Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (36 page)

He stood approximately three feet tall and could not have weighed one hundred pounds. He was no misshapen dwarf, however. He appeared perfect in his proportions. They were adult proportions, too. The man sported a day-old growth of beard.

In both tiny hands he gripped one of Doc Savage’s supermachine pistols and had the spike-snouted muzzle trained on Doc and Long Tom.

“We will not move,” Doc assured him.

“Drop that gun!” the midget ordered Long Tom.

The superfirer fell to the floor.

“Dandy. Now who are you birds?”

Doc Savage was so taken aback by the question he did not immediately answer.

Long Tom had no such inhibition.

“Don’t you recognize us?”

“Why would I? Never saw you two mugs in my life.”

Doc found speech. “I am Doc Savage. Does the name refresh your recollection?”

The tiny man eyed them narrowly. “Sure. A big shot from back east. I read about you. They say you’re bronze-plated poison, especially to crooks.”

“Crooks like you,” Long Tom said pointedly.

“Maybe,” the little man said, moving to slam the lid down on the wooden box of murder implements.

“What is your name?” asked Doc.

“What’s it to you?” snarled the other.

“You look familiar.”

“Baldwin. Monzingo Baldwin.”

“Did you ever have a brother?”

The other shook his head. “No. Not that I remember.”

Doc Savage said strangely, “If you ever had a brother, surely you would remember that?”

“Yeah. Sure I would. So I guess I don’t have no brother. What’s it to you, tall, brassy and nosey?”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Cadwiller Olden?” asked Doc.

“Never. Say, who’s got the drop on who here? Stop asking dumb questions and keep still. I guess you barged in here to find your friends.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

“Sure,” chuckled the midget. “They’re being ferried up north for the funeral.”

“Whose funeral?” asked Long Tom, suspecting the answer.

The tiny little man offered a perfect pearly smile. “Theirs.”

Doc Savage had been watching the weapon in Monzingo Baldwin’s double fist.

“Do you happen to know whether that weapon is charged with lead, or mercy bullets?” he casually inquired.

“What’s the difference?” croaked the other in his bullfrog voice. “If I pull the trigger, you’re going to get a belly full.”

“Some of my men carry drums of demolition shells,” advised Doc. “Each one is packed with sufficient concentrated explosive that it would demolish an automobile.”

“So?”

“If that is an explosive drum, and you pull back on the trigger, a single round would rip this trailer apart.”

The midget teetered on his tiny heels. “I’ll take my chances.”

“On the other hand,” continued the bronze man in a steady tone, “if it is set on continuous fire, the result will be horrific. There will be no survivors.”

For the first time a lack of confidence crawled across the midget’s scarred features.

“Is that so? How do I tell?”

“There will be a spot of red paint on the drum, signifying explosive shells. You may want to inspect it.”

Monzingo Baldwin thought that was very sound advice, so he raised the weapon in order to inspect it.

Doc got a better view of the condition of the superfirer. What he saw made him lunge for the tiny man like a streak of bronze lightning.

It felt like a thunderbolt descending upon the midget, too. For a crack of thunder picked that precise moment to detonate and, combined with the terrible metallic fingers that snatched the pistol out of his diminutive hands and lifted him to the ceiling, Monzingo Baldwin momentarily thought he had been struck by a sudden electrical bolt.

Outside, lightning drove an incandescent devil’s pitchfork into the ground, adding to that unnerving impression.

Doc Savage pressed the midget against the ceiling of the trailer, where the latter bawled and flapped helpless hands.

“Leggo! Let me down, you big brass lummox!” he bleated.

Doc made his voice as hard as metal. “The truth now.”

“Anything! Just put me down.”

“Your real name?”

“Monzingo Baldwin!”

“Alias?”

“Danny—Danny Dill. But I’m really Monzingo Baldwin. Honest.”

“Give the little weasel to me,” gritted Long Tom. “I’ll wring the truth out of him.”

Doc Savage suddenly noticed a leakage of scarlet fluid dripping down from Monzingo Baldwin’s left arm.

He lowered the man and, without setting him on his kicking feet, managed a thorough examination of his person. The midget wore a peculiar suit tailored out of burlap and heavy, old-fashioned shoes.

“You have a bullet wound, freshly dressed,” Doc pointed out.

“Yeah. Damn that magician, Gulliver.”

“Gulliver Greene shot you?”

“Yeah. He was trying to kill me, I think.”

Monzingo Baldwin abruptly sealed his narrow lips.

Doc held the midget’s face up to his own. Now he scrutinized the tiny features. He saw scars, the remnants of a broken nose, and other signs of facial injuries, both recent and healed, the former consistent with a through pistol-whipping.

“What has happened to your face?” inquired Doc.

“I lead an active life,” the other sneered.

Doc regarded him steadily. “You do not know if you have a brother, nor how your face became so scathed?”

“That,” snarled the scrappy little man, “comes under the heading of my personal business.”

Long Tom grunted, “I can guess how you collected that broken nose.”

“Set me down and I’ll be glad to pop you one in the snoot, sourpuss.”

“Any day of the week, small fry,” retorted Long Tom.

“Go curdle milk, sourpuss!”

Doc Savage asked, “Does the name Cadwiller Olden mean anything to you?”

“No, why should it?”

“Merely asking,” said Doc. “How far back do your memories go?”

“None of your damned business.”

Long Tom had collected both superfirers and clucked, “Amnesia.”

Doc nodded. “Almost certainly. His face, even his pattern of speech, are different from before.”

“Different from what?” demanded the mite.

Instead of replying, Doc Savage asked, “Where is this spot up north you mentioned?”

“I’m no rodent. I’ll never squeal.”

Doc Savage was a master at self-control. He had been schooled to keep his emotions in check. But Cadwiller Olden, alias Monzingo Baldwin, had been the source of terrible tragedy in the past and was connected with equally dire doings now.

Doc Savage placed one iron-fingered hand over the midget’s diminutive face as if to suffocate him.

The midget did not like that. Not one bit. He struggled, got his mouth free.

“Great Lakes! Up in the Great Lakes!”

“Which lake?” asked Doc, removing his hand.

“The big one. What’s it called?”

“Superior,” supplied Doc. “Lake Superior.”

“Yeah,” rasped the other. “That one. They’re all on Rat Island. I stayed behind because I got shot. Now set me down before I get rough!”

Instead, Doc Savage shifted his fingers to the midget’s small neck and exerted careful pressure. He was searching for the sensitive nerves that enabled him to render a foe insensate.

The problem was that in this case, the nerves were so small in contrast to the bronze giant’s digits that applying the correct pressure to the appropriate spot proved elusive.

“Want me to put him to sleep?” Long Tom asked casually, rapping the tiny squawling man on the head with his supermachine pistol’s hard muzzle.

It proved unnecessary. Perhaps it was the nervous strain of helplessness, combined with blood loss, but Monzingo Baldwin gave out a strange drawn-out sound and promptly fainted in Doc Savage’s cabled hands.

“What do we do with him?” asked Long Tom.

“We will take him to Rat Island,” decided Doc. “There is no time to make other arrangements.”

They went out into the howling, lashing, rain-driven night.

Chapter XXXVII

A TRICK WITH DEATH

GULLIVER GREENE AND Petella van Astor were marched inland for a time.

There were rats on the island—Gull stepped close to one and it shot away with an abruptness which made him jump wildly; for some reason, this small incident cracked his shell of brittle desperation and he began to feel the aftereffects of the excitement. He grew almost limp, and sweat came out on his body. He grimaced and gnawed at his lower lip. It seemed that there was something very awry in his makeup; he got scared at the wrong times. Gull had discovered that he apparently could go through hell and bullets with the greatest of mental ease, but as soon as it was over, he had jitters with compound interest. A few minutes ago, he had been in imminent danger of getting killed. He’d been as calm as could be. Now, he was comparatively safe—for a while at least—but he was scared. His own psychological makeup aggravated him.

“They are going to separate us,” Saint Pete undertoned at one point.

Gull looked at her. Their captors, prodding from behind, did not appear to have heard the whispered warning above the steady wind whipping over the rocks.

“They think it will be easier to manage us,” she added firmly.

While Gull was wondering if this was another example of mind-reading, one of the captors abruptly said, “Separate them. Throw that damn magician in with the other one.”

Gull decided that he had nothing to lose by resisting. But before he could formulate a course of action, a rifle butt caught him at the back of his skull.

Gulliver saw stars, reeled, went down on the rocks.

“Did you forget that some of us can read the mind?” a harsh voice inquired.

As Saint Pete was dragged away, her voice came floating back to him.

“Try to stay alive until Doc Savage arrives.”

Cass’ remaining man laughed recklessly. “Doc Savage has been dead longer than we have been alive.”

As he pulled himself to his feet, Gulliver wondered what possessed the man to say such a crazy thing. For that matter, what had made Saint Pete offer hope in the form of a man who had no idea any of them existed?

He crept forward, finding it necessary to force each step, for he was not able to drive the unwelcome jitters out of his system.

Gull heard, before long, a series of faint outcries. They seemed to be shrieks, but they were muffled, unnatural, something like a cat meowing under a house. Gull hesitated, but the sounds aroused his curiosity. He was herded toward them, while his captor pushed bushes aside with his shotgun barrels, as he was marched across the rocky, brush-tangled island. The sounds ceased for a time.

An idea formed in his mind. If these people could read minds, perhaps he could turn that against them somehow….

“Go ahead, buddy,” the shotgun wielder growled. “Try something, and we’ll all see how it works out.”

Gooseflesh began crawling over his forearms, which were already clammy from the lake fog.
His mind was being read like a book!

In his career as The Great Gulliver, Gull Greene had learned to think on his feet. He had developed great presence of mind. He applied some of that now.

Pretending to start, Gull peered through the rolling fog.

In his mind, he made a mental image. A Herculean giant of bronze moving stealthily through the pale murk, slipping up from the shore, golden eyes seeking.

Doc Savage!
Gull thought. He put all the force of his magician’s powers of concentration into the imaginary figment.

It worked. Cursing, the shotgun man wheeled, swinging the double-barreled muzzle of his weapon around with the intention of unloading on the imaginary Doc Savage. Squinting through the fog, he groped for the double trigger.

They were among high rocks now. Gull made his mind a blank, and applied one well-worn shoe sole to the seat of the man’s pants. The fellow toppled, struck rocks below and did not stir again.

Scrambling down, Gull heard a groan issue from the stunned individual’s mouth. He used his fist to crack him on the jaw. Gull snatched the scattergun out of clutching hands. He did not have to strike again. The man stayed down.

“Whew!” Gull breathed. “That was close.”

A new sound smote his ears then.

“Lemme ou-u-u-t!” came from nearby.

Gull wheeled, trying to fix the source. Such unexpectedness threatened to demolish his already badly mistreated nervous system.

Then he realized it was Spook Davis’ voice! He whirled completely around, but did not see anything but rocks and boulders.

“Spook!” he called softly.

“Sh-h-h!” Spook gasped. “I’m in this ruh-rock.”

It was a ledge of rat-colored island stone. In it, a door of wood, painted to fairly imitate the rock. Gull tested it, discovering that it pivoted and let him into a small stone chamber, the walls of which were painted deep black. There were shelves also painted black, and a sepia workbench. Interesting also was an array of mechanical gadgets—dark lamps, enlargers, projectors, splicers, retouching brushes, bottle after bottle of photographic chemicals. A secret darkroom, obviously where Cass’ men developed photographs. But—photographs of what?

Gull pushed out his lips thoughtfully. It began to dawn on him that his previous theory that Cass was operating a murder ring under cover of the Silent Saints was not a complete picture….

Spook Davis wailed sarcastically, “We’ve got all day, of course!”

Gull took his gaze off the place and leaped to Spook’s side. Ropes bound Spook, and he must have been tugging at the knots to get them so tight and tangled. Scooping a film-cutting knife off the bench, Gull cut the ropes, then lifted Spook erect. Spook was very scared, pale.

“The others?” Gull asked.

“What? Oh—Braggs and Columbus?” Spook rubbed his trembling wrists. “They’re here, but somewhere else.”

“They’ve got Saint Pete, too,” Gull said, and wheeled for the door. “We’ve got to—”

Spook took one step and fell down. “Oo-o-o!” he gasped. “Golly!” He beat his own legs.

“Charley horse?”

“Herds!” Spook tried to get up, couldn’t. “I’ve been tied all night,” he moaned. Gull helped him, and they got outside.