TROUBLE BUSTER, INC.
Doc Savage’s headquarters, in New York, occupied the eighty-sixth floor of a spike of brick and steel which towered nearly a hundred stories above the street.
Doc, paying off his taxi, strode into the building. He was an incongruous spectacle in his bathing suit, but the hour was late and no one chanced to be in the lobby but an elevator operator. The latter was too well trained to make a remark.
“Are my friends upstairs?” Doc asked.
“Yes, sir,” said the elevator attendant. “Johnny and Long Tom came in some time ago. Monk and Ham just arrived. But there has been no sign of Renny.”
“Renny is out on a job,” Doc smiled.
“Monk and Ham were hot at it when they came in,” chuckled the operator. “I thought they were going to murder each other on the way up.”
Doc showed no concern over this ominous news. It was a rare occasion when “Monk” and “Ham” were not on the verge of violence, according to appearances. Actually, they were pals. They would have been lost without each other.
This state of affairs dated back to the Great War, to the incident which had earned Ham his nickname. As a joke, Ham—then known only as Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks—had taught Monk some French words which were highly insulting, telling Monk they were the proper salutation for a French general. Monk had used the words innocently—and landed in the guard-house.
But within a week after Monk’s release, Ham was hailed upon a charge of stealing hams. Somebody had planted the evidence. Never able to prove Monk had framed him, Ham rankled to this day over the incident.
Doc could hear them quarreling as he stepped into the eighty-sixth floor corridor. Ham’s snapping, caustic voice—Monk’s gentle, mild tones!
It was deceptive, that voice of Monk’s. It did not match his appearance. The bellow of a bull ape would have been more fitting to Monk’s looks. He was a great, hairy gorilla of a man, with arms inches longer than his legs. He weighed near two hundred and sixty pounds. His strength was terrific.
Monk might resemble the missing link, but there was a keen brain back of his beetling brows. He was one of the greatest of living chemists.
Ham was the physical opposite of Monk. He had sharp, intelligent features. He wore the latest and most fashionable clothing obtainable. He was never seen without a straight, somber-looking cane. This was, in reality, a sword cane with a blade of finest steel.
Ham looked his station in life. He was one of the wisest lawyers Harvard had ever matriculated.
“You keep on riding me, you hairy accident,” Ham was promising Monk, “and one of these days I’m going to whittle you into the shape of a human being!”
Monk’s snort of mirth shook all of his gorillalike hulk. “Yeah? Ain’t that a nice way to talk? What’ve I done?”
Doc himself wondered what latest act of Monk’s had got under Ham’s skin. He soon saw what it was. Monk was wearing an outfit of clothing, from hat to spats, which exactly matched Ham’s garb. On Ham, the somewhat flashy attire was sartorial perfection. But the garb made the homely Monk look like he was rigged up for a carnival spieling job.
Ham was touchy about his garments. This had burned him up.
Both men sprang to their feet when Doc entered.
* * * *
Doc lost no time getting down to business. “Where’s Johnny and Long Tom?”
These two men answered that question by appearing from an inner room. The room was a library, holding one of the most complete assortments of scientific books in existence.
Johnny—William Harper Littlejohn on his business stationery—was a tall man who seemed half starved. His coat hung on his bony shoulders as if on a hardwood cross stick. He was a geologist and archæologist, formerly of the natural science department of a famous university. There was little about the rocks and minerals composing the earth that Johnny did not know.
“Long Tom” seemed the weakling of the crowd. He was undersized and also had an unhealthy complexion. As Major Thomas J. Roberts, he had a world-wide reputation as an electrical wizard.
In their particular lines, the men were almost unexcelled.
The four of them, along with the absent Renny, made up Doc Savage’s group of five aides. Together, they comprised probably the strangest company of men to be found. They were together for one purpose—to go to the ends of the world looking for excitement and adventure, striving to help those in need of help, punishing those who deserved it. They might have been designated as the firm of Trouble Busters, Inc.
The four men waited for Doc Savage to speak.
“It looks like we have a little job ahead of us,” Doc told them grimly. “That’s why I summoned you fellows to meet here as soon as I got back and saw that fantastic million-dollar advertisement in the newspapers.”
He got extra clothing from a locker and began donning it. The men gathered close. They had not seen Doc for many days—had no idea where he had been, except that he had been away studying in his mysterious retreat of solitude. They were delighted that he was back.
Speaking swiftly, Doc told them what had happened.
He drew the diamonds from his waterproof bag and placed them upon a costly inlaid table with which the outer office was furnished.
“Johnny,” he said, “here’s a job that you, as a geologist, will find right up your alley. I want you to take these diamonds and examine them. Stones from various parts of the world possess different characteristics. See if you can find where these came from.”
Johnny picked up the diamonds. He removed his eyeglasses. The left lens of these spectacles was in reality a powerful magnifying glass. Johnny’s left eye had been rendered useless in the World War, and he wore the magnifier there for convenience.
He inspected the gems briefly, then said: “They’re from Africa.”
“I reached the same conclusion,” Doc told him. “But what part of Africa?”
“That will take some research,” said Johnny.
He entered Doc’s library, knowing he would find in the tomes there, all the data he needed.
Doc now addressed Long Tom, the electrical wizard. “We must perfect a means of fighting that fluttering death of the darkness, whatever it is. Suppose you rig up a projector of infrarays which are invisible to the naked eye. Then equip us with fluoroscopic spectacles sensitive to the rays.”
“I get you.” Long Tom grinned. “You want us fixed up so we can see in the dark, without using an ordinary flashlight or searchlight.”
“Exactly!”
Long Tom passed into the library, then into a chemical and electrical laboratory beyond. This laboratory was fitted completely with modern devices, as well as many of Doc’s own inventions, which were entirely unique.
“What about me?” Monk questioned, anxious to use his chemical skill.
“Suppose you concoct powerful, quick-spreading gas for battling the infernal things,” Doc suggested. “Make a vapor which will produce instant unconsciousness, yet which will not prove fatal. And you can look over our collection of gas masks to make sure they’re serviceable.”
Monk lumbered for the laboratory.
Doc now spread upon the table the clippings from science magazines which he had found in ill-fated Jules’s pockets. He addressed Ham.
“See that designation ZX 03, penciled on one of the airship pictures,” he indicated. “I want you to get on a battery of long-distance telephones and find out what airship, either present or past, bore that identification number.”
* * * *
Ham fingered through the clippings. Ferreting information was something for which his training as a lawyer eminently fitted him. More than once, Ham had coaxed startling testimony from reluctant witnesses in courtroom cross-examinations.
“I wonder if there is some connection between this ZX 03 Zeppelin and the mystery craft the newspapers say was sighted over Maine?” Ham pondered.
“That possibility occurred to me,” Doc admitted. “When you make your phone calls, ask each person if they are acquainted with the names of Lady Nelia, the red-headed fellow, Yuttal, or Hadi-Mot. Also ask about the dead man, Jules Fourmalier.”
Ham nodded thoughtfully, saying nothing.
“Jules showed a knowledge of airships from the figuring he did on the clippings,” Doc explained. “He may be known to the lighter-than-aircraft profession.”
“You want me to try Europe also?” Ham questioned.
“It might be advisable to do that the first thing.”
Nodding, Ham busied himself at the telephone. The names of those to be called were supplied by a business directory of the aircraft profession, which Doc brought from the library.
The first call Ham made was to England. While the radio-land-line connection was being put through, he requested lines to certain American builders of Zeppelin-type ships.
Doc entered the library. He possessed a great file of newspaper clippings, kept up to date for him by a firm engaged in such work. He glanced under the subhead of “English Royalty.”
He was hunting something on Lady Nelia. And he found it almost at once!
There was a picture of the tall, aristocratic young lady. She was in flying togs, and stood beside a small monoplane. The headlines below the picture read:
LADY NELIA SEALING GIVEN UP AS LOST
Hope of finding Lady Nelia Sealing, young Englishwoman aviatrix who was lost while attempting a non-stop flight from London to Cape Town, Africa, has been abandoned. All searching has ceased.
What happened to Lady Nelia Sealing seems destined, therefore, to become another of those mysteries of aviation. Whether her plane fell in the Mediterranean or in the trackless deserts of Africa, no one knows.
There was more. It merely recited information about Lady Nelia’s career. She was a brilliant young lady, as well as a famous beauty. She had been lost some four months ago.
Ham called while Doc was still reading, saying, “Here’s Renny on the phone!”
Doc ran to the instrument. Renny was a caldron of news.
“Lady Nelia, Red, and the dead man, Jules, are the ones who offered that fantastic reward to get hold of you,” he explained. “I overheard them talking in the cab.”
“Where are you now?” Doc queried.
“In the lobby of the Hotel Rex. Lady Nelia and Red are registered here. Lady Nelia is on the sixteenth floor and Red on the seventeenth.”
Doc swiftly described Yuttal and Hadi-Mot.
“Have you seen any sign of two birds answering that description?” he asked.
“Why, sure,” Renny said innocently. “They just registered for a room. They were carrying a big wicker basket between ’em. They wouldn’t let a bell hop touch it!”
“Get hold of Lady Nelia and Red—quick!” Doc rapped. “Tell them Yuttal and Hadi-Mot are in the hotel. Get them out of the place—no, don’t try that. Have them lock their doors and windows and wait for me!”
* * * *
Banging the receiver down, Doc hurtled for the door. He was through it and into an elevator before the men he left behind could get organized.
Doc was gone when his four aides ran into the corridor. They were disgusted. Doc’s slam-bang departure showed there was action ahead. They hated the thought of missing it. Excitement was the thing they enjoyed most. It was the nectar which they drew from their association with Doc.
But they had lost out this time; they did not know where Doc was bound.
The Hotel Rex was a new hostelry. It contained more than two thousand rooms, which placed it among the larger hotels of the city. The location was only three blocks from the skyscraper which harbored Doc’s office.
Doc did not trouble to get a taxi. He took the center of the street, where the going was less hampered, and ran.
More than one pedestrian gaped in surprise at sight of the flashing bronze form.
A policeman drew his gun and started after Doc. He had recognized the bronze man and thought he might be of some help. He knew Doc held a high honorary commission on the New York police force.
Doc came into view of the Hotel Rex. Confusion was rampant in front of the hostelry. One of the uniformed taxi starters lay prone on the sidewalk, crimson spilling slowly from a gash in his head.
Frightened employees were dashing in and out of the lobby.
Doc did not need to ask questions. A dozen excited yells told him what had happened.
“Two men ran out, dragging a woman!” a man shouted. “They crowned the taxi starter when he tried to interfere. He ain’t hurt bad.”
“Did’ya get a good look at ’em?” demanded some one.
“Sure. One was fat, the other slim and dark.”
“Them’s the two that just registered for a room,” vouchsafed a bell boy. “They had a strange-looking basket when they came in.”
“They had the basket when they went out, too. The thin guy was carryin’ it, while the fat one handled the woman.”
Doc dived into the lobby. Renny, it seemed, had gotten on the job a little too late.
* * * *
A glance at the register cards showed Doc the numbers of the rooms taken by Lady Nelia and Red. He glanced about and located the elevator starter—the fellow who was stationed at a signal board in the lobby to keep the cages running at regular intervals.
“Just a little before the excitement started, a big fellow with huge hands probably dashed into one of the elevators,” Doc explained. “Did you see what cage he entered?”
The elevator starter pointed. “That one.”
Doc collared the operator of the indicated lift. “What floor did you let the big-fisted fellow off upon?”
“Sixteen.”
That meant Renny had gone to Lady Nelia first. Doc rode upward, alighting at the sixteenth.
The door of Lady Nelia’s room gaped open, lock torn out. Inside, the rug was wadded in a corner and coverings were off the bed. Bureau drawers lay on the floor. The rapid search had even been extended to the cover on the telephone-bell box, which was ripped off.
Doc, thinking of the diamonds Jules had carried, guessed accurately that more such stones had been the object of this hunt.
He sped to the stairs, mounted one flight and made for Red’s room. There, also, the door was ajar.
On the floor, twisted grotesquely, lay Red’s gaunt body. The features were set in death. They held an expression of horror that was hair-raising.
A hole was torn in the man’s neck. There was no question but that he had been a victim of the same weird, fluttering death-dealer who had slain Jules.
The man’s trousers legs were drawn above his knees. Certain marks showed where several small objects, fastened there with adhesive tape, had been plucked away.
Doc’s golden eyes roved. There was no sign of Renny. The window was locked on the inside.
Hurrying down to the lobby, Doc made inquiries. Yuttal and Hadi-Mot had taken Lady Nelia away in a taxi, but no one had thought to get the taxi license number in the excitement. So small a chance there was of following it, the machine might as well have vanished in thin air.
Most disquieting of all, Doc discovered Renny had not come back downstairs. No one had seen him reappear in the lobby. The big-fisted fellow must be somewhere in the upper regions of the great hotel!
Doc went up to give Lady Nelia’s room a more thorough inspection, and to search for Renny. On his first visit, one fact about the ransacked chamber had come to Doc’s attention.
The bed pillows had been missing. There was no blanket, either. And hotel beds were usually supplied with an extra blanket.
As Doc surveyed the place, he observed the window was unlocked and open widely. He glanced out of it.
A four-story building adjoined the hotel. The roof of this lay directly below the window. The flashing of a neon sign on the hotel jerked light over the roof at twenty-second intervals.
A form was spread-eagled on the roof!
Doc’s golden eyes acquired hot little lights as he studied the figure. For he could make out the suit Renny had been wearing! And Renny’s hat lay near by.
The form reposed about where a man would land, were he to be shoved from this window.