Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 155 - Measures For a Coffin

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MEASURES FOR A COFFIN
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
? Chapter XIII
? Chapter XIV
Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine January 1946
This issue of DOC SAVAGE is an extra-good one, we think. The novel, MEASURES FOR A
COFFIN, represents Kenneth Robeson at his best . . . and we bet you'll be wondering if Doc is really
what he pretends to be. See how long it takes you to guess the answer in this puzzling thriller.
Chapter I
MR. WATERS, an average-sized and undistinguished man, had worked Gate Four at the Coliseum for
years. His job was listed on the payroll as Admissions Clerk, which meant taking tickets. However, the
Coliseum had highbrow aspirations—the management hoped to eventually displace Carnegie Hall as the
ultimate goal of singers, performers, lecturers, musicians—and the label of ticket taker was not gilded
with sufficient dignity, so it was Admissions Clerk.
It was 2:40 p.m., a Wednesday afternoon in December.
“Joey!” said Mr. Waters.
“Yeah? What is it?” Joey handled Gate Three.
Mr. Waters waved some ticket stubs, two ticket stubs to be exact, which he was holding in his hand.
“Here's a funny one,” Mr. Waters said. “Somebody is counterfeiting tickets on us.”
“You're kidding,” said Joey.
“No. Honest. I've got two tickets here which have the same numbers. I just noticed they were alike. One
has got to be a counterfeit.”
“I don't see how that could happen. The Coliseum has its own print shop do the tickets, and they
wouldn't slap out any duplicates, unless they made a mistake. I guess that's what happened. Somebody
made a mistake with the numbering machine and got the same number on two tickets.”
“No mistake,” said Mr. Waters firmly.
“Why not?”
“Take a look.”
One ticket was a counterfeit, quite skillfully done. There existed no question on this point, because both
Mr. Waters and Joey had been handling Coliseum tickets for in excess of five years, hence knew
Coliseum tickets better, probably, than they knew their own faces.
“Hell's patoot!” said Joey. “Why should anybody counterfeit tickets to this shindig. 'Tisn't like as if it was
a big-time show or an opera.” He jerked his head in the direction of the lobby to indicate he was talking
about the crowd gathered there. “All of those guys in there are doctors or surgeons here for the big
convention, and to listen to that bigshot sawbones lecture. They didn't pay anything for their tickets. The
tickets were distributed free.”
“It is,” agreed Mr. Waters, “rather strange.”
“Better call Old Bubblenose's attention to it, though,” Joey suggested.
“I will.”
Old Bubblenose was an unloving term for Mr. Glizer, the Staff Manager, who had a suspicious nature,
and who was immediately seized with the horrible suspicion that the Coliseum was being systematically
defrauded.
Mr. Glizer forced the staff to work overtime, checking all ticket stubs for the performance in search of
more counterfeits. As Joey expressed it, this was a hell of a job, because about twelve hundred doctors
and surgeons had that afternoon attended the convention's feature lecture.
They found seven counterfeits.
Mr. Glizer was quite bothered, but he needn't have been, because only seven counterfeits had been
printed, and none were ever printed again. The seven men using the phonies had already gained
admission. That was their objective.
THE lecturer for the afternoon, to whom Joey had referred to as “that bigshot sawbones,” wished
desperately that he had not put his neck out by agreeing to give a talk. He was at the moment in the
throes of a worse-than-mild attack of stage fright. He had a tough audience, a hard subject, for what he
was going to do was get up and try to convince twelve hundred of the country's best physicians and
surgeons that they were, in their present methods of treating epithelioma, as prehistoric as the cave man.
He became aware that Doctor Joseph Benson was addressing him.
“You look,” said Benson, “as if you thought there might be a lighted firecracker in your pocket.”
“That about expresses it.”
“Why?”
“I don't like lecture platforms.”
“They're safe.”
“And twelve hundred of those guys out there are going to think I called them quacks when I get through.”
Doctor Benson laughed heartily and said, “They'll eat it up. Three fourths of the men out there only came
to this convention because you were scheduled to talk.”
He said, “Thanks for the cheering words. I hope you are right.”
He really hoped so, too, and the thing he hoped even more strongly was that he was right about his
epithelioma theories. Being a scientist had taught him to distrust theories, even after endless experiment.
Sometimes a theory stood up like the rock of Gibraltar for a century or more, only to get blown to
hokum. How many hundred years was it that Doctors had been sure the best cure for a common cold
was bleeding?
The platform chairman was turning to Doctor Benson and saying:
“Our esteemed colleague, internationally known, who is to make the feature address of this convention,
will be introduced by Doctor Joseph Benson, of New York City, who has known him personally for
years. Doctor Benson.”
Before he arose, Benson leaned over and whispered, “I'm going to lay it on thick.”
“Don't you do it, Joe. For God's sake, have a heart.”
Benson snorted.
Benson addressed the gathering.
“Ladies and gentlemen: Dr. Clark Savage Jr.” he said. Benson sat down.
THE accident happened when they were leaving the Coliseum, after he had insulted all the good doctors,
and after they had crawled all over him with questions and arguments and insults, as he had expected
them to do. He had, as a whole, come off rather well, he thought. He had put his epithelioma ideas in
their hands, or, in other words, the hands of the gods. Time would tell whether he had really found an
effective treatment for cancer.
He was not the only victim of the accident. He and Doctor Benson and four other surgeons were in the
group who were leaving by a side door, intent on going to a coffee shop across the street for food and an
argument. Six of them. Of the six, Doctor Benson was the one who escaped.
“Dammit, I forgot my hat,” Doctor Benson said, and turned back. “Wait for me, eh?”
The hour was now twenty minutes past five, a wonderful, golden, warm afternoon, unusual for New
York in the boisterous month of December. On this sort of an afternoon everyone looked happy. The
faces were smiling. The city was rumbling contentedly.
Two taxicabs came down the street. The street was a one-way crosstown thoroughfare, and the cabs
were traveling fairly fast but not breaking the speed limit.
Apparently something went wrong with the steering gear of one cab, causing it to swerve and crash into
the cab alongside. This taxi in turn smashed into a parked gasoline transport truck. The truck tank was
ruptured.
The transport truck was loaded with high-test aviation gasoline, and in a moment, literally in a flash, there
was a hell-sheet of fire over street, sidewalk, pedestrians, the five surgeons.
The blue gasoline blaze went up to the fifth floor level, people screamed and flesh burned.
Doctor Benson charged heroically out of the Coliseum side door.
“Doc Savage! My God, Doc Savage is burned!” he was screaming.
There was no question about Benson's heroism. He was burned somewhat himself, and he did rescue
Doc Savage, although it was true that Savage at the time was endeavoring to drag three of the surgeons
to safety. Doctor Benson, when he had Doc Savage safe, attempted to dash back after the remaining
two surgeons, but was restrained. The pair had reached safety under their own power, anyway. Benson
was sobbing now.
It soon developed that no one had actually been burned fatally.
Ambulances, fire department, police, and gaping multitude converged on the scene.
THE hospital, clean and white, had a reassuring air of crisp efficiency. Doctor Benson permitted himself
to be treated for minor ankle, hand and face burns, then hurried to Doc Savage's room.
Savage was getting the administrations of four anxious doctors.
“There are too many cooks,” Doc Savage told Benson, “working on this broth.”
His cheer didn't come off. Obviously he was in considerable pain.
Benson drew a doctor aside. “What's his condition?”
“He'll be out tomorrow or the next day. Outside of some peripheral lesion, and the expected amount of
shock, he should make it all right. There may be some scarring, although that is unlikely.”
Doctor Benson watched the dressing of Doc Savage's injuries, and the bandaging.
“Get me a mirror,” Doc Savage requested. And then, when he had examined himself: “I look like a
mummy!”
“I'm certainly sorry about this,” Doctor Benson said.
Doc Savage laughed. “You should be! It was your idea to slip out through that side door.” And then,
when the remorse on Benson's face actually became horrifying, he added hastily, “I was kidding you,
Joe. It was an accident. Stop looking like that. It was nobody's fault. Go on home and let me get some
sleep.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Not a thing,” Doc Savage said.
“Well, good night.”
“Good night, Joe.”
Doc Savage watched Benson leave, then lay back thoughtfully on the hospital bed. He asked one of the
nurses if any fatalities had resulted from the fire, and she said she would find out, soon reporting there
hadn't. “Thank you,” Doc said. “Could I have a telephone plugged in, please?”
“You are supposed to rest.”
“I will,” he promised, “after I make a call.”
The telephone call he made was to the desk sergeant at the district police station, an inquiry for
information. He learned successively that the taxicab drivers, both of them, were being held, that the
gasoline transport truck driver had been in a restaurant when the accident happened, that one cab had
been found to have a broken steering gear.
“The accident seemed legitimate, then?” Doc asked.
“Oh, sure.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
The nurse took the telephone, said, “You cut out this activity, or we'll give you another hypo.”
Startled, he said, “Another!” He hadn't realized he had had one already, and suddenly he concluded that
he had been burned worse than he thought.
Either that, or he was more disturbed than he had thought by the feeling there was something off-tune
about the accident.
HE closed his eyes and, to satisfy the hypo-minded nurse, pretended to compose himself, but actually
went back to thinking intently about the accident. He could not, he was forced to admit, lay his finger on
a thing that was off-color about the accident, but he still had the feeling that something wasn't right. He
knew from experience that such hunches usually sprang from a warning caught by his subconscious, but
not by him. That is, he had seen something, but had not yet been able to realize what it was.
Or was this ridiculous? It was possible that his profession had made him overly suspicious. He rarely
thought of his profession any longer as being surgery, or electrical research, or chemistry, or psychiatry,
or any of the other skills he had endeavored to master. His profession was the pursuit of excitement.
There was no need to kid around about that.
The investigating of the strange, the unusual, the fighting of crime which seemed to be beyond the fingers
of the law for one reason or another, occupied more of his time than anything else. That made it his
profession. It was not always a safe business, so he would naturally become sourly expectant of trouble
disguised as innocence, he reflected. Instead of beating his brains together now trying to find something
sinister in the accident, probably what he should do was go to sleep.
Drowsiness, brought by the hypo shot, was settling his nerves anyway. He felt drowsy, and presently he
sincerely endeavored to relax.
It would be a poor time for him to get into trouble. His five assistants, with whom he usually worked,
were, at the moment, scattered widely. Renny Renwick, the engineer, was in China, and Major Thomas
J. Roberts, known everywhere as Long Tom, the electrical wizard of the group, was in the Pacific
somewhere, on a radar project. The other three, chemist Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, lawyer Theodore
Marley “Ham" Brooks, archaeologist and geologist William Harper Littlejohn, were in Europe, helping
with the mess that had fallen into the American lap after the end of the war there.
He concluded he was going to be able to sleep after all. He felt quite drowsy indeed. They must have
given him a large shot of morphine. . . . larger than he needed. He wasn't in any danger, and he could
have rested. . . .
He slept . . . presently he was aware, vaguely, of movement. Of being moved. Stirring. The bed being
rolled. Voices. Saying: “Push it over here. He's heavy. Better use the same bed. You can't tell what these
nurses might have noticed, a spot on the bed covers or something. . . . The nurse coming yet?”
Another voice: “There's no one in sight yet.”
“Get a move on!”
Quite suddenly, he knew there was indeed something wrong, and alarm ran along his nerves like wild
horses. His conscious gave a great wrench at the restraining mud of morphine dullness.
A voice: “Hey, he's waking up!”
Another voice: “Bust him one.”
He was busted one. The blackness felt squishy, as if it was a semi-gelid substance which had squirted out
of a pipe or a hose. It filled everything, every cranny of the conscious world, completely.
Chapter II
DOCTOR JOSEPH BENSON, at about six-thirty o'clock that evening, found himself possessed of a set
of nerves that wanted to scream. He had changed from the grimy clothing in which he had left the
accident scene, his intention being to have a private snack of milk and sandwiches from his refrigerator,
then go to bed. But it was obvious he was too much on edge to sleep. He went to the telephone and
dialed Miss Clayton's number.
Benson's apartment, startlingly expensive—he had always liked a better apartment than he could
afford—was high in the tower of one of those sand-colored monoliths on Central Park West, and it was
richly done throughout. What it cost Benson would have maintained five ordinary families for a year, but
he never thought of getting less pretentious quarters. He was eaten by envy, on the other hand, when he
saw a better place.
“Miss Clayton, please,” he said into the telephone.
His nerves quieted and he smiled slightly in anticipation of talking to Miss Clayton. He was, in his sparse,
withdrawn, cautious way, in love with Miss Clayton. On the other hand, Miss Clayton was not the least
bit in love with him, and he knew this. It hurt his pride. It was a problem to which he had given
considerable thought, and the thing he thought most about, the part of the situation that most fully puzzled
him, was how in the devil Miss Clayton could help being madly in love with him. Doctor Benson was a
bit of an egoist.
“Miss Clayton? How are you?” In spite of himself, Doctor Benson always found that he was reserved
with Miss Clayton, although Miss Clayton didn't, when one was looking at her, seem like a person with
whom one would be reserved.
“Hello, Joe,” said Miss Clayton.
“Are you doing anything this evening?” Doctor Benson asked.
He had not planned to be so blunt, but it came out. My nerves, he thought, have really gone to hell.
He thought that Miss Clayton hesitated, but finally she said, “Nothing in particular, Joe. Why? Got
plans?”
He said, “I wondered if you'd be nice enough to have dinner with me?”
“It's rather short notice.”
“Well, you don't have to dress up. This won't be anything fancy. I just thought of the idea myself.”
Miss Clayton laughed. “Nothing fancier than the Colony, I imagine. All right, call for me.”
“When shall I call?”
“Right now, if you wish,” Miss Clayton said. He knew she was laughing at him. “I'm really not going to
fancy-Dan it. That's what you said, isn't it?”
“Sure,” Doctor Benson said, hiding his discouragement. He knew she wouldn't dress up, and he decided
to take her to the Colony after all, just to make her feel uncomfortable if he could, among all the rich
clientele which patronized the Colony.
MISS CLAYTON laughed at the idea of the Colony and said sure, why not. She was wearing
low-heeled shoes and a sweater, like a college kid, except that she had an air about her. Doctor Benson
proceeded grimly to the Colony. He winced when Miss Clayton said, “Hy'yah, Mike,” to the doorman.
And he was embarrassed when they got one of the tables that were given to people the management
wanted seen.
Miss Clayton, he reflected, was a damned deceitful package, because such a piquant and sassy looking
girl really shouldn't have any brains. Not an Intellect, anyway. And Miss Clayton had an Intellect. She
was something or other in a concern manufacturing something complicated and electrical. Whatever Miss
Clayton was to this outfit, it entitled her to the most impressive office in the place, and two secretaries.
Miss Clayton was a gold brick enclosed in a tinsel wrapper, to Benson's way of thinking.
“What,” demanded Miss Clayton, “is corroding you?”
“Eh?”
“You're acting,” said Miss Clayton, “like a man who forgot to wear his suspenders.”
Doctor Benson smiled wryly. “I imagine I'm still upset over a rather disagreeable experience I had this
afternoon.”
“You mean the accident in which Doc Savage was burned?”
“How on earth did you know about that?”
“Oh, it's in the newspapers,” Miss Clayton said. “Why do you think we got a front row seat here
tonight?”
“What? Good God, what do you mean?”
“The newspaper accounts make you out the hero who saved Doc Savage,” said Miss Clayton.
This was genuinely news to Benson, who colored deeply, then said savagely, “Let's get out of here! They
must think I'm a damned show-off!”
“You mean, you haven't seen the newspapers?”
“Of course not!”
“I'm glad of that,” Miss Clayton said. “I was afraid you were really the kind of a rat I've always halfway
suspected you of being.”
Benson grimaced. “You've made cracks like that before, and I didn't like it. Why do you say such
things?”
Miss Clayton laughed. “I don't know,” she said. “Let's dance.”
“I'm going to get a more secluded table. Do you mind?”
“I'd appreciate it, Joe.”
The food was good, the service excellent, and they had a satisfactory amount of privacy. But Doctor
Benson was distracted, obviously absorbed with his thoughts.
“Something is on your mind,” Miss Clayton said.
Doctor Benson nodded soberly. “As a matter of fact, I'm worried.”
“What about?”
“I can't get rid of the feeling there was something wrong about that accident to Doc Savage this
afternoon,” Benson said grimly.
MISS CLAYTON looked at Benson thoughtfully. “What do you really mean by that?”
He made aimless marks with the tip of a spoon on the linen. “I haven't been able to put my mental fingers
on anything, exactly. There was just something too pat about the whole thing.”
“Did you mention this to Doc Savage?”
“No, I didn't, although perhaps I should have. But Doc was rather painfully burned, and I didn't want to
bother him with it.”
“I should think,” said Miss Clayton, “he would want to be bothered with something like that.”
Doctor Benson gloomily finished his coffee, seemed lost in thought for an interval. He straightened. “I
have an idea!” he exclaimed. “What do you say we do a bit of detecting?”
Miss Clayton was definitely interested. “Fine! That would be more interesting than the stuffy show I was
expecting you to take me to.” She gathered her handbag and gloves together. “Where do we detect
first?”
They got a cab outside. “The Coliseum,” Doctor Benson told the driver. He added apologetically to Miss
Clayton, “I don't know of anywhere else to start.”
“I can't think of a better place,” she told him.
They looked over the scene of the accident without learning much. The burned gasoline transport truck
had been removed, the two taxicabs were gone, and there was only the blackened sidewalk and seared
side of the buildings to show that anything out of the ordinary had happened there late that afternoon.
It was Miss Clayton who suggested that they talk to the Coliseum management, and Doctor Benson
agreed. Soon they were in conference with Mr. Glizer, the Coliseum manager.
Mr. Glizer was at first aloof, feeling that the management of the Coliseum was being unjustly suspected of
something. They corrected this impression, and Mr. Glizer unbent to the extent of assuring them there had
been nothing suspicious. “Outside of the matter of the seven counterfeit tickets,” he added.
Miss Clayton pounced on that. “What counterfeit tickets?”
Mr. Glizer explained that one of the Admissions Clerks had spotted a counterfeit ticket stub, and that a
search of the tickets had been made, and six other counterfeits had been located, or seven in all.
“Are counterfeit tickets to the Coliseum a usual thing?” Benson demanded.
“No, sir, not at all. This is the first time.”
Miss Clayton frowned. “Did these doctors who attended the lecture buy their tickets?”
“No, Miss, they didn't. The Convention management rented the Coliseum for a lump sum, and distributed
the tickets to registered attendants of the convention.”
“That,” said Miss Clayton, “makes it seem darned strange that there would be counterfeits.”
“I'm sure the personnel of the Coliseum would not be engaged in anything shady,” said Mr. Glizer stiffly.
“JOE,” said Miss Clayton when they were leaving in a cab, “I have a hunch, and I don't like it.”
Doctor Benson eyed her intently. “I imagine you feel the same way I do. A vague, gnawing suspicion that
there might be something rancid afoot.”
“Rancid is right,” Miss Clayton agreed. “I think we should do something.”
“What?”
“Put our suspicions,” said Miss Clayton, “in more capable hands.”
Benson nodded miserably. “But I hate to disturb Doc Savage at the hospital about what may not be
摘要：

MEASURESFORACOFFINADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIVOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMagazineJan...

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