Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (9 page)

Spook Davis squinted at Gull. “This make any sense to you yet?”

“Not any.” Gull went over and grimly stood the shotgun against the large, elderly iron safe wherein old man Duzzit, who owned this filling station, kept his cash, then he got a broom and finished sweeping up the shattered oil jars broken in the earlier fight; an operation which had nothing to do with the digging he was giving his memory in an effort to unearth something illuminating.

“Look!” Spook Davis juggled his tire iron. “I’ve got me an idea.”

Gull stopped sweeping. “Better let it out of its strange surroundings.”

“Caustic, eh?” Spook grinned. “Look, you’ve got one relative alive, ain’t you?”

“Uncle Box Daniels,” Gull admitted.

“Just the other day, you wrote Uncle Box a letter asking if he knew of anything that looked like a job for us, didn’t you? Now look—maybe that’s why we’re in this mess.”

Gull went on sweeping. He’d thought of Uncle Box Daniels, but he happened to be a relative he’d never met, as well as his only living relative. He’d heard Uncle Box was a so-called mind-reader, working chautauqua, carnivals and the like. He did not see how that could have any connection with this. Still, he couldn’t see how he had any connection with the thing himself.

“Customer!” Spook said abruptly.

A LARGE motor van had driven up beside the gas pump. The vehicle was painted the unprepossessing color of gray Missouri mud, and seemed to be loaded with the large tents of the variety used by carnivals and the more prosperous evangelists, because a few poles were protruding from the rear, and an extra roll of grimy looking canvas was tied to the endgate.

Gull and Spook Davis swapped looks.

“Tents!” Spook breathed. “Boy, should I have been a crystal gazer! Your Uncle Box Daniels deals in tents!”

Gull hurriedly closed the door on the slumbering old giant with the furry ears. Then he stepped outside, accompanied by Spook Davis.

THE SILENT SAINTS

Apostles of the One True Spiritual Way

It said this on the sides of the truck.

Three men got out of the cab. They were plain looking men with peaceful expressions, and all three were attired in garments of dark homespun cloth. They wore coarse shirts, buttoned at the neck, but no neckties; their shoes were heavy and plain.

“We are in need of gasoline, my good brothers,” one of them explained slowly. “And we are also afflicted with a right rear tire which has a slow leak.”

Spook took the gas hose off its hook and began putting reddish gasoline into the tank, which was situated under the cab seat; Gull walked to the air hose, picked it up and attended to the tire.

The air hose slipped. Escaping air made a loud spitting noise, as Gull remembered something. These Silent Saints wore heavy garments of rough burlap, and so had the girl who had said her name was Saint Pete.

One of the plainly dressed Silent Saints was about to enter the filling station, probably for a drink of water. He got a whiff of Spook Davis and promptly stopped. Spook still reeked of whiskey, and he also looked as if he might be well oiled.

The Saint assumed a holier-than-thou expression and said, “My brother, it is the weakness of the flesh only that makes us err. Your soul, I know, finds your present condition most repugnant.”

“I don’t know about my soul,” Spook said, teetering over to peer into the gas tank. “But my stomach is beginning to resent it.”

The Saint pulled a paper folder from his burlap coat and presented it.

“What’s this?” Spook wanted to know.

“A written gem, my brother,” intoned the Saint. “You must read it, for printed there is the kernel of that superb thesis so little understood by this benighted and sinful world. Namely, that the soul is the subconscious guidance of mortal destiny, the power that takes us poor human sheep by the hand and guides us around all pitfalls.”

Spook grunted, “I don’t get this. What are you guys, anyway?”

“We are the Silent Saints, apostles of the one true spiritual way,” the other explained.

“Sure. It says that on the truck.”

“If your sinful soul craves more knowledge of us, we have our
Complete Super-Giant Summary of the True Path of the Silent Saints.
It is in book form, which we sell for one dollar to cover the cost of printing.”

Spook grinned. “Another racket, eh?”

“Your poor brain, sinfully robbed of its true right by the alcoholic demon, knows not what the evil in your body moves you to utter, my brother.”

Spook, looking indignant, gritted, “Listen, my brother, if you think—”

“Tush, tush,” said the Silent Saint mildly. “We are the faith of peace, dwelling nine months out of the year close to the soil in the Promised Land, and for three months of the year traveling to the corners of the nation with our proselytizing units, spreading the true path.”

IN the west, a streak of lightning bounded along the horizon after which there was a rather resounding grunt of thunder, promise of an approaching rainstorm, which probably accounted for some of the unnatural stillness of the night.

Gulliver Greene lounged against the tailboard of the truck, listening to the lecture which Spook Davis was receiving, and also watching for a chance to ask one of the Saints privately if he knew a Saint Pete, an inquiry which Gull believed was justified in view of the fact that the girl had worn dark burlap clothing such as these men wore.

Spook Davis said, very solemnly, “Thank you, my brother, for your good words. Now I am going to tell you something that I have never breathed to a living soul. Would you believe it, but once my soul left me entirely.”

He was off, exaggerating.

Spook continued, “Yes, my good brother, for a whole year, I was without any soul. It left my earthly body, and I, the part of me that is physical, remained in a trance—”

Gull noted one of the Saints on the other side of the truck and started around the rear to speak to the fellow privately.

Both chance and man’s natural curiosity caused Gull to glance into the van. He yanked it open, then stood on tiptoe and stared.

Enough light from the filling station marquee entered the van to show the contents—canvas, bundles, folding chairs, some planks, a throne-like chair, and a man sitting in the chair with a canvas strap around his chest and knotted in front, holding him to the chair. A lap robe lay across his knees.

The strange man had a thin, ascetic face, a high forehead and a firmly lean mouth. He wore his hair long—almost as long as a woman’s tresses. His eyes were open, and were remarkable eyes, being dark, fixed and staring as if sightless. This queer individual was very pale, skin like a waxen dummy.

Gull squinted, for it struck him there was something familiar about the strange, trance-like figure sitting there. The face, it must be. But where had he seen it—where—?

“It’s Christopher Columbus!”

The whisper rushing into Gull’s ear lifted him almost off the ground, brought him around. He found himself looking into the staring eyes of the old giant with the hairy ears, sampling his powerful breath. The old fellow must have climbed out of the compressor room window—the window had been open, but Gull hadn’t expected the old soak to awaken—and circled around, keeping out of sight.

“Columbus!” The old man pointed at the trance-like figure in the van. “Great Columbus!”

Gull looked into the truck again, then put his hand on his head, half expecting to find his ivory hair on end. The man in the van familiar? Of course! He had seen his picture a thousand times! It was in all the history books—at least a picture of Christopher Columbus was in the books—and this man looked exactly like that picture!

When Gull turned to where the old man with the hirsute ears had been standing, the old fellow was gone.

Chapter VIII

MIDNIGHT MIRACLE

ONCE MORE, DOC SAVAGE’S melodious trilling came forth. It had a hollow quality this time, as if its individual notes were devoid of certainty. They wandered about the air, as if seeking a melody to embody, yet ebbed away before they could become organized.

“This is nuts!” Monk howled. He began stamping around in frustrated circles. “This can’t be!”

“Jove!” breathed Ham, twisting his elegant cane in his manicured hands. He unjointed it as if wishing to use its sharp point on something or someone. But no appropriate object of wrath presented itself.

Renny, Johnny and Long Tom just stared as if not believing their eyes.

It was weird, uncanny to behold. Even in the moonlight, the Victorian roof stood out distinctly. It was sheathed in what appeared to be slate, so the conical structure looked as substantial as anthracite coal.

They trained their flashlights upon it, and the beams quested about, seeking answers.

Presently, a lone bat whirred into view and circled the tower several times, finally alighting. It could be seen that it wriggled into a chink high up.

Ham sniffed, “Bally thing is actually a belfry.”

Doc Savage had his pocket telescope out and was studying the tower roof.

“It appears so,” he decided after a time.

“Could it be a shell, strung between trees by guy wires?” ventured Renny, who had been appraising the situation with an engineer’s trained eye.

“Or a tricky balloon, filled with helium,” suggested Long Tom.

“It is not responding to the wind,” said Doc. “If it were not anchored to something solid, it would betray its instability. And no bat would dare nest in an unstable shell.”

“Let’s turn back and get to the bottom of this!” proclaimed Ham.

Doc Savage hesitated.

“Every time we have approached, the dwelling seemed to vanish,” he advised. “That is the report from our operative as well.”

“Only to reappear after we depart,” agreed Long Tom, tugging at one sail-like ear.

Doc Savage seemed to make a sudden decision. “You men take up positions where you can observe the house clearly.”

“What are you gonna do, Doc?” asked Monk.

But the bronze man did not reply. He had vanished into the woods, seeming to melt into the clotted darkness beyond their flash rays.

Moments later, they heard the throaty whirring of the dirigible’s twin motors and they realized that Doc Savage had reclaimed his tiny airship.

Not long after, he floated past their heads at a height safely over the spiky tree line, but not very high above that.

The dirigible slid along a-pace, then Doc cut the motors. They fell quiet. A spectral silence fell over the forest. Somewhere an owl hooted, as if questioning the sudden stillness.

When the airship reached the black tower, Doc dropped the grappling hook. He snagged the tower on his first pass, arresting the airship over the dwelling—if there was an actual dwelling. They could only discern the slate roof.

A moment later, Doc Savage was dropping down the wire. He landed on a projecting gable. Three bats poked dark, curious heads out of the eaves, seemed to peer about, and winged off into the night, squeaking.

Eyes sharp, nerves on edge, they watched expectantly.

For a very long time, nothing seemed to happen.

Inspired by past experience, they did not remove their gazes from the linked airship and roof. Slowly, they drew closer.

Then, while their eyes were resting upon the rambling roofline, the silhouette vanished.

Nothing audible came to their ears. One moment a stark silhouette broke the tree line, and then next, it was gone!

Again, the leaves in the trees commenced rustling as if stirred by some power that was not the wind. For no breeze blew.

They let out pent breaths. With them came a series of expostulations.

“Blazes!”

“Jove!”

“Holy cow!”

“I’ll be superamalgamated!”

“Damn!”

The last to speak was Long Tom Roberts. His voice was an anguished whisper.

“Doc!” he moaned. “Where did he go?”

There was no sensible answer to the question.

WHEN Doc’s men had gotten their paralyzed mental processes going again, they rushed to the spot, pushing boughs and branches aside in their mad haste.

Arriving, they all but collided with the slab foundation that did not support any structure.

Monk laid a hand on it. It was cool to the touch. He said so.

“What does that prove, you ape?” snapped Ham.

“I dunno,” Monk admitted. “But it must mean something.”

“It’s a cool night,” said Long Tom.

Johnny seemed to be the one who demonstrated the most calmness and presence of mind. He circled the slab, using his monocle magnifier, which he habitually wore affixed to one lapel of his perpetually ill-fitting suit.

“Fundament is constitutionally a hydrological matrix of aggregate, plus
opus caementicium,
” he pronounced.

“Say that again in English,” requested Renny.

“This foundation consists of poured concrete.”

“Anybody can see that,” Monk returned. “Tell us something we don’t already know.”

“It is modern. The roof we discerned belongs to a Victorian home of the last century. They were built on stone foundations.”

“Ergo?” prompted Ham.

“Ergo, the hallucinatory habitation had to have been relocated from another fundament—foundation to you.”

They looked around.

Renny said, “How? The only road in or out is fit for a mule, at most.”

Johnny fingered his monocle thoughtfully.

“It is unlikely that it was disassembled and relocated on this spot,” he mused. “Wooden homes are not like European castles which can be broken down into their component stones and transported for reassembly.”

“So we’re back to where we started,” complained Monk. “Nowhere!”

Ham Brooks was gazing upward, dark eyes concerned

“Our dirigible is drifting away,” he observed with worry.

Monk decided to do something about that.

Selecting a tall tree, he took off his shoes and socks and began to climb it like a great long-armed baboon. His arboreal agility would do credit to a squirrel.