Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 081 - Hex

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HEX
A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. A MATTER OF WITCHES
? Chapter II. THE PIXIES
? Chapter III. GIRL MISSING
? Chapter IV. THE SCREECHING LADY
? Chapter V. THE SKELETON’S BONES
? Chapter VI. NO NAMES, PLEASE!
? Chapter VII. BEAUTY IN A CELLAR
? Chapter VIII. JAIL OF DOOM
? Chapter IX. STRANGE MEETING
? Chapter X. DAWN AND DISASTER
? Chapter XI. MYSTERY IN BOSTON
? Chapter XII. PROWLERS IN THE NIGHT
? Chapter XIII. WITHIN THE VAULT
? Chapter XIV. MONK IN TROUBLE
? Chapter XV. HANNAH AGAIN
? Chapter XVI. MASTER OF CRIME
? Chapter XVII. THE MOON AND MONK
Chapter I. A MATTER OF WITCHES
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
The lilac is a flower. Any good dictionary will furnish the information that the lilac is a well-known garden
shrub with large clusters of pink-purple, fragrant blossoms. It is commonly found in gardens and along
dusty New England country roads.
Unfortunately, there is another fact about the lilac which the dictionaries do not mention. Since this is a
somewhat fantastic fact, the dictionaries doubtless do not print it because a great many people would not
believe. The fact is:
Picking a lilac will arouse the anger of witches, it will start the witches making a lot of trouble.
. . . Believe this if you want to, or call it superstitious hokum.
Miles Billings didn’t believe picking a lilac would arouse the witches. Furthermore, he didn’t even believe
in witches.
Yet it was very, very sad that Miles Billings happened to stop and pick a lilac while he was walking down
a dusty New England road some distance south of Salem.
Miles Billings wasn’t the type of man who cared about witches or their magic, being an engineer, a
highway engineer, and one of the best. He was such a noted engineer that an organization that planned to
spend several million dollars on a new super-highway project through that section of New England had
paid young Miles Billings a handsome fee merely to come up here and make a survey.
This morning he had completed part of that survey by journeying about the surrounding hills in his car,
and now he had traveled out of town on foot, and was more minutely inspecting soil and terrain.
The "town" behind him was something to grin about. No one lived in it. There were houses and a factory.
One section of the factory had fallen down ten years ago. The houses—not more than two score of
them—were sagging on their foundations. Miles Billings had learned from a man driving through the
deserted old street this morning that the town had once supported a mill and had been prosperous. But
there was nothing prosperous-looking about the ghost village now.
"It’s hexed."
That’s what the stranger had said. He had been a six-foot New Englander of lanky ruggedness, the kind
of man who looked as if he wasn’t afraid of anything. He had climbed out of his dilapidated car when he
saw Miles Billings, and asked, "Hunting for something, mister?"
"No, just looking around," Miles Billings had stated.
"For what?"
"Well, making a survey. Do you live here?"
The big-framed man had gawked. "Live here?" He had shuddered visibly, then nodded toward his car.
"I’m on my way to Salem to find me a job. Live here! Hell, it ain’t healthy here!"
MILES BILLINGS had taken a deep breath of balmy air, listened to the cheerful chattering of birds
along the old elm-tree-lined street, and commented, "Not healthy?"
"Nope!"
The big native looked half frightened.
Miles Billings himself was not big. He was of medium stature and looked slender, even when he was
wearing knee boots and breeches, the traditional garb of an engineer. He had thick red hair and blue eyes
that were keen and sharp. A rough flannel shirt was open at his throat and more red hair was visible on
his chest. He had looked up at the six-foot native and said disdainfully, "You seem scared of something,
brother."
"Yep," the man admitted surprisingly.
Miles Billings frowned. "Now look," he said. "You said you need a job. Right?"
"Yep."
"Well, in two weeks there’ll be more jobs around here than you can shake a stick at. Steam-shovel
operators, ditch diggers, truck drivers, helpers, lots o’ laborers—" The engineer shrugged. "Take your
pick of anything you can do, if you need a job."
The lanky man had looked awe-stricken. "All of them people are coming here?"
Billings nodded. "The highway," he said, pointing in a straight line directly down the old dusty street,
"goes straight through. Right out by that hollow at the end of this street. We’ll make it the most direct
route possible, and—"
Then he stopped, seeing that the native was staring out of popping eyes. The man exclaimed, "You
mean—through Witches’ Hollow?"
Miles Billings grinned. "Sure. If that’s what you call that place down past the mill."
The man scrambled into his car, leaned across the door and gulped, "Mister, you’d better ask old Cotton
Mather Brown to tell you about that place. I’m getting out of here!"
"But—"
The native yelled, "Ask him about the witches that dance down there in the hollow!" And the dilapidated
car took him away in a cloud of dust.
Miles Billings, walking down the country road now, thought of the incident and grinned. He hadn’t
bothered to look up any Cotton Mather Brown. He saw a nice lilac flower beside the road, and went
over and picked it.
TEN minutes after Miles Billings picked that lilac flower, he met Cotton Mather Brown. That is, he met a
tall, scraggly-looking farmer with the old produce truck.
The truck stood in the middle of the road down which the red-headed engineer was walking. Steam
spouted from a radiator that was making threatening sounds of blowing up. The farmer, looking like a thin
scarecrow in patched overalls and floppy straw hat, was standing in front of the car and cursing.
Miles Billings came around the side of the produce-laden truck, stood for a second watching, then
suggested, "Water might help it, mister."
The truck farmer swung around quickly and glared out of pale-grey eyes for a moment. "Never seen you
before, brother." His eyes squinted, and then he announced, "Say, I reckon you be that engineer I heard
about! Well, I’m Cotton Mather Brown, and there be something I ought to warn you about."
Miles Billings smiled. "You wouldn’t be referring to the witches, would you?"
The scrawny-looking truck farmer seemed to get something stuck in his long throat. He gurgled, got
red-faced, then choked out, "I . . . uh . . . then you’ve heard?"
The engineer nodded. "Yes," he said cheerfully. "And I’m afraid we’re going to have to disturb their poor
ghosts. Going to run a super-highway straight through here."
The truck farmer gulped.
"Now listen," he said. "Listen to me, friend!"
"Yes?"
"The name Cotton Mather mean anything to you?" the farmer asked.
Miles Billings nodded. "Certainly. He was a clergyman during the old Salem witchcraft days. Then he
became interested in witch lore and did much to banish the witches of this section. He was quite an
authority on the subject, and wrote books."
"Well," said Cotton Mather Brown, "I’m descended from him. I know all about the witches. And I’m
telling you—" He stopped and swore, because the truck radiator was making louder rumbling noises, and
more steam was whistling out of the radiator top.
Billings said, "It might be a good idea to worry about some water first. I saw a spring back there a pace
in an old churchyard."
Cotton Mather Brown looked horrified. "That’s the Witches’ Church!" he exclaimed. "No one dares get
water in there!"
"Why not?"
"Why not?" The farmer looked at Miles Billings as though he had encountered a lunatic. "Because the
Witches’ Church is hexed, that’s why not! The last person who went in there never came out, and they
say as how his skeleton still hangs in the belfry!"
The engineer’s alert eyes twinkled. "Look," he suggested, "have you got a pail?"
Cotton Mather Brown jumped. He said, "Listen, I reckon you think this is a joke?"
"Well—"
"You ask Hyacinth if it’s a joke!"
"Hyacinth?" Billings asked, puzzled.
"That’s him coming along there with water I sent him for a half hour ago, the lazy good-for-nothing."
Miles Billings turned and studied the object stumbling up the dusty road.
Hyacinth, it appeared, was about five foot two and no huskier than a shadow. Clothes—shabby, patched
clothes—flopped about his thin frame like something flung over a wire coat hanger. He wore an old dark
coat, the cuffs of which hung down over his hands. Somewhere he had salvaged a battered black derby
and it almost hid his small, dark eyes. He looked about as menacing as a bantam rooster.
But when Hyacinth set down the pail of water and spoke, he sounded as hard-boiled as a Tenth Avenue
kid.
He cocked his small head to one side, stared coolly at Miles Billings, and rapped, "Say, Cotton, who the
hell’s the redhead?"
"An engineer," said Cotton briefly. "On the new highway. We’ll give him a lift to the edge of town."
"Why?" asked Hyacinth.
Cotton Mather Brown sighed. "Hyacinth, where’s your danged manners? We ought to talk to the
gentleman about what he is going to be up against here."
For a moment Hyacinth lost some of his bantam-rooster cockiness. "You mean you’re gonna tell him
about the witches?"
"He don’t seem to want to hear."
Hyacinth shook his head sadly. "That’s too bad. He sure as hell oughta know about them blasted things."
THAT night Miles Billings had his first experience concerning the witches. That came after he had left
Cotton and his helper, hard-boiled little Hyacinth. Concerning Hyacinth, Cotton had explained,
"Hyacinth, here, came to the farm one day looking for work. He was one of them what-do-you-call-its."
"Bindle stiff," Hyacinth put in blandly.
"Yep. One of them. He was on the bum. So I give him a job and now he helps me with the truck farm."
The idea of anyone selling produce around this deserted section had puzzled Miles Billings. He asked,
"Where do you find customers?"
Cotton had waved an arm toward a ridge beyond the nearby ghost town. "High-class new development
over there," he explained. "Outskirts of Salem. Danged good business. And there’s also a few customers
around here."
They had reached the southern boundary of the old mill town. Ahead, grass grew in the tree-shaded
street. Cotton brought the old truck to a shuddering stop, and around them settled the vast silence of the
ghost town in the soft hush of a mid-afternoon in summer.
Cotton had been munching an apple taken from his worn overalls, and he had passed another apple to
Miles Billings. Hyacinth lay sprawled, suddenly asleep, on potato sacks in the rear.
Cotton stopped chewing and said, "Waal, here’s where I turn off, mister. You don’t get me to drive
through that town! You fellows better forget about that highway. It’s only going to make you trouble, I
figger."
Miles Billings climbed down from the seat, smiled and waved his hand. "Thanks, Cotton," he said. "But
I’m afraid I can’t agree with you."
He went walking down the single street, chewing on the apple, glad that it was summer. Behind him, the
produce truck started up and rumbled off toward the ridge beyond the town.
Witch town, was this? Miles Billings laughed. He sort of liked the solitude of the place. It was restful. He
strolled past the row of old houses, noticing their boarded-up windows. On the right side of the street
was the block-long building of the mill; red bricks covered with age-old vines, windows broken and
looking like ghostly, empty eye sockets in a skeleton face.
At the other end of town, near the section that the stranger looking for work had called Witches’ Hollow,
he came to his hastily constructed camp—a tent and a portable shed where the engineer had stored some
of his valuable instruments.
Inside the tent was a drawing board, and though it was warm, Miles Billings shed his shirt and went to
work on sketches of the proposed highway route—a streamlined, super-highway that he visualized as
cutting straight through the old ghost town. It should be a fairly simple construction job, with the
exception of some swampy land north—that place called Witches’ Hollow.
Miles Billings was to appear tonight before board members of the adjacent town just north of here to
present his outline of the highway. At dusk he had his plans ready and was about to climb into his car.
He was aware of a slight headache, and figured it was induced by putting off supper or working too long
in the heat. He would get a bite in the town where he was to meet the local officials that still controlled
this ghost town.
He started toward his car parked at the side of the road—and heard the stealthy sound in the tool shed
behind his tent.
MILES BILLINGS saw the figure scampering away toward the woods. He started running. For a
medium-sized man, he could run. Outdoor life had kept him healthy. He was active. He took out at a
gallop and soon realized that the person ahead was running as though the very devil himself were after
him.
He yelled, "Hey! What have you got there?" He increased his speed.
The figure ahead stumbled over a vine, started to get up, tripped again and went sprawling. The engineer
dived, got hold of a fistful of collar and pulled the culprit erect.
The thief—he was gripping a steel stake taken from the engineer’s belongings—was a young lad of about
twelve; freckle-faced, bright-eyed, scared.
Billings said, "What’s the idea?"
"Please, mister," the kid stammered. "I . . . I had to have it! I had to have the stake!"
"What for?" Billings gripped the boy as gently as possible, but careful that he didn’t escape until he had
heard his story.
"For pop," the boy cried.
"Pop?"
"Yes, sir. Pop caught the hound-dog running in our place and eating the chickens. And he shot him, he
did. Only that dog kept right on running, mister. He—he—" The lad’s eyes showed stark fear. "He’s
dead and still running!"
Miles Billings’ headache was hammering enough now to make him slightly impatient.
"Look," he said somewhat angrily, "your father must have missed the dog. He simply could not have shot
him if the hound was able to run away. He—"
"Mister," the boy half sobbed, "not that dog. He was one of Hannah’s dogs, and he was bewitched.
Now pop’s caught him in a trap and we’re goin’ to drive a stake through his heart!"
Miles Billings stared. "You’re going to—"
The kid got loose, twisted suddenly, and went hightailing into the nearby woods and disappeared.
The engineer followed, aware that his head was now pounding furiously.
And sometime later he returned to his car, panting, weary, just a little dizzy. He cursed witches’ hollows,
witches’ brews and every other kind of hex. He arrived at the board meeting in the next town a half hour
later and still without his evening meal.
THE five sedate-looking members all looked alert when quick-moving Miles Billings came into the board
room. Each had heard something of the engineer’s reputation. One whispered to another, "This fellow’s
clever. He’ll push a highway through that town so fast it’ll take your breath away."
"Yes," another added. "I’ve read three articles about that express highway he supervised down on Long
Island. They say he’s a whiz."
There were brief introductions. Miles Billings then got down to business. He was a man of action.
On a large table he spread out sketches of the route he had visualized that afternoon. He said,
"Gentlemen, the new super-highway will be the greatest improvement this section has seen in years. It can
be put through that old mill town easily—and quickly."
Heads nodded. "We figured that," said one.
The engineer rubbed a hand across his eyes, seemed to hesitate for a moment, then went on in a rush of
words—words that seemed a little shriller than a moment before.
"Yes," he said swiftly, "we’ll bring it into that town on a long, easy curve, then shunt it off around that
Witches’ Church and up over the hill a bit. And then from there—"
Someone gasped. "But that isn’t at all necessary, sir. A straight route would be—"
"From there into a pretzel circle behind the old mill," Billings went on oddly. "In fact, I think it will be nice
to swing it off again up over the ridge, over to that new subdivision a mile away. That would be quite
pretty. Next, down to Witches’ Hollow. There we can build a lake and have boats."
"Mr. Billings!" a board member said testily. "Are you aware that what you’re saying is pure nonsense?
We desire a direct route, Mr. Billings."
"—and pineapples!" said the engineer, unable to be stopped. "Pineapples just off Main Street, oranges at
No. 22, that swamp is a bog and you’ll have to go right through it. Better consult Colonel John Renwick,
greatest engineer living—"
Miles Billings was swaying slightly, his eyes a curious stare, his bright-red hair rumpled where his hand
pushed through it in a weary gesture.
"Renwick," he repeated. "Ask Doc Savage about Renwick. He’ll know about bog, the steel stakes, the
pineapples and tropical orchids." The engineer staggered. "Ask him—"
A board member grabbed an associate’s arm as Miles Billings continued with a senseless stream of
words. He exclaimed, "Good heavens! The man’s completely cracked!"
"Wacky!" put in another.
And a third, more quietly, "I’d say that the poor fellow is bewitched."
Chapter II. THE PIXIES
THE hospital was small. Few people in this village two miles north of the deserted mill town ever used
the hospital. As one native said, "We’re just plain danged healthy hereabouts."
But there was nothing very healthy-looking about the man occupying the bed in the hospital room tonight.
It was several hours after Miles Billings’ unusual speech before the five board members. And the man in
the bed was the red-headed engineer himself.
A doctor stood close by the bed. Beside him stood a second man, a member of the town board. He was
saying, "Strangest thing I ever saw. He isn’t drunk. Can’t be crazy either. Has a reputation as one of the
smartest engineers living. But he sure talks like a loon now."
The doctor, a short, rotund man with a little beard on his chin, rubbed his jaw. The case was something
he had never run up against. He was trying to act professionally and still figure out what was wrong with
his patient.
The man in the bed had no fever. His pulse and breathing were apparently normal. But he had been
talking steadily ever since his arrival, and the crackpot things he muttered were absolutely senseless.
The doctor said, "What’s this he’s been jabbering about a man named Colonel John Renwick? And of a
man named Doc Savage?"
The fat little doctor scrubbed his beard. "There’s something familiar about the name."
"Also known as Clark Savage, Jr., a scientific man of mystery, a marvel of physical development, a—"
"Oh—him!" the doctor cried. "I’ve read the papers on surgery by Clark Savage, Jr., that prove he is
one of the greatest men of science living today. Why, he—"
"Exactly," said the other man. "Well, this Colonel John Renwick is one of his assistants, and a renowned
civil engineer. We’ve phoned Doc Savage’s headquarters in New York and asked for Renwick. We
explained about the highway, and what had happened to Miles Billings."
"But how does that help?" the doctor wanted to know.
"You don’t understand," the board member went on. "Miles Billings was hired because of the swamp
north of the old mill town. That swamp is really a bog, and it has stuck every road engineer in the past.
We figured Billings would know how to whip it."
He stopped, indicating the jabbering figure in the white bed. "Now look at him! So there was only one
way out. We had to get this Renwick. He’ll solve our problem."
"You got him?"
"Yes. That is, from Doc Savage’s headquarters, Renwick was located in Boston. He’s on his way up
here now. He’s a man of action, an engineering wizard."
The doctor nodded, turned toward the bed a moment and listened silently to the ravings of Miles Billings,
the engineer. He shook his head.
"Poor fellow, I’ve given him a hypo. Maybe he’ll snap out of it in the morning."
A moment later they went quietly out of the room. A nurse in the outer hallway was ordered to look in on
the patient occasionally, though the doctor thought that Miles Billings would soon be sleeping soundly.
As they parted at the outer door, the board member said with confidence, "You can bet this man
Renwick will figure things out in a hurry."
RIGHT at that moment, however, Colonel John Renwick, better known as Renny in the Doc Savage
organization of world-wide adventurers, was apparently having a job of trying to solve a simple problem.
The car parked in the middle of the dark road was long and big and powerful. Yet it did not dwarf the
giant figure of the man standing on widespread feet before the bright headlights. Hands that were as large
as small pails were parked on the towering figure’s hips. A face that was as gloomy-looking as an
undertaker’s was frowning.
"Holy cow!" the big man said as he stared off into the surrounding gloom. It was Renny’s favorite
expression.
He cupped the hamlike hands to his mouth and then yelled "Heh!"
The word, like a lion’s roar, went rumbling off into the night. Silence again settled over the deserted old
ghost town.
Renny Renwick moved away from the big car’s headlights and squinted into the darkness. He made out
the gloomy outline of the old mill, across the dusty street, the row of sagging old houses. To himself the
towering giant of a man muttered, "Could have sworn I saw someone just before I stopped!"
Behind Renny, in the darkness, a door on the porch of one of the houses squeaked.
Instantly he had stepped with two long strides to retrieve the flashlight lying on the car seat. He flicked the
switch and swung the beam toward the nearest stoop.
And saw the door closing.
There wasn’t a light in the house; windows were boarded and the steps leading up to the stoop were
sagging with age.
Renny went bounding toward that house, cleared the steps in a single bound and drew up short at the
door. He gave a shove. The door didn’t budge. One of Renny’s ordinary shoves should have moved a
small-sized tree.
The gosh-but-I’m-feeling-awful look on Renny’s face grew more gloomy and he sent one huge fist
smashing into the door. The big engineer was never more happy than when smashing his bony
monstrosities of fists through thick-paneled doors.
"Holy cow!" he cried, and rubbed his knuckles.
His fist had bounced off the door as though it had been a steel wall.
Renny’s dark eyes narrowed. He knew now that he had seen a shadowy figure move across the
roadway. He had distinctly heard the door of this house open. He had seen it close.
He stood massaging his knuckles and getting madder every second. "Say!" he called out. "Who’s trying
to kid who?"
A long Whooo! came slapping back at him from the old mill walls across the roadway.
Renny tried a board at one of the windows. It moved. With one powerful grip of his fingers, he ripped
board and half of the sash loose. He was ready to smash a fist through the remaining boards when he
stopped suddenly, noting something in the flashlight glow.
Behind the broken boards was a steel wall. Renny muttered, "Well, I’ll be danged!"
All the rest of the windows and doors in the decaying old house had the same steel protection. Puzzled,
Renny went back to the car.
News of Renny’s presence being urgently needed up here had been relayed from Doc Savage’s
headquarters in New York City. Directions had been brief. He had forgotten the name of the village near
the ghost town. He wasn’t sure whether it was north or east of here. That’s why he had stopped when he
had imagined he saw someone in the street.
Climbing back into the seat, he grumbled an oath. He hadn’t been wrong. He had seen someone. He
started up and used the flashlight beam out the side of the car, pointing it along the side of the road. At
the edge of town he saw the faded wooden sign hanging at a cocked angle from a post. The town he
sought! The sign read:
SALEM CORNERS—2 MILES
He arrived there three minutes later, inquired about the small hospital, was directed there by a native
chewing on a piece of straw before the village general store.
The nurse, not hard to look at and slender in her white uniform, opened the door of the small building.
She took one look at the giant of a figure standing there and cried, "Oh!"
She started to close the door quickly.
Renny said swiftly, "Holy cow, ma’am, what’s wrong? I’m Mr. Renwick. I’m expected here."
"Oh!" the pretty nurse said again and opened the door wide, stepping back. "You," she said
self-consciously, "sort of frightened me." She was looking at Renny’s gloomy face.
She added, "The patient is not dead—yet! He’s sleeping soundly, so you can ease your mind."
Renny stepped inside, commented, "I know he isn’t dead."
"But—"
The nurse was about to comment on the giant-sized man’s funereal expression, but thought better of it.
She could hardly know that Renny never smiled. He was probably most cheerful when looking like a
gravedigger on a tour of a crematory.
"This way," she said.
She indicated one of four doors. There were only four rooms for patients in the whole place. The nurse
opened the door, stood to one side and said quietly, "Don’t disturb him. We want to keep him quiet."
Renny nodded and stepped inside. His head wasn’t many inches from the ceiling. A dim night light
illuminated the bed.
Renny stared. He turned to the nurse and asked, "Disturb who?"
Puzzled, the nurse came all the way into the room. She gawked at the empty bed, at curtains fluttering in
the warm breeze at the open window.
She stifled a scream, cried, "Good heavens! He—he’s gone!"
THE native known as Cotton Mather Brown insisted that the pixies had got the engineer, Miles Billings.
Renny located Cotton at the latter’s farm south of the ghost town the following morning. He was
informed about Cotton when the natives of Salem Corners had finally given up the all-night search for
Miles Billings.
There had been no single trace of the engineer. Renny had joined in the search. There had been frequent
mention of witchcraft, of the fact that Miles Billings wore no charm to ward off the evil spirits.
Renny, disgusted at the simple beliefs, his face long and sad-looking, had rapped out, "Nonsense!
Witches went out in 1692!"
So he went to see Cotton.
摘要:

HEXADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.AMATTEROFWITCHES?ChapterII.THEPIXIES?ChapterIII.GIRLMISSING?ChapterIV.THESCREECHINGLADY?ChapterV.THESKELETON’SBONES?ChapterVI.NONAMES,PLEASE!?ChapterVII.BEAUTYINACELLAR?ChapterVIII.JAILOFDOO...

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