prickling on their epidermis. The air became unaccountably thin in their lungs.

“I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny exclaimed.

Monk began scratching at his hairy forearms arms furiously. “Hey, it itches like murder!”

“That is to be expected,” said Doc, calm-voiced.

Suddenly, they went blind. It was not the blindness of utter blackness, such as blind persons experience. Instead a hazy gray veil descended over their vision. This was interspersed with crisscrossing black lines. It was as if something was being projected in front of their retinas.

“Granular grayness,” was how Johnny expressed it.

The combined sensations continued for barely a minute. During that unsettling interval, a new sensation took hold. It was a familiar feeling. They had felt it before.

“Ye-e-o-w!”
howled Monk.

“I feel as if I am dropping into a void,” bleated Johnny.

Monk grabbed for something to hold onto—found nothing. Stumbling into a wall, for the first time he became aware of the fact that the walls were humming and vibrating. This had not been audible until he touched the wall. Powerful mechanisms stood behind those walls. That electromagnetism was involved was proven by the way the overhead light fixture began to twist wildly, as if in a storm, pulled by powerful forces emanating from the thick walls. They heard this rather than saw it.

“This is like ridin’ our express elevator back at headquarters,” gulped Monk.

Indeed, it was. The sensation of dropping continued for what seemed to be several eternities, which, with their vision virtually shut off, was to say the least unnerving.

Monk was saying, “When does this stop?” when it did. Abruptly.