Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 125 - Mystery on Happy Bones

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MYSTERY ON HAPPY BONES
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
? Chapter I. ONE UNUSUAL BOX
? Chapter II. THE WIRE
? Chapter III. THE WASHINGTON TRICK
? Chapter IV. MAJOR TROUBLE
? Chapter V. STONY
? Chapter VI. PIRATES FOR ANCESTORS
? Chapter VII. AIR TRAIL
? Chapter VIII. HELL ALOFT
? Chapter IX. HAPPY BONES
? Chapter X. GLOOM ON HAPPY BONES
? Chapter XI. ERROR, NOT SLIGHT
? Chapter XII. THE PARROT'S NEST
? Chapter XIII. SEA TRAP
? Chapter XIV. STICKS AND STONES
Chapter I. ONE UNUSUAL BOX
IT was raining, so the messenger wore a raincoat. Like most raincoats, this one pretty much enveloped
the wearer. The messenger did have a young face.
And a mustache. It was noticeable, because it was not much of a mustache. It looked like a couple of
mouse tails, somewhat.
There was also a box which the messenger carried. A box wrapped with too much steel wire. That is,
there was too much wire considering that it was a cardboard box.
The messenger walked into the most substantial skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, and said, “I have a
package for Clark Savage, Junior.”
“You mean Doc Savage,” said the elevator starter.
“It says Clark Savage, Junior, on the tag. That's all I know about it.”
“I'll take it,” said the elevator starter.
“Is your name Clark Savage, Junior?”
“Of course not,” said the starter. “Say, you're pretty dumb, aren't you?”
“Not,” said the messenger, “dumb enough to hand this over to you when I got orders to have Clark
Savage personally sign for it.”
“Clark Savage is Doc Savage. Clark is his name. Say, kid, haven't you ever heard of Doc Savage?”
“Huh?”
“Say, you are really dumb, aren't you?”
The messenger kicked the elevator starter on the shin. The starter squalled and leaped into the air. He
jumped around clutching his peeled shin.
“You're lucky I didn't decide to kick you in the eye,” said the messenger. “I may be dumb, but I kick
high.”
The cardboard box was about twelve inches square and the cardboard was a strong and not expensive
type. As for the wire, there was at least a hundred feet of that. The verdict of someone that knew a little
about wire would have been that it was Imperial Standard Wire Gauge No. 15, diameter 1 and eight
tenths millimeters, of steel.
The messenger carried the box up to an ordinary fifth-floor office, on instructions from an elevator
operator.
The office was occupied by two gentlemen and a pig and a chimpanzee.
The messenger looked at the two men and the menagerie, sighed, and said, “I bet I have to do some
more kicking.”
ONE of the men must have been the fellow they wrote the “Mister Five by Five” song about. He was
also as hairy as a goat and as ugly as a clock-stopper.
“I'm Monk Mayfair,” he said.
The other man was notable for his clothes, for an innocent-looking black cane which was always with
him, and for his large, mobile mouth, the mouth of a talker.
“I'm Ham Brooks,” he said.
“I might be Bo Peep, but I ain't,” said the messenger. “What kind of a clown's nest is this? I got a
package for Doc Savage. I ask where to find him, and I get sass from the elevator starter downstairs.
Then I get sent up here and I see I am in for more sass.”
Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks inspected the messenger, and Ham ventured an opinion. “A case of
nondidactic.”
“What,” asked the messenger, “does that mean I am?”
“Dumb,” Ham said.
“Ah,” said the messenger.
Monk Mayfair hooked a pair of hairy thumbs in the armholes of an unpressed vest and announced,
“You're in the right place, kid.”
“The right place for what?”
“To deliver a package to Doc Savage.”
The messenger eyed them. “Huh-uh! Neither of you two mistakes is Doc Savage.”
“This,” explained Monk patiently, “is a way-station on the route to Doc Savage. Things go through us to
get to Doc. We're the quarantine and inspection station.
“A quarantine and inspection station,” said the messenger, “is where they stop your car and look on your
fruit for bugs.”
“That's the idea.”
“I'm a bug, huh?”
“Let's not complicate it,” Monk said. “What have you got there?”
“A package.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The office gave it to me to deliver. I work for an outfit that delivers stuff.”
“Alt right,” Monk said. “Now I'll show you how we function. What is your name and your employer?”
“Neddie Wooster,” said the messenger, “and the outfit is the Winged Foot Delivery Service,
coast-to-coast, with offices in all the principal cities.”
Monk picked up a telephone directory, found a number, dialed it, got the Winged Foot concern, and
asked if they had a messenger named Neddie Wooster. Monk had to explain who he was. He said he
was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, affiliated with the Doc Savage organization. He made
it sound impressive. Eventually, he got his information. He hung up.
“You see how it works?” he asked the messenger. “Winged Foot says Neddie Wooster is O. K. Now if
you hadn't been O. K., we would have had you.”
The messenger was not impressed.
“What is this?” asked the messenger. “A nest of half-wits?”
“A nest of precaution-takers,” Monk said.
“We want to die of old age,” Ham Brooks said.
“We want Doc to die of old age,” Monk corrected. “You see, Neddie Wooster, Doc Savage is an
unusual fellow and everybody on this earth is not his friend. In fact, there are people who shake and turn
white all over at the idea of Doc. Now and then some such try to get rid of Doc, so they can live a more
peaceful, and more crooked, life. Get it?”
“I see,” said the messenger. “You're a pair of stooges.”
“O. K., O. K.” Monk was disgusted. “Hand me that package. We're wasting time trying to educate
you.”
“I hand this package to Doc Savage,” said the messenger. “Anybody else gets it over my dead body.”
“Why act like that?”
“It's a motto of the Winged Foot Delivery Service, coast-to—”
“Never mind,” Monk interrupted hastily. “You just put the package on this desk here. Nobody will touch
it.”
The messenger stared at the desk. “O. K. But I can see you guys are wiggly between the ears.”
The package went on the desk.
THE desk was a dark wood affair of more than normal size with a black, composition top.
The trick to the desk was the composition top, made of the same kind of stuff from which is fashioned
the film-holders which surgeons use in their X-ray machines. The material was transparent to X rays.
Under the desk, in the knee-hole, so that it could be observed only from the back, where Monk and
Ham sat, there was a fluoroscope for viewing the object to be X-rayed, the type of fluoroscope used by
X-ray workers in the days before they discovered that a photographic film was a much better way to do
it. An arrangement of mirrors permitted a good view of the fluoroscope without the observers doing
anything suspicious while observing.
The X-ray projector was located in the ceiling, and camouflaged so that it was not noticeable.
When the package was on the desk, Monk turned on the X ray by tramping on a control button hidden
under the carpet.
They took a good look at the X-rayed contents of the package.
“Ahem,” Monk said to the messenger. “We . . . ah . . . had better tell Doc Savage you are here with a
package, since you are so contrary. Come on, Ham.”
“Me?” Ham said. “I had better stay here and watch that our little messenger here doesn't carry off the
furniture or the radiators.”
“I resent that,” the messenger said.
“Of course you do,” Monk said. “Ham, you were born a gentleman, but you sure have slipped. Come
with me and help find Doc.”
Ham realized that Monk had something on his mind, and said, “Sure, sure.”
Monk and Ham retired to the adjoining room. They closed the door.
“There ain't nothing in the package,” Monk said.
Ham nodded. “Empty box.”
“Looks suspicious.”
“On the other hand,” said Ham, “there might be poison gas in the box. I'll bet that's what it is.”
“I thought of that,” Monk said.
“I'll bet you did!” Ham sneered. He scratched his head. “What are we going to do about it?”
Monk said, “I would suggest a course of treatments aimed at getting the truth out of this messenger.”
“Have you got an idea, you missing link?”
Monk had an idea. He explained it. Ham was moved to admiration, although he was reluctant to admire
anything that Monk conceived or did, under ordinary conditions.
HAM went back into the room where the messenger was waiting and said, “We are having a little
difficulty. My friend Monk has gone hunting, and he can do as well as both of us, so I thought I'd keep
you company.”
The messenger looked young, owlish and bored.
“That Monk,” said the messenger, “is a funny-looking one.”
“He sure is,” Ham agreed heartily. “And he is as silly as he looks.”
“Gosh!”
“Terrible, isn't it?”
The messenger gazed around the office absently, and finally fell to examining the two animals, the pig and
the chimpanzee, showing more interest. “What are those?”
“A chimpanzee and a pig.”
“What are they doing here?” asked the messenger. “And I know a chimpanzee and a pig when I see
them.”
“Pets.”
“Whose?”
“The chimp is mine,” Ham explained. “And the pig belongs to that freak of nature, Monk.” Ham eyed the
pig sourly. “Some day I am going to have him served up as breakfast bacon.”
The messenger eyed the pig. The animal had legs like a rabbit, a snoot built for exploring into deep holes,
and a pair of ears of such size that it looked as if he had been equipped to become a glider in
emergencies. “Got a name?”
“Habeas Corpus,” Ham explained, glaring at the pig.
“Come here, Habeas,” said the messenger. “Nice pig.” Habeas ignored the messenger. “Come here,
before I kick your ribs in,” the messenger said.
Habeas Corpus, the pig, got up and stalked over to the messenger.
Ham's eyes popped. “By Jove!” he blurted. “That's unexpected. Habeas Corpus usually never pays any
attention to anybody except Monk and pretty girls.”
“Pretty girls?” the messenger said.
“He's like Monk that way.”
“Go away, Habeas,” the messenger said.
Ham waved an arm. “Now you take my chimp,” he said. “There is an animal equipped with brains.
Smartest thing you ever saw. Sometimes I think he is not an animal, but a hitherto unknown type of
aboriginal mankind.”
“He looks somewhat like Monk.”
“Don't insult Chemistry,” Ham said.
The telephone rang. Ham picked up the instrument, said, “Doc Savage associate, Ham Brooks,
speaking,” and listened. Ham straightened. He slammed his feet down on the floor. “You sure?” he
demanded. “That's right, eh? . . . Well, well, well!” He cracked the telephone back on its cradle.
Ham came erect. He pointed a finger at the messenger. He gave off indignation as if it were sparks.
“You crook!” Ham yelled.
THE messenger jumped. “What? What's that?”
“You crook!” Ham pointed at the telephone. “I just got it over the telephone. You crook, you!”
“I don't understand—”
Ham stabbed at the package. “Trying to pull a thing like this!” he bellowed.
He sprang over the desk, toward the messenger.
“I'll fix you!” he shouted.
The door flew open violently, and a large, short, white-haired gentleman in a green raincoat and green felt
hat came in carrying a revolver which was so large and impressive that nothing else was important,
suddenly.
The newcomer had a rather thin, quavering voice. He told Ham, “Hold everything! Or would you like to
fall dead from bullet holes?”
Ham stopped. “Who the heck are you?” he blurted.
“Get your hands up!” The elderly apparition waved the enormous gun.
Ham put both arms stiffly above his head.
“Now,” said the gun-wielder, “you stand there.” He beckoned at the messenger. “Come on, kid.”
The messenger gulped. “But—”
“Come on, come on!” yelled the white-haired raider. “The boss sent me, you idiot. He found out
something had gone wrong.”
The messenger, without more objections, but acting very confused, backed out of the door.
The old gentleman told Ham loudly, “You know what happens to guys who follow guys with guns.” Then
he ran out into the hall and grabbed the messenger's arm. “Come on, kid,” he said.
They got down to the street without any more excitement. The messenger still seemed confused. They
climbed into a roadster and got going up the street.
There was a protracted silence.
“The boss sent me,” repeated the white-haired gentleman.
“What boss?”
“Don't give me that, kid. Don't play simple with me. I'm in this, too, you know.”
“In what?” asked the messenger.
The other snorted violently.
There was more silent driving. The old gentleman seemed to become suspicious. He bawled at the
messenger. “Say, you act awful dumb, kid,” he growled. “Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe you ain't the
guy I was supposed to rescue.”
“The rescue wasn't my idea,” said the messenger.
“On second thought,” growled the white-haired fellow, “you had better tell me enough to make me sure.”
“Make you sure of what?”
“That you're the right one.”
“What right one?”
“Nuts,” said the white-haired rescuer. “I wish I'd let them have you. Look, the boss said to go with you
to the place.”
“The place?”
“Sure. You know where that is?”
The messenger gave it some thought, then said, “Sure. You turn right at the next corner. Two blocks. The
Summerview Hotel.”
THE Summerview was a pleasant hostelry out of the loud and noisy midtown section. It did not have a
bar, but did have a dining room, which looked good. The lobby was old-fashioned and quiet.
The messenger and the white-haired gentleman entered and took an elevator to the sixth floor, where
there was a long corridor with several turnings.
The messenger stopped the old fellow, and said, “You wait here.”
“Hey, I'm supposed to stay right with you.”
“I don't doubt it. But you wait here, see. I want to see if the coast is clear.”
“Uh—well,” said the white-haired man,
He stood there, and watched the messenger go on down the hall.
The messenger walked to Room 632, pulled out a key, and unlocked the door. A quick glance down the
hall showed that the old gentleman was for the moment looking in the other direction.
The messenger casually picked up a brass urn containing sand, an arrangement for snuffing out cigarettes
and found in the halls of most hotels, and carried it into the room.
The room was large and pleasant, a place for rest. But there was nothing casual or restful about the
messenger's activity.
The messenger hastily stripped off the messenger uniform. Next, a case was opened, and the liquid from
a bottle was smeared on the messenger's upper lip. Other material, a theatrical removal cream, went on
the messenger's face. A towel wiped off the accumulation.
The result was a very efficient-looking young woman.
The closet held an assortment of frocks. There was nothing cheap about them. And nothing dull, it
developed. She put on make-up.
Examining the result in a mirror, she was satisfied.
She selected a pair of stockings. “My last silk stockings,” she said regretfully.
She filled a stocking with sand from the hall urn, and pulled the second stocking over the first one for
strength. She tried the result by socking it into her hand. She poured out some sand, and socked her
hand again. “Perfect,” she said.
She tucked the stocking-sand gadget in a purse, tucked the purse under her arm, and sauntered out into
the hall. She walked to the white-haired gentleman.
The white-haired gentleman looked at her with great appreciation. He said something to himself that
looked to be, from the movement of his lips, “M-m-m-m-m!”
It was quite apparent that he did not recognize her as the young man messenger.
The young woman gave him a good, big, but refined, eye-roll.
“Why, Mr. Jones,” she said. “You are Mr. Jones, aren't you? The gentleman who backs shows.”
The white-haired gentleman practically baked to a crisp under her smile.
“I back shows,” he said, truthfully, “occasionally.”
“Oh, Mr. Jones, I'm so glad to run into you this way,” said the young woman. Her tone would have made
an iceberg turn to steam.
Then she dropped her gloves. “Oh!” she said.
The white-haired gentleman doubled over hastily to pick up the gloves.
The young woman's tone changed.
“You're a sap for anything in skirts, just as I heard,” she said. And added, “Monk Mayfair!”
“Huh?” Monk blurted, just before she hit him over the head with the stocking-sandbag.
Chapter II. THE WIRE
MONK MAYFAIR had been knocked senseless a number of times as the natural result of his rather
hectic career as a Doc Savage associate, and it was a peculiarity of his intervals of enforced
unconsciousness that he always dreamed about a green waterfall. It was always the same waterfall, and it
was invariably the same identical waterfall, always the same shade of green, a very dark shade—darker,
even, than grass. For a number of years, it had been the same waterfall, and it was peculiar because one
of the things that interested Monk least in his conscious moments was waterfalls. It was beginning to
bother Monk.
Monk came out of the waterfall, and found Ham Brooks staring at him, which made Monk wish he could
go back to the waterfall again. He was embarrassed.
“Well?” said Ham disgustedly. “What were you doing taking a nap?”
“I was hit over the head!” Monk said indignantly.
“Who by?”
“Where were you?” Monk snapped, trying to change the subject. “Why weren't you around to help me?
I thought you were going to follow close behind, in case I needed a hand.”
This subdued Ham. He explained, “I was waiting downstairs. I didn't want to come right up, for fear I
would spoil your plan. What did you learn?”
“Nothing,” said Monk disgustedly.
“Nothing? I don't believe it. Say, with a smart scheme like that, you were bound to learn something. The
messenger would think you were one of the gang after you pulled the rescue, and would tell you
everything. Didn't it work?”
Monk considered what he should say. “It didn't work,” he confessed.
“Why?”
“Come on,” Monk said sourly. “That messenger went into Room 623. Let's take a look.”
They found the hotel room locked. Ham was a lawyer by trade, and the door baffled him. Monk,
however, was a chemist, and he had included a little lock-picking on the side. He went to work on the
lock, which was not complicated, and got it open by ruining the snap-fastener on the band of his wrist
watch.
“There's the messenger's uniform!” Ham yelled, the moment they were in the room.
The feminine garments in the closet were naturally the next discovery.
Ham stared at Monk. “Oh, oh!” he said. “The messenger was a girl.”
Monk made no comment.
“Was she pretty?” Ham asked.
“How would I know?” Monk muttered.
“Of course she was pretty,” Ham decided. “She had to be, to get close enough to pop you over the
head.”
Monk registered misery. “Do we have to tell the fellows about this?” he mumbled.
Ham was very cheerful.
“You won't need to tell them,” he said. “I'll do it, and gladly!”
THEY made a competent search of the young woman's room. What they found did not give much
satisfaction. She obviously had money to spend on clothes, and had good taste.
Monk removed his old-man makeup in the bathroom at the gloomy conclusion of the fruitless search.
Ham said, “That was sure a good disguise. And you did some fine acting. I don't see how she caught
on.”
“I had a theatrical make-up expert put it on,” Monk said sourly. “He's in the same building with Doc's
offices. I think I'll go in there and pull an ear off him. Of course, she saw through the make-up!”
They went downstairs, and after some arguing, found that the young woman had registered with the name
of T. Hannah, Washington, D. C. That was all.
They arranged to be called immediately if the young woman should reappear at the hotel.
“Now,” Monk said, “we get the home address of that messenger whose name she used, Neddie
Wooster.”
Neddie Wooster lived in the Bronx, and he was a scrawny-looking young man, obviously a 4F in the
draft. He was home reading a newspaper. Fortunately, they found that he scared easily. And when he
was scared, he talked very rapidly.
Ten dollars was the answer.
The ten dollars had been given Neddie Wooster by the young woman for the rental of his uniform and the
privilege of using it for what she had explained was a “masquerade party.” Neddie Wooster had only one
uniform, so he had been forced to stay at home, which he hadn't minded until Monk and Ham turned up.
As scared as Neddie Wooster was after Monk and Ham got through with him, his story could not have
been anything but the truth.
“Dead end,” Monk said. “That's a foxy girl.”
“Well, anyway, we've done enough that now we can face Doc Savage without blushing,” Ham said.
“That is—I can.” He grinned at Monk. “I wouldn't know about you!”
Monk asked gloomily, “You going to tell them I got into trouble because of a pretty girl again?”
“Am I?” Ham chortled. “Brother!”
Monk became belligerent and tried threatening Ham. “You keep your blat shut!” Monk yelled. “Or I'll hit
you over the head so hard you'll be using your shoe eyelets for portholes.”
摘要：

MYSTERYONHAPPYBONESADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.comScannedandProofedbyTomStephens?ChapterI.ONEUNUSUALBOX?ChapterII.THEWIRE?ChapterIII.THEWASHINGTONTRICK?ChapterIV.MAJORTROUBLE?ChapterV.STONY?ChapterVI.PIRATESFORANCESTORS?ChapterVII.AIR...

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