THE SECOND BLACK STICK
The Piccadilly House was in a state of siege, figuratively. Since the management was refusing to allow newspaper reporters and photographers to penetrate even as far as the lobby, the journalists had gathered in front of the door and were voicing some pointed opinions of hotel management in general and a Yankee man of mystery in particular.
“Jolly preposterous!” declared a scribe. “Who ever heard of an American who was not a publicity chaser?”
Sen Gat’s followers arrived and looked over the scene. They singsonged softly among themselves, then tried to walk into the hotel. They were repulsed, being informed that only guests at the hostelry were being admitted.
They went into a huddle, and one broached an acceptable idea. Shuffling down the street, they came to a second-hand luggage shop, where each purchased a well-worn suitcase plentifully plastered with old steamship labels. A foray into an alley ballasted the luggage with sufficient cobblestones to give a reasonable weight.
Returning to the hotel, they asked for rooms and were passed inside; they were so obviously not journalists that only perfunctory questions were put to them.
Playing the parts of frugal gentlemen, they asked for and received small rear rooms, but they did not stay in them a great while. They waited only long enough to examine businesslike revolvers and to loosen wavy-bladed creeses in sheaths, then crept into the corridor.
They were in the hallway when a dilemma presented itself. Despite their elaborate scheming, they had neglected to learn on what floor Doc Savage had ensconced himself. But another conference solved this.
They went down to the desk and asked for a change of rooms. There was some haggling about floors.
“I am extremely sorry, but you cannot have the top floor,” the clerk informed them. “Doc Savage has taken that floor.”
The clerk made the statement because he was proud that his hostelry had been chosen by the man of mystery, and wanted to brag a little. His words gave the celestials the information they desired.
They changed to another floor—and five minutes later were mounting the stairs which led up to the top story. They came up boldly.
One of Doc Savage’s five aides occupied a chair in the corridor. He was the man with the incredibly huge fists. His knotted hands were resting on his knees, and they seemed almost as large as his head, which was not small. His face itself was unusual, being long and covered with an expression of unutterable gloom. The man looked as if he had just lost a very dear relative.
So interesting was the man in the chair that the orientals failed to notice two metal boxes which stood, one on either side of the stairway.
They would have been highly interested in what happened inside the suite of rooms as they passed the boxes.
At the moment, Doc Savage was standing in front of a writing table. On the table was another metal case, open. Wires so small as to be hardly noticeable led from the box and ran under the carpet, where they had been hurriedly placed, and into the corridor. They had been tucked under the corridor runner and extended to the two boxes on either side of the stairs.
The hotel elevator operators had orders to bring no one to this floor, the entire space being occupied by Doc Savage and his men. Therefore, any visitors must pass between the two boxes at the top of the staircase.
Protruding from the top of the metal case on the writing table, was an electric bulb. The bulb glowed red at the instant the orientals passed the boxes outside.
Doc Savage straightened swiftly when he saw the red light. “Who’s coming? You look, Monk.”
“Monk”—Andrew Blodgett Mayfair—was the furry gorilla of a giant who owned the homely pig. The pig was dozing at his feet. Monk lumbered erect and made for the door.
Monk’s coarse, reddish hair started growing almost at his eyebrows, giving the impression of no forehead at all. This lent him an unutterably dumb appearance. Monk’s look had deceived many people. He was a chemist, and he ranked among the greatest in that intricate science.
Reaching the door, he looked out
“Five slant-eyed guys,” he advised Doc. “Indo-Chinese or Malay.”
Doc Savage said nothing, but held out both hands and opened and closed them rapidly. The tendons writhing and flowing in the hands were enormous.
Monk caught the meaning of the pantomime. “They ain’t carryin’ nothin’,” he said.
Doc made pulling gestures in front of his lips, shrugged, shook his head, then shoved both hands out in front of him with a fierce expression.
Monk grinned. He was to pull what information he could out of the newcomers, and if they failed to talk, he was to frighten them away.
Doc Savage swung to the window. It was open, and he eased through. The wall was of brick, the single ornamental ledge less than half an inch wide. But the giant man of bronze grasped this and swung to one side of the aperture. He clung there with an effortless ease which indicated that the fabulous strength portrayed by his hand tendons was very real. He could hear what went on inside the room.
The byplay had transpired with great speed. Doc was out of sight before the orientals reached the big-fisted man seated on the chair in the corridor.
“You fella Doc Savage?” one asked.
“Naw,” said the big-fisted man. “I’m Renny—Colonel John Renwick.”
His voice was a great roaring, and nothing about his careless English indicated he ranked among the top half dozen of the world’s greatest engineers.
“We likee splickee Doc Savage,” stated the spokesman.
The homely Monk appeared in the door and offered, “Doc just left.”
If Renny was surprised, he did not show it, although he was aware Doc Savage could not depart in conventional fashion without passing his chair.
“Doc Savage, him come back soon, mebbe?” singsonged an oriental.
“Maybe,” Monk admitted. “What-cha want with him?”
The celestials now demonstrated that they were excellent liars.
“Doc Savage got black stick,” one declared. “Him velly much vallable. We come help watchee stick.”
Monk backed away to let the orientals inside. As they entered, the slant-eyed fellows kept hands near their pockets—and the pockets bulged as if they might hold weapons. Understanding dawned on Monk. The two metal boxes in the corridor were part of a device created by Doc Savage. One box produced a magnetic field, the other held a super-sensitive galvanometerlike apparatus. Metal introduced into the magnetic field caused a change which this galvanometer picked up and registered, closing a contact that lighted the red lamp on the writing table.
This complicated contrivance was merely to warn Doc Savage if any visitors arrived carrying guns or knives. And it had worked, for the concealed arms of the orientals had been detected by Doc’s device.
The visitors perched gingerly on chairs.
Monk went into an adjoining room in which the other three members of Doc’s group of five aides lounged.
One of the trio—the snappily dressed man with the black cane—stared sourly at Monk. His expression was that of a man viewing an especially undesirable form of insect.
“Nature’s awful mistake,” he sneered.
Monk grinned cheerfully at the insult. The speaker was “Ham”—Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks—great light of the American legal profession.
One of the remaining pair was extremely tall, and skinnier than it seemed possible any man could be and still live. A monocle—actually a powerful magnifying glass—dangled from his lapel by a ribbon. This was “Johnny”—William Harper Littlejohn—renowned geologist and archaeologist.
“Long Tom” Roberts was the third man. Electrical wizard extraordinary was Long Tom, a man who had already earned a place among the famous.
“Somethin’s up!” Monk whispered.
“The black stick wrapped in oiled paper that was tossed to Doc at the airport?” Ham breathed. “I had a hunch that meant trouble.”
“Sh-h-h!” admonished Monk. “Just wanted to let you know there may be fireworks. These slant-eyes are armed.”
Monk returned to the room where the orientals were sitting, and asked them, “You say you’ve come here to help us guard a black stick?”
“You catchem idea,” he was told.
“But what’s this all about?”
“Black stick, him velly much want by some fella.”
“By whom?”
The slant-eyed one shrugged sloping shoulders. “Velly solly—no can tell. Boss man, he come this place bye-bye. Mebbe so him talkee you. Savvy?”
“Humph!” Monk eyed the unnaturally huge ears of his pet pig.
“Doc Savage blong black stick?” asked a visitor.
“You mean—has he got it?” Monk blinked tiny eyes. “Before I spill anything, you guys have got to tell a story that means something. Who is supposed to have given this stick to Doc Savage?”
The celestial thought fast on that one. “Boss man,” he answered.
“What’s his name?”
“No can tell.”
“What is the black stick, then?”
The visitors thought that over, exchanging glances, then shrugged in concert. “Velly solly, no can tell.”
Monk scratched his head, then got up from the chair and roamed the room. His elaborately aimless wanderings took him to an adjacent chamber. Crossing hurriedly to a window, he thrust out his head and saw Doc Savage, only a few feet from him.
“I ain’t gittin’ nothin’ out of ’em, Doc,” Monk breathed.
“Shall I go ahead and scare ’em away?”
“Do that,” Doc directed.
The word exchange was so low that the orientals could not have heard.
Monk ambled back. He scratched his head and aggravated the pig with a toe.
The slant-eyed men looked on, faces bland. It might have been that they carefully concealed some amusement; Monk’s very homeliness was comical—more than one individual had laughed outright at his appearance. But Monk was an amiable soul who didn’t mind.
Monk went to a pile of metal boxes which stood in a corner. These were Doc Savage’s equipment containers. Bending over one, he opened it and fingered through the contents. Then he palmed a tiny cylindrical object of metal.
The orientals failed to observe this move.
When Monk returned from the heaped-up boxes, he was placing a cigar between his lips and lighting it. Had the visitors been well-posted, the fact that Monk was smoking might have warned them of something amiss. Ordinarily, none of Doc’s men smoked.
Monk returned to his chair, and for some seconds nothing happened.
“Doc Savage blong this place chop-chop?” asked a man impatiently.
Monk shrugged. “Never can tell when Doc’ll get back.”
The pleasantly homely chemist was drawing prodigious quantities of smoke from his cigar and blowing it down over his hands, which were folded on his vest. He nudged the pig with a toe, and the shoat sat up. With the toe, Monk indicated the slant-eyed men.
The pig had been Monk’s mascot for a long time. Literally thousands of hours had been spent in training him. As a result, Habeas Corpus—that was the cognomen Monk bad appended to him—possessed no small intelligence. The pointing toe was enough to start him eyeing the yellow men.
The stare was returned. The orientals seemed fascinated.
Monk drew in smoke and sent it scooting in a billowing plume over his hands. There sounded two faint clicks, low enough that no one but Monk heard them.
Two celestials started slightly. Both scratched themselves; one a leg, the other his chest. Both abruptly turned pale and looked quite ill.
Monk puffed more smoke, and there were two more clicks, after which two more men assumed expressions of great discomfort. During all this, Habeas Corpus was still staring.
“Funny thing about that pig,” Monk remarked around his cigar. “Got him in Arabia. He’s a mighty special kind of hog. Once I heard a guy say Habeas had the evil eye, that awful things happened to some birds when he looked at ’em. Course, there ain’t nothin’ to that.”
Sen Gat’s followers thought this over, and the more they considered the greater was their discomfort. They were of a race addicted to believe in spells and evil charms; moreover, they could plainly see that something strange was happening to a part of their group. Suddenly, it got the best of them.
“Us fella come back ’notha time,” one groaned, and sprang to his feet. The others followed him out of the room into the corridor, and down the stairs. Those who had been stricken could hardly walk.
A grin seamed Monk’s simian features from ear to ear. He opened a hand and eyed the cylindrical metal object he had taken from the boxes in the corner. This was a tiny compressed-air repeating blowgun, one of countless strange devices which Doc Savage had perfected.
The slugs it fired were half an inch long and little thicker than needles. There was a supply of them in the case, coated with drugs which produced a variety of effects, from instant unconsciousness to hilarious intoxication. Monk had used the type which inflicted great physical discomfort. The tobacco smoke had concealed Monk’s operations.
Monk went to the window and looked out. Doc Savage was descending the side of the hotel.