Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 148 - The Terrible Stork

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THE TERRIBLE STORK
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 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
? Chapter XV
Scanned and proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I
“WHAT? Sixty-five?” screamed the auctioneer. He clutched his forehead, indicating that the shock was
about to kill him. He said, “I'm dying! I'm murdered!”
This got just one titter, from one man, out of the eighty or so in the auction room. The others were silent;
it was hot in the room, the chairs were hard, and nothing much was happening.
“Sixty-five dollars!” the auctioneer said. “Who'll bid seventy?”
But this didn't get a laugh either, until he yelled, “Okay, okay, my error, the bid was sixty-five cents.
Seventy? Do I hear seventy cents?”
Monk Mayfair, the famous chemist, said, “That auctioneer is quite a comedian. Bob Hope had better
watch out.”
Ham Brooks, the equally famous lawyer, shifted miserably on the hard wood chair. “He's about as
unfunny as you are,” Ham said, wishing he had a pillow to sit on. He stared at his black cane.
“Ain't I unfunnier 'n that?” Monk Mayfair asked. He was a short, wide, hairy man. It was obvious why he
was called Monk. “Shucks, now you got me worried,” he said anxiously. “You've really got me
worried.”
“Worried about what?”
“When we're gonna get outa here,” Monk said. “That's what's worrying me.”
“I agree heartily,” Ham said.
“Seventy,” a voice said.
“Sold!” the auctioneer said.
“Oh, dry up!” muttered Ham. He wondered if a crack in the seat of the chair was going to catch him and
pinch him. That was all he needed to make the afternoon complete.
Doc Savage asked, “Why don't you two take a nap?”
Doc Savage was a bronze-colored giant of a man who was conspicuous in the auction room in spite of
the long raincoat he'd worn so as not to be conspicuous. Monk and Ham looked at Doc Savage. Ham
asked, “Go to sleep? On these chairs!”
“Doc's being funny,” Monk said. “He made a joke. Yes, sir, the auctioneer's humor is contagious.”
Monk's very large humorous mouth was all that saved his face from being frighteningly homely. He
added, “No kidding, why don't we go somewhere else? What've we lost in here?”
Ham Brooks showed lively interest. “You bet! Go somewhere else. We've got the afternoon off, and we
just started out for a walk, got tired, and came in here for a rest. Now what are we staying for?”
“Why don't we repair to a burley-cue show?” Monk asked.
“That's two good ideas from you in a row,” Ham said. “Goodness, what kind of vitamins are you
taking?”
The auctioneer held up a small shiny metal statuette of some kind of a bird, apparently a stork. “Who'll
start it at fifty cents?” asked the auctioneer.
“Fifty,” a voice said.
“Fifty cents is bid. Who'll give—”
“Fifty dollars is bid,” the bidder corrected.
DOC SAVAGE straightened on his chair. Straightening made him taller than anyone in the room, enabled
him to see over people's heads. He said, “What on earth!” His eyes, which had been sleepy, became
wide with interest—his eyes were more gold than brown, like pools of flake gold. He added, “Fifty
dollars for that thing!”
“What is that thing?” Ham pondered.
“Some kind of a boid,” Monk said. “This is gettin dull, pal. What say we scrammo to the girlies?”
“Fifty dollars!” The auctioneer got his eyes back in their sockets. “Who'll give a hundred?”
“Good God!” Monk sat up suddenly. “Fifty dollars?” He added, “Say, what's that thing made of,
platinum?”
Clear and tight as a bell, a voice came from the other side of the auction room.
“Two hundred dollars,” it said.
Monk swallowed. “My, my,” he said.
Doc Savage had swung his head. The bell-like voice of the second bidder belonged to a clear-skinned
young man who looked brown and outdoorsy.
“Five hundred!”
This was the first bidder again.
Doc located him. He saw a wide man who had blue eyes and the cherubic smile of a cupid.
Ham asked, “Know the bidders, Doc?”
“No.”
The bell-voiced young man said, “Five hundred and one dollars is bid.”
“A thousand,” said the fat, wide, smiling man.
“A thousand and one.”
“Two thousand.” The fat, wide man's smile wasn't genuine. Apparently his face just happened to be
shaped that way.
“Two thousand and one.”
“Three thousand.”
“Three thousand and one.”
Monk swallowed.
“Five thousand.”
“Five thousand and one,” said the bell-voiced young man grimly.
Astonishment was sweeping the auction room. Here and there customers were getting to their feet in
order not to miss anything; some still dozed, not knowing what was going on.
A lull had hit the bidding. Outside, the noises of Forty-sixth Street made a quarrelsome background. The
auction room itself was large, forty feet wide and about sixty feet long. It was a ground-floor storeroom
which, for lack of any more permanent tenant, had been rented to the auction company, together with an
upstairs floor and mezzanine for storage purposes. The auction firm itself was not a large one, but it was
reliable. It made a business of disposing of estates, usually art objects and furniture collections.
“Five thousand and two dollars,” a voice said.
Doc Savage and Ham Brooks both started violently, for the bid had come from between them. It was
Monk Mayfair. “You fool!” Ham was dumfounded.
“You haven't got five thousand and two dollars!”
“Huh? Gosh, I haven't, have I?”
“Why'd you bid?” Ham demanded.
“The suspense got me,” Monk muttered. “I guess I became hypnotized or something.”
“What do you want with that thing?” Ham asked angrily.
“I don't want it.” Monk became alarmed. “My God, do you reckon I'll get it?”
Ham looked at him bitterly. “I hope you do,” he said. “I would like to see what you would do with a
five-thousand-and-two-dollar tin stork.”
“You think it's tin?”
“How the hell do I know what it's made of!” Ham was irritated with his friend. “If you think you're going
to borrow a single thin dime off me to pay—”
“Ten thousand and three dollars,” bid the bell-voiced young man.
“Whoosh!” Monk subsided gratefully. “Saved by the bell,” he said. Sweat had popped out on his narrow
forehead. “What'd I bid on the thing for?”
Doc Savage's flake-gold eyes were alert, interested. He said, “Ham, that thing can't be worth ten
thousand.” His size, which was considerable, was deceptive until one was close to him. “The intrinsic
value of the statuette cannot possibly be ten thousand,” he added.
“How about platinum?” Ham was doubtful. “Would it be worth that kind of money if it were platinum?”
“Very doubtful.”
Monk had an idea. “Maybe it's got diamonds and rubies in it.” He became enthused. “I'm gonna bid
again!”
Doc and Ham eyed him in alarm.
“Ten thousand on something you don't know what it is!” The usually punctilious Ham was getting mixed
up.
“Ten thousand and four dollars,” Monk explained. “That's what I think I'll—”
“Fifteen thousand dollars!” bid the fat man. He seemed angry. His smile was beatific.
Monk swallowed.
“Go ahead, bid,” Ham sneered at him. “You didn't have five thousand, so it won't hurt you to bid fifteen.”
“Fifteen thousand and one,” said bell-voice.
Doc Savage was on the edge of his chair. “Monk.” He nudged the homely chemist, directed, “Monk, go
up and take a look at that thing. See what it is.”
Monk batted his eyes. He was dazed by the bandying of so much money around an eight-inch high
statuette of a skinny bird, apparently made of tin. He seemed stupefied.
Ham said, “Dopey has dropped his marbles.” He added, “While he's picking them up, I'll go look at that
thing.”
Doc shook his head. “Monk is a chemist. Let him look. Or both of you go look.”
Ham leaped erect. “Come on, Gunga Din.” He began tramping on toes, reaching the aisle. Monk
lumbered after him, and the seat occupants hastily removed their toes from danger. Monk was mumbling,
“I'm a chemist. I can tell what kind of tin that thing's made of. God bless us!”
The fat, smiling, cherub man had drawn a gun and was pointing it at Monk and Ham. “Get back!” he
said. The gun was about two and a half pounds of blue steel, an impressive cannon. “Sit down!” he
added. He sounded determined.
Monk and Ham halted.
“Hey!” Monk yelled. “That guy's got a gun!”
Suddenly this was no longer an amusing interlude in a dull afternoon.
Monk and Ham froze. There was nothing else they could do. Doc Savage instinctively ducked for safety.
So did the others who were quick thinkers.
“Here, here,” said the auctioneer loudly. “Sit down! Don't interrupt the auction.” He hadn't noticed the
gun. “Sit down!” he yelled. Then he saw the gun and turned remarkably white.
Doc warned, “Be careful, Monk!”
Monk addressed the fat man loudly. He asked, “Brother, you wouldn't want to shoot me, would you?
You don't even know who I am.”
Ham said, “Sit down, you fool!”
“Sit down!” the smiling fat man said.
He didn't sound as determined this time. Monk was encouraged to be foolish.
“Brother, I'll sit down,” Monk said, “as soon as you put away that gun. Not before. I won't be
threatened. I won't be—”
Blam-m-m-m! Gun sound was the voice of thunder in the auction room.
Monk croaked, “Oh, God!” He went down, upsetting two chairs and also bringing Ham Brooks to the
floor.
Ham thought Monk had been shot. He gasped, “Why, the dirty—” He started to grab for his own armpit
holster. Monk clutched him, kept him from getting to his feet. “Stay here,” Monk said. “There's nothing
like having something solid under you when you quake with terror.”
“They shot you!” Ham was gasping with rage. “I'll show the fat so-and-so—”
“Shot me! Where?” Alarmed, Monk felt of himself in search of wounds. “Where? Are you sure? I
thought the fat man got shot. I thought the guy with the bell voice shot him.”
Ham reversed himself. “Go ahead, stand up, get shot,” he said. “I've got a notion to shoot you myself.
What's the idea, scaring people?”
Monk said, “Who's more scared than I am?” He started to lift up and look around, changed his mind.
“Take a look and find out what's going on, will you?” he suggested.
“I wonder if we can crawl to the door without getting shot at?” Ham pondered. He didn't do any looking.
Suddenly, deafening, the gun sounded in the room again. Blam-m-m-m! It sounded like the same gun.
Blam-blam-blam-m-m-m! That time it seemed to be a different gun. It ran more to soprano.
“Who're they shooting at now?” Monk wanted to know.
“Doc, probably,” Ham said.
“Serve him right, too,” Monk said. “It was his suggesting we look at that stork thing that got everybody
all worked up.”
Except for the ear-splitting sounds of the guns, it had been remarkably quiet in the room. It was a
paralytic sort of a stillness. Born of astonishment, it lasted only until understanding arrived. Everyone
seemed to get the idea simultaneously: the idea was that bullets were flashing about. Suddenly every man
was trying to get behind or under something, preferably two or three of his neighbors. The noise was an
avalanche.
The auctioneer gazed in horror at the confusion before him. Abruptly he emitted a girl-like scream,
whirled and dashed into the nearest refuge, which happened to be a large vault in a rear corner of the
room—the premises had once been tenanted by a bank. The auctioneer hauled the door shut behind him,
foolishly locking himself inside the vault.
He had taken the stork statuette with him because he had been holding it in his hand at the time.
The fat, smiling man and the young, bell-voiced man now got cautiously to their feet. They saw each
other. Blam-m-m! Blam-mm! Each shot at the other. Neither hit his target.
Crawling on the floor, the fat, smiling man and the young, bell-voiced man now departed. The fat man
reached the street ahead of the other and was out of sight down a subway kiosk by the time his enemy
appeared. Fortunately the latter did not choose the subway. He ran a block and hailed a taxi.
Chapter II
NOISILY, and too late, the police arrived, two green and white carloads of them. The sirens fell silent in
the street as they entered the auction gallery premises. There they began collaring everyone who had
lacked the foresight to make a discreet departure.
Half an hour later, the police vacated. They had failed to connect the two most outstanding events of the
afternoon—the sky-high bidding for a worthless-looking statuette, and the target practice between the
two bidders. The explanation for this error lay in the fact that the auctioneer, who had had the only really
good view of proceedings from his podium, fainted shortly after they released him from the vault.
He had the stork statuette in his hand when he came out of the vault. He dropped it when he passed out
from shock. Someone picked it up and put it on a table with the other stuff that was to be sold.
Before departing, the police gave a verdict: Two guys who didn't like each other had shot it out.
An ambulance, which had arrived with the swarm of police, carried the swooning auctioneer off to a
hospital.
Another auctioneer mounted the stand. “Quiet! Quiet!” he yelled. “Your attention, please!” He beat on
the stand with a wooden mallet. “Quiet! The auction sale will be resumed as soon as we get quiet,” he
bellowed.
Doc Savage, Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks found seats for themselves.
This auctioneer was large, sandy-haired and serious looking.
Monk Mayfair said, “I hope he's funnier than the other one.”
Ham whispered, “I hope the police don't find out that we failed to tell them the shooting started because
we started to take a look at that tin bird.” He was worried.
“Why didn't we tell them?” Monk wanted to know. “I mean, why didn't you tell them? You're so pure
and honest.”
“Because I didn't want to go to a police station and spend an hour or two re-telling the story,” Ham said.
“Why didn't you?”
“I don't wanta tell 'em.” Monk looked coy.
“Why not?”
“They woulda run me in their bastille, I was afraid,” Monk confided. “On account of our telling them the
shooting started because we wanted to look at the tin stork wouldn't have been a very logical story, do
you think?”
“I doubt if the police would have believed it,” Ham admitted.
“I doubt it, too. So I kept my gapper shut.” Monk leaned back comfortably. “The police are very eager
to make people out liars.”
Ham suggested, “Why don't you try telling them the truth?” He examined his immaculate suit critically.
“Things certainly picked up for a few minutes, didn't they.” He snapped a bit of lint off his sleeve. “What
are we hanging around for?” he asked. “Why don't we go home?”
The new auctioneer had things quiet enough to satisfy him.
He surveyed the crowd with contempt. It was considerably smaller than it had been prior to the shooting.
“Sale is resumed!” The auctioneer hit the stand a bang with the mallet. “You bid, I'll sell!” He scowled at
them as if they doubted his word. He yelled, “You make me a price, and you've bought something,
brother.”
He snatched up the handiest piece of merchandise.
It happened to be the tin stork statuette.
The auctioneer yelled, “What'm I offered for this fine piece of art? And brother, I mean business.”
Doc Savage spoke quietly. “Fifty cents,” Doc said.
“Sold!” shouted the auctioneer. “Brother, I mean business, as you can see.”
Doc Savage hastily visited the wrapping counter, paid fifty cents in cash and the sales tax for his
purchase, and walked out. He was shaking his head slowly in amazement. The auctioneer apparently
hadn't known a thing about the fifteen thousand dollars bid on the stork statuette prior to the shooting.
But he got plenty of attention from those who knew what had been bid on it previously. From a beginning
of startled gasps, the room went into an uproar of surprised talk.
Not understanding, the auctioneer hammered with his mallet and demanded silence. He didn't get it.
“Hurry up!” Ham urged the package desk clerk. “Don't bother wrapping the thing. I'll just carry it.”
A large man with a greasy face was trying to get the auctioneers attention. He was yelling, “Cancel that
sale! I'll pay more.” He picked up a chair and hammered the floor with it.
Monk Mayfair went over to the large, greasy man and said, “Buddy, you want to buy that thing?”
“For it I give five dollar,” the man said. At the auctioneer, he screamed, “Cancel the sale! She's a
mistake! I pay lots more!”
Monk said, “Buddy, would you like to go to the police station and explain why you want that little
doo-lolly?”
Round-mouthed, round-eyed, the large man stared at Monk. Monk evidently looked like a cop to him.
“I don't want it,” the man said. Fear made a bubble of saliva appear at the corner of his mouth. He added
nervously, “I just make a buck maybe, thassall.”
“Sit down,” Monk said.
The man sat down. Doc Savage was near the door with his purchase. Ham was already at the door,
waiting. Monk joined them.
They piled into the first taxi which came along. Doc gave the driver an address. The cab got rolling.
“Great beavers!” Monk said. He suddenly doubled up with mirth. “Hah, hah, hah!” he yelled. Amazed
enjoyment made his voice squeaky. “Can you beat that? Fifteen thousand dollars bid. And he sold it for
fifty cents!”
Ham chuckled. “I wouldn't want to be that auctioneer's blood pressure when he discovers what
happened.”
Their cab driver was smoking a cigar. He executed a snappy turn into Sixth Avenue, aiming for a
pedestrian who was crossing Sixth Avenue at Forty-third Street.
Doc Savage said, “We will return the stork if its value seems greater than the sum I paid.”
Monk gulped. “Return it?” He was dumfounded. “Why should we return it?”
“We practically stole it,” Doc said.
Ham Brooks snorted. “Listen, I've been hooked by these gyp auction galleries, and they didn't give me
my money back. They just laughed at me when I complained. They told me I had no legal redress, and
they were right. Now I'd like the pleasure of telling one of them to go to hell, that they have no legal
redress.”
“This place isn't a gyp outfit,” Doc said.
Ham grimaced. “You're really going to return it?”
“If I decide we swindled them, yes.” Doc was firm on the point.
Monk sighed. “I'm glad I'm not so honest,” he said.
Chapter III
DOC SAVAGE maintained a headquarters on the eighty-sixth floor of a midtown skyscraper which had
been completed just in time to encounter the leasing slump of the early nineteen thirties. Doc's father, now
deceased, had sunk some money in the building and in the process had acquired a permanent lease on
the eighty-sixth floor. This had been about all Doc had inherited from his father in the way of property,
although there had been a large heritage of adventure thrown in.
The elder Savage had been a remarkable man, more than somewhat on the screwball side. Doc had
never known him well. His father had always been off prowling the unique corners of the earth. Doc,
whose mother had died shortly after his birth, had been placed in the hands of a series of scientists,
thinkers, judo experts, wrestlers and what-not, for training. His upbringing had been unorthodox and it
was only an act of God that had kept him from growing up into more of a freak than he was.
The purpose of the strange upbringing, as nearly as Doc had been able to learn, was to create for the
world a sort of modern Galahad, a righter of wrongs, a punisher of evildoers who were outside the law.
Most kids wind up doing exactly the opposite of what their parents expect them to do, but Doc was
more or less what the elder Savage had expected him to be. Possibly somewhat less. But the training had
made him a man unusual enough to earn, in his own right, a reputation which in some quarters was
phenomenal.
The simplest explanation of Doc Savage was that he was a professional adventurer. He was that because
he liked it. The unusual, the unique, the exciting, the dangerous, fascinated him. He followed it as a
career. Associated with him were five assistants: an engineer, a chemist, a lawyer, an electrical engineer,
an archaeologist-geologist.
Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks were two of Doc's assistants. Monk was the chemist, Ham the lawyer.
There was no formal agreement that they were to work for Doc, no contracts or articles of incorporation.
They simply worked with him because they liked excitement, too.
Headquarters consisted of a reception room containing an ancient monstrosity of an inlaid desk and a
safe big enough to hold a jeep, a library which contained one of the most complete collections of
scientific works extant, and a laboratory which occupied over half of the floorspace.
Monk sailed his hat on to the inlaid desk in the reception room.
“Let's see what that thing is,” he said.
Doc Savage removed the stork statuette from his pocket and stood it on the desk. It fell over. He stood
it up again, and this time it remained erect.
“Won't even stand up,” Monk commented. His small eyes were glittering with interest. “Now, what is the
thing?”
Ham was positive. “It's a stork,” he said.
They studied the statuette from all angles. It was eight and one-sixteenth inches high. Doc measured it
with a ruler. It was one and twenty-seven thirty-seconds of an inch wide. It weighed one pound, seven
ounces and forty-eight grams. They had it in the laboratory when they found this out.
“It's a stinky looking stork,” Monk said. He was growing puzzled. “I could make a better looking stork
myself,” he added. “The legs on this one are too spindling at the top.”
Doc Savage went to a case and got out some chemicals and a piece of apparatus. He was going to run
an assay to learn what kind of metal the stork was made of.
“It's not tin,” Ham said.
“It's a spindleshanks stork,” Monk said. “I hope it's made of platinum.”
Ham became excited. “Maybe it's made of some new, rare kind of steel!”
“I would say it was steel,” Monk said, excited himself.
Doc Savage made several tests. He did it the hard way, without removing samples of metal from the
statuette. He used acids, and did a magnaflux test, X-rays, and some other tests.
He gave his verdict.
“Ordinary high-grade steel,” Doc announced.
Even Monk was surprised. “That all?” He frowned at the steel bird. “What do you know about that!”
“It's not even worth fifty cents,” Ham exclaimed. “We got hooked!”
Doc handled the bird thoughtfully. He rapped it against the edge of a table. The legs vibrated from the
tapping, making a note like a tuning fork.
“Seems to have been formed with an emery wheel.” Doc was holding the thing up to the light, turning it
so that the marks were more noticeable. “Hand made,” was his verdict. “Whoever made it put more than
fifty cents' worth of time on it.”
“Maybe we can find the owner and get our fifty cents back by selling it to him,” Monk suggested.
Doc frowned. He was defeated.
“Maybe this isn't why we went to the sale,” Doc said. He sounded confused.
Ham jumped. “Hey!” he said. “Did we go to that sale on purpose? I thought we just happened in there.”
“We just happened to go to it on purpose,” Doc told him. “You know Billy Copeland?”
“Sure,” Ham said. “You don't mean that place was Billy Copeland's Auction Galleries?”
“It was Copeland's place.”
Monk knew Billy Copeland, too. Slightly. Copeland was a white-haired old gentleman, hell on wheels
with the chorus girls, who conducted a very genteel business of disposing of the odds and ends of
estates. His reputation was good with his customers, and while he rarely got hold of a fine piece of art or
merchandise, his sales were not junky.
Greatly alarmed Copeland had related over the telephone that morning that his store had been
burglarized during the night. Or rather, an attempted burglary had occurred. Four men had broken into
the gallery—four men that the watchman saw, although there might have been more—and had attempted
to obtain something or other from the collection which was to be sold that day.
“The articles to be sold the following day are always assembled in the rear room the night before,” Doc
Savage explained. “The four burglars broke into the place, and overpowered the night watchman. They
demanded that the watchman tell them where the stuff was which was to be sold today. They were not
interested in anything except what was to be sold this afternoon. The watchman refused to tell them, and
the burglars were alarmed by a passing policeman and fled before they found what they came after.”
摘要：

THETERRIBLESTORKADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIV?ChapterXVScannedandproofedbyTomStephensCh...

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