SWEET WINE
Monk watched Doc Savage’s feat with interest, but failed to register the slack-jawed amazement a stranger might have exhibited. The gorillalike chemist had been associated with Doc Savage long enough to comprehend the fabulous nature of the bronze man’s physical strength. Monk had seen Doc do more dangerous climbing.
A few feet to the side, a series of projecting bricks formed an ornamental procession down the wall. Supported by cabled fingers, Doc was lowering himself from one of these to another. The fact that a slip would have brought death or serious injury seemed not to concern him.
Glancing up, the bronze man caught Monk’s vehement nod, which conveyed the fact that the orientals had departed, then he continued downward.
Doc landed on the roof of a one-story neighboring building, glided to the rear, and dropped into a courtyard with a lithe ease. The courtyard held banana crates, tea cartons and other refuse from a shop.
Opening a door, Doc walked into a store. The proprietor and two clerks stared at him, dumfounded, as he walked through to the street. Their surprise was due to the bronze man’s size and obvious strength, rather than to wonder from where he had come.
The reporters and photographers still loitered in front of the hotel, so Doc crossed the street to take up a position behind a parked car. That he was not entirely infallible was demonstrated when he made a typically American mistake.
Preoccupied, he neglected the fact that London motorists drive on the left hand side of the street. It was by an agile leap that he avoided being run over.
From behind the parked car Doc watched the hotel. His fingers drifted into a pocket and brought out the object which the thin man had thrown at the airport. Unwrapping the oiled paper, Doc scrutinized the black stick, noting its oiliness. The pressure of his finger nails made a small indentation upon the dark material.
Doc gave particular attention to the evidence that the stick had originally been molded by hand.
The orientals now left the hotel, elbowing through the cluster of journalists. A scribe, buttonholing one of the yellow men in hopes of learning something of Doc Savage’s movements, was cursed thoroughly in Malayan for his trouble.
Four of Sen Gat’s men reeled as they walked. They flagged down two taxis and got aboard.
The driver of a third passing hack received a shock. Hearing the door of his machine bang, he turned his head and discovered he had a passenger—a giant bronze man whose appearance was most striking.
Sen Gat received the returning expedition in the incense-drenched vestibule of the house in Shoreditch.
“Back so soon?” He rubbed his palms together, careful of his protected finger nails. “Give me the black key.”
There was a general trading of uneasy looks—and silence. Those stricken by Monk’s darts had recovered somewhat from their illness.
“Let me have it!” Sen Gat snapped.
“Velly solly,” a man mumbled.
“Apa fasal!” rapped Sen Gat. “What is the matter?”
“Us fella come alongside evil eye.”
Tight-lipped with rage, Sen Gat led the way into the room where Maples had been overpowered. Maples was not there now. Neither was Indigo nor the others—among whom was the pair who had muttered rebellion against Sen Gat The sole occupant was the unfortunate whom Maples had struck down at the back door with a cobble. Around his head was an enormous bandage.
Sen Gat glared, then said fiercely, “I have seen among my men some who seem to think they can do better without me. Maybe you give me—the American cinema calls it the ‘doublecross’? That is not conducive to health.”
“Pig fella b’long damn evil eye,” insisted a man.
The story then came out in great detail while Sen Gat listened, first skeptically, then with surprise, and finally much concerned. He muttered under his breath and tapped his finger nail protectors together.
“You say there was first a tingling? Where?”
The victims pointed out the spots. Their leader stripped open their clothing and found at each point a place where a pin might have jabbed. He seized a knife, and heedless of painful squawls, dug out one of the darts.
“Hell!” he swore explosively in English.
“Evil eye b’long pig——”
“Evil eye nothing!” Sen Gat threw the knife down, stamped across the rug and back again. “That man who you say looked like a gorilla, tricked you! He shot those darts into you and made you sick. But why?”
“No b’long savvy,” some one offered.
“I have heard of this Doc Savage, heard that his methods are incredible,” Sen Gat snapped. “It is plain you fellows were tricked.”
Sen Gat considered—and reached a wrong conclusion. “Doc Savage’s men must have thought they could get rid of us by frightening you away. They were mistaken. We need all three of those black keys. All three may be necessary when we reach The Thousand-headed Man. We will get them.”
The victims of Monk’s darts were holding their heads; they registered anything but optimism.
“A little wine will cheer you up.” Sen Gat eyed the man whom Maples had struck with the paving rock. “Get the wine—the bottle we just opened in the rear room.”
The flunkey shuffled out, was gone for perhaps a minute, and brought back a wicker-wrapped bottle and glasses. He poured a round and distributed the filled goblets.
“To our securing the three black keys!” said Sen Gat, and they all drank, including the one who had brought the sweet wine.
The effects were almost instantaneous. The men reeled, made foolish gibbering noises, then sank to the floor. Their eyes remained open. They did not lose consciousness, but babbled, mumbled and squirmed about. There was something idiotic in their behavior.
There was movement in the doorway, but no eyes were drawn to the aperture; none seemed to realize that the giant man of bronze whom they had been discussing now stood in the opening.
Doc Savage held a flat padded container in which reposed numerous small phials. He was returning an empty bottle to the container, which he in turn pocketed.
As Doc moved forward, there was a silent ease in his tread which indicated how he had managed to shift about in the house without any one knowing of his presence. The lock on the front door had offered little obstruction, for he had studied locks intensively in the past and this chanced to be one of the simplest types.
His retreat to the rear room to drug the sweet wine—after he had overheard the flunkey being ordered to get it—had required fast footwork, however.
Doc now grasped Sen Gat and dragged him aside. The unusual finger nails held his attention for a moment. He knew their meaning. Orientals considered such finger nails the mark of a gentleman, they being visual proof that the owner had done no work for a long time.
A search of Sen Gat brought to light the black stick which Maples had tried unsuccessfully to get. Doc placed it in a pocket with the one Maples had tossed to him at the airport.
“I overheard some of the talk,” Doc now said. There was quiet power in the bronze man’s voice. “These black sticks are keys. Keys to what?”
What followed would have chagrined Sen Gat mightily had he been in a normal condition, for he made a truthful reply, slow and stumbling, it was true, but nevertheless an answer denuded of fabrication.
“They are the keys to the mystery of The Thousand-headed Man,” he said.
“What is this Thousand-headed Man?” Doc asked.
“It is a legend of my country.” Sen Gat shut his eyes and seemed entirely at peace, soothed by the powerful tones of the bronze man.
Doc kept his voice calm. “Tell me of this legend.”
The drug which Doc Savage had put into the sweet wine was the bronze man’s own special concoction of the chemical mixture known to the American police as “truth serum.” This brew was not perfect, and Sen Gat would have to be handled carefully or his drugged mind would go off on a tangent, so that the only information obtained would be a senseless conglomeration of unrelated facts.
“Several hundred years ago there was a city deep in the jungles of Indo-China,” Sen Gat said in his queer, stupefied voice. “It was a large city. It was occupied by a prosperous, happy people. The people were very learned.”
His voice trailed off, and came to a stop.
“Go on,” Doc urged.
“One day something walked into the city, something so horrible that the populace—every man, woman and child—at once fled and never returned.”
“Was the city abandoned?”
“It stands there in the jungle—no one knows where—just as it was on the day the inhabitants left. There is, the legend says, only one inhabitant.”
“One man in the city?”
“Yes—The Thousand-headed Man.”
Doc Savage did not stir about or speak with undue loudness, for to do so might excite the strangely drugged man and nullify the effects of the truth serum.
“How does it happen that three black sticks are called ‘keys’ to this legendary city?” the bronze man asked.
“For centuries, all who have gone near The Thousand-headed Man have died. These keys may be the charm; if they are, they are worth the lives of countless men. The three keys—my men get the—third——”
“Who has the third key?” Doc asked.
“Indigo—and my men—by now.” Sen Gat stumbled over the words.
“What do you mean—’by now’?”
“Indigo—my men—they go to—Lucile Copeland.” The words tangled somewhat with Sen Gat’s tongue. “Girl—got—another key. She give it—to Maples if—he ask. That is why—Indigo took Maples—along.”
This totally new information brought no noticeable change to Doc Savage’s metallic features. He rarely showed emotion.
“Could I help the girl if I went to her house now?” he asked.
Sen Gat mumbled and Doc distinguished the word, “Maybe.”
“What is her address?”
“Her house—No. 90 Wallabout Street.”
Doc Savage employed strips torn from the silken draperies to bind Sen Gat and the others securely, then gag them. He dragged all to a windowless closet of a room, locked them in, made sure there was a crack at the bottom of the door which would admit air, then departed from the house.
Fascinating as was the tale of an abandoned jungle city populated only by a thousand-headed man, Doc had decided to delay hearing the rest of the story in favor of investigating Lucile Copeland’s danger.