Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 153 - Trouble on Parade

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TROUBLE ON PARADE
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 November 1945
A red-bearded giant, who packed a basket lunch to eat in the middle of the Bay of Fundy, was the
start. There was the girl who liked to quarrel, the girl who wouldn't talk, and the man who
threatened. They added up to a nightmare of violence and intrigue for Doc Savage—on Parade.
Chapter I
IT seems to be a fact that one of the things people most enjoy doing is approving—“pointing with pride”
is the phrase—the great accomplishments of the human race, the race which has discovered radio,
vitamin pills, crooners, war, airplanes, six-dollar theater seats, appendix operations, taxes etc. etc. But
once upon a time a scholar, who was also a witty man, said: “Man is an emotional animal who sometimes
stops to think.”
Stopping to think is the profession of scholars and scientists, who get salaries for it. These gentlemen
are—a surprising number of them—quite modest men, since it is mysterious and awe-inspiring to realize,
as they soon must, that it may take them and succeeding thinkers perhaps another hundred thousand
years to invent a mechanism as marvelous as, for example, a common cheese-eating variety of mouse. To
say nothing of an emotion, for an emotion is nebulous, being probably a sort of bio-chemical
product—even the garden variety of emotions such as fear, joy, grief, hate, love, reverence.
Fear is a primary emotion. A baby, the scientists have proved, is born with only two primitive fears—the
fear of loud noise, and the fear of falling. It has, at birth, no other instinctive fears. Taken from its crib, the
baby will reach impartially for striped candy, cobra snakes, fire, Uncle Dan's shiny timepiece, dogs,
canary birds, dynamite and strangers, which proves that the baby is born with another
emotion—curiosity. His curiosity stays with him and develops as do his other emotions, but unlike the
others, his curiosity usually gets him into a lot of trouble.
IT was on a hot Wednesday afternoon in August that the pilot of a Boston, Mass., Halifax, Nova Scotia,
passenger seaplane gave a display of what was almost phenomenal eyesight, followed by normal
curiosity.
Not all August afternoons in the Bay of Fundy are hot ones, but this one was particularly so. And it was
an unnaturally still afternoon. The sea below the plane, absolutely calm, resembled a great expanse of
shining glass, as blue as a policeman's uniform where the water was deep, shading to various other colors
such as mink brown, and dying grass green where the sea bottom came up in reefs and shoals.
The plane was flying quite low, not much higher than five hundred feet, because there was no headwind
and the sea was calm enough to make a forced landing anywhere in case of mechanical failure.
Slim Stinson, the pilot of the plane, suddenly gouged his co-pilot in the ribs and pointed.
“Whoeeee!” he said.
“What was it?” the co-pilot asked.
The plane was making good about a hundred and sixty miles an hour, so that whatever the pilot had seen
was now left behind.
The pilot did not answer the co-pilot's question; he was taking the radio microphone off its hook. Into the
microphone he said, “Canada Union-American from Flight Seven. Have sighted man swimming in the
sea, nearest land twenty miles. Asking permission to land and rescue. Sea calm. Over.”
DOC SAVAGE, a passenger on the plane, had been endeavoring to put himself to sleep with
self-hypnotism. He had heard that this could be done, but he had never been able to do it, and he wasn't
having any success now. He had both eyes closed tightly when the plane lifted one wing, beginning a
banking turn. He stubbornly resisted opening his eyes, although he could think of no good reason for the
plane making a sharp turn at this time.
Presently he did open one eye. The stewardess was standing beside him. The sign that said FASTEN
YOUR SAFETY BELT was lighted.
“We are landing,” the stewardess said. “Keep your seat. Nothing is wrong.”
The stewardess passed on to reassure the other occupants, and by the time she returned Doc Savage
had taken a look out of the window, and he had a question.
“If there's no trouble, why are we landing on the open sea?” he wished to know.
“The pilot has sighted a man swimming, and we are landing to rescue him.”
The stewardess lingered, willing to pass out more information. She was quite pretty, and she had been
giving Doc Savage more than his share of service, overdoing it enough to embarrass him. He felt he was
being pursued, suspected the other passengers were grinning slyly about it, and he couldn't think of
anything he could very well do about it. He wished the stewardess hadn't been so damned pretty, then he
wouldn't have been as disturbed.
The stewardess gave him a smile which, although he was trying to be as cold as a fish, made his toes
vibrate. “The poor fellow must have been on a boat which sank,” she said. “The nearest land is about
twenty miles away.”
“That would be a long swim.”
“Wouldn't it, though?”
She gave him another smile, this one about as soothing as an application from a blow-torch.
“I understand you are a flier yourself,” she added.
“Not by profession,” he said, wondering if he was going to hold out.
“I know what your profession is.”
“You do?”
“I read about you in a magazine.”
He damned the magazine mentally. He resolved to look before he boarded the next plane to make sure it
didn't have a man-eating stewardess.
At this point the co-pilot saved his life by thrusting a head out of the control compartment and shouting
for the stewardess to stand by with a life preserver.
THE pilot made only a fair landing, making the pilotage error known as “dropping her in.” Evidently he
had been deceived by the glassy surface of the sea, and his error lay in not taking the accepted
precaution of heaving overside some object such as a life preserver to use as a reference point. But they
got on the sea safely.
The plane taxied toward the swimmer.
The swimmer ploughed through the cobalt-blue water, using an easy-looking overhand stroke, ignoring
them. Doc Savage was able to watch him, and he wondered what the swimmer was doing with a red
muffler tied under his throat. The fellow was paddling south, which was the direction he had been heading
all the time, but as the plane drifted close, he stopped and trod water.
The pilot opened a hatch and climbed out.
“Hello, there,” he said.
The swimmer lifted a hand in acknowledgement, but didn't say anything.
Everyone on the plane gaped in amazement. What they had mistaken for a red muffler tied over his head
and knotted under his throat was a profuse and fiery red beard. The fellow was a sun-browned giant with
an awe-inspiring amount of muscles. He seemed to be dressed for what he was doing, wearing nothing
but swimming trunks, and around his middle was a belt to which seemed to be attached a number of
waterproof pouches.
“We'll throw you a line,” the pilot called.
The swimmer appeared surprised.
“Why?” he asked.
This stumped the pilot for a moment, but he recovered himself and explained, “To haul you aboard with.”
Doc Savage was looking with fascination at the amazing red whiskers which the swimmer possessed,
reflecting that they must be at least two feet long.
The swimmer was contemplating the pilot thoughtfully.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“We've got to have something to pull you aboard with,” the pilot said.
“I don't see why,” said the owner of the red whiskers.
“How do you expect to get on the plane, then?” demanded the pilot, who seemed to be becoming
exasperated.
“I don't,” said the swimmer.
The pilot scratched his head, thinking this over.
The fiery-whiskered swimmer grinned pleasantly and began quoting poetry. He said:
“Hope tells a flattering tale,
"Delusive, vain, and hollow.
“Ah! let not hope prevail,
"Lest disappointment follow.”
AN astonished silence fell over the plane, lasted some moments, until the co-pilot broke it by saying
softly, “Well, I'll be damned!”
The pilot said, “You mean you don't want to be rescued?”
“That's right.”
“Why not?”
“Don't need rescuing.”
“The nearest land,” said the pilot sharply, “is twenty miles away.”
“Twenty-two and five-tenths miles,” the swimmer corrected.
The pilot scratched his head some more, then said, “I don't get this.”
“How disappointment tracks the steps of hope,” the swimmer remarked.
This was obviously another quotation, and Doc Savage dug around in his memory until he recalled that it
was a quote of L. E. Landon. The other one, the poetry, had been from The Universal Songster, by a
Miss Wrother, indicating that red-whiskers was versed in lesser-known literary works. Doc frowned at
the fellow, examining him for signs of insanity.
The pilot, trying a different method, made his tone conversational and asked, “Mind telling me your
name?”
“Not at all,” said the swimmer. “I'm Disappointed Smith.”
“Where you headed for?”
The possessor of the crimson chin foliage shook his head.
“That's my private business,” he said.
“You'd better come aboard,” the pilot urged.
“No, thanks.”
“Are you afraid of airplanes?”
“Nope.”
“Mind waiting around a minute?” the pilot asked.
“I got plenty of time.”
The pilot re-entered the plane, came down the aisle and stopped before Doc Savage. “Mr. Savage, I just
remembered that you're a doctor, and so you might be able to tell me whether or not that guy is nuts. Is
he?”
Doc Savage looked at Disappointed Smith once more. “He acts and sounds sane enough. But the catch
is that what he is doing and saying doesn't fit in with our ideas of what a man found swimming twenty
miles from land should do and say.”
This wasn't conclusive enough for the pilot. “Is he batty?”
“It would depend on whether his reasons for being where he is are rational ones.”
“Can't you tell whether he's crazy?”
“By looking at him for five minutes from a distance of thirty feet, and looking at only his head, at that? I'm
not a magician.”
The pilot took another look through the window.
“My God!” he gasped.
The flame-bearded giant had calmly unfastened one of his waterproof pouches from his belt, opened it,
and was consuming a sandwich which he had removed therefrom.
A silence fell, the pilot appearing to be baffled as to what measures to take next, and no one else aboard
having anything constructive to offer. The pilot was in charge of the plane, anyway, and it was his
headache.
SUDDENLY the pilot growled, “I'm going to take that guy aboard whether he likes it or not.”
He scrambled outside.
He shouted, “Listen, you, cut out that foolishness and come aboard.”
As though surprised at the violent tone, the swimmer hastily swallowed the portion of sandwich he was
chewing and eyed the pilot. Presently he delivered another quotation.
“Mean spirits under disappointment, like small beer in a thunderstorm, always turn sour,” he quoted.
The pilot wheeled angrily to the stewardess and said, “Grace, hand me the line off that life preserver, and
I'll lasso the fool.”
The lassoing was unsuccessful, although the red-beard seemed to enjoy it. He would sink each time the
rope looped toward him, to bob up a few feet away uncaptured and grinning.
The pilot turned ugly. He was armed, as are most pilots carrying the mails. He whipped out a revolver,
leveled it.
“Now get aboard!” he ordered. “Or do you want to be shot?”
Doc Savage, to his disappointment, missed what immediately followed. The ugliness in the pilot's tone
startled him, he thought the man sounded as if he actually might shoot the swimmer, which would be
uncalled for, and Doc was trying to get a look at the pilot to see whether the man was really going to
commit a murder. So he didn't see what the swimmer did. But he saw the results.
There was the sharp slam of a shot. The pilot dodged wildly, pitched inside the plane, but not before his
natty uniform cap had sailed off his head.
Doc turned his gaze to the swimmer. The bearded young man—and he had to be young with that
marvelously muscled body—was calmly sacking the revolver which he had used to shoot the pilot's cap
off his head. He drew the sack opening tight with a waterproof zipper arrangement, hung it at his belt,
and calmly dived.
It was possible to follow his progress through the water. He swam to the plane, and in a moment his fist
pounded angrily on the hull. Then he was shouting:
“Get out of here and leave me alone, or I'll start shooting holes through the bottom of this airplane.”
The pilot hurriedly picked himself off the cabin floor, scrambled forward into the control compartment,
and in a few moments the plane took the air.
Once in the air, the plane made a climbing turn and passed back over the swimmer, who lifted one arm
and gaily waved them a farewell. He was holding some object in one hand; one of the other passengers
gasped that this was the gun, but Doc Savage rather thought it was a small thermos bottle which might
contain hot coffee.
The remainder of the flight as far as Yarmouth, became a sociable junket, contrasting to the dignified
earlier part of the trip from Boston, when almost none of the passengers had spoken to each other. The
ice was now broken; everybody wanted to talk about the herculean red-headed and red-bearded and
short-tempered swimmer.
Doc Savage participated in the discussion; he couldn't very well avoid it, because his opinion was
frequently being asked. He discovered that everyone aboard knew his identity, the stewardess having
broadcast the information.
What did he think? Did he consider the swimmer demented? If sane, why was the flame-whiskered
fellow paddling his way across the ocean? He couldn't be sane, could he?
A fat man in the fish-buying business said slyly, “This inexplicable incident couldn't be connected with
your profession, could it Mr. Savage?”
Doc said he didn't suppose so, and suddenly he felt that several other passengers suspected the incident
had happened because he was aboard the plane.
Discouraged, he took to his seat and avoided more talk. He no longer felt one of the crowd. He
suspected the passengers regarded him as someone who went around dragging thunder and lightning, like
a dog with a can tied to its tail.
He thought about his reason for going to Nova Scotia, and could see nothing about it that promised
excitement.
It was quite simple. He was going to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to buy some boats and make a bit of
change. Boat-buying was not his business, but a man named Si Hedges had telephoned him that he,
Hedges, had obtained a number of first-class, small, war surplus steamships, and that he would re-sell
them to Doc at a figure which would make him some money. Doc Savage was not acquainted with Si
Hedges, so the offer had puzzled him until Hedges explained that Doc had once done a considerable
favor for Hedges' brother-in-law, Wilbur C. Tidings, and that Hedges would like to repay the debt.
Hedges wasn't, he explained, giving away anything; he was merely giving Doc an opportunity to make
some money. Doc remembered Wilbur C. Tidings, the brother-in-law, recalled the favor he had done
Tidings, and Hedges sounded sincere. So here Doc was.
Nothing mysterious about his coming to Yarmouth.
THE airline must have thought the story of the red-whiskered swimmer, Disappointed Smith, would
make favorable publicity, because newspaper reporters were on hand when the plane reached
Yarmouth. The pilot was photographed, the bullet hole in his cap was photographed—he had recovered
the cap—and the photographers expressed disappointment because the stewardess hadn't been more
actively involved, then photographed her anyway.
Doc Savage, pleased at not being the focus of publicity, let himself be filmed, and answered the
reporters' questions, really something unusual for him to do. He was in a mellow mood, since he did not
feel himself concerned.
No, he wouldn't say definitely that the swimmer was crazy. Yes, the fellow was really a muscular giant.
Yes, the man had been carrying his lunch. Indeed it had been an unique experience. Yes, indeed.
It was a fine sunlit afternoon, the reporters were intelligent and polite, and Doc was able to excuse
himself after he had answered their routine questions, including the statement that he was in Yarmouth to
buy boats.
Engaging a taxi, Doc Savage had himself driven to the Central House Hotel.
Si Hedges, the man who had the boats to sell, had made a five-o'clock appointment for a meeting at the
hostelry.
“Clark Savage to see Mr. Si Hedges,” Doc told the desk clerk.
The hotel desk clerk was a slender young man with pomaded hair, a weak chin and nervous blue eyes,
and he jumped visibly. The jump was followed by confusion and nervousness, and the young man busied
himself lighting a cigarette. Doc Savage, observing these symptoms of uneasiness, was puzzled.
“I beg pardon,” Doc said. “Did you hear my question.”
“Yes, sir,” the weak-looking young man said, and hurriedly struck a match, applying the flame to his
cigarette. His hand trembled.
Doc Savage, looking at the slicked and pomaded fellow without much liking, reflected that the young
man's weak looks might mean nothing. Doc, in his time, had met some very tough lads who looked like
zoot-suiters.
“If you'll excuse me, I'll call Mr. Flinch, the manager,” said the clerk nervously.
Mr. Flinch, the hotel manager, was quite a contrast. He was a man made of jaw and shoulders, and his
small dark eyes were as immovable as if cast of glass.
“Mr. Flinch, this gentleman is asking about Si Hedges,” the clerk said.
Mr. Flinch's jaw moved forward formidably, giving him an angry look, and he spoke in a voice which
sounded as if there was gravel in his throat.
“We don't like people giving phony names around our hotel,” he said. “There's a law against it. And we
don't like it anyway.”
“It isn't a very reputable practice,” Doc Savage agreed, recalling a number of times when he himself had
used a phony name.
“He'd of got away with it, too,” continued Mr. Flinch. “But it just happened I knew the bloater's right
name. And his right name wasn't Si Hedges.”
Doc Savage frowned thoughtfully, then explained, “I came to Yarmouth with the expectation of
purchasing a quantity of boats from a man who identified himself by telephone as Si Hedges, but whom I
had not previously met. Naturally I would not want to be victimized in a business deal, so I would
appreciate any information you can give me.”
“I don't know anything about your business,” said Mr. Flinch.
“Naturally not, but I am sure I can depend on your frank opinion.”
Doc's private feeling was that one might do well not to put too much trust in anything Mr. Flinch said. Mr.
Flinch impressed him as a sawed-off shark.
“I just know this Si Hedges didn't give his real name when he registered here,” Mr. Flinch said.
“What,” inquired Doc Savage, “was his real name?”
“Disappointed Smith,” said Mr. Flinch emphatically.
Chapter II
FOR a time Doc Savage rested on his heels, where he had been jolted by surprise. His thinking
machinery, because of the shock, failed him for a few moments.
Recovering his speech, he said, “That is quite interesting.”
“Fishy is the way it looked to me,” said Mr. Flinch, scowling. “We run a straight hotel here, no crooks
and no rough stuff. And no phony names, particularly from a character like this Disappointed Smith.”
Doc Savage wondered if the Disappointed Smith who had tried to pretend to be Si Hedges was the
same individual who was doing the trans-ocean swimming.
“What,” Doc inquired, “does this Disappointed Smith look like? Will you describe him?”
Mr. Flinch could describe him. “Take Tarzan of the Apes and hang two feet of fire-red whiskers on him.
Take an earthquake and put pants on it. Take an encyclopedia and make it talk.”
“All of that?” Doc asked.
“Yes. And then some.”
“He must be interesting.”
“This hotel isn't interested in him,” said Mr. Flinch emphatically.
“Why not?”
“Because we don't want the place torn to pieces a brick at a time!”
“You are speaking figuratively, of course,” Doc suggested. “One man could hardly disentegrate your
hotel a brick at a time.”
“I wouldn't take any bets that Disappointed Smith couldn't,” said Mr. Flinch grimly.
“You seem to know this Smith quite well,” Doc said.
Mr. Flinch shuddered. “I only seen him once before, on Parade Island, off the Maine coast. That was
about a year ago. It was in a joint, and a fight started and Disappointed Smith whipped eleven men
single-handed. Somebody said it was only eight, but I counted them and there were eleven. That was
right after Smith was reported to have captured a German submarine single-handed, not capturing it to
turn it over to the British navy, but to steal it for himself. However, the submarine sank, because he didn't
know how to run the thing. He made it submerge, but he couldn't get it to come up again, so he didn't get
to steal it after all.”
“Would you call taking a submarine away from the Nazis an act of stealing?” Doc asked thoughtfully.
“That's a technicality, and I don't know nothing about technicalities. To me it was stealing,” said Mr.
Flinch.
“I see.”
“When you take something you don't own, it's stealing,” insisted Mr. Flinch stubbornly.
“What else do you know about Smith?”
“That's all. I only seem him that once.”
And quite an impression he made on you, Doc Savage reflected, concealing a smile. He did not believe a
word of the fable he had just heard, but it made interesting listening.
“Did I,” Doc asked, “understand you to say that Disappointed Smith, alias Si Hedges, engaged a room in
your hotel?”
“That's right.”
“What room?”
“Two-fourteen.”
“Did he occupy the room?”
“He did until we asked him to leave.”
“He is not in the room now?” Doc asked, reflecting that it would be a miracle indeed if he were.
“No.”
“Is the room occupied by anyone now?”
“It ain't been rented again, no. Disappointed Smith paid a night's rent in advance, which we offered to
refund, but he was mad and wouldn't take it, so technically he still has the room. We don't want no
trouble, so we haven't rented it to anyone else.”
“When,” Doc asked, “did you eject Disappointed Smith from the premises?”
“I wouldn't call it eject,” said Mr. Flinch. “We just asked him to leave, and considered ourselves damned
lucky when he didn't put up an objection. It was about noon.”
“He did not object to being thrown out?”
“No.”
“Do you,” Doc asked, “have any aversion to my taking a look at Disappointed Smith's empty room?”
Mr. Flinch scowled.
“You can't look in his room,” he said. “We don't want any trouble stirred up around this hotel.”
摘要：

TROUBLEONPARADEADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIVOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMagazineNovemb...

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