I told her the truth. "At present, I am developing the refining properties of lithium in nonferrous alloys."
"You don"t say," she said, and took a quick sip of her drink. Her lovely eyes twinkled.
Mr. Mayfair arrived with unwelcome promptness.He did not take one look at my companion. He took several.
"Hubba, hubba," he said. "Could it be that I have underestimated you, Henry?"
Lila was inspecting Mr. Mayfair in amazement. Perhaps l should explain why: Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, while he might be a renowned chemist, gave no outward signs of brains whatever. He was short, and nearly wide enough to need to be careful to dash through doors edgewise, and there did not seem to be an ounce of anything but muscle on him. He was covered with wiry hair like shingle-nails, rusty ones. His face was something that must have terrified his mother and given his father pause.
"This gentleman," I explained to Lila, "is an eminent chemist."
"This is very interesting," Lila remarked gaily. "I"m glad I stayed."
Monk Mayfair s.n.a.t.c.hed out a chair and seated himself beside her. "I"m glad you stayed too, honey," he said.
She laughed. I did not understand why.
"You I understand," she said to Mr. Mayfair.
Mr. Mayfair now turned to me, and he said, "I tell you what, Henry, let"s talk about our business tomorrow. You"re a busy man. Why don"t you run along to your laboratory."
"Ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "I haven"t even broached the subject I wished to discuss with Miss Lila-er-"
"Lila Farrar," she said.
I am not obtuse. Lila Farrar, she had said. That obnoxious Dido Alstrong had boasted of being laboratory chief for Farrar Products, and since her name was Farrar, the connection was obvious. She was the daughter of Dido"s boss. Dido was just the kind of a reprobate to try to grab off the boss"
daughter.
"What," asked Miss Lila Farrar, eyeing me, "was your matter, Henry?"
"A package," I said, "that Dido Alstrong wishes me to keep."
Monk Mayfair asked, "Who"s Dido Alstrong, Henry?"
I tried to think of a description of Dido.
"Leech," I said, "denotes a surgeon, the edge of a sail, a cure, a veterinarian, and a carnivorous bloodsucking worm of the cla.s.s Hirudinea."
"Huh?" Mayfair"s mouth fell open.
Lila Farrar examined me with a degree of thoughtfulness. "Wisdom," she remarked, "can come in odd packages."
Mr. Mayfair closed his mouth, but opened it again to inquire, "What was that you started to say about a package, Henry?"
It occurred to me that I would prefer not to discuss Dido Alstrong"s package with him. It was none ofMr. Mayfair"s concern. But I had started the subject, and I was at a loss how to evade.
I was spared the necessity of evasion, because just then our genteel rum hole was held up by robbers.
Chapter III.
THE brigands numbered two. One was slight, one less so, and shorter. They lost no time stating their purpose.
"You plutocrats!" one screamed. He was the shorter one. He used this phrase to get everyone"s attention at once, it was obvious. He succeeded.
"This is a heist!" he yelled additionally. "And in case you stinking rich blank-blanks don"t know what a heist is, it"s a hold-up!"
The longer and slighter one calmly tossed a couple of chairs into the revolving door, effectively blocking entrance from the street.
"Get your hands up!" his companion shrieked.
The man was most frightening. Judging from his tone and manner, his state of mind was encroaching on madness, or he was in a crazed drug condition. Both of the rascals wore masks.
My heart stood in my throat. It was a kicking rabbit.
Lila Farrar sat with an arrested expression of surprise on her face.
Mr. Mayfair remarked, "Well, well, the day is filling up." He didn"t seem very terrified.
The short bandit swore some more oaths, terrible ones. He had two pistols, which were not large but deadly looking, and he flourished these. His companion walked behind the bar, punched keys on the cash register, and looked inside. He seemed irritated by what he found.
"Who"n h.e.l.l"s got the drag-roll?" he yelled. He suddenly seized a bottle, knocked one of the bartenders unconscious with it, advanced on the other bartender, screaming, "Who"s got it?" The terrified flunkey mumbled words. The bandit wheeled and advanced on a too-hard-dressed man, probably the proprietor, saying, "Cough up, you!"
It dawned on me that the drag-roll must be the larger greenbacks which the proprietor personally carried in preference to letting them remain in the cash register, in case of a holdup. Reluctantly, blue-faced with a rage, the hard-clad man surrendered a large roll of currency. He also threw dreadful glances at the bartender who"d given the secret away.
The stubby thug had not cursed for a moment, but he was glaring at the customers. His eyes, small, vicious, came to rest on me. At least I presumed there must be small vicious eyes behind the mask; such people are generally supposed to be small-eyed. While I was diverted by curiosity about his eyes, the fellow emitted another of his bloodthirsty yells. He screamed, "Try to get funny, will you!"
His arm came up. His gun looked at me. It was big enough to drive a hea.r.s.e through.Mr. Mayfair said, "Yipe!" And I was suddenly flat on my back on the floor. Mr. Mayfair had done a motion with his foot, causing me to fall down.
A bullet pa.s.sed. I had the distressed impression that it visited momentarily the s.p.a.ce I had just occupied.
MR. MAYFAIR proceeded to act in an amazing fashion. It seemed that a normal man would have been stiff with terror. I was. But Mr. Mayfair apparently began enjoying himself. He emitted a spine-chilling whoop, scooped up a chair, hurled it at the gun-firing brigand. He scooted down on the floor, and upset a couple of tables-this was to produce a shower of heavy ash-trays around him. He began hurling the ash-trays with astonishing accuracy. The first one he threw knocked several teeth out of the short hold-up"s mouth.
The longer bandit cried out some information to his comrade.
"Say, that guy"s Monk Mayfair-one of Doc Savage"s pals," he said.
The two of them then fired their pistols, and beat a wild retreat.
Mr. Mayfair, in an utterly reckless manner, hurled another chair, a bottle, a small table. The bandits got the two chairs out of the revolving door, pushed their way through; one of them carried a chair, and after they were through, he dropped this in the door so it could not continue to revolve.
Thus Mr. Mayfair was blocked.
Howling, Mr. Mayfair proceeded to kick a whole panel of gla.s.s out of the door. He was a.s.sisted in this by two bullets which fortunately missed him.
Lila Farrar was staring at Mayfair.
"What a man!" she gasped.
I had, by this time, decided the area back of the bar would be a safe shelter. I grasped Lila"s hand, and said, "Come!" urgently.
"Get up off the floor," she said with some contempt. "They"re gone."
"They may return!" I gasped.
"If they do, they won"t last long," she replied. "That Mayfair will make believers out of them."
Mr. Mayfair was creating a devil of a rumpus in the street. I did not venture outside, but Lila did. I gathered that the banditti had departed in an automobile which they"d had waiting, and Mr. Mayfair was searching for an unlocked car in which to pursue them. He was, evidently, unsuccessful, because presently he and Lila rejoined me. She was glancing at Mr. Mayfair with respect.
"Your friends," said Mr. Mayfair, "have gone. You can come out from behind the bar, Henry."
"They"re no friends of mine!" I snapped.
"No?"
"No! I do not a.s.sociate with such characters!""Well, they knew you."
Inexplicably, I"d sort of had this impression myself. But I denied it hotly. "They couldn"t! I never saw them before!"
Mr. Mayfair shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound.
"Then why did they try to knock you off Henry?" he asked.
"Knock me off? You mean slay me?"
"Yes."
"Ridiculous!"
"I got eyes to see with," said Mr. Mayfair dryly. "If you ask me, they weren"t real hold-ups, but just staged it in order to have an excuse to pot-shoot you."
I must have paled. I know that I nearly fell down. My knees became as limp as fishing-worms. A profound desire to be ill beset my stomach.
"Gracious!" I said.
"I think," remarked Mr. Mayfair, "that we should have a discussion about this, Henry."
I said that we could go to my laboratory. It was a wonder that my voice was understandable.
I GOT stuck with the check. It was a large one, large enough that my hair stood on end slightly and my upset stomach was not soothed. The idea of paying such a price for a few sips of an unhealthful beverage was ridiculous.
Mr. Mayfair requested my laboratory room number.
"I think," he said, "that I"ll ask a couple of questions."
"Of whom?" I demanded.
"Of anybody who looks like they might know answers," he replied with asperity. So Lila and I went upstairs alone.
Miss Lila Farrar seemed impressed by my laboratory, and her att.i.tude, which had chilled somewhat during my quite logical behavior in the course of the wild and woolly holdup, now warmed a bit.
She remarked that this was probably an efficient layout, adding, "But I wouldn"t know. I"ve seen so much of laboratories in my time that at a very early age I got filled up, and decided to learn as little about them as possible."
This was an att.i.tude toward serious research that I have noticed before in the human female. However, it was impossible to be critical of her. She was so utterly lovely.
I inquired, and was a.s.sured it was true, that she was the daughter of the Farrar who owned Farrar Products. This verified my deductions.
Miss Lucy Jenkins, my laboratory a.s.sistant, did not evidence much approval of Lila Farrar. This seemedmutual between them.
Mr. Mayfair returned rather sooner than I wished. Indeed, it would have been difficult to shed any tears if Mr. Mayfair had remained away permanently.
He jammed his hat on the back of his head, and twisted his homely face at me.
"You," he said, "are a lulu."
"I don"t believe-"
"Why," demanded Mr. Mayfair, "didn"t you mention that a fat guy got shot a while ago while standing beside you?"
This was stunning news; it was quite unbelievable. "Ridiculous," I said. "That could not be."
"Yeah? Well, this fat guy was standing under an awning in front of this building, and a bullet hit him in the chest. A bullet from a silenced rifle, or maybe a rifle fired from inside an office across the street-anyway, there wasn"t much of a shot report. And there was sure a bullet in the chubby guy."
"The fellow who had a heart attack!" I cried.
"No, he didn"t," Mayfair replied. "The slug missed his heart by four or five inches. But it sure messed up his breathing apparatus."
"Oh! Oh, my!"
Mayfair examined me wonderingly. "You mean," he demanded, "to stand there with your prissy face hanging out, and tell me you didn"t notice the guy was shot?"
"I-ah-" Words were burrs in my throat. There was ice-water in my veins.
"Henry," said Mr. Mayfair, "you"re an oddly un.o.bservant guy."
"Henry," said Miss Lila Farrar, "is an oddly guy. Period!"
"It must be Dido Alstrong"s package!" I blurted.