
coloration of his eyes—not brown, and not citrine either. They were striking eyes. Savage's size was also
striking, Sam suddenly realized, when he noticed the comparison between the bronze man and the
headwaiter in the restaurant, who was not a midget.
Impressed, alarmed, Sam Clark watched Doc Savage being conducted to the table in the windowed
alcove, where the bronze man seated himself and began inspecting a menu. Quite a number of thoughts
dashed through Sam's mind, most of them having to do with whether or not he might have made a
mistake somewhere. It was not Sam's nature to become alarmed readily—the fact that sudden
unexpected events could startle him and make him shaky as the devil for a few moments had nothing to
do with a state of protracted alarm; he was of a jumpy nature, that was all—but he was concerned now.
Maybe, he thought this is once I should have looked more closely before I took a bite.
Bosh! What was there to be afraid of? His plan was nicely laid. The shot would arouse in Savage a wish
to catch whoever had fired upon him, and the trail that had been laid was a plain one. The rifle bullet, for
instance, would smash the hotel room window through which it passed, which would be clue enough as
to the source. The railway ticket Petey had bought would lead straight to the St. Louis train, and even a
slight inquiry would indicate Petey had boarded the train. Petey was supposed to be the only one
occupying the hotel room, so actually he, Sam, was in the clear.
Having re-assured himself, he touched his lips with his napkin—he had ordered pompano, had taken a
few hearty bites before Doc Savage had appeared and impaired his appetite—and arose. The telephone
was convenient; he had made sure of that. He dropped in his nickel, got the operator.
“Adair Hotel,” he asked. He turned his head, made sure that the rifle bullet, if it hit where aimed, would
not strike Doc Savage. “Room 308,” he said.
The rifle bullet came into the restaurant and made all the commotion he had hoped for.
Chapter II
VIOLENTLY, crash-jangle, the vase in which the table centerpiece was arranged sprang to bits and
scattered over the room, or at least over the alcove and the area immediately adjacent, along with the
window, all the glass of which—a pane about four by seven feet—seemed to split into a thousand bits
and fall into the room. The table top—it was modernistic black glass, something Sam Clark hadn't noted
previously—also burst into sections when the bullet passed through; afterward the bullet, hitting the floor,
which was of reinforced concrete covered with some sort of tiling, got under the tiling and came across
the room leaving a track, under the tiling, that might have been made by a small speedy mole.
Then silence. It was almost as brittle as the breaking glass.
Doc Savage had hardly moved. Sam Clark, at this point, made a rather shocking discovery—he realized
that Doc Savage, in seating himself at the table, had occupied such a position that a part of the building,
brick several inches thick had shielded him from the hotel window across the street. There was not much
time for this to more than come to Sam's attention.
Arising, Doc Savage crossed the restaurant, not seeming in any particular hurry. It appeared to Sam that
Savage was heading for the exit, which proved to be a wide error of judgment on Sam's part.
Suddenly Sam found himself seized.
He said, “Here! Dammit! What's the idea?” He did not sound as innocently indignant as he sought to
sound.