"Oh, good. Then it won"t inconvenience you if I take it."
Relief was a tremendous emotion within me.
"I"ll be infernally glad to get rid of it!" I exclaimed, shoving the package into his hands. "There! Take it!
And will you inform Dido Alstrong that I am not to be called on for any more of his favors!"
Mr. Edwards accepted the package, but seemed somewhat uncomfortable. And he said, "Well, I"ll try to convey your feelings to Dido. . . . But-ah-it"s rather difficult to state such a blunt thing. You know how it is."
"I know how Dido is," I said bitterly. "One doesn"t find it easy to tell him anything."
"Exactly," said the polite young man. "Well, I must rush off now. I"m greatly obliged to you, Henry. I trust we may meet again soon."
"I certainly hope so!" I said heartily, because his manners were very nice, and I felt sure a further acquaintance with him would be agreeable.
He departed.
I went back to Miss Lila Farrar.
"Hey!" said she. "Where"s the mystery-box?"
"Why, it"s all settled," I explained happily. "That young man was Dido Alstrong"s representative, he said, so I gave it to him."
"You dope!" said Miss Farrar.
MR. MAYFAIR joined us at this point. "Monk," said Lila, "this witless wonder got rid of the package.""Huh?" Mr. Mayfair"s small eyes popped like those of a puppy that was being squeezed. "How?"
"A smoothie just walked up and asked for it and Henry handed it to him," said Miss Farrar bitterly.
Mr. Mayfair seized me by the front of the coat. The jerk he gave me slightly disturbed some of my teeth.
"Stupid!" he said. "I don"t know what I"ll do to you! But I"ll think of something in a minute!"
"Release me at once!" I gasped, somewhat terrified by his manner. And his face-it was something with which to crack rocks.
"Where"d the guy go?" he yelled.
"I refuse to answer-"
"Where"s the guy got that package?" he bellowed.
I understood now that a loud voice and plenty of shouting was a part of his rages. This squalling meant that he was uproariously mad. And Mr. Mayfair in a rage was quite terrifying.
Before I could get my tongue unstuck from its fright, there was a commotion from inside a shop that opened off the lobby. Blows, a cry-the cry in a man"s voice. It was the shop into which the polite Mr.
Edwards had stepped while departing with Dido Alstrong"s package.
"There!" I gasped, pointing at the shop.
"Yeah?" Monk said. "Where the noise came from, eh?" He showed great interest and dashed for the shop, retaining, however, his unpleasant grip on my clothing.
Inside the shop, two men were injured. One, the proprietor, was draped across a counter, holding his nostrils with both hands, and strings of crimson were dropping from between his fingers.
"Get a cop!" this man was yelling. "See which way that so-and-so went!"
The other victim was my courteous young friend. He lay quite still, except when he coughed, which he did infrequently and only when he could not possibly prevent himself doing so. With each cough, a spray of crimson was tossed over the surroundings. There was a dark cylindrical object protruding from his chest-a knife handle.
Monk roared at the proprietor, "There was a package! Where"d it go?"
"The one who ran away took it," the man said.
Chapter V.
AT MIDAFTERNOON, the rain still came down in a tired way. The clouds must be very dark and thick over the city, because already at 3 p. m. there was almost a twilight, a semi-murk that pervaded like a giant"s scowl. The horns of the cars in the street beeped ill-temperedly at one another, against a background of traffic sound that was a low disgruntled growling.
Miss Lucy Jenkins, my lab a.s.sistant, is a nervous soul; she had long since become so fl.u.s.tered that Miss Farrar suggested it would be kinder to let her go home for the day. I agreed, because I was a trifle resentful of Lucy"s ill-concealed implications that I had fallen into bad company. This was probably perfectly true in the case of Mr. Mayfair, but not of Lila Farrar. Lila was having an utterly excruciating effect on me.Mr. Mayfair banged down the telephone receiver.
"Nothing happens!" he yelled. "Polite boy is still unconscious in the hospital! The cops can"t find Dido Alstrong!" He wheeled and scowled at the door, adding, "And Doc Savage isn"t here yet!"
Anything smacking of peace seemed to irritate this man Mayfair, it occurred to me. This was an annoying att.i.tude; for my part it would be suitable if nothing more happened to me in my lifetime.
"You have appealed to this Savage fellow?" I exclaimed.
"Sure."
"I don"t," I informed him, "think I approve!"
Mayfair snorted. Miss Farrar had brightened in a most idiotic fashion at the mention of Doc Savage, and now asked Mayfair, "You"re not kidding?"
"I called Doc," Mayfair said.
"Why, that"s wonderful!" Lila declared.
Mayfair glanced at her thoughtfully, and did not look so pleased. It had obviously entered his thick head that in pressing Doc Savage into the picture, he was going to divert Miss Farrar"s interest from himself.
"Hm-m-m-m," said Mayfair gloomily. And presently he added, to himself and with a hopeful note, "But maybe Doc"s tied up with something else."
The hope he expressed was a vain one, for Doc Savage presently appeared.
THE fellow was a spectacular sort. A giant bronze man-in fact, his stature was startlingly greater than one imagined until one stood close to him. Then he was indeed ample, in a firm-knitted muscular way.
This Doc Savage, of whom I had heard such preposterous tales, was undoubtedly one of great physical powers. His muscles were mighty. But then, it occurred to me sourly, so are the muscles of a horse.
He had, I suppose, handsomeness of a sort. But my admiration does not extend to that brown, outdoorsy, knotty-wood look that so many violent fellows have, and which was a characteristic of this Savage chap. His eyes were rather freakish, being somewhat like pools of flake gold always stirred by tiny winds. They were compelling eyes, though, and about the whole man there was an air of being able to dominate if he wished to do so.
You felt, when you were close to him-or at least I felt-much the same as one does when standing beside a large, strange and powerful piece of machinery.
Miss Farrar"s reactions irked me. Starry-eyed, she immediately began indulging the wiles that women use on men they admire.
I found myself wishing violently that this big man would at least turn out to be a dumbbell.
"Mr. Mayfair," I said at once, "did not have my authorization to involve you in this matter."
"Call me Monk, dammit," Monk told me. Then he informed Doc Savage: "This is Henry, an empty box as far as I"m concerned."
"I resent that!" I cried indignantly.Savage had a quiet voice, resonant with controlled power and-this was also a disappointment to me-he put words together quite intelligently.
He asked Mr. Mayfair for the general picture.
Mayfair said: "An old schoolmate of Henry"s, named Dido Alstrong, called on Henry for a favor. Dido wanted Henry to get and keep a package for him. Somebody took a shot at either Henry or Dido, and hit a fat man by mistake. Two hot-rods then used a holdup as a pretext to take another shot at Henry.
We got the package, but before we could look into it, a guy crowned me. Then Henry handed the package over to a young guy who was smart enough to talk the soft words Henry likes to hear, and the young guy got knocked on the head and stabbed for his pains, and the knocker-stabber made off with the package."
Having given this brief outline, Mr. Mayfair went back and filled in the details. He appeared to have an astonishingly good memory. In spite of all that tearing around and yelling he had done, he had noticed just about everything.
"I didn"t," Mayfair finished, "know what to do next. So I thought you"d be interested."
Savage turned to me. "Henry, can you clear up the mystery at all?"
"My name," I replied, "is Mr. Jones. And I am utterly at a loss."
"Henry"s that way most of the time," Mayfair said. "But this is the first time he"s admitted it."
He was so obnoxious that I did not deign an answer.
SAVAGE now turned to Lila Farrar, who was waiting for his attentions as willingly as a flower waits to be kissed by the sun, and put a question. "Dido Alstrong is employed by your father?" he queried.
He spoke, I will admit, impersonally. But Lila"s tone, her manner, implied that it was quite personal and just between the two of them-and she wasn"t unwilling.
She said this was true.
"How long have you known Dido Alstrong?" Savage asked.
"Six months," Lila said. "He has been with father"s company nearly a year, but I only met him six months ago. You see, I"ve really seen very little of my father during my lifetime. My mother and he were separated, but my mother died three years ago, and following that, my father insisted that I be educated in California, and I saw him only at intervals. He traveled a great deal. But don"t misunderstand me-my father has always treated me kindly."
"Except," Savage suggested, "that you saw little of him."
"I hardly knew my own father," she confessed.
"But you"re with him now?"
She nodded. "For the last six months, yes. He has an apartment on Park Avenue." She gave him an address in a section where it was generally known that nothing much in the way of an apartment could be had for less than ten thousand dollars a year."Your father"s company," Savage continued, "is in the plastic packaging field? Is that right?"
"Yes. They make plastic food containers, and pliofilm covers for manufactured articles."
"And Dido Alstrong is in charge of the laboratory which does research?"
"Yes."
"Have you," Savage inquired, "much faith in Dido Alstrong"s character?"
I interrupted, "I can give a picture of Dido"s character!"
"Please," said Savage. "Let Miss Farrar answer."
Lila was hesitating. "I-well-I guess Dido is all right. He"s amusing, aggressive, and full of ideas. A marvelous dancer. Holds his liquor well. And not tight with his money. One of those fellows who isn"t overawed because he is taking out the boss" daughter."
"You like him, then?"
"We-er-I was considering becoming engaged to him," she confessed.
This sickened me. I dearly hoped, that before this was ended, Dido Alstrong would be painted before her in dark villainous colors.
"How," Savage inquired, "did your father regard Dido Alstrong?"
"Why, he made Dido head of the lab."
"I mean with reference to Dido"s interest, his personal interest, in you?"
Again Lila hesitated. "That," she confessed, "was another story. He wasn"t very hot about the idea."
"He objected?"
"Daddy is a pretty smooth article. He didn"t object in so many words, but rather by inference."
"And he inferred?"
"Well-that Dido Alstrong was a confirmed small timer."
This elated me.
"Your father," I exclaimed, "has excellent judgment!"
THINGS, it seemed to me, were improving. Dido Alstrong was of bad flavor with Lila"s father, and I was sure she would have the excellent judgment to presently see that her father was right. And this highly touted Doc Savage, who had been flaunted to me as mental wizard, physical giant and scientific marvel, was not doing anything extraordinary. Savage was making no progress. He had lighted no skyrockets.
He had not exploded like a star-sh.e.l.l, as the oaf Mayfair had inferred he would.