Doc Savage - The Giggling Ghosts Part 11

There was a gatehouse at the gate, and a gatekeeper.

Johnny pulled up before the gatehouse, stopping his rattletrap by some combination of which he alone was the master.

"An abode of att.i.tudinarianism," Johnny remarked.

Hart looked at Johnny. "Huh?"

"He means a showplace," Long Tom translated.

"It would be easier for him to say so," Hart muttered.

A gatekeeper came out of the gatehouse to frown disapprovingly at the old car.

"We wish to see Birmingham Lawn," Johnny said.

The gatekeeper went back into the gatehouse and, judging from the sounds, he telephoned an inquiry about whether or not he should admit the visitors, because he put his head out the door to demand their names.

"Mr. Lawn will be glad to see you," he announced then.Johnny drove through the gate, along the winding gravel walk.

Johnny looked at Hart. "I thought you said the gang had Lawn prisoner."

"They must've turned him loose," Hart said.

"Humph!"

Hart made a growling noise and shoved his face almost against Johnny's.

"You wouldn't," he grated, "be insinuating that I'm a liar!"

"You said Lawn was a prisoner. But he isn't."

Hart yelled, "I'll take the hide off anybody who calls me a liar!"

Renny blocked out his two huge fists and shoved them under Hart's nose.

"You see these?" Renny demanded.

Hart ogled the fists.

"Water buckets!" he muttered.

"They're the buckets to pour water on that temper you've got!" Renny said.

THERE were no more verbal pyrotechnics. The car arrived before the impressive entrance of Lawn's house, and stood shaking itself until Johnny turned off the motor. A butler in a resplendent uniform told them that Birmingham Lawn would see them in the library.

Lawn did not seem very enthusiastic about the visit. Lawn stood behind a large library table in a softly lighted study where there were many bookcases. "Good evening, gentlemen," he said.

Hart walked around the table and looked Lawn up and down.

"Last time I saw you," Hart said, "you were tied up with ropes."

Lawn looked uncomfortable and swallowed two or three times. He whistled a bar from a popular song.

"They turned me loose," he explained.

"You saw Doc Savage-killed?" Johnny asked with an effort.

Lawn looked at the floor.

"I-yes, I saw it happen."

"Why didn't you tell the police?" Johnny grated.

Lawn paled and sank into a chair. "I-well-"

Johnny came over, said, "Why didn't you?" savagely.

Lawn seemed to shrink. "I-well, I was afraid. They said they would kill me!"Hart sniffed. "They told me the same thing."

"I'm not a brave man," Lawn said plaintively.

Johnny said, "Lawn, we want every particle of information you have."

Lawn sat and frowned at the desk top. He chewed his lower lip. He whistled for a moment, then stopped.

"I know nothing," he said.

The floor then literally jumped under everybody's feet.

A PART of the ceiling also came down on their heads, the part of it that was plaster. Big cracks appeared in the floor; dust flew up out of these. The dust fogged the room.

When the commotion subsided, it was evident one wall had received the brunt of the blast. The wall was out of shape.

"A bomb!" Long Tom gulped.

"Anybody hurt?" Renny howled.

Apparently no one had been seriously hurt.

The bomb, obviously, had exploded outdoors.

There was a window, covered on the outside with huge ornamental iron bars. The bars were still in place.

But the bars had been loosened by the blast.

Renny clamped his huge fists to the bars, set himself, began yanking. The bars gave slowly.

"Listen!" Long Tom exploded.

From outside came sounds; blows, angry gasps and thres.h.i.+ng of shrubbery. There was a fight going on in the darkness outside.

"Fight out there!" Renny e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

He got the bars loose. Then Renny and Johnny leaped outdoors, used their emergency flashlights they carried in their rear pockets. The air was so full of dust it was hard to distinguish details. They did manage to distinguish a shaking in a clump of shrubbery.

Long Tom suddenly whirled from the window. He discovered Lawn in the act of opening a desk drawer.

Long Tom leaped over and knocked the drawer shut.

Lawn pointed at the drawer. "A gun in there, if you want it," he said.

Long Tom said, "We don't use guns."

William Henry Hart growled something and started toward the window.

"Stay here!" Long Tom ordered.Hart ignored Long Tom, so the feeble-looking electrical wizard ran over, stuck a foot out and tripped Hart. Hart got up, snarled. He swung a roundhouse right at Long Tom.

Long Tom caught the arm, went through a convulsion, and Hart sailed up in the air, turned over, hit the floor flat on his back, knocking up a cloud of plaster dust. He didn't have breath enough to get up.

Outdoors, Renny and Johnny were floundering around in the bushes where the mysterious fight was going on. Their flashlights picked up three figures.

The air reeked of burnt cordite. Apparently the bomb had been lying on the ground when it let loose, for shrubbery had been torn out of the earth.

Two of the figures lay on the ground, apparently just knocked senseless. The third man stood.

"Holy cow!" Renny boomed.

He tried to say more, but was incoherent.

Johnny went rigid.

Long Tom put his head out the shattered window and yelled, "What's goin' on out there?"

Then he saw the standing man.

"Doc!" Long Tom whooped.

Doc Savage pointed at the two senseless men at his feet.

"These two," Doc said, "threw that bomb at me when they found out I was following them."

Chapter XIII. ACCIDENT.

BY the time Doc Savage had carried the two senseless bombers into Lawn's house, Renny, Johnny and Long Tom had tamed down with their delight. They had stamped gleeful circles in the lawn, yelled, whooped.

The entire party now gathered in another room of Lawn's house.

William Henry Hart stood in glaring silence.

The prisoners-two heavily constructed, unpleasant-looking men-sat on chairs. They wore dark clothing, gloves, and both had expressions of deep gloom. They had been gagged.

"Did they follow us here?" Renny demanded.

"No," Doc said. "They came later. I am the one who followed you."

"You followed us?"

"Exactly."

"But why?"

"Because it was logical to think someone might make an effort to get rid of you.""Oh, then these men with the bomb were-"

"Were probably sent to kill you."

At this point, William Henry Hart came over and poked a puzzled finger at Doc Savage.

"I don't get this," he said. "I saw 'em blow you and your car higher'n a kite, along with your traveling zoo!"

Doc Savage's metallic features remained inscrutable. Right now the pets were safely hidden away in a vacant house that Doc had taken them to after the explosion. He had then followed his aids with a coupe he'd taken from his hangar. But Doc didn't elaborate on all this.

"You saw them blow up the car-just the car," he said to Hart "You weren't in it?"

"I got out just before the machine rolled onto the bridge."

"How in the devil did you know enough to do that?"

"I was suspicious of the bridge in the first place. Bridges have been blown up before. So I stopped down the road, left the car, and investigated the bridge. It wasn't difficult to find the explosives."

"But it was dark."

Long Tom, the electrical wizard, said, "Doc has an infra-ray device to see in the dark."

Birmingham Lawn and William Henry Hart stared at Doc Savage, bewildered. Renny, Johnny and Long Tom did not look as surprised, being familiar with the bronze man's strange working methods.

"You let us think you were dead!" Lawn muttered. "I don't see the reason for that!"

Doc said, "As long as the men think I am dead, they will not try to interfere with me."