"However," he said, "these were melted and burned with the heat of an acetylene torch."
"I wonder when-" Chet Farmer stopped and stared at the bronze man. "What did you say?"
"The handbag frame, compact and b.u.t.tons were melted out of shape by acetylene."
Chet pulled in a strange breath. "But they weren"t carrying any torch."
"Exactly."
"Then," Chet muttered, "they must have fixed those things up before they came in here."
Doc Savage nodded slightly, said nothing.
"You mean," Chet demanded, "that the thing was staged."
"Planned, we might say.""But why should they plant those pieces of metal while they were killing the girl-"
Doc Savage said, "They did not kill her."
"Huh?"
"They merely tried to make it seem that they had killed the girl. They did not do so."
Chet Farmer frowned. "I was knocked unconscious part of the time, and didn"t see it all. But I understand that they lighted the first package which was placed in front of the girl. When it began burning, everyone was blinded. I guess they could have carried her out and no one would have been able to see, if they worked fast."
"They seemed to have done exactly that," Doc said.
"Are you positive she didn"t burn?"
"The ashes," the bronze man said, "show no trace whatever of human protein when given an a.n.a.lysis."
Chet Farmer raked bewildered fingers through his hair.
"But what made her that pink color?" he demanded.
There came into existence a strange, low, exotic trilling sound that was without tune, yet possessed of a definitely musical quality, seeming to come from no particular spot in the room, but from everywhere.
Then Doc Savage looked faintly startled, and the sound ceased. The trilling was a small unconscious thing which he did in moments of mental stress. Just now, it had meant that he was puzzled.
Chapter III. ANOTHER ONE PINK.
CHET FARMER was impressed by Doc Savage. Without haste and without excitement, the bronze man had cut through the unbelievable aspect of what had happened, and dug out the fact that the girl was not dead at all, and that her supposed burning had been planned and staged. He had done this without waste motion, while the others were milling around, confused by the wildly improbable features of the incident.
Chet said, "I can"t bring myself to think that girl was in on it, even if it was staged. She was scared."
"A young woman might be expected to be nervous while taking part in a thing like that," Doc Savage suggested.
"She wasn"t nervous-it was fear."
The bronze man changed the subject. "According to the spectators, those gas-masked men-or one of them, at least-carefully p.r.o.nounced the girl"s name. Lada Harland."
"Yes."
"There seems to be an impression that the man wanted everyone to understand the name."
Chet Farmer scratched his head. "I wonder why?"
Doc Savage did not answer. He went over to the policeman in charge of the expedition and put an inquiry. The officer a.s.sured him that the police were checking everyone by the name of Harland who was to be found in the city directory or the telephone book."We haven"t found any trace of a Lada Harland," the officer reported.
"Let me know when you have finished checking."
"I will."
Returning to Chet Farmer, who was watching a fireman roll up hose, Doc Savage said, "The explanation of the spectators seems to agree on one point-the girl"s frock was dry, but her hose and footgear were wet."
Chet Farmer nodded.
"That would indicate she had been out in the rain, wearing a raincoat. But she had no raincoat," Doc Savage added.
"I don"t see where that will help us."
"Did anyone see how she arrived? In what kind of a conveyance?"
"No."
"We might work on the theory that she came in a cab, and left her raincoat in the taxi. People usually remove their wet raincoats when they get into a taxicab. This girl, being excited, could have left hers."
The police officer approached-he came from the direction of the telephone-and said, "The department has gone over the Harlands. We haven"t found anybody in the city who knows a Lada Harland."
Doc nodded, said, "We will have to try the taxicab theory."
The bronze man went to the telephone and began calling taxicab companies and offering a five-dollar reward for return of a raincoat left in a cab by a pa.s.senger, a woman, who had alighted at the Hotel Troy.
Chet Farmer muttered, "Why not offer a hundred bucks, if you"re gonna give a reward? I"m not flush, but I"ll put up the dough. I want action on this."
Doc said, "Too big a reward might frighten the cab driver."
When the bronze man had called the list of cab companies in the city cla.s.sified directory, he dialed the long-distance operator and began calling taxicab concerns in the neighboring towns.
THE town was Great Neck, on Long Island.
It was around four o"clock in the morning, with some traces of dawn due in the east, when Doc Savage and Chet Farmer arrived. It had stopped raining.
The cab driver was somewhat suspicious. "You ain"t private detectives?" he asked dubiously.
Doc studied him. "What would that have to do with it?"
"Just this," the hack driver said stubbornly. "I ain"t doing nothing to get Lada Harland in trouble. Nice girl, Lada is."
"You have known her a long time?""Since she was this high." The hackman made a height with his hands, about eighteen inches. "She"s a lady, Lada is," he added.
To save a protracted argument, Doc Savage spread the two-o"clock editions of the morning newspapers out in front of the man. These carried the story of what had happened at the Hotel Troy. The hack driver read slowly, shaping the words with his lips.
"She burned to death!" he gasped foolishly. "Lada did."
That was what the newspapers said. Doc had kept to himself the fact that the girl was still alive-or at least had not been burned in the hotel lobby.
"Where did you pick her up?" Doc asked.
"She telephoned me last night and asked me to meet her two blocks from her house," the taxi driver explained. "She kind of whispered over the telephone, and said she was sneaking out. Well, I met her.
And she told me to drive her to Ten West Street in New York."
Doc inquired, "Why did you let her out at the Hotel Troy?"
"Because, all of a sudden, she asked me to."
"What changed her mind?"
"I didn"t know at the time, but those men-those fellows with the gas masks and bulletproof vests that it talks about here in the newspaper-must have been following her, and she"d seen "em."
"You did not know you were followed?"
"I sure didn"t."
"Where," Doc asked, "is the Harland home?"
"You want me to go out there with you?"
"No."
The taxi driver gave them an address and a description, and ended with, "The Harlands have lived there for years. Nice people, all of them. Their parents was in the drugstore business here for years. I mean, their father was. He died, and his wife died not a month later. That was three-no, four-years ago."
Doc said, "Then there is more than one Harland living at that address?"
"Two. Lada and her brother, Peter. He is about ten years older than Lada."
"What does Peter Harland do?"
"Works in the city. Think he"s with an outfit that makes ash trays and nonbreakable dishes and stuff like that."
Doc said, "Describe him."
Peter Harland was described as a bulky young man who disliked exercise, who wore gla.s.ses, and who got his entertainment from books and long walks alone along the beach. "He was a studious cuss even when he was little," the taxi driver explained. "Always studying something or other. Mighty ambitious, Iguess. Too ambitious to have any fun."
"Did you see Peter Harland last night?"
"Nope. Didn"t see n.o.body but Lada."
"Did you see her face?" Doc inquired.
The driver scrubbed at his jaw with a palm. "Come to think of it, she had a gray shawl around her head, and it was dark. Nope, didn"t see her face. But it was Lada, all right. I"d know her voice. Anyhow, she asked me how my wife"s geranium was coming. She gave my wife the geranium, Lada did."
Doc offered the taxi driver the five-dollars reward, but the man refused to take it. "If Lada is in trouble, I want to help," he explained. "I would feel dirty if I took money for it."
THE Harland home was a Colonial of brick and white weatherboard, with a fireplace chimney, large windows and plenty of pleasant lawn, with some shrubbery. The garage was attached. It was very modern and had the appearance of having been remodeled within the last few years.
The night was black, except for an edging of scarlet dawn hint in the east.
Doc Savage drove his car on past. The machine was a coupe, large, dark, not conspicuous. There was little about it-unless one rolled down the windows and examined their thickness-to show that it was a rolling fortress of armor plate and bulletproof gla.s.s. He stopped the vehicle on the closest side street.
"You stay in the machine," he told Chet Farmer.
The bronze man"s voice had a quiet power of command that caused Chet Farmer to remain in the machine, although he"d previously had no intention of doing so. After a few minutes, it occurred to him that he"d followed orders like a hired man, and that irritated him. But when he tried to get out of the car, he could not. All the doors and windows were locked.
By that time, Doc Savage had reached the Harland home. There had been little visible evidence of his coming, merely a stirring of shadow now and then.
He attached a gadget to a windowpane. It was a supersensitive microphone pickup, and it fed into an amplifier, then into a headset. Doc listened. He could hear an electric clock running, and, in a bathroom probably, a faucet dripping. Later an electric refrigerator started up. There was no other sound.
He tried three more windows without additional results, then went back to the car.
"No one in the house," he reported.
Chet Farmer, indignant, said, "You locked me in here! I couldn"t get out!"
Doc Savage, seeming apologetic, explained, "There is a concealed locking system. If one forgets to press the b.u.t.ton, everything locks automatically."
"Where"s the d.a.m.ned b.u.t.ton?" Chet Farmer demanded.
Doc Savage seemed not to hear the inquiry. He was headed back toward the Harland home. The front door was unlocked. He entered.
THE house was empty, and someone had gone over everything, wiping with a damp dishrag. Doc Savage pointed this out by indicating the smears which the wet cloth had left in certain spots that were dusty. They found the dishrag in the kitchen, neatly washed out.
"Looks like somebody wiped off fingerprints," Chet Farmer muttered. "That"s queer. I wonder what we"re getting mixed up in, anyhow."
Doc handed him the dishrag. "Feel it."
"Wet," Chet said.