"Will you describe Miss Hannah?" Doc suggested.
The description matched fully with that of the young woman who had given Monk a sandbagging in the corridor of the New York hotel.
Doc next checked with the Washington agency which handled private detective permits.
Miss Theodora Hannah had been a private detective in Washington for four years and three months.
The T. Hannah angle of the mystery was checking out fine.
Monk and Ham came in and reported.
Monk said, "There is a Major Lowell. Connected with the procurement division of the Army and Navy Emergency Necessity Office."
Doc Savage nodded.
"That office," he said, "is one that was set up recently, largely for the purpose of getting badly needed things in a hurry. That right?"
Monk nodded. "That"s the idea. They jumped in recently and bought a bunch of cargo ships from an Argentine owner, ships n.o.body else had been able to get. They saw that arms and equipment were furnished in a hurry to some Eskimos in northern Alaska. They do everything. They"re trouble-shooters.
Major Lowell is head of the office."
"Get any information about a green parrot?"
"Heck, no! They thought I was crazy."
"What about other information?"
Monk grinned. "They weren"t putting out any-at first. And then, after I proved who I was, I found out only one thing. Major Lowell does want to see you."
Ham said, "Doc, I played the record of Major Lowell"s voice on that wire to a stenographer in his office who knows his voice well. I played part of it, that is, a part that didn"t tell anything. She said it was Lowell"s voice, all right."
It was all checking out fine.
"THE meeting with Major Lowell," Doc Savage said, "is to take place tonight at 10 o"clock on a boat named Four Seasons at the foot of K Street."
"We"d better go along, just in case," Monk suggested.Doc Savage shook his head.
"On the contrary," he said, "here is what you will do. I want you to start making a big hullabaloo about finding a green parrot and its nest."
"Hullabaloo?" Monk said. "Just what kind?"
"Get hold of the newspapers and put advertis.e.m.e.nts in the early editions," Doc said. "Get hold of the radio-broadcasting stations and have short emergency announcements inserted at the end of programs.
The radio stations will be suspicious, but you can identify yourselves and explain that it is important."
"We just advertise for a green parrot and its nest?"
"That is right. And give an address to which replies are to be made."
"Any particular address?"
"One you can watch," Doc said. "You fellows can manage that nicely, I am sure."
Ham nodded. "I see," he said. "The idea is to cast out some bait in the shape of advertis.e.m.e.nts, and see what turns up in the way of an unusual interest in a parrot and its nest."
"That," Doc said, "is the plan."
Monk scratched his head. "Doc, you make it look a little as if this thing wasn"t on the up-and-up, as much as it seems to be."
"Precautions," Doc said, "never got anyone into trouble."
TEN O"CLOCK that night proved to be a dark hour. It was particularly dark on that part of the water front not far from the foot of K Street.
Doc Savage arrived afoot and stood for some time, silent in the darkness, using his eyes and ears and nostrils. These senses had been remarkably developed by the unusual scientific training to which he had been submitted for years. They were overdeveloped, in fact, until they were animallike; and this always made Doc a little sensitive about showing that he possessed such abilities. When he was a kid, he had not thought much about them, except to be proud of them and appreciate their value. But now he was more mature, and sometimes uncomfortable. Sometimes he felt a little like an animal.
There was nothing alarming, and he located the boat, the Four Seasons. The craft certainly was not fancy. It was a "bugeye" with the mast knocked out and the cabin structure, and a houselike superstructure subst.i.tuted.
Bugeye"s are the traditional Chesapeake Bay oyster boats. Originally built by drifting three or five logs together with Swedish iron that, when it rusted, became solidly a part of the wood, they drew very little water. That was necessary, because the Chesapeake was shoal. Their slanting masts and overhanging, clipper-style bows made them the most rakish-looking boats to be found anywhere. But there was nothing rakish about this one. It looked deformed.
There was no light. Not a blade of light visible anywhere. The boat was tied to a dock with springlines, and there was no gangplank. To get aboard, you jumped.
It was still. From the city, there came the usual traffic sounds of Washington at this time of night. A largeplane was moaning purposefully across the sky.
Doc went aboard the boat lightly, got down into the shadows. There was no sound.
He moved aft. The deck was very narrow, hardly a deck at all. The exterior of the boat was old, and needed paint.
He heard nothing and saw nothing.
From a pocket, he took a small metal object, somewhat the shape of a watch, but thicker, and not much larger. The thing had a stemlike k.n.o.b. Doc adjusted the stem for a while.
When he had the gadget adjusted satisfactorily, he placed it on top of the cabin, on a skylight.
He went silently to the dock side of the boat.
He put his feet down solidly on the deck, making sound now. He walked boldly to the deckhouse door.
It was closed. He rapped it with his knuckles.
"Major Lowell!" he said. "This is Savage."
A voice, a whisper, addressed him from inside.
"Not so loud," it said. "But I"m glad you came. Just a moment."
A key rattled in the deckhouse door. The door opened.
"Come inside," the whisper invited.
Doc went inside.
Glare from a flashlight flooded him. In the back light, straining his eyes, he recognized the girl, Hannah.
She spoke in a voice that was not at all humorous.
"I"ve got two impulses," she said. "One is to shoot you and the other is to give you a chance to explain things. If I was you, I wouldn"t jump around too much."
There was no one else in the cabin.
DOC SAVAGE looked at her. It was the first time he had seen Hannah. But it was Hannah, all right, the way Monk had described her. She had a deep voice for a girl, not a freakish voice, but nevertheless a deep one. She had spoken in a whisper, of course, to hide the fact that she wasn"t a man. It was almost impossible to tell a woman"s whisper from a man"s whisper under such circ.u.mstances.
She was obviously a young woman of ability.
She tossed a small rope to Doc Savage. She was holding the rope ready, obviously having planned what she was going to do.
"Take hold of the end of the rope with each hand," she said. "Wrap several turns around each hand, until there is about a foot of rope between your hands, then hold your hands above your head."
Her revolver was large and blue and efficient.Doc obeyed instructions.
Hannah said, "That"s fine. I"m surprised this gag worked, really I am."
"You took a great deal of pains with it," Doc said.
She showed no signs of being flattered. "But with the reputation you"ve got, you shouldn"t have been sucked in. You are supposed to be something special."
Doc let that go without comment.
She said, "Didn"t you even try to find out if the government has an operative named T. Hannah?"
"The government does not have one. But there is a private detective named T. Hannah."
"So you did check," she said. She looked pleased. "And it fooled you. It took you in. What you found out made you think I was genuine."
Doc said, "The really convincing part was that you had been a private detective for four years here in Washington."
"I was never a private detective here in my life," she said.
"How did you manage it?"
"That T. Hannah is another girl."
"You are not T. Hannah?"
"My name is Hannah. Not T. Hannah. T. Hannah is my sister. My disapproving sister. Or half-sister, rather."
"She helped you?"
Hannah nodded. "Reluctantly. When I explained that I was being innocently involved in something."
"Innocently involved," Doc said, and made his voice skeptical.
Hannah showed a flash of anger. "I am not lying to you. You"re rigging up something on me."
Doc Savage frowned. "I am?"
"You and Major Lowell," she said grimly.
"I do not know Major Lowell," Doc said.
She stared at him angrily. "You needn"t lie to me. I haven"t been watching every move Major Lowell and the others made for a week for nothing."
Doc Savage did not answer immediately. His manner was quiet. Finally, he said, "I take it you think I and Major Lowell are the organizers of some kind of a scheme against you?"
"That"s right."
"Where is Major Lowell?""At home, I suppose." She frowned at Doc. "If you"re wondering how come he isn"t here, or thinking he will show up, give up the idea. He won"t be. That wire-recording was a fake."
"But," said Doc, "it was Major Lowell"s voice."
"With a good actor and enough money," she said, "you can got almost any voice duplicated."
"In other words-"
"I intercepted the original message," she said, "and subst.i.tuted one of my own. The machines for magnetically recording voices on wire are not so scarce now, you know."
Doc asked, "You used the original box?"
"Of course. The original wire, too."
"There was not," Doc asked, "a green parrot and its nest in the box in the beginning?"
The effect of the parrot on the girl was noticeable. She stared fixedly at the bronze man over her gun.
"Parrot," she said. "Parrot and nest?"
"That is right. What-"
"I suppose," she snapped, "that you will next try to tell me you do not know a thing about what is going on."
Doc admitted, "That was my general intention when I got around to it."
"You talking parrot!" she said angrily. "And you don"t know anything! A fine lie!"