"They"ve been threatening each other for years," Doc said. "But it"s a big fake. I don"t recall their having used a civil word to or about each other, but each one has risked his neck to help the other on numerous occasions."
"Then they actually are friends?""Marvelously so. There is no snide trick so low that one wouldn"t pull it on the other. They spend all their spare time thinking up terrible things for one another."
Arriving home, Gail discovered Doc Savage was going to be a source of considerable comfort. She had been appalled, for instance, at making arrangements for her brother"s funeral and burial while in her present state of mind. Doc took charge of that gloomy task and, she supposed, examined her brother"s body in the process. But he was subdued about it, and could have been an old family friend taking over at a time of need.
Spencer arrived to offer sympathy and a.s.sistance. He"d been trying to telephone Gail, and was quite worried.
"Gail, I knew you were going to see the wire chief, Cooper," Spencer said. "When I heard Cooper was dead, and had died the same odd way as your brother, I was plenty upset."
Gail introduced Doc Savage. Spencer"s jaw dropped.
"Good Lord, not really!" he blurted. "There was an engineer here, Tremaine, who talked an arm off us about you."
"Tremaine seems to have oversold me," Doc said. "Nice chap, though. He worked with an a.s.sociate of mine, Long Tom Roberts, in some advanced radar experiments during the war."
"Yeah, he was a swell guy," Spencer agreed. "He"s in South America now, isn"t he? Been down there several weeks laying out blind landing systems for an airline."
"That"s right. About this Cooper fellow, whom Gail found strangled when she went to see if he"d taken the films that had monitored the scope her brother was watching-what about him? Honest?"
Spencer hesitated, glancing at Gail. Then he said, "Honest as far as I know."
Neighbors were dropping in, offering their sympathies. Doc instructed Gail to remain with someone, preferably three or four people, for self-protection, and she promised. Then he told Spencer, "If you have time, let"s run over to Cooper"s place and take a look around."
When they were enroute, Doc remarked, "You seemed a little dubious of Cooper"s honesty a minute ago. Or was I wrong?"
Spencer hesitated. "As a matter of fact, I think Cooper was entirely honest. Perhaps too honest."
"Then why did you seem uncertain."
"Dammit, I wish you hadn"t brought this up."
"It might be important, and I"d like to know."
Spencer grimaced. "Well, the reason I hesitated, it occurred to me that Cooper was probably a lot stronger character than Dan Adams."
"You distrusted Gail"s brother?"
"Don"t get me wrong. I think Gail"s a great kid."
"We"re discussing her brother.""That"s right. . . . I would call the brother weak. Not nearly the sort of person Gail is. Gail always took care of Dan. I imagine she steered him away from a lot of sc.r.a.pes."
Seeing that Spencer was uncomfortable, Doc told him, "Gail said the same thing about her brother. You think his weakness could have some bearing on what happened to him?"
"My G.o.d, I don"t know. I don"t even know what happened to him?"
"You don"t seem to think he committed suicide."
"Well, he wasn"t the neurotic type you expect to do a thing like that. And there wasn"t anything there he could have hung himself from. That I don"t get."
And Cooper was straight."
"Absolutely. A fanatic on honesty."
"And," said Doc, "you"re imagining he might have been killed because of that?"
"That"s good mind-reading," Spencer admitted. "But I haven"t a thing to base it on."
They reached Cooper"s home, found no policeman there, were admitted by a janitor, and Spencer watched Doc Savage go over the place painstakingly. The police, Spencer thought, would have done well to examine the place this thoroughly. But he couldn"t see that Doc found anything.
Doc learned the apartments were equipped with an incinerator-a chimney affair with iron doors accessible from each hallway. He inspected the interior, felt of the bricks inside for heat, remarked, "This doesn"t seem to have been used lately. Maybe we"d better take a look."
He went downstairs, discovered the incinerator proper was a large furnace affair in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and that it hadn"t been fired up recently from the bottom, and contained a considerable amount of refuse. The top, however, bore evidence of a small fire which hadn"t ignited the whole contents. Doc dug around in this.
He showed Spencer some long strings of crinkled ashes.
"Motion picture film," he said.
Spencer started. "Gail was coming here to ask Cooper what happened to the film recording of the scope her brother was watching when he was seized with terror."
"The film was ignited, tossed down the incinerator chute, and started a small fire which burned out." Doc gave some more attention to the litter. "People have steaks for evening dinner, usually. There are steak bones dumped just under the ashes. Here are two breakfast-food cartons that were on top. That sets the time as after the dinner-hour last night. Let"s see if we can narrow it down. Here"s a paper wrapping from a piece of undertaker"s equipment, probably tossed there by the mortician who came for Cooper"s body.
That sets the time of the film burning as between the dinner hour and the discovery of the body."
Doc visited each of the three apartments in the building, asking the same question: "Had they noticed an odor of burning celluloid, picture film, last evening. If so, approximately what time?"
One tenant had been at a movie, but the other two had noticed. The time was given as nine o"clock by one, and eight-forty by the other.
The time of Cooper"s death had been set by the medical examiner as eight-thirty."Let"s say the film was burned about the time of Cooper"s death," Doc said dryly.
Gail was upset when they returned. She said, "Mr. Mayfair called. He and Mr. Brooks are very anxious to have you join them."
Spencer excused himself, explaining that he had another date with the girl-friend. When he had gone, Doc asked Gail, "Where are they?"
Gail gave him an address. "It"s in the better part of the city, where the fine homes are."
"They have Gibble cornered?"
"Yes, I gathered so," Gail said. "But what is Mr. Gibble doing in that part of town? Only the wealthier people live there."
"Want to come along and find out?"
"Yes, I"d like to."
"And you had better," Doc advised. "I"m not sure whether your life is still in danger, but it could be."
They drove for twenty minutes and came into a section of magnificent homes set far back from the boulevard and surrounded by expanses of landscaping that obviously required the services of many gardeners.
Gail remarked wonderingly, "You seem to know the city. You haven"t asked a question about the route, nor taken a wrong turn."
"Had a look at a map of the city before I came down here," Doc explained. "That will be the address yonder." He slowed the car-they were driving the one that had belonged to Gail"s brother-and a squarish figure came ambling from the shadows.
It was Monk. He pointed. "That"s the jernt. Right good-sized place, too."
"Know who lives there?" Doc asked Gail.
She shook her head. "It"s the Dan Camper mansion. He"s the oil magnate who died a couple of years ago. But I don"t know who has it now."
"I inquired into that," Monk said. "He owns it."
"Who?"
"Gibble."
"Oh, no!" Gail exclaimed. "That can"t be! Gibble is only a minor employee at the Station. His salary wasn"t as large as Dan"s, and Dan barely made enough to make ends meet. . . . Why, Gibble wouldn"t have enough left of his salary to hire even one gardener for that great palace of a place!"
"Nevertheless," said Monk, "Gibble lives there."
"I can"t believe it."
Monk shrugged, explaining, "I thought it a little odd, too. So I ask some questions around. And whatcha know! This Gibble has been masquerading as a poor working man. He"s been working at the radarresearch job on a salary that must"ve seemed like peanuts to him. Know who Gibble is? He"s Anthony Wandrei Gibble, who invented and developed a cracking process that revolutionized the oil industry. The guy has more dollars than I have wishes."
They were silent for a while.
"It should be an interesting visit," Doc said, and moved toward the mansion.
Chapter IX.
HE was probably the only butler in the state. The only one in a livery, anyway. That was Gail"s thought and, startled, she whispered it to Doc Savage.
"The master isn"t in to callers," said the butler in the best comic opera tradition.
"That isn"t exactly unexpected news," Monk told him. "The master is indisposed, is he?"
"Mr. Gibble," said the lackey stiffly, "is occupied."
"We"ll divert him, then," Monk suddenly had a fistful of the butler"s livery, jerked the man"s face close to his own, scowled fiercely, and added, "We could start the diversion right here, if you"re a mind."
Gail wasn"t exactly sure what happened then. There were several sounds-swishes, grunts, impacts-put rather closely together. All at once, in fact. She saw Monk"s feet in the air. He seemed to be standing on his head beside the servant. But then the blur cleared, and Monk was partly kneeling and partly sitting on the butler, but looking a little uncertain as to just how this had happened. "Where"d he go?" Monk asked blankly.
"You have him," Doc said. "Or vice-versa."
"Oh!" Monk arose hastily. He"d had enough of the butler, at close range anyway. He told the latter, "Buddy, the last guy that done that to me was four j.a.ps."
The servant arose and dusted himself. He was red-faced, looked considerably less butlerish. "You did all right," he said.
"Did I?" Monk eyed him dubiously. "Well, we still want to talk to Gibble. So do we have another workout, or do we see Gibble?"
The butler was feeling of various of his joints. "Mr. Gibble can throw you out himself," he said.
"Personally, I would as soon tie into a tiger."
"Same here," Monk a.s.sured him, and they walked into the mansion. "Where"ll we find the master?"
The servant pointed, and they walked in that direction. Gibble had company. Two men. They, like Gibble, wore three-hundred dollar suits, and unlike Gibble they would have been as distinguished in coveralls. Particularly if one read the financial news frequently.
They found out now what made Gibble want to run. Miss Adams. He saw her, made a kind of strangledsound, and left the room with remarkable speed. . . . To be brought back in a few seconds later by Ham Brooks, who"d been watching the back door.
"He"s impulsive," Ham said. "And not slow on his feet, either."
Gibble stared at Ham in astonishment. "You! You were a pa.s.senger on the plane coming back!"
Ham admitted it, and added, "I was right on your heels all the way out here, too." He nodded at the other two gentlemen. "These fellows came in the back door some time later, evidently after you had telephoned them. Aren"t they a bit out of character, sneaking in back doors."
Gibble looked a little ill. "You know them?"
"I know this one." Ham pointed out the taller of the two. "I could use one of his railroads, or a few of his oil refineries, as who couldn"t."
The man under discussion, a J. C. Ziff by name, said wryly to Ham, "And if I ever hired you for a lawyer, you"d probably have one before you got through."
"Oh, you know me, too?"
"That"s right, Mr. Brooks. . . . This is Sam Munroe. He has a few more oil refineries than I have."
Sam Munroe, who looked cranky and was perspiring, didn"t acknowledge the introduction.
Doc Savage moved to the center of the room. "I take it we interrupted a conference?"
The man named Sam Munroe grunted. He looked at Gibble. "Is this Doc Savage?" he demanded.
"Yes, I think so," Gibble said. "At least he resembles the description. A man named Tremaine, who was at the Station some weeks ago, talked incessantly of Doc Savage, and he had some snapshots of Savage which he would insist on showing to anyone willing to look. The fellow in the pictures seemed to be this man."
"I want it more sure than that," Munroe growled.
J. C. Ziff said, "Rest your horse, Sam. This is Doc Savage. One of the most extraordinary people you"ll ever meet, I"ve no doubt." Ziff paused, chuckled without much humor, and added, "More interesting, it"s sure, than all the ghosts."
"The ghosts have been d.a.m.ned interesting," Ziff said.
"I"ll stack Savage up against them."
"Even against Morand"s spook?"
"Yes. Morand"s spook included."