Doc Savage - The Pure Evil Part 11

"Not bad," Doc admitted. "They used colored smoke-the pilot had planted a time-bomb of it when he came into the office to spin us his lie. The same kind of colored smoke that was developed during the war for marking purposes. . . . But Monk and I thought it might contain poison gas also. So we got Miss Adams out of the window, and jumped ourselves. Not a very graceful performance."

"But smart."

"We thought so then. But I took litmus-paper tests of the vapor when I came around through the building to the door, and learned it was just colored smoke-the kind, incidentally, that dissolves in a hurry. You remember the type? They used it for putting a quick mark on terrain, for brief observation purposes."

"Yeah, I've seen the stuff used," Renny agreed. "But it must have been pretty weird, hooked up with a locked room and Morand vanished."

"It was, if you didn't know it was trickery."

Renny glowered at the door. "Holy cow! I can't sit around any longer." He jumped to his feet, a lean hardwood giant of a man with corded muscles. "I'm going to start an argument, anyway. They're figuring up some kind of dirty work and-"

The door swung open then, and Morand came in flanked by an armed man. The latter stepped sidewise to keep Doc and Renny covered.

"h.e.l.lo, Morand," Doc said coldly. "Didn't the spooks get you?"

"Listened." Morand whipped a brief gesture at the door. "Interesting. You've surmised. Good job, too.

You're enlightened."

"You think so?"

"Also nearly dead."

Doc Savage took, deliberate, a deep breath, and blew it out with manifest gusto. "I haven't," he pointed out, "felt more healthy in some time."

"Temporary. Very temporary."

"I doubt it," Doc said levelly. He caught Morand's eye and held it with a hypnotic steadiness, thendemanded, "Would you like to bet that I won't be alive and healthy when you're doing a very brief little dance on air? Or do they use the gas chamber in this state?"

The attempt to unnerve Morand didn't get far. He did scowl, but advised, "Wasting time. Can't frighten me more."

"You don't," Doc said, "look like a man composed and full of confidence."

"Not. Didn't say so. Already frightened. Couldn't be more. Complete impossibility."

Renny Renwick snorted at this and asked, "What would scare you, pal?"

"Mr. Savage. Great shock to me. Throughout."

"That's a logical answer," Renny told him. "I thought maybe it was your penetralia mentis."

"Very facetious."

"I don't feel facetious," Renny said.

"Good. Can you make you less so, imagine. Rise. Look out window. Not toward sea. Other."

Renny did so, and Doc was beside him. This window was small, faced away from the sea upon the rutted lane through the sand dunes and-they got a sickening shock-a car that was being unloaded in back of the bungalow. The cargo of the car-Monk, Ham and Gail Adams.

"Successful catch," Morand said coldly behind them.

Doc Savage wheeled. "You can't get away with wholesale murder, my friend. That's what you're planning, isn't it?"

"Exactly."

"Holy cow!" Renny rumbled, and looked more than a little sick.

Doc looked at Morand woodenly, "All five of us?"

"Correct." Morand didn't nod, hardly moved his lips when he spoke. Doc read a kind of glazed fright in the man, but got no a.s.surance from it, because the fear was what was driving Morand. He listened to the man, using the short-worded statements that were so exasperatingly monotonous, added, "Gibble, Munroe, Ziff. They disbelieve. Not fully, though. Can be persuaded yet. Five murders. Same mysterious circ.u.mstances. Should be convincing. Don't you think?"

Doc thought of Ziff, Munroe and Gibble, wealthy men who had stirred this thing up with their tinkering with ghost-raisers. He decided, and kept it off his face, that Morand was right and further mystery, if it was inexplicable enough-and Morand could see that it was, Doc didn't doubt-might sell the trio on the reality of the penetralia mentis, so-called. Doc wished, with some bitter hindsight, that he'd given Gibble, Munroe and Ziff a full explanation of how the trickery had been worked. But be hadn't. He'd been, he supposed, guilty of some mumbo-jumbo himself.

Presently Gail Adams was pushed into the room, and Monk and Ham were shoved in after her. None of them wore the clothing they'd worn when Doc last saw them. Gail wore a house dress, and Monk and Ham were in their shorts and two of unfortunate Dan Adams' bathrobes. Not only had they been disarmed, but their clothing had been taken for fear they contained some of the gadgets for which Doc Savage was noted."Doc," Monk said gloomily, "I was never so thoroughly suckered in my life." He grimaced and explained, "One of them walked in on us pretending to deliver a telegram. One of the oldest gags there is.

And I fell for it."

"Oh, shut up!" Ham Brooks told him curtly. "I'm the guy who let the telegraph messenger in the house.

I'm the one to be kicked."

"I'll make a note of that," Monk said.

Morand seemed bothered by their apparent unconcern. One of the men who had brought them-there were four of these guards-scowled and said, "That's the way they been acting. You'd think n.o.body was playing for keeps."

"Disturbing," Morand muttered. "Unnatural. Completely." Then he wheeled, left the room, and was back shortly with a collection of apparatus in a handbag. "Listen carefully," he told his men. "But watch the prisoners, also."

Now Morand began giving instructions. Doc Savage, listening, had some trouble keeping fright off his own features. Morand was outlining a simple, direct plan for wholesale murder.

They were to be killed in a group. Morand had the spot picked. Gibble's big home. He had the room selected also, a large chamber on the second floor with one door and windows that could be locked securely on the inside. He'd had the room in mind for some time, evidently, and was familiar with each detail.

The affair was to be another locked room and hanging-from-nothing matter.

The door locked was all right. It locked with a key, and since it was not a spring lock, there would be no question of the police reaching an easy conclusion that the door had simply been slammed behind someone.

He produced the contraption they were to use to lock the door. Doc saw that it was ingenious-a lever arrangement of very thin metal which clipped to the doork.n.o.b and operated by tugging on piano-wire leads. Yanking one lead caused the levers to turn the key and lock the door. Yanking another wire freed the thing from the doork.n.o.b and it would drop to the floor, where it could be pulled through the crack-a crack as narrow as an eighth of an inch-at the bottom of the door.

Gail Adams made a whimpering sound now. "My brother-this is the way-" She closed her eyes tightly. Monk started to go to her, stopped when one of the men c.o.c.ked a gun noisily.

Doc told Morand coldly, "You've used that trinket for a long time, probably. . . . Spooks could lock themselves in rooms very conveniently with it."

"True," Morand said. "Convenient. Convincing also. Yes, used it before. Put on few little shows. . . .

Nothing like this will be, though."

"I can imagine."

Morand ended on a little pep-talk for his a.s.sistants. There was a great deal of money to be milked from Gibble, Munroe and Ziff-more than the initial fifty thousand he was after. Once they made one payment, they would make others. Once sold, they could be kept sold. Finding five bodies mysteriously dead in Gibble's house would sell them if anything would.

The slaughter, Morand pointed out, was necessary anyway. Dan Adams and Cooper had upset the plan,and Doc Savage had learned too much, and Doc's friends knew as much as Doc, so self-protection demanded their deaths. The matter could be arranged so as to bring Gibble, Munroe and Ziff to terms.

That was convenient, and necessary. Morand examined his men hopefully. They saw how simple it was, didn't they? They understood it was necessary.

Renny Renwick stared at Doc. Renny was now a shade of pastel green. "The guy's off his trolley!"

Renny blurted.

Doc nodded, reflecting that it was obvious. Morand was probably sane enough. But his preoccupation with the supernatural over the years indicated a trend of mind that had led him to this sort of thing. Sane?

Well, maybe not exactly. But it was more a combination of neuroticism and criminality.

Doc moved. He went to Morand, went very fast, so that the man had hardly lifted his hand before Doc had him, was behind him. Doc swung behind Morand, arms around the man, wrenching Morand close.

Then Doc's back was against the wall, and he gripped Morand as a s.h.i.+eld.

There was no chance whatever of reaching the door. There were two guards there anyway; their guns already on Doc, or on the part of him that was not covered by Morand, which was considerable.

There had been some stirring when Doc moved. It settled now. And silence held a moment, until someone's breathing broke loose with a sawing sound. Then Benny, who had earlier tried to kill Gail Adams, swung his gun up and sighted deliberately at Doc Savage's exposed shoulder.

"Hold still, boss," Benny said coldly. "I can smash his shoulder."

Morand yelled-with difficulty because of the tightness with which Doc held him-at his men, at all of them as much as Benny, "No! Wait! Not yet! Not instantly!"

Doc said grimly, "They're excited, Morand. One or more of them is sure to miss me and get you."

"No!" Morand's voice had a wild sound. "This is preposterous. You haven't a chance. Why are you doing this?"

Doc said, "Give me a better idea, and I'll try that." His hands moved a little, changing their position on Morand, and then he seemed to discover that he could hold Morand against his chest with one hand, and he did that.

"You have no chance. Utterly none."

"Wouldn't appear so," Doc agreed.

"Then why-"

"If you think," Doc said, "we're going to meekly follow instructions to be slaughtered, you have another guess coming."

Morand made a whining sound of distress. He seemed surprised that they should feel inclined to alter his plans. He said, as if it was a good argument, "But there'll be such a b.l.o.o.d.y mess here!"

"Perhaps."

"And it will gain you nothing," Morand insisted. "I'll think of a way. Use you. Even with bullets in you. I'll contrive somehow."

"It won't be as easy."Doc glanced over Morand's shoulder and noted the generally foolish expressions on the watching faces.

The situation seemed senseless to them. It looked, no doubt, like nothing but a choice of suicide.

Now Doc spoke in Mayan. Very briefly. Two or three guttural and half-musical sounds, and it was probably mistaken by Morand's men for some sound of fright that Doc could not help making. Benny thought so, and laughed.

Silence fell. A short one. Twenty seconds or so, and then Benny went down on the floor. He gave the appearance of loosening at all joints, and collapsing straight down instead of falling in any particular direction.

Gail Adams went down in almost the same fas.h.i.+on an instant later, and she was followed by another of Morand's men.

Morand shrieked out, "Gas! My G.o.d! New York-he searched me there! He planted something in my clothing!"

Which, Doc Savage reflected unpleasantly, was as wonderful a piece of accurate conjecture under difficulties as he had ever seen. Disturbed by Morand's accuracy, he came around hard with his free fist-the one he'd use to smash the anaesthetic gas capsules in Morand's clothing-and drove Morand's jaw somewhat out of shape with the blow.

Monk, Ham, Renny, all were moving now. The short warning in Mayan had prepared them, both to hold their breathing back so the stuff wouldn't get them, and for fast action now.

There were, in all, seven men in the room in addition to Morand. With Morand, two others were on the floor. Four on their feet. The two at the door. And two others.

Doc, using as near an imitation of Morand's frightened squawl as he could manage, shouted at the pair at the door, "Gas! Run, you fools! Run!"

Monk and Ham hit the other two almost simultaneously. Renny, a little behind, struck down Monk's opponent. Monk, disappointed, always violent in a fight, yelled, "Dammit! Pick your own!"

Of the men in the door, one promptly wheeled in flight. The other stood ground, swung his gun at different targets indecisively. When he did decide to shoot it, it was Doc he chose, but too late. Doc was near enough to strike the gun aside, and he and the man went hard against the door edge. The gun turned loose an ear-splitting uproar, and continued until the mechanism jammed. After that, those who were not deafened could hear plaster falling, the hard breathing of desperation, blows, but not many cries.

Doc left his victim standing rigidly against the door casing. The man's eyes were widely open, his mouth a little loose, and the gun slid to the floor presently. But the man did not stir, did not change expression, until Renny Renwick came to him, looked at him speculatively, asked, "Holy cow, what's holding you up?" and cuffed him on the jaw. After that, he went down.

Renny went on into the living-room, was well across it when he saw Doc going down. He imagined Doc had stumbled, was falling. Then the hacking of an auto-firing gun told him differently, and he dived for the floor himself. The gun silenced.

Doc turned his head. "One is getting away. Let him go, rather than get shot."

"One left for seed?" Renny said. "That won't do." He rolled over and crawled on hands and knees back into the room where they'd made their break. He returned with a gun he'd located on the floor. Outside, there was a car engine starting, and Renny drifted, quietly for such a big man, to the door. He shot once.Doc said, disapprovingly, "We didn't want to kill anyone."

"Didn't we?" Renny said briefly. He went outdoors, and Doc listened and heard the car engine die.

He turned and went back into the large bedroom, into the stillness there. Monk and Ham stared at him.

No one else seemed to be conscious.

"It over?" Monk asked.

"Yes," Doc said. "Except for probably a long argument with the police. . . . Possibly also with Gibble, Munroe and Ziff, who probably won't want to donate that fifty thousand to a cancer fund." Doc compressed his lips suddenly. "But they will."

Monk looked around the room vaguely. "I'm confused."

"What by?"

"Where was the anaesthetic gas?"

"In Morand's pocket." Doc went over, leaned above Morand, fished in the unconscious man's suit coat pocket and brought out a rather mangled cigarette package. "In here," he explained. "Trick cigarette package. False bottom. The gas globules were in there."

"You made the plant when?"

"In New York. When we searched Morand, after the trouble on the plane. You remember that, don't you?"

"Sure. But that far ahead! Whew! That's a little foresighted, even for you, isn't it?"