Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (5 page)

“You have my sympathy, buddy,” clucked the other.

“Thanks,” said Monk miserably. “But what I hanker for right now is answers.”

“Those, I don’t have. In fact, I’m fresh out today.”

Chapter IV

THE HAYWIRE BLONDE

MONK MAYFAIR DID not retreat to the skyscraper headquarters establishment of Doc Savage because he was uncertain what to do next. Not at all. It was a manifest fact that he had no clue, inkling, or idea of where to locate the smoky-haired man and his blonde captive, Davey Lee.

Otherwise the apish chemist would have hied off in any direction he thought fruitful. Nor did Monk lack bravery. In fact, he was a bit on the reckless side when it came to plunging into or after trouble.

The real reason Monk betook himself to the Man of Bronze was because Doc possessed many amazing gadgets and devices with which to track down quarry.

As a chemist, Monk had had a hand in perfecting some of those gimmicks, but he knew he needed the astute brain of Doc Savage in order to initiate the so-far unfruitful search.

So Monk hectored his driver to cut corners, race traffic lights, and make all speed toward the towering stone edifice out of which the bronze man operated.

“Keep your shirt on, buster!” the hackman burst out at last.

Monk reached ahead and slapped him on the top of his head and snapped, “Pay attention to your daggone driving!”

“Then stop riding me, mister!” the driver retorted.

Monk settled into the back seat, big paws clutching his knees nervously, his tiny eyes skating out the cab windows in the vain hope of spotting the large man and Davey Lee.

Soon, the taxi ground to a halt in front of the limestone and steel spire that was his destination.

Throwing the hackman his last few dollars, the apish chemist charged into the lobby, arrowed for the special elevator that ran directly to the eighty-sixth floor, and hit the solitary button as the doors rolled closed.

The elevator shot upward like a rocket. Monk landed on the seat of his pants, and remained that way until the lift coasted to a stop and the doors mechanically opened.

Thereupon, Monk bounced to his feet and raced down the corridor until he came to a bronze door whose modest letters proclaimed
Clark Savage, Jr.

Barging into the reception room, Monk found it empty, then shoved into the library, calling out, “Doc! Are you home?”

No response came. Only echoes rebounding off the myriad shelves of the scientific library, which was impressive indeed.

The homely chemist crossed the enormous library, banged into the laboratory, and repeated his call.

He found the great white-enamel walled workshop deserted.

Monk’s simian face fell. He took several turns around the glittering array of apparatus, test tubes and other modern wonders until he was certain that no one was present.

“What do I do now?” he muttered to himself.

The hairy chemist did not have long to wait, for not fifteen minutes later appeared a new arrival.

It was Ham Brooks, fashionable clothes askew, his face flustered, waving his elegant dark cane about like Scrooge berating Marley.

“There you are!” squawked the excited barrister.

“I’m looking for Doc, you shyster. Seen anything of him?”

“No, I have not. But I have seen plenty of other things.”

“Whatcha mean?” demanded Monk.

“I followed you to Pennsylvania Station this morning,” replied Ham firmly. “And there I witnessed that flossy floozie being abducted by a gray-haired man.”

“You did!” blurted out Monk.

Ham nodded firmly. “I was suspicious of her all along. Now it appears that my suspicions were confirmed.”

“What the heck do you mean by that?” bellowed Monk. “She was kidnapped. I saw it. Now you say you saw it. What makes her suspicious?”

“It makes the whole set-up suspicious,” returned Ham tightly. “If her invitation to go south was an innocent one, why was she taken off by a person unknown?”

“You got me,” mumbled Monk. Then, eyes narrowing, he said suspiciously, “Hey! How did you know about my trip in the first place?”

“You were overheard in the restaurant,” Ham supplied.

Monk growled, tiny eyes shooting sparks. “You mean that you spied on me, didn’t you?”

“I meant nothing of the sort,” snapped the elegant attorney. The nervous way in which he twisted the head of his cane indicated otherwise.

Monk advanced upon the handsome Ham, and Ham took three quick steps backward, gave his cane a twist, and pulled out a slim blade of Damascus steel.

“Keep back! You hear me, you man-brute,” Ham warned, flashing the sword cane about.

Monk balled his rusty fists, and cocked one as if he was about to launch a haymaker at the dapper lawyer’s chiseled chin when suddenly a buzzer sounded and a red light began flashing consistently.

“Someone at the door,” mumbled Monk.

Ham took that opportunity to turn on his heel and race across the library and into the reception room.

Monk followed hard on his heels, but moving much slower, because he was still wrestling with the tumbling events of the morning.

When the hairy chemist arrived in the reception room, Ham was seated behind the great inlaid table that served as a desk, staring down at a frosted glass panel set into the desktop. This was a television device, which displayed images of the corridor. It was fed by several cameras and by pressing different ivory and rosewood inlays on the desktop, entirely different views of the outer hallway could be obtained.

The black-and-white image in the glass was crystal clear. And when Monk saw the personage depicted, he gave out a rumbling grunt of surprise.

For the man at their door was no less than the large mature man whose thick and wonderfully coiffed hair suggested cigarette smoke.

Monk growled deeply, “Let ’im in.”

HAM OBLIGED by pressing another inlay, this one of mother-of-pearl. This actuated an electrical relay that caused the bronze portal to valve open obediently.

Monk bounded out from behind the desk and charged up to meet the unexpected visitor.

The fellow seemed momentarily taken aback by the door opening of its own accord, for he had been standing there looking downward, worrying a white Panama-style hat in his sunburned hands. The brim was curled, and the hue of the hat almost matched the white of his cotton suit, giving him the look of an old-fashioned Kentucky Colonel, but without the additional adornment of facial hair.

He had only a moment to register surprise, for Monk drove out a massive paw, seized him by the front of his white coat, entangling starched shirt and string tie, and hauled him waddling into the reception room, while Ham sealed the door automatically.

“Ah do beg your pardon?” the large man stuttered.

“You’ll be begging for mercy if you don’t give out with some sense,” barked Monk. Before the man could reply, the hairy chemist added, “Where is Davey Lee? Don’t give me any doubletalk, either. My mood is foul.”

“Ah declare,” said the man nervously. “Ah can explain everything. Be good enough to give me a moment to do so.”

“You got thirty seconds to spit out some sense before you taste my knuckles,” warned Monk.

Coming around from behind the desk, Ham Brooks strode up and said, “One moment, Monk. This man seems to have something to say. We should hear him out.”

“Was this the dude who you saw makin’ off with Davey Lee?” Monk demanded hotly.

“If it isn’t, it’s his twin brother,” remarked Ham. To the man with the Panama, he said, “We would like to hear your account of the morning’s events.”

“Ah should be glad to do so, entirely glad,” the other said in an forthright tone.

“Proceed,” invited Ham.

“This is difficult to confess, but please hear me out. Ah have a daughter, a daughter whom Ah love with all my heart. Ah was forced to raise her myself, her mother having passed away at a very youthful age.”

“Get down to brass tacks, will you?” demanded Monk.

“Oh yes, of course. As Ah was saying, my daughter, Davia, has had a difficult upbringing.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Ham. “Are you claiming to be the father of Davey Lee?”

“Not only claiming, but Ah am, in truth, he.” Whereupon, the smoky-haired individual produced a billfold and his draft registration card and other articles of identification, and they showed him to be Mr. Raymond Lee of Shreveport, Louisiana.

“These look genuine,” allowed Ham.

Monk grabbed the items from Ham, scanned them quickly and said, “He’s a phony.”

“What makes you say that, Monk?” demanded Ham.

“He smells like a phony, that’s why!”

Ham Brooks involuntarily sniffed the air, and declared, “All I smell about him is cigarette smoke.”

Given that the man’s wonderfully full pompadour resembled a kind of frozen smoke, this fact was remarkable, but otherwise insignificant.

Ham invited, “Please continue with your story.”

Accepting his billfold back, the man pocketed it and began worrying his Panama hat, once more turning it in incessant circles, clockwise then counterclockwise. His serious amber eyes were a little on the agate side. Hard and glassy. He had the skin and physique of a man who had been outdoors a great deal, and accustomed to exercise, if not physical labor.

“Well, you see,” the man continued in an embarrassed tone of voice, “my Davia grew up to be kind of a tomboy. I sent her off to one of the best finishing schools to kind of sand the tomboy out of her—but only sawdust resulted. Davey is not what you call a hellion exactly, but she’s kind of—ah—corkscrewy.”

“What do you mean by that?” wondered Ham.

“Well, as much as it pains me as her father to admit this, she has a kind of a peculiar yen.”

“A what?” asked Ham.

Raymond Lee looked as abashed as a Quaker who had wandered by mistake into a honky-tonk establishment. “A hankering, you might call it.”

“You are not getting to your point very efficiently,” Ham pointed out.

Impatiently, Monk interjected, “A hankering. For what?”

The man’s eyes went to Monk Mayfair, careened away. “For homely men,” he said thickly.

“What?” muttered Monk.

“You heard me right.” Raymond Lee dropped his feline eyes to the floor sheepishly. “Homely men fascinate her. Ever since she got out of that finishing school, my Davia’s been trying to run off with one after another of the breed. No offense to you, Mr. Mayfair. But you just happened to be someone she cottoned onto her first day in New York City.”

The homely chemist’s tiny eyes began to flutter, and his generous mouth slowly sagged until it was a gaping cavern full of blunt teeth.

Ham Brooks stared, his face stiff. He was watching the smoky-haired individual for signs of deceit.

“What?” repeated Monk dully.

The man nodded somberly. “The long and short of it is, the homelier the man, the more Davia is spellbound. Ah had sent her to New York on a vacation, but decided to follow just to keep a fatherly eye upon her. After the last adventure in which she took up with an oil-field roughneck, Ah kind of hoped she’d gotten that homely-fellow taste out of her mouth.”

Monk muttered for a third time, “What?”

“When Ah learned from the staff of the hotel at which she was staying that Davia was running off with you, Mr. Mayfair, Ah knew Ah had to put a stop to it. So as any father would, Ah waylaid her in Pennsylvania Station. Ah guess the sight of her old father showing up unexpectedly made her go haywire. Not that there is anything new in that. Davia has been haywire most of her life.”

Monk’s mouth shut like a steel trap. His tiny eyes seemed to sink into his round skull, and disappointment was written all over his apish physiognomy.

“My apologies to you for the behavior of my dear daughter,” Raymond Lee continued, “but you are not the first hairy-chested brute Davia’s tried to sink her hooks into. Nor, Ah fear, will you be the last one.”

As Monk absorbed the full weight of these words, Ham Brooks started to laugh. The mirth began as a restrained titter, turned into a giggle, and before long he threw his head back and was laughing uproariously.

“Oh, this is too rich!” he howled. “Wait until the others hear about this! Monk is the victim of a love-struck woman who is only attracted to ugly men.”

“Ah would not say
ugly
, but rather ill-favored,” countered Raymond Lee. “Homely, if you will. Ah believe there is a difference, after all.”

Monk stared at the smoky-haired individual, then his eyes seized upon Ham Brooks convulsing in laughter, and for a moment the hairy chemist did not appear to know what to do with himself. His fingers worked into fighting fists, then opened up again several times.

Suddenly, he leaped, seized hold of Ham Brooks’ elegant cane and bent it over his knee without seeming to give it any more effort than necessary. The fine Malacca wood of the barrel splintered alarmingly, and the flexible blade inside bent nearly double.

“My word!” Raymond Lee burst out, aghast.

Ham Brooks abruptly ceased laughing and retreated behind the big table of a desk, whose protection was doubtful.

Monk spun on Raymond Lee, and barked, “I don’t believe you! I don’t believe a word of it!”

“Ah would hardly have come here to offer such a tall tale if Ah were not who Ah claim to be,” the abashed man pointed out.

Monk glared at him. “Where’s Davey now?”

“After calming her down, I put her on another train.”

“Which train?” demanded Ham in his best lawyerly style.

“We have kin in Virginia. I sent her to Richmond.”

Monk and Ham exchanged looks, and some of the irate skepticism seemed to leak out of the hairy chemist while Ham Brooks appeared to become slightly more skeptical. Of course, that was their way. They were always assuming contrary postures toward one another. Rarely did they agree upon a subject, and if one’s mind ever changed, the other party invariably switched sides in response.

“It is my firm intention to join her there by evening,” resumed Raymond Lee. “Ah realize the ruckus Ah created in the train station, and assumed there might be repercussions. Hence, my appearance here, which is my pitiful attempt to explain the excitement of this morning.”