Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 165 - The Devil is Jones

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THE DEVIL IS JONES
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 XI
? Chapter XII
? Chapter XIII
? Chapter XIV
? Chapter XV
? Chapter XVI
Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine November 1946
Chapter I
HE had been told by the manager of the hotel, a Mr. Thomas, that:
“Absurd, implausible, improbable are any chances that Paul Ben Hazard would be able to do a normal
thing such as establishing an office without, somewhere, some way, manifesting a trait.” The hotel
manager, Mr. Thomas, had the gift—which bordered on an affliction in this case—of words. “I once
heard one of Hazard's friends, referring to the office, say that for once the master had almost defeated his
narcissistic impulse, and when I asked what kind of an impulse that was, the friend, who spoke the same
language that Hazard speaks, said the narcissistic impulse is one toward self-advancement and
self-aggrandizement, but then he said the narcissistic impulse is toward the development of a phony self,
so when he said not to believe a word of it, I didn't. I didn't believe him. Not quite. Say about one day a
year, on St. Swithin's day, I didn't believe it.”
He had decided the manager was confusing, if not a bit of a goof, but he was beginning to see otherwise.
He said, “I wish to see Mr. Hazard.”
“You have an appointment?” asked the office girl.
“Yes.”
“What name?”
“Mr. Savage.”
“Oh, yes. Will you step this way.” The office girl, who was about sixty-five and as ugly as an alligator's
grandmother, arose and led the way to the door, at which she paused. She turned, said, “You will not
touch anything in Mr. Hazard's presence.”
He was mildly surprised.
“Unless, of course, he hands something to you first,” the office girl continued. “Mr. Hazard has quite a
few dislikes, and one of them is having to watch people, and strangers particularly, fondle Mr. Hazard's
possessions in Mr. Hazard's presence.”
“I see,” he said.
“Above all,” she said, “do not disturb the window drapes. Even though they are closed and it is rather
gloomy in the office, do not disturb them.”
“I see,” he said again.
“And make no mention of wagering in Mr. Hazard's presence, not even as a figure of speech. Don't say,
for instance, 'I'll bet you that this is the way it is.' Mr. Hazard would detest that.”
“What does he like?”
“Everyone,” she said. “Mr. Hazard has a very big heart.”
HE decided to leave his raincoat in the outer office, and he went back and dropped it across a chair. He
asked, “Is that all right? Is there something he wouldn't like about that?”
She took it seriously, although he had meant it a bit sharply. “Yes there is,” she said. She returned and
placed the raincoat neatly on a hanger and opened a locker and hung it inside. Turning, she saw that he
was amused and skeptical, and halfway suspicious, as if he thought some kind of an act might be being
put on for his benefit. She was not offended, but shook her head patiently and said, “I'm sure you will
understand after you meet him.”
“I hope so.”
“Do not,” she said, “allow his eccentricities to mislead you.”
“Mislead me in what way?”
“As to his capability.”
“Oh.”
“Or his importance in this State.”
“Oh.”
“If you feel like clowning around about it,” she said, “it might be advisable if you got it out of your system
before you went in. He doesn't like clowning, either.”
He thought of several things and was tempted to say them and didn't.
He thought about Paul Ben Hazard, whom he did not know personally, whom he had never met, but
about whom he had taken the precaution of learning quite a lot. A State Senate committee, quite a few
years ago, more than twenty years ago, in fact, had brought Hazard in from the East, from New York,
one rumor had it—another rumor, probably untrue, had it from London—to conduct a special and
touchy investigation of a state insurance scandal. The result, he understood, was that Hazard had scared
the daylights out of quite a few—this was back in the days when the state was dominated by the Kansas
City and St. Louis machines, and state politics was no place for amateurs or babies. Paul Ben Hazard
has remained. He had liked the state. Hazard, as temperamental as an opera star, as neurotic as they
come, had proved to be a confusing quantity to the hardfisted state bosses, and he had survived and they
hadn't.
Rumor had it that, by now, Paul Ben Hazard had managed to do something to, or something for, almost
everyone of importance in the state, and so he wielded a shocking amount of influence, some of it in
quarters where one wouldn't have expected it. He was a man, who, when he wanted something for the
state, used methods as direct as those of Jesse James, and on the other hand could be so benevolent it
seemed crazy. Calloway College, here in the capital, for instance, was said to be supported entirely out
of Hazard's pocket. The man was a remarkable combination of different qualities, some pixilated and
some of god-like benevolence, the reports had it, and he was unquestionably the strongest political boss
in the nation. It was said that nobody in the state, from governor to justice of the peace, took a deep
breath except by arrangement with Paul Ben Hazard.
He said, “How long does this lecture tour and preview continue?”
The office girl frowned and said, “It need go no further, because I do not think it is doing you any good.”
She went to the door, rapped on it precisely and lightly, then opened the door and went in, closing the
door behind her. She was out again presently, though.
“You may go in,” she said. “But don't shake hands unless he makes the offer first.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Savage,” Paul Ben Hazard said loudly.
The man looked to be nine feet tall, although he was probably well under seven, and as skinny as a
well-ridden witch's broomstick.
“Good afternoon.”
“Sit down.”
“Thank you.”
Except for being very tall, he decided that Paul Ben Hazard looked—the monochromatism of personality
was somehow a shocking surprise—about the way any other normal tall man would look. Hazard was
homely, but not spectacularly so, nor historically, for he did not, as someone had said, greatly resemble
Abraham Lincoln.
Hazard did not offer to shake hands. The window drapes were thrown back, letting the southern sunlight
flood the office, and he was a little surprised when Hazard said suddenly, “I detest shadows, and have a
perverse inclination to see them when in evil fettle. I defy that. I make a practice, once each hour, of
doing something that it is difficult for me to do. I feel much benefit can accrue from such a practice.”
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean—maybe? You don't doubt it, do you?”
“Too much inwardness can be bad for a personality, particularly for one that is already touched with
inwardness.”
Hazard scowled. “You disagree with me?”
“Isn't that permissible?”
“Humph!”
“If it isn't permissible, say no. We might as well get that straightened out now, and I can catch the five
o'clock plane back home, back to New York.”
“You'd walk out on me?”
“Why not?”
Hazard threw himself back in his chair. “Christ, so you're a primadonna? I didn't expect that. I had heard
you were a remarkable man of the strong silent type, a combination of physical giant, mental genius and
scientific wizard. But as modest as they come—except that you do have a world-wide reputation for
solving criminal matters that are outside, for one reason or another, the normal abilities of law
enforcement agencies.”
“The question was—is it against the rules around here to disagree with you?”
“It sure is—but you don't need to catch that plane.”
“Why not?”
“I already suspended the rules in calling for your help,” Hazard said. “That's one reason.”
HE decided that Paul Ben Hazard was expecting trouble. The reasons for his deciding that were a little
indefinite, because—he had already concluded Hazard was a profound neurotic—the man was hard to
read, for his ability to have normal emotions was all beaten out of shape by the pummeling of his neurosis,
or his giving in to the neurosis, and, probably, even cultivating it and giving it play. The man was,
undoubtedly, peculiar. But he believed the man was also frightened.
“Do the rules include one against getting down to business, down to brass tacks?”
“They're suspended.”
“All right. What are you afraid of?”
“Jones.”
“Who is Jones?”
“A figure of speech. A term describing the nebulous, the uncertain, the unknown—that is, tangible while
still being intangible.”
“As definite as that, eh?”
“I'm not kidding you. I'm not being a personality. Why do we call the Devil the Devil? Nobody knows
what the Devil looks like, and nobody has seen the Devil as far as I know, and there is even some doubt
that there is such a person—as a person. The popular picturization of the Devil as a semi-human
individual with pointed ears and a spiked tail is, of course, a symbolic interpretation of fear, the perfectly
normal fear inherent in every individual who has occasion to contemplate the hereafter.”
“The name Devil is the name of a possible evil, isn't it?”
“Uh-huh. That's Jones, too.”
“Oh.”
“Leave out the possible, though. Jones isn't just possible. Jones is genuine.”
“Are you making the point that Jones is intangible?”
“So far.”
“Let's get it on a more sensible basis than that.”
Hazard nodded. “Have you talked to the governor of the state?”
“No.”
“You can, if you wish. It might be a good idea. He will more or less corroborate what I have told you,
making it sound slightly different with different words, but telling essentially the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“Oh, you want the story?”
“Yes.”
Hazard sighed. “I've avoided that. I have an intense dislike of feeling foolish when I know in advance that
I am going to feel foolish.” He batted his eyes twice, then closed them. “You think I am frightened?”
“Yes.”
“Listen.” Hazard leaned forward, and his eyes blazed. “Listen, and I'll tell you why.”
Chapter II
DOC SAVAGE sat back and listened to Paul Ben Hazard talk, and he found, from watching and
listening, an understanding of the man somewhat beyond what he had expected. Hazard was, as they
said, neurotic, and probably recognized that he was. He took a certain violent satisfaction out of catering
to the calls of his neurotic impulses, whereas another might have been embarrassed by the signs of
goofiness.
The story was interesting. Jones, it seemed, was a name. No more—a name. “There are even theories
here and there,” said Hazard, “that it might be a woman. I doubt that myself, but it is something to keep
in mind.” A name of terror, Jones, and particularly was it sinister because it was attached, not to any
particular person, but to a series of events that happened and had only one thing in common, that being
plain nasty terror. Hazard gave a short dissertation on that. He said, “To attach a name, and a human
name at that, to events rather than to an individual, lends a character of horror to it that you would not
imagine possible until you have experienced it. Mr. Savage, you will have to use your imagination there; I
wish you would.”
“I will—or it seems I had better, in view of how little you're actually saying. Specifically, what has Jones
done?”
“You know what extortion is?”
“Yes.”
“You know what blackmail is?”
“Yes.”
“Jones has done those things—probably. And to it, I imagine you can add murder and all the other
crimes in the book. I know you can add murder.”
“Specifically, what—”
“Specific, you want me to be! All right, do you know a man named Walton Ellis?”
“No.”
“Being specific isn't going to be so effective if you don't know what I am talking about. Anyway,
Ellis—Walton Ellis—is, or was, a local insurance man who had managed to clean up quite a large sum
during the not-so-long-ago war. I must say Mr. Ellis was not a black market operator, but I say so only
because it wasn't proved and he has a widow who would sue the pants off anybody for saying her late
husband was a black marketeer. Anyway, Mr. Ellis lately died. In an automobile accident, the police
said. In a murder, I think, but cannot prove. And when Mr. Ellis' safe deposit boxes were opened, all six
of them, here and in Kansas City and in St. Louis, and one in Chicago, what do you think came to light?
Nothing. Empty boxes. Yet I had reason, and others had reason, to know that Mr. Ellis had not less than
two months previously had a matter of two hundred thousand dollars distributed among those boxes.
Gone. Where did it go? . . . I'll say Jones.”
“Two hundred thousand are a lot of dollars.”
“You're damned right it is.”
HE decided that Paul Ben Hazard was long-winded, and liked words; the man took flowery, devious
paths when he started out to make a point, and always managed to achieve a certain effect that was
perhaps as strong in some cases as fewer words would have achieved, but usually not. The words
showed one thing, though—Hazard was a dabbler, or at least a reader, in psychology, because he knew
the nomenclature of the science; and this was probably an indication that he had studied
himself—probably gone in for self-analysis, which was sometimes the equivalent of taking mental poison,
since the impulse was usually to stop somewhere down the line and do a self-selling job of a bill of goods:
the result being much harm.
Rumors, Paul Ben Hazard brought out, accounted for most of what he knew of Jones. Not always
rumors. A man in Hazard's position—he admitted quite frankly to being the state boss—heard many
things, and usually it was reliable. “You'd be surprised how reluctant people are to tell me a lie,” Hazard
said. He smacked his lips and grinned at that, giving the impression, possibly true that he was figuratively
a big, bad animal who gobbled up liars. “Rumors and truth, I have heard, and none of it sets well with my
peace of mind.”
He had other specific examples. A woman named Mrs. Lowell, owner of zinc and lead mines, coal
mines, a few oil wells over the state line in Oklahoma, and also of a weakling son named Gilbey. Gilbey
had been the aggressor in a hit-and-run accident that resulted in a death; Mrs. Lowell had paid plenty to
shut it up, and Gilbey had been the victim of a frame-up—probably. No one could prove it.
There was a man named Corkle, who had an airline, sold out for a song to an outfit called ORIO
Airways, which in turn disposed of the planes and faded into thin air. Who was ORIO? Jones, probably.
Why had Corkle sold out for a thin tune? That was a question, because Corkle had turned on the gas in a
tourist cabin a few days later.
Hazard had a rounded bombastic voice which was quite effective when he was not trying to arrange too
many big words.
He said, “This sounds general, and general things never hit close to a man. They're never convincing. You
know the old newspaper axiom—one local story about a wife batting her husband over the head is worth
more than a story from Tokyo about a thousand Japs getting killed? Well, let me bring it closer to home. .
. . Sam Karen—do you know a man by that name? Sam Karen?”
“No.”
“Mr. Savage, let me tell you about Sam Karen.”
SAM KAREN, said Paul Ben Hazard, had at the age of thirty-eight years established himself in an
eminent position in his profession. At the age of twenty-two, Karen had graduated from the Police
Academy in New York City, and some three years later had come to St. Louis on a borrowing
arrangement whereby bright young scientific cops were being brought out to teach the St. Louis coppers
to be bright young scientific cops.
“A few years later, Sam Karen helped set up the state system of criminal investigation,” Hazard
explained. “He went with the FBI on a specialist job when it was getting its big push under J. Edgar
Hoover, and later he set up private practice in New York. During the war, he was with the OSS and did
another specialist job, and then he went back to private practice. He was not a man who sought fame,
particularly, which probably accounts for your not having heard of him. . . . He had heard of you.”
“Of me?”
“That's right. He mentioned you. In fact, I think it was on the strength of his telling the governor to call
you in, if he failed, that you were called.”
“Sam Karen was on this case?”
“That's right.”
“And he didn't do any good?”
“He did too much good.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'm saving that for a snapper. The point is, Sam Karen was called in—by the governor—and he did
what he could, which in one way was not enough, but in another way, it was too much. So you were
called—by the governor.”
“I thought—”
“That I asked you in?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, no. I'm the figurehead.” Hazard seemed to think that was amusing, for he sat for a moment with a
pensive expression, then explained, “In a political sense, the governor is my figurehead, but in this case, I
am his. Yes, he was going to call you, and I suggested that it be done through me this time.”
“Why through you?”
“Judging from what happened to Sam Karen, there might have been a leak in the governor's office.”
“An information leak?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Of what sort?”
“Any sort would be the worst in this case. You see, Sam Karen was supposed to function secretly,
without anyone knowing he was in the state or why.”
“Anyone? You do not mean that specifically, do you?”
“Well . . . no, not that exact.”
“Who did know?”
“God knows how many know now.”
“But how many were supposed to know?”
“Two.”
“They were?”
“The governor and I.”
DOC SAVAGE leaned back. He was a little perplexed by the discussion, for he had been given to
understand in every quarter that Paul Ben Hazard was a very odd character indeed—which in the light of
this conversation was rather strange, because there was not much, not too much, freakish about it. But he
had heard in too many places that Hazard was odd, to believe that he was not odd; and this presented
the interesting possibility that the man was so damned badly scared that the oddness was frightened out
of him—or he was acting. If he was acting, concentrating on delivering one specific impression of himself
to the visitor, Hazard's other oddities might be submerged in the effort.
There was something wrong with the conversation, that was sure. There was something behind it—it had
the general air that would surround a baseball game, if they were using a hand grenade for a baseball. A
feeling that much was sure to happen—or might not happen—depending on whether a blow happened to
be struck with just the right jarring force.
Too many questions, Doc thought; I have been asking too many questions. There was nothing, he felt,
more reassuring to an uneasy and lying man than having questions to answer rather than having to tell a
voluntary and unprompted story. There was something reassuring about hearing questions; they gave an
indication of how the other man's mind was moving and showed its degree of entrapment by the lying.
Doc was silent. Let Hazard tell it. Let him strike out and lead. Doc let his attention move over the
office—it was an enormous office, and there were wide spaces everywhere, between all the pieces of
furniture, between the windows, between ceiling and floor; distances everywhere, and that might indicate
some peculiarity of the personality, even something as obvious as claustrophobia, a resentment of close
places, or it might simply be an attempt to achieve an effect. But in the reaching for an effect, the man's
personality would have been likely to manifest itself, and so the wide spaces between everything, the filing
cabinet that for instance did not stand against the wall in the usual way, but well out from it, might well be
significant. There were other things, too. The man seemed conscious of the window drapes. What was
that he had said? He made a practice once each hour of doing one thing that was difficult for him? That
was cockeyed.
Hazard was not saying anything. If he had sensed there was now a small trap before him, that he was
being invited to go on talking and entangle himself, if he had anything to be entangled with, he gave no
sign. He was contemplating his folded hands. His face was expressionless—not placid, but
expressionless in a fixed muscular way.
Doc said, finally, “Go ahead.”
Hazard unfolded his hands. He licked his lips. He said, “Okay. . . . That's the story. That's all I know
about it. There is a sinister force named Jones at work and I want you to stop it—bearing in mind that
Jones may be he or she. The governor wants you to do it, and I want you to do it, so I summoned you.”
Doc said, “What else about Sam Karen?”
“You remember that snapper?”
“Snapper?”
“The one I said would come on the end of this.”
“Yes.”
Hazard arose—the effect was of unfolding himself and becoming of gigantic height—and went across the
floor, his objective being a tall door of stained walnut like the rest of the woodwork. The door, Doc
noticed, was larger than a normal door although its proportions were natural ones; and the same thing
applied to the other doors in the place; everything, he suddenly realized, was a little outsize, a little odd.
“How is this?” Hazard said, and opened the door. His face had a grey parchment cast.
“This is Sam Karen,” he added.
THE man looked more than his age—he should have been under forty, from what Hazard had said about
his life—and particularly in his face were the years evident, in the thin cheeks, the eagle-claw grooves at
the mouth corners, the sunken eyes, the stringy and rather colorless condition of the hair.
Paul Ben Hazard was staring at Doc Savage, and his mouth was taking more and more of a twist, his
eyes gathering a glassy shocked look. Suddenly, hoarsely, he blurted, “My God, aren't you surprised?”
Then he moved back from the door, leaving the door open, walking backward until his thigh encountered
a chair and he almost fell, but caught himself before he did fall, and poised there half-leaning backward,
one hand fastened to the chair. “Don't you—aren't you shocked at all?” he croaked.
Doc Savage went to the body and made some practiced tests—he had been trained principally as a
doctor and a surgeon, so he knew what to do to know—on the body.
He said, “Dead four or five hours.”
Hazard was holding his lips off his teeth in a wild crazy way.
摘要：

THEDEVILISJONESADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIV?ChapterXV?ChapterXVIOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMa...

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