Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 171 - The Monkey Suit

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THE MONKEY SUIT
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I
? Chapter II
? Chapter III
? Chapter IV
? Chapter V
? Chapter VI
? Chapter VII
? Chapter VIII
? Chapter IX
? Chapter X
? Chapter XI
? Chapter XII
Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine August 1947
Chapter I
THIS one was an old-school-pal-wants-a-favor case.
“Henry, you're my godsend!” he kept howling throw the telephone. “I'll be right over! You're a godsend,
my reliable old pal! I'll be right there!”
Probably he was Dido Alstrong. He sounded the way Dido Alstrong would sound after these few years,
if Dido was scared.
The Alstrongs had been a prosperous, grasping sort a family, well-established for a couple of generations
in the middle-sized Missouri town of Kirksville where I grew up. Dido was doubtless born short, chubby,
eager, pushy, with a round face and a full-lipped mouth. I'm not too positive how he looked at birth,
because he was a year older than I—and he kept these features. By the time he attained eighteen, Dido
had indicated he was of Alstrong pattern—he definitely preferred grabbing to earning, bluff to earnest
effort.
At eighteen, when they graduated him from high school to get rid of him, old man Alstrong was getting
worried about the kid. I was already in my fourth year at Missouri University, and old Alstrong told
me—he didn't ask—that he was depending on me to be Dido's shining light. Dido took to that. He signed
up for the courses I was taking when he could, mooched off my examination papers, cheated when he
dared, and surprisingly enough, got by. I was specializing in electronics and chemistry, so he did that too.
He got me in bad odor a few times with his grabbing at my brains, and when I got out of M. U. and went
to Cal Tech to specialize, I was glad to be rid of him. I hadn't seen Dido since.
But this had been Dido Alstrong on the phone. Mouthy, with a high-pitched squeal of a voice, a way of
using the squeal as if he were having trouble with another pig.
I wondered what he thought I had that he wanted. He must have wanted it badly, the way he had
sounded.
The lab clock said ten-forty. Dido Alstrong had stated he was calling from a drug store on Fifth Avenue.
He had also said—five times, at least—that he'd be right up. New York City transportation being good,
and Dido a quick one on the grab, he would doubtless be here soon.
I hoped so. I had a luncheon appointment with an eminent chemist, a Mr. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, and
it was important to me. This Mayfair had developed a solvent for light-transmitting plastics that was out
of this world. I needed the use-rights on that formula.
The Mayfair fellow, as everyone knew, was affiliated with Doc Savage, whom I had never met but of
whom I had certainly heard. Mayfair, an excellent chemist, preferred adventuring with Savage to working
at his profession, so he was constantly in financial straits. Usually broke. I hoped to lease use-rights on
the solvent formula from him for the modest sum I could afford.
The thing that bothered me about this Mayfair person was an attitude he had manifested toward me. He
had inferred, if that is the word, that I was a stuffed shirt, and that I fancied myself as a boy-wonder.
Mr. Mayfair seemed rather an oaf.
But I would try being more polite to him than I intended being to Dido Alstrong.
HE hadn't changed. He was an Alstrong, with that acquisitive mouth and the pushing ways.
“H'ar yuh, Henry, you mental wizard!” he came in squealing. “H'ar yuh, old school pal!”
“Good morning, Alstrong,” I said stiffly.
“Henry, you haven't changed a bit!”
“Nor have you, Mr. Alstrong,” I replied. He hadn't either, except to become a bit more repulsive.
“Where 'ja get that Mr. Alstrong stuff?” he howled. “Henry, old pal!”
My reserved smile was intended to be a warning. I didn't intend to start calling him Dido, and the old pal
stuff was quite repellant.
Dido didn't press for intimacy. He glanced about my laboratory, then burst forth in boisterous admiration.
“Some diggings, Henry!” he shouted. “By God, this is about as snitzy a layout of laboratory equipment as
I've run across. Who you working for here?”
The inference was plain. He considered me to be so mouse-like that I would be forever working for the
other fellow.
“I'm self-employed.” My tone was stiff. “This happens to be my own establishment.”
“The hell you say!” Dido roared. “Say, now, that's something! Looks as if you're doing all right for
yourself, boy, old pal.”
“I'm fumbling along.”
He was shaking his head wonderingly. “Doing research for yourself, eh? Now that sure surprises me.”
His greedy little eyes appraised me thoughtfully. “Maybe you have changed, at that.”
“In what way?”
He roared at this. “Man, I figured you would always be the unsung genius, without enough push to
capitalize on your own brains. Maybe I was wrong.”
He wasn't wrong, and I did a burn. I recognize my shortcomings, and they are painful to me.
“Genius,” I said rigidly, “comes from the Latin gignere, and means a demon, a peculiar character, an
elemental spirit of fire or water, a guide, a godling dwelling in a place, as well as uncommon native
intellectual power.”
Dido let out a whoop. “By golly! By golly, you still say things like that, don't you? You haven't changed
so much!”
THE fellow was upsetting me. He always did. But the irritation wasn't extensive enough to dull my wits,
and I could see that he was quite frightened about something. I was remembering back to our university
days—Dido always had a whooping, boisterous, overbearing manner, but it was particularly accented
when he was in a scrape. I determined not to let him roil me excessively.
I consulted the clock elaborately and remarked, “It's been interesting meeting you, Mr. Alstrong. But
unfortunately you have caught me at a rather busy time.”
He ignored this hint for him to go. He would. “You're a sight for these sore old eyes, Henry! By God,
I've often thought of you. Do you remember the time at the university that I was out with that blonde, and
I told her I was you, and she was just tight enough not to know the difference, and the next day—”
“Really!” I said sharply. “I'm afraid I haven't the time to listen to you—er—reminisce. Some other
occasion, perhaps.”
“You mean you got an appointment?” he demanded.
“Well—yes.”
“When? What time?”
“Noon,” I was forced to confess. “But I must prepare my arguments thoroughly so that—”
“Hell, you got over an hour!” Dido bellowed. “This won't take that long.”
“Well, I—”
“That's great!” he shouted—ignoring my reluctance, and giving the impression I had consented when
nothing of the sort had happened. “I knew you would,” he added.
“Would what?” I asked bitterly.
“Help me out.”
“I—ah—believe you did mention a favor,” I ventured. And then I added pointedly, “A trifling favor.”
Dido nodded, his round little chin disappearing into his roundish neck as he did so. “That's it, Henry,” he
said. “Just a trifling favor. No trouble at all. But it means a lot to me.”
His tone, coupled with what I knew of his ways, warned me that it wasn't anything trivial at all.
“If it's money—” I began coldly.
He let go another whoop at that. And he yelled, “Pal you haven't changed. I'll bet you are as big a
skinflint with a dollar as you ever were!”
“I'm no skinflint!” I snapped. “You always did confuse sensible economy with penuriousness.”
“Henry,” he said, “who are you kidding? Getting a nickel out of you was always just about as easy as
taking the skin off a flint rock. What does skinflint mean?”
Somewhat relieved, but quite disgusted with him, I asked, “It isn't money you want?”
“Money?” He pushed out his lips like a baby spitting out its milk. “Henry, I've got a big deal on. In a few
days, I'll be in a position to loan you money. You and J. P. Morgan. Right now, I've got all the dough I
need, too.”
“Well!” I said. This was the first time I'd ever heard Dido Alstrong intimate that he didn't need money. I
was indeed relieved.
“Get your hat!” Dido said, suddenly taking advantage of the momentary magnanimity I felt upon
discovering this was not a case of the bite. “We'll have this over with in a jiffy.”
“Oh, now! I haven't time—”
“Look, Henry, all we do is walk downstairs and take a cab a couple of blocks. That's all. Your arm isn't
going to drop off or anything, and it won't cost you. I'll even pay the cab fare.”
“In that case,” I advised him unwillingly, “I can spare not more than ten minutes.”
Dido Alstrong seemed quite satisfied. It had always been his way, once he had achieved a point, to be a
little nasty about what had led up to it, and he was so now. He said, “Henry, don't you ever want to have
a friend?”
“I have friends,” I said sharply.
He shot a glance at me. “Name one!”
He had the worst way of discomfiting a person. I had friends, several very nice ones, scientific people of
high caliber. But for the life of me, at the moment I couldn't think of the name of one.
“Don't be ridiculous,” I parried coolly. “What are you getting at?”
He shrugged. “Skip it.” What he had been getting at, of course, was to indicate that he was aware of my
dislike, and had some preposterous notion of intimating that this was my shortcoming, not his.
He clapped his hat, a garish tweed-felt affair with a yellow feather cocked in the band, on his head. I got
my own dark Homburg, and advised Miss Lucy Jenkins, my lab assistant, that I was stepping out for a
bit.
Dido Alstrong seemed amused by Miss Lucy Jenkins—as amused as his undercurrent of fright would
permit. While Lucy may be forty-five, and not a beauty, she is certainly precise and efficient.
“That babe's as homely as a mud fence, Henry,” Dido remarked when we were in the hall. “Doesn't
having scenery like that around depress you?”
“Certainly not!”
He punched the elevator call-button, looked at me speculatively, and said, “I guess not. I guess you
wouldn't even know when you were depressed.”
“What are you doing with yourself these days, Dido?” I inquired. “You didn't follow up chemistry, of
course.”
“I sure did,” he replied. “I'm laboratory chief for Farrar Products.”
“I don't believe I have heard of the firm,” I said.
“You should get around more, Henry. Farrar Products is on the way up. We're in the plastic packaging
field, and doing well.”
My slightly superior smile suddenly folded up—I had remembered that I had heard of Farrar Products
and the concern was, as Dido said, an up-and-comer. Really, nothing occurred to me to say as we got
into the elevator. That this bombastic goof could have achieved the post of laboratory chief for such a
concern was incredible.
We were jostled out of the elevator into the lobby by the other passengers, or at least I was jostled,
although Dido held his own.
It was raining outside. A slight, depressing sort of rain, it came down in soiled strings. We stood under
the shelter of the awning of a shop, along with others, and Dido searched eagerly for a taxi.
Something rather odd happened.
A portly gentleman, standing a bit behind Dido and myself, and just out of line with Dido, gave out a
sound. It was a sound like a boot being pulled out of mud. There was also another sound, rather as if one
of the strings on a musical instrument had broken. And the stout man flung himself backward, or at least
toppled back, against the shop window. The window broke. There was a considerable jangling of falling
glass. All of this occurred rapidly, so that it was almost one thing, without exactly being so.
The effect on Dido Alstrong was remarkable. He turned the color of a much-used dish-rag.
Chapter II
“OH, GOD!” Dido Alstrong croaked. He gripped my arm. “Back inside!”
“Back—” I said uncertainly. “But we were going somewhere. You wanted a cab. Yonder seems to be
an empty taxi—”
Dido seized me in the most unceremonious manner. He bustled me back into the office building. I abhor
rough physical contacts, and I resisted. But there was more strength in Dido Alstrong's soft-looking
porcine body than one would think. That, and also frenzy.
The other people standing there under the awning were staring in confused fashion at the portly man, who
now lay on the sidewalk. The portly man was squirming about, and his mouth was making shapes, but no
sounds.
“What—” I tried to assemble composure. “What happened to that chap?”
There were beads of sweat on Dido Alstrong's aggressive face. “That guy . . . ?” He hesitated. “He
probably had a heart attack, or something,” Dido said.
“Really? It seemed very sudden—”
“Never mind that guy,” Dido said, and his voice was thickly grating with excitement. “I—I've changed my
mind, Henry. I—well—I was just reminded of something.”
I had a feeling of relief. “You mean you don't want me to do the favor for you?”
“Oh, no! No, Henry. What I mean—I just realized I shouldn't take you from your work. Here's what I
want you to do: I want you to get a package and keep it for me.”
“Package?” I said. “What sort of a—”
“Here!” He jammed a shiny metal key into my hand. “There! That's the key to one of those package
lockers in Grand Central Station. It's the locker in the men's room in the upper level. You can find them
easy enough. The locker number, forty-one, is on the key. The package is there. I want you to get it for
me and keep it in a safe place.”
I asked blankly, “You merely want me to keep a package for you?”
“That's it. You get the packet any time you want to, as long as it's sometime today.”
“But why—”
“Look, Henry, all you need to do is get it and keep it for me. It's just a little favor. You see, I may want it
late at night, and I'm afraid the place where the lockers are will be closed.”
Dido was a very terrified man.
I said, “I'm under the impression the gentlemen's lavatory in Grand Central Station is open for business
twenty-four hours of the day.”
That didn't stump him, for he said, “I—uh—may have to leave town a few days, Henry. I don't want to
leave the package there that long. Ah—for all I know, they may take that stuff out and sell it for storage
after a few days.”
“I don't believe they do.”
Dido Alstrong whipped a handkerchief from his hip pocket and blotted his face. It was not a hot day.
“Hell, Henry, stop arguing with me. You've got the key. You get the package.”
“What's in it?” I demanded.
He gripped my arm. “Henry, if anything should happen to me—Er, that is, if you don't hear from me in
three days—you give that package to a policeman.”
“Great Scott!” I blurted. “Dido, I'll have nothing to do with anything underhanded—”
“Thanks, Henry,” exclaimed Dido Alstrong.
He gave me a clap on the back which he probably considered hearty, but which I found most distasteful.
“You're dependable, Henry,” he said.
And he darted into one of the shops which had an entrance into the building lobby, and also an exit into a
side street.
MY confusion was, to say the least, considerable, but it was exceeded by my misgivings. The temptation
to follow Dido Alstrong, collar him, and demand fuller and more logical explanations, was very strong.
But, as I have mentioned, I abhor harshness of the man-to-man sort, and also I didn't want to give Dido
the satisfaction of seeing me confused. He had always seemed to derive pleasure from seeing me
confused.
Compromising in a measure, I returned to the street, at the same time summoning my dignity, which Dido
had shoved out of kilter.
Now a tightly packed cluster of pedestrians surrounded the portly man who'd, as Dido Alstrong had put
it, had a heart attack. These people were like worker and drone bees around their queen bee. I was
unable to obtain a glimpse of the portly man, although it was simple to gather that he lay on the sidewalk.
My curiosity, while intense, was not sufficient to give me the brashness necessary to push my way to the
unfortunate fellow. It goes against my grain to elbow and shove people, although they seldom have such
scruples about me. This was none of my business anyway.
I did, however, walk to the corner, and glance down the side street. Sure enough, there was Dido
Alstrong. He was walking rapidly and, had he kept going out of sight, I might have dropped the matter.
But he did not.
He turned into a cocktail bar.
There, I realize now, I made my second serious mistake. The first error was in ever permitting Dido
Alstrong to call on me. With my hand on the key Dido had given me, which was in my coat pocket, I
strode to the cocktail place and, after hesitating several times, ventured inside.
I immediately had two emotions. Delight that I had come. And disgust that Dido Alstrong should have an
acquaintance with such a lovely girl.
It was a satisfaction, though, to note that this wonderful creature was giving Dido a piece of her mind.
This girl was a middling-sized butterfly girl, all liveliness and glow, with aquamarine eyes, a roguish little
retroussé nose, and a skin that the sun must have loved kissing. Nature surely had turned handsprings
after creating her.
She was pointing a finger at Dido Alstrong's bulbous dough-like nose and speaking sharply.
I ventured closer.
She was speaking as follows: “The only thing that got me out in this rain was your promise to buy me
lunch at the Colony, and take me to that matinee. Now you say it's off. I don't like it.”
“Babe,” said Dido Alstrong. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry up to here. But I can't go. I tell you, my uncle in
Kansas just died, and I've got to fly out there.”
The way Dido called her “babe” imbued me with a wish to hit him over the head.
I didn't, naturally.
And the girl seemed mollified. “I'm sorry about, your uncle in Kansas, too, of course—if you have one,”
she said.
“Lila, I would give anything if I could entertain you, but I can't,” Dido assured her. “It's out of the
question. In fact, I've got to run now. My plane leaves in an hour.”
She eyed him. She has his number, I thought.
“Mind if I ride out to the airport with you, Dido?” she asked.
“Uh—no need of that,” he said hurriedly. “I'll be tearing around. Not good company.” He chucked her
under the chin. “Remember me as I am now, toots. Fond of you as anything.”
“Well. . . . You'll wire me, of course?”
“I'll sure try,” he promised. “You know I'll tear my head off to do that. Well—goodbye, Lila.”
“Goodbye, Dido,” she said.
“A lil' kiss, huh, Lila?” he asked brazenly.
She shook her head. “After you bury your uncle, maybe,” she said dryly.
With that, they parted. She remained. Dido Alstrong wheeled and strode out—I had moved a bit to one
side, the interior of the cocktail place was inadequately lighted as such establishments usually are, and
Dido Alstrong obviously did not notice me.
I stood there after Dido had gone, and presently something happened to me, and I made what I consider
to be my third large mistake.
VERILY, I do not understand my behavior. From youth I have been condemned to be an introverted
sort of an individual, although I have long since ceased to consider it a matter of being condemned, but
rather one of being blessed. We who are inward souls develop the greatest minds, I am convinced. But
the point I am making is that I have been plagued always by thoughts, impulses, emotions, which must be
repressed, and sometimes it is quite difficult to repress them, particularly when they concern women. I
am, as a rule, quite successful, though. I would not permit myself to be fresh with a young one of the
opposite sex, although the yen to do so might be a large one. I am uniformly polite, well-mannered, and
speak along intelligent lines, when dealing with the other sex. I have never picked up a girl.
It was not like me, not at all like me, to find myself standing beside the chair at which this delightful girl,
Lila, had seated herself in a piqued way.
“Oaf,” I stated, “derives from the Icelandic alfr, meaning an elf's child, a deformed or foolish child, a
simpleton, or changeling, left by goblins on one's doorstep.”
She stared up at me. Much, I suppose, as if a pink-striped toad had hopped into her lap.
“Will you,” she said, “do it again?”
“I—ah—refer to Dido.”
“Oh.”
“I—er—am probably upset,” I said lamely.
“You're acquainted with Dido Alstrong?” she inquired.
“I am his pal,” I explained bitterly. “I'm afraid that I am making a spectacle of myself. I don't understand
why I am. I don't, usually, so I suppose this comes under the heading of an irresistible impulse of an
unorthodox nature.”
She considered this, shook her head, and remarked, “I was aware that Dido had a circle of rather
unusual acquaintances, so I don't suppose I should be too surprised.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Me?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said.
This didn't make sense to her. Nor did it to me. I was rather afloat on my emotions, but I was utterly
delighted, in an ashamed sort of way, that I had dared converse with her.
“Is this,” she asked thoughtfully, “one of Dido's gags?”
“No! Oh, I assure you, no!” I exclaimed. “It was utterly my own idea.”
“So it's an idea,” she said rather coolly.
I believe the phrase is brush-off. I was going to be brushed off. I could see it coming.
“Dido has no uncle in Kansas!” I blurted wildly. “He is from Missouri. All his uncles are there. They are
all in the town of Kirksville, Missouri, and a very greedy lot they are.”
This verbal imbecility intrigued her. I was most relieved and, since I had not planned to speak
thus—indeed, I had no real idea of how to get and hold a beautiful girl's attention—I was rather inclined
to feel that my subconscious had stood staunchly by me, and delivered in this pinch.
“This,” she said, “sounds as if it might have its points. Sit down.”
I sat down. I couldn't have managed much more alacrity.
“And,” she added, “you can buy me a drink.”
While I do not drink intoxicating beverages, I have been stuck with enough checks to know that the
potions they served in places like this come very high indeed. This never entered my mind, however.
“Delighted!” I gasped.
“Who are you?” she wished to know.
“Henry,” I said.
“You would be,” she decided, “if you're not kidding. Is your name really Henry?”
“Yes indeed. Henry Jones.”
She frowned. “Don't overdo it.”
“Henry Alcibiades Ephraim Jones,” I said miserably. “I can't help it.”
She looked as if she wished to laugh, and presently did so, adding, “I don't get it, but if it's a rib, I'll go
along for what it's worth.”
The waiter came. Those hawks are always at one's elbow in the high-priced places, I have noticed. She
ordered a daiquiri, and I requested buttermilk.
“Buttermilk?” she remarked.
“It's healthful,” I explained lamely.
AT this juncture, my memory recovered sufficiently to remind me that I had an appointment with the
chemist, Mr. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Realizing how important a matter this was to me, it seemed best
to notify Miss Lucy Jenkins where I might be found. Accordingly, excusing myself to the beautiful girl, I
made a telephone call to my laboratory.
Disapproval was noticeable in Lucy Jenkins' voice when she learned I was in a rum hole. She could not,
of course, know that it was a very glorified and expensive one.
“Just a moment, Henry,” said Lucy Jenkins, and she spoke to someone. Then she informed me, “He says
he'll join you and hoist one before lunch.”
“Who?” I gasped.
“Mr. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.”
“Oh, great governor, is he there already?”
“Not now,” said Lucy Jenkins. “He just went out the door. He's on his way.” It was evident that she
shared my misgivings about the cultural level of Mr. Mayfair.
Returning to the lovely lady, I explained sadly, “I am afraid another is going to join us. I trust you won't
mind.”
“Another friend of Dido's?” she inquired.
“Oh, no!”
“A friend of yours?”
“Well—slightly a business acquaintance.”
“And what,” she asked without embarrassment, “might your business be?”
I told her the truth. “At present, I am developing the refining properties of lithium in nonferrous alloys.”
“You don't say,” she said, and took a quick sip of her drink. Her lovely eyes twinkled.
Mr. Mayfair arrived with unwelcome promptness.
摘要：

THEMONKEYSUITADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXIIOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMagazineAugust1947ChapterITHISonewasano...

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