Doc Savage - The Giggling Ghosts Part 9

WILLIAM HARPER LITTLEJOHN did not care for reporters, because of the joy the scribes took in exaggerating the long, lean geologist's characteristics.

As soon as Johnny had given the press his opinion about there having been no earthquake, he retired to the midtown Manhattan skysc.r.a.per where Doc Savage made his headquarters.

Johnny was worried about Doc. The bronze man had been missing two days. Johnny had learned of the excitement here in the building two days ago, when someone had tried to prevent a young woman from reaching Doc Savage.

This was the effort Batavia had made to stop Miami Davis, but Johnny had no means of knowing that; he just knew there had been some trouble, following which Doc had disappeared.

Johnny had been at headquarters about an hour when there was a knock on the door. The gauntgeologist and archaeologist hurried over, hoping it was Doc, and opened the door.

"Oh!" he said.

The visitor was a stranger, a tall young man with great shoulders and a body that was impressively muscular. The visitor scowled at Johnny.

"I'm William Henry Hart, an inventor and manufacturer," he said.

Johnny frowned at Hart, whom he had never seen before. "Is replication exigent?" he asked.

"Huh?" said Hart.

Johnny translated, "What do I say to that?"

"You mean I'm William Henry Hart-and so what?"

"Equiparably correct," Johnny said.

William Henry Hart looked puzzled. He put out his jaw. "Look here," he growled, "use little words, if you don't mind."

"What do you want?"

"I've got important bad news," Hart said. "Ah-Doc Savage is missin', isn't he?"

"Doc seems to have disappeared," Johnny admitted.

"He's dead," Hart said.

Johnny took a step back, sank in the chair. His face blanched. His fingers tightened until they bit into the chair arm. His jaw sagged.

BECAUSE Doc Savage led a life of constant danger, Johnny had always feared of disaster befalling the bronze man. As a matter of fact, all Doc's men were in enough danger constantly to make them concerned about each other's safety.

It was several moments before Johnny could speak.

"Who-what-" He still couldn't frame a coherent sentence.

Hart hooked a long leg over the desk corner.

"I could've broke it easier," he said. "But I figured bad news was bad news."

Johnny's hands shook. The shock was tremendous. He could not believe that the bronze man was-was- He said, "What happened?" hoa.r.s.ely.

William Henry Hart got off the desk, clasped his muscular fingers behind his back and tramped the length of the office, then back again.

"I don't like women!" he said.Johnny looked up. "What?"

"Well, a girl was the cause of this. A girl named Miami Davis. She's the one who got me and Doc Savage mixed up in it."

Johnny said, "Please tell a coherent story."

"O. K.," Hart said. "Here it is-plenty coherent. Miami Davis followed a-a gigglin' ghost to a storehouse, or so she said. In the storehouse, she got a gigglin' fit. Then she came to Doc Savage. A man tried to stop her, but failed. The girl took Doc to this storehouse. Then she found her wrist watch; she'd given me the watch to have fixed. The watch was lyin' in the storehouse.

"The girl then came rus.h.i.+n' to the boat where I live. Why, I don't know. Some men grabbed her at the boat. At the same time, the men grabbed Monk and Ham, who were trailin' the girl."

Hart explained how Doc Savage had arrived at the boat, and found the note saying Monk, Ham and Miami Davis had been taken out to Beach Road.

Hart then described the incident on the way.

"This Birmingham Lawn," he said, "kept tightening the knots of the ropes which bound me. He must have pulled the wrong rope end or something, because the ropes got looser all of a sudden. So I got loose and jumped out of the car."

"Strange thing for you to do," Johnny said grimly.

Hart put out his jaw and glared.

"Look!" he snapped. "Any time a guy barges in on me and ties me up with a rope, I'm gonna do somethin' about it! I don't care if the guy is Doc Savage!"

"You jumped out of the car," Johnny prompted. "Then what?"

"I went tearin' across the sand dunes," Hart explained. "I hit the beach, and about that time a bunch of mugs popped out and shoved guns into my ribs. They put me in a speedboat."

Then Hart described in blunt detail the blasting of the bridge when Doc Savage's car appeared upon it.

"They killed Doc Savage right there," he finished.

JOHNNY sat and contemplated his own feet with blank intentness, and no muscle in his long body seemed to stir, his eyes did not blink, his breathing was imperceptible, and the throbbing of a vein in his forehead was the only sign of life about him.

"Why did you come to me?" he asked hollowly.

The burly young man said, "Well, h.e.l.l, what else could I do?"

"They turned you loose?"

"They did."

"Can you give any clues?""You mean clues to who those men were-or where you can find them? Or clues to-well, this giggling ghost stuff?"

"Any of that."

"Not a clue," Hart said. "They blindfolded me in the boat, after the explosion. They kept me blindfolded until they kicked me out of a car. They kicked me out on a New Jersey road."

Johnny growled, "You say this Birmingham Lawn was also taken a prisoner?"

Hart scowled.

"Yes," he said. "And I ain't plumb satisfied about that mug, either."

"What do you mean?"

"Lawn seemed too d.a.m.n innocent to me!" Hart growled.

William Harper Littlejohn got up and shuffled to the window. He seemed to have become as stiff as an old man. An oppressing shroud of fog lay over the dark, smoky towers of Manhattan.

"When did Miami Davis have her giggling fit?" Johnny demanded.

Hart gave the time.

"Then the girl was a victim before the time this earthquake is supposed to have happened! That is important!"

Hart was puzzled. "Before the earthquake-"

"It proves," Johnny said grimly, "that an earthquake had nothing to do with the gas!" Johnny turned away from the window. His face looked so sunken that it seemed composed of nothing but bone. "What about Monk and Ham?" he asked.

"I think they were goin' to kill them," Hart said.

Johnny winced. His mouth worked.

Hart got up, straightened his coat on his wide shoulders, and jammed his large fists in his pockets.

"I thought I'd tell you this," he said. "Them guys promised to croak me if I opened my mouth to anybody, but"-he stuck out his jaw-"let 'em hop to it! And if they harm that girl"-his voice lifted to an angry yell-"I'll tear the heads off every last one of 'em!"

Hart went over and clasped Johnny's arm. "Look here," he continued, "I'm worried about that girl. The snip! If they dare hurt her-"

"You are in love with Miami Davis?" Johnny asked.

Hart swallowed.

"I don't know," he growled. "But I'm worried as h.e.l.l about her."

Johnny said, "I am going to call on you if you can be of any a.s.sistance."

"Do that," Hart said grimly. "I got a rus.h.i.+n' little manufacturing business to look out for, but it's gonna beneglected until I find that girl is safe."

Hart then stamped out of the office, holding his jaw out belligerently.

Johnny flung to a telephone.

"Long Tom!" he said into the instrument.

"Yes!" a voice responded.

"A man is leaving the office"-Johnny described Hart-"and I want you to follow him."

"Right!" "Long Tom" said. "Who is he?"

Johnny said, "Man named Hart. He says Doc is dead. I think it's queer he came to me with the story, instead of going to the police."

The other man, Long Tom, made a horrified noise over the telephone. "Doc-you say-but it can't-"

"Follow Hart, Long Tom."

"I'll follow him. Renny is with me. We'll both follow Hart."

The man called "Long Tom" was Major Thomas J. Roberts-specialty electricity; avocation that of Doc Savage a.s.sistant.

"Renny" was Colonel John Renwick, a great engineer, also a great hand to prove he could knock panels out of wooden doors with his huge fists. He, too, was an aid to Doc Savage.

These three men-Johnny, Long Tom, and Renny-with the missing Monk and Ham, comprised Doc Savage's staff of five a.s.sociates.

Chapter XI. NO MEDDLERS.

BY now there were almost fifty giggling victims in the hospitals. Each one of these had come from one small section of Jersey. Only this area was affected. Police had roped off streets leading to the district, and were keeping back the spectators. Some of the curious were idiots enough to want to venture into the affected zone and take chances with the gas, solely to see what was going on, or look for giggling ghosts, if there really were any.

Evacuation was commencing. Just as river bottoms menaced by flood waters are cleared of inhabitants, so was the gas area to be cleared. Huge moving vans, piloted by policemen wearing gas masks, moved in and out, carrying household goods.

The evacuation was a pitiful spectacle. The section was one of small homes. The homes were unpretentious, often shabby, but nevertheless homes in the real sense, because the homes were owned by those who lived in them.

These people were stubborn. They did not understand. They could not see the gas, not actually see it, and many of them were inclined to be suspicious of the attempt to get them out of their homes.

The fact that the gas did not completely blanket the district made the exodus more difficult to arrange.

The gas appeared only in spots; whole blocks were not affected.A company of national guardsmen were sent to the scene to a.s.sist.

Meanwhile, geologists and scientists went around, wearing gas masks, trying to figure out some way of blocking off the gas. Many possibilities were suggested; one possibility was that deep wells might be drilled, the gas drawn off through these, and piped out to sea.

Army engineers came to investigate the chances of compressing the gas and storing it in containers, to use in the next war.

THAT night, in the vicinity of all this confusion, a sinister meeting was held.