Doc Savage - Terror and the Lonely Widow Part 2

"Ed didn't look very good," one of the cops said.

"Ed must be losing his eyesight," the other cop agreed.

They hauled a rifle out of the automobile. It was a .22-Hornet and did not have a silencer.

Ed came running. "Cripes, how'd I overlook that?" he wanted to know. "I thought I looked in that car."

A man who had been examining the body, probably a man from the homicide office, looked up and said, "That's what hit him, I d say. One of them Hornets. They got a lot of velocity, and that's the way this bullet acted."Doc Savage was looking at the crowd.

"The murderer planted the rifle in the car after the crowd gathered, he said.

No one seemed interested in this theory.

"Take 'em down and book 'em," said Lieutenant McGinniss. And keep your eye on them. I never saw a more brazen pair of murderers."

THE smooth-haired young man stopped speaking to let an elevated train clatter past the precinct station.

He was evidently afraid the slatternly noise of the train would detract from his melodious voice. The window-this was the third floor of the police station-and a strong and rather hot wind whipped in from the street, occasionally bringing in some dust, and more often, bringing in the stink of a fish market in the neighborhood. The young man with the melodious voice finally closed the window with a bang.

He pivoted, drew himself up, demanded, "Are there any questions?"

Lieutenant McGinniss eyed Doc Savage and Monk Mayfair.

"I never caught two murderers, and lost them, quicker in my life, he said.

"You were doing your duty," Doc a.s.sured him.

"I ain't ashamed of myself," the Lieutenant said. "But I'm ashamed of the United States Government. He whirled on the owner of the melodious voice. "Why the h.e.l.l don't you let us in on what's going on, once in a blue moon?" he demanded.

The young man ignored this. "Any questions?"

The Lieutenant shrugged. "I guess none that I would get answers to. He bent over the table again, inspecting some doc.u.ments which he examined three or four times before. He picked up his hat. "You want anything more out of me?" he asked.

"Your absence," said the smooth-haired young man testily.

The Lieutenant went out without saying anything.

There was a spring lock on the inside of the door. The young man went over and slipped this. He took a tour of the window, apparently to satisfy himself there were no eavesdroppers clinging to the wall outside.

Testily, he said, "The police certainly botched that up!"

"Botched what?" Doc Savage asked.

The young man's name was Burt Chapman, and he evidently had a great deal more on the ball than was visible. He almost had to have. Doc Savage had never had any previous dealings with Chapman, but he had heard of him. Chapman's army rank was Brigadier General, but he was working, as became his department and the sort work he did, in civilian garb.

"Botched the whole thing," Chapman said angrily.

"How?"

"That man, Worrik, is dead, isn't he? The only contact we had with the infernal thing, and he's dead!""The police didn't kill him," Doc suggested reasonably.

Chapman leveled an arm at Doc, said, "You did some botching yourself! As a matter of fact-"

"Just a minute!" Doc's tone would have stopped a truck. He added, "Just what is eating you, anyway?

How do you know what is botched? You didn't know our plans, so how can you tell whether they're messed up or not?"

"Man, You're not going to stand there and tell me-"

"What's botched?" Doc demanded.

"Don't interrupt me-"

"Your plans, or ours?" Doc demanded grimly.

"Mine!" Chapman snapped. "And don't interrupt-"

Doc breathed inward deeply. His neck was getting red.

Monk Mayfair said, "Let me make the speech, Doc." Monk wheeled on Chapman, said, We're not in your army, sonny-boy, so you don't mean a thing to us. And we don't like being lied to. The understanding, when we took hold of this, was that everybody-you, the FBI, the Treasury agents, everybody-was going to sit back and keep hands off. Now, answer me this: are you laying off?"

"If you think-"

"Answer my question!" Monk bellowed.

Mr. Chapman seemed to thrust his jaw forward, then lean against it. "We're not crazy enough to stop all activity ourselves!" he said violently. "You guys aren't G.o.d! You're not omnipotent. You're not completely wonderful."

Monk put his fists on his hips.

"I see we have about the same opinion of each other," he said.

MR. CHAPMAN, striving mightily, regained the att.i.tude of a brilliant young man who held a position of great responsibility. He added, "I am sure, though, that your intentions were good."

This enraged Monk again and he yelled, "That's the most insulting thing anybody can say about me-'his intentions were good!'"

Doc Savage said abruptly, "Mr. Chapman!"

"Yes?"

"We thank you very much for getting us out of jail. We thank you because you meant well," Doc said.

"However, you played complete hob with our plan to create an impression in underworld circles that we had, for once in our life, been hired by crooked interests. If we had been able to get such an idea bruited about, I'm sure there would have been repeated attacks on us, perhaps tentative feelers from the other side about buying us off a second time-something, at least, to put us on the track of a tangible. That, I'm afraid, you've spoiled. Every cop in town knows by now that we were arrested for murder and the United States Government's bright young man split his suspenders getting us turned loose. So messed usup. If there is no more to say, I think we'll now go separate ways. Goodbye."

Chapman yelled, "Wait! I didn't dream-"

"You ready to go?" Doc asked Monk.

"I sure am!" Monk said.

They were the focus for some curious staring as they left the police station. As Doc had said, half the New York police force probably knew by now that the government had ordered them turned loose like a hot potato. Since a murder was involved, there was no doubt plenty of speculation. It would be a wonder, Doc thought grimly, if the thing wasn't smeared in the newspapers by evening.

"I oughta take a stroll right across the bright boy's face," Monk said bitterly.

"We might have had a little trouble getting out of jail without his help," Doc reminded. "Come to think of it, we'd better ask Lieutenant McGinniss if he will kindly look for whoever planted that rifle near us.

LIEUTENANT MCGINNISS was sitting at his desk talking over the telephone. He was telling his wife he probably wouldn't be home to dinner. He hung up, spit in the wastebasket and said, "There wasn't any fingerprints on the rifle. The rifle was sold, three years ago, by a midtown wholesaler to the Oceania Trading Company. The Oceania outfit, which distributes merchandise to the South Seas trading posts, has no record of who they sold the gun to. There's been a war out there in the South Pacific since that gun was sold, and the traders have scattered to h.e.l.l n gone, so there's not much chance of finding who got the rifle. The shot was fired from the fifth floor of a walkup rooming house on the street. When my men got there, the door had been jimmied, and they could still smell the powder stink in the room. It was an empty apartment. A dump. There was dust on the floor, and in the dust marks where the ejected cartridge from the rifle had rolled around. But the cartridge had been carefully picked up. There wasn't anything else in the way of clues. No footprints in the dust, because they had been wiped out with an old piece of rug. The house is number 133, the room, 304. That's what you want to know, isn't it?"

Doc nodded. "You've been busy."

"Yeah, and I ain't a young genius either," the Lieutenant said sourly.

When they left him, he had his forefinger thrust in a cigarette package feeling for a cigarette.

THE mid-afternoon sun was filling the street full of bright heat. It made their eyes ache. Monk put on a pair of pilot's sun-gla.s.ses which gave him even more the look of a chimpanzee.

"Was.h.i.+ngton's Mr. Chapman has given Mr. McGinniss an inferiority complex," Monk re- marked.

"What would you say he d given us?" Doc asked.

"I don't know. Something though."

"Like it?"

"No, I don t."

Doc said, "This thing is too important-and too dangerous-for us not to know who is doing what.

There is nothing to keep us from wasting a lot of time cornering somebody who will turn out to be a government agent."

Monk agreed. "To say nothing of maybe somebody we think is a government agent shooting our headsoff."

Doc began looking for a store that displayed a telephone sign. He found one presently. "I'm going right to the top with this," he said. "I'm going to telephone Was.h.i.+ngton." He went inside, got a handful of quarters and dimes, and entered a booth. There were two booths, and Monk leaned against the other one, blocking it so that no one would be able to occupy it and possibly eavesdrop. He listened with interest to Doc's conversation with someone important in Was.h.i.+ngton. The important one's name was never mentioned, and neither was any reference made to the matter in which they were involved. There was, as a matter of fact, not even a reference to a mystery. But Doc was explicit in stating what he wanted, which was the field cleared of confusion. He seemed to be getting rea.s.surances. This, Monk reflected, is the most mysterious d.a.m.ned thing I was ever mixed up in. n.o.body says a word about what it is. He grimaced. Everybody was afraid to say anything. I'll even include myself, Monk thought.

He was enjoying, if that was the word, a s.h.i.+ver of apprehension when someone started to shove past him into the telephone booth. Monk said hastily, "Hey, buddy, It's out of order. I'm from the telephone company and we're fixing-"

"Holy cow, when did you get promoted to telephone repairman?" a rumbling bull-in-a-barrel voice wished to know.

Monk started violently. "Renny Renwick!" he said.

Renny asked. "How would you like to know who shot Worrik?"

Chapter IV.

COLONEL JOHN RENW ICK, Doc Savage aide, was a very large and gaunt man with a pair of outsized hands and the expression of first mourner at a funeral. He explained, "I saw you fellows come out of the police station. I thought I'd see whether anybody was following you before I joined you."

Monk gasped, "Do you know who shot Worrik?"

"I got a good idea."

Doc Savage came out of the telephone booth. It had been hot in the booth and he was using a handkerchief on his face. He said, "I saw you hanging around outside the police station."

Monk looked injured. "You never mentioned it."

Renny turned slowly, raking the establishment -it was a neighborhood drugstore-with his eyes. "This is as good a place as any to talk, I guess," he said.

Renny Renwick probably came nearer than any other one of Doc Savage's group of five a.s.sociates to looking what he was-an internationally known engineer. He had designed one of New York's largest buildings, and South America, China, Russia and Europe were spotted with his buildings, dams, railroads, air terminals, whatever civil engineer's produce. He had a hard-fisted appearance and his rumbling voice was almost alarming. He was, through a vocal freak, unable to whisper; his efforts at a whisper were about as secretive as a B29 buzzing a farmhouse. He had one foppish habit, which was smearing his hair, his dark and uncontrollable hair, with some kind of pomade. He was touchy about this.

Renny said, "Ham got hold of me. He wanted Johnny and Long Tom, too, but they're out of town. They left for Brazil, where Long Tom's got some radar installation work for the South Atlantic plane routes, and Johnny has heard about a ruin somebody found in a jungle. Anyway, Ham and I were set near the hotel where you caught Worrik. Ham said you wanted Worrik given the impression a rival gang had hiredyou. We had a car ready, and were going to follow you and Monk and Worrik and put on the show.

We-"

"Listen, who shot Worrik?" Monk demanded.

"Keep your s.h.i.+rt on, shoe-face," Renny said. "When Worrik was killed, we heard the shot. We could tell, generally, where it came from-a rooming house."

Doc said, "That checks with the ideas the police have. They found a room where they could smell burned powder. There were marks on the floor, in the dust, where an empty cartridge had bounced around after it was ejected."

Renny nodded quickly. "A guy did it. He came out of the place pretty quick. Not too quick, not fast, not attracting attention. He got in a car. A crowd had gathered by that time. He drove the car down and stopped and tossed the rifle in a parked car. He took his time. He even went over and took a peek at the body."

Grimly, Doc said, "Hard, eh?"

"Plenty."

"What did he look like?"

"Suppose I show you," Renny said. 'We've got him run in at a place on Eighty-first Street."

RENNY had, he explained, left his car with Ham, who was watching the murderer. Ham might need the car. "We didn't know whether you wanted to grab this guy, or hope he'll lead us to somebody bigger,"

Renny explained. They rode uptown in Doc's car.

When they pa.s.sed the precinct station, Mr. Chapman was standing on the steps. He did not answer Doc's salute of a lifted hand.

Renny grunted. "What's eating him? That's the boy genius Was.h.i.+ngton a.s.signed to the case, isn't he?"

Doc nodded. "We had unkind words."

Renny scowled. "You mean they're not taking their hands off?"

"Apparently not. You can hardly blame them, when the thing is so important. However, telephoned Was.h.i.+ngton -that was what I was doing when you appeared."

"Did you do any good with Was.h.i.+ngton?"