MYSTERY ON HAPPY BONES.
A Doc Savage Adventure.
by Kenneth Robeson.
Chapter I. ONE UNUSUAL BOX.
IT was raining, so the messenger wore a raincoat. Like most raincoats, this one pretty much enveloped the wearer. The messenger did have a young face.
And a mustache. It was noticeable, because it was not much of a mustache. It looked like a couple of mouse tails, somewhat.
There was also a box which the messenger carried. A box wrapped with too much steel wire. That is, there was too much wire considering that it was a cardboard box.
The messenger walked into the most substantial skysc.r.a.per in midtown Manhattan, and said, "I have a package for Clark Savage, Junior."
"You mean Doc Savage," said the elevator starter.
"It says Clark Savage, Junior, on the tag. That"s all I know about it."
"I"ll take it," said the elevator starter.
"Is your name Clark Savage, Junior?"
"Of course not," said the starter. "Say, you"re pretty dumb, aren"t you?"
"Not," said the messenger, "dumb enough to hand this over to you when I got orders to have ClarkSavage personally sign for it."
"Clark Savage is Doc Savage. Clark is his name. Say, kid, haven"t you ever heard of Doc Savage?"
"Huh?"
"Say, you are really dumb, aren"t you?"
The messenger kicked the elevator starter on the shin. The starter squalled and leaped into the air. He jumped around clutching his peeled shin.
"You"re lucky I didn"t decide to kick you in the eye," said the messenger. "I may be dumb, but I kick high."
The cardboard box was about twelve inches square and the cardboard was a strong and not expensive type. As for the wire, there was at least a hundred feet of that. The verdict of someone that knew a little about wire would have been that it was Imperial Standard Wire Gauge No. 15, diameter 1 and eight tenths millimeters, of steel.
The messenger carried the box up to an ordinary fifth-floor office, on instructions from an elevator operator.
The office was occupied by two gentlemen and a pig and a chimpanzee.
The messenger looked at the two men and the menagerie, sighed, and said, "I bet I have to do some more kicking."
ONE of the men must have been the fellow they wrote the "Mister Five by Five" song about. He was also as hairy as a goat and as ugly as a clock-stopper.
"I"m Monk Mayfair," he said.
The other man was notable for his clothes, for an innocent-looking black cane which was always with him, and for his large, mobile mouth, the mouth of a talker.
"I"m Ham Brooks," he said.
"I might be Bo Peep, but I ain"t," said the messenger. "What kind of a clown"s nest is this? I got a package for Doc Savage. I ask where to find him, and I get sa.s.s from the elevator starter downstairs.
Then I get sent up here and I see I am in for more sa.s.s."
Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks inspected the messenger, and Ham ventured an opinion. "A case of nondidactic."
"What," asked the messenger, "does that mean I am?"
"Dumb," Ham said.
"Ah," said the messenger.
Monk Mayfair hooked a pair of hairy thumbs in the armholes of an unpressed vest and announced, "You"re in the right place, kid.""The right place for what?"
"To deliver a package to Doc Savage."
The messenger eyed them. "Huh-uh! Neither of you two mistakes is Doc Savage."
"This," explained Monk patiently, "is a way-station on the route to Doc Savage. Things go through us to get to Doc. We"re the quarantine and inspection station.
"A quarantine and inspection station," said the messenger, "is where they stop your car and look on your fruit for bugs."
"That"s the idea."
"I"m a bug, huh?"
"Let"s not complicate it," Monk said. "What have you got there?"
"A package."
"Where did you get it?"
"The office gave it to me to deliver. I work for an outfit that delivers stuff."
"Alt right," Monk said. "Now I"ll show you how we function. What is your name and your employer?"
"Neddie Wooster," said the messenger, "and the outfit is the Winged Foot Delivery Service, coast-to-coast, with offices in all the princ.i.p.al cities."
Monk picked up a telephone directory, found a number, dialed it, got the Winged Foot concern, and asked if they had a messenger named Neddie Wooster. Monk had to explain who he was. He said he was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, affiliated with the Doc Savage organization. He made it sound impressive. Eventually, he got his information. He hung up.
"You see how it works?" he asked the messenger. "Winged Foot says Neddie Wooster is O. K. Now if you hadn"t been O. K., we would have had you."
The messenger was not impressed.
"What is this?" asked the messenger. "A nest of half-wits?"
"A nest of precaution-takers," Monk said.
"We want to die of old age," Ham Brooks said.
"We want Doc to die of old age," Monk corrected. "You see, Neddie Wooster, Doc Savage is an unusual fellow and everybody on this earth is not his friend. In fact, there are people who shake and turn white all over at the idea of Doc. Now and then some such try to get rid of Doc, so they can live a more peaceful, and more crooked, life. Get it?"
"I see," said the messenger. "You"re a pair of stooges."
"O. K., O. K." Monk was disgusted. "Hand me that package. We"re wasting time trying to educate you."
"I hand this package to Doc Savage," said the messenger. "Anybody else gets it over my dead body.""Why act like that?"
"It"s a motto of the Winged Foot Delivery Service, coast-to-"
"Never mind," Monk interrupted hastily. "You just put the package on this desk here. n.o.body will touch it."
The messenger stared at the desk. "O. K. But I can see you guys are wiggly between the ears."
The package went on the desk.
THE desk was a dark wood affair of more than normal size with a black, composition top.
The trick to the desk was the composition top, made of the same kind of stuff from which is fashioned the film-holders which surgeons use in their X-ray machines. The material was transparent to X rays.
Under the desk, in the knee-hole, so that it could be observed only from the back, where Monk and Ham sat, there was a fluoroscope for viewing the object to be X-rayed, the type of fluoroscope used by X-ray workers in the days before they discovered that a photographic film was a much better way to do it. An arrangement of mirrors permitted a good view of the fluoroscope without the observers doing anything suspicious while observing.
The X-ray projector was located in the ceiling, and camouflaged so that it was not noticeable.
When the package was on the desk, Monk turned on the X ray by tramping on a control b.u.t.ton hidden under the carpet.
They took a good look at the X-rayed contents of the package.
"Ahem," Monk said to the messenger. "We . . . ah . . . had better tell Doc Savage you are here with a package, since you are so contrary. Come on, Ham."
"Me?" Ham said. "I had better stay here and watch that our little messenger here doesn"t carry off the furniture or the radiators."
"I resent that," the messenger said.
"Of course you do," Monk said. "Ham, you were born a gentleman, but you sure have slipped. Come with me and help find Doc."
Ham realized that Monk had something on his mind, and said, "Sure, sure."
Monk and Ham retired to the adjoining room. They closed the door.
"There ain"t nothing in the package," Monk said.
Ham nodded. "Empty box."
"Looks suspicious."
"On the other hand," said Ham, "there might be poison gas in the box. I"ll bet that"s what it is."
"I thought of that," Monk said."I"ll bet you did!" Ham sneered. He scratched his head. "What are we going to do about it?"
Monk said, "I would suggest a course of treatments aimed at getting the truth out of this messenger."
"Have you got an idea, you missing link?"
Monk had an idea. He explained it. Ham was moved to admiration, although he was reluctant to admire anything that Monk conceived or did, under ordinary conditions.
HAM went back into the room where the messenger was waiting and said, "We are having a little difficulty. My friend Monk has gone hunting, and he can do as well as both of us, so I thought I"d keep you company."
The messenger looked young, owlish and bored.
"That Monk," said the messenger, "is a funny-looking one."
"He sure is," Ham agreed heartily. "And he is as silly as he looks."
"Gosh!"
"Terrible, isn"t it?"
The messenger gazed around the office absently, and finally fell to examining the two animals, the pig and the chimpanzee, showing more interest. "What are those?"
"A chimpanzee and a pig."
"What are they doing here?" asked the messenger. "And I know a chimpanzee and a pig when I see them."
"Pets."
"Whose?"
"The chimp is mine," Ham explained. "And the pig belongs to that freak of nature, Monk." Ham eyed the pig sourly. "Some day I am going to have him served up as breakfast bacon."
The messenger eyed the pig. The animal had legs like a rabbit, a snoot built for exploring into deep holes, and a pair of ears of such size that it looked as if he had been equipped to become a glider in emergencies. "Got a name?"
"Habeas Corpus," Ham explained, glaring at the pig.