Part 1 (1/2)
THE MONKEY SUIT.
A Doc Savage Adventure.
by Kenneth Robeson.
Chapter I.
THIS one was an old-school-pal-wants-a-favor case.
”Henry, you're my G.o.dsend!” he kept howling throw the telephone. ”I'll be right over! You're a G.o.dsend, my reliable old pal! I'll be right there!”
Probably he was Dido Alstrong. He sounded the way Dido Alstrong would sound after these few years, if Dido was scared.
The Alstrongs had been a prosperous, grasping sort a family, well-established for a couple of generations in the middle-sized Missouri town of Kirksville where I grew up. Dido was doubtless born short, chubby, eager, pushy, with a round face and a full-lipped mouth. I'm not too positive how he looked at birth, because he was a year older than I-and he kept these features. By the time he attained eighteen, Dido had indicated he was of Alstrong pattern-he definitely preferred grabbing to earning, bluff to earnest effort.
At eighteen, when they graduated him from high school to get rid of him, old man Alstrong was getting worried about the kid. I was already in my fourth year at Missouri University, and old Alstrong told me-he didn't ask-that he was depending on me to be Dido's s.h.i.+ning light. Dido took to that. He signed up for the courses I was taking when he could, mooched off my examination papers, cheated when he dared, and surprisingly enough, got by. I was specializing in electronics and chemistry, so he did that too.
He got me in bad odor a few times with his grabbing at my brains, and when I got out of M. U. and went to Cal Tech to specialize, I was glad to be rid of him. I hadn't seen Dido since.
But this had been Dido Alstrong on the phone. Mouthy, with a high-pitched squeal of a voice, a way of using the squeal as if he were having trouble with another pig.I wondered what he thought I had that he wanted. He must have wanted it badly, the way he had sounded.
The lab clock said ten-forty. Dido Alstrong had stated he was calling from a drug store on Fifth Avenue.
He had also said-five times, at least-that he'd be right up. New York City transportation being good, and Dido a quick one on the grab, he would doubtless be here soon.
I hoped so. I had a luncheon appointment with an eminent chemist, a Mr. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, and it was important to me. This Mayfair had developed a solvent for light-transmitting plastics that was out of this world. I needed the use-rights on that formula.
The Mayfair fellow, as everyone knew, was affiliated with Doc Savage, whom I had never met but of whom I had certainly heard. Mayfair, an excellent chemist, preferred adventuring with Savage to working at his profession, so he was constantly in financial straits. Usually broke. I hoped to lease use-rights on the solvent formula from him for the modest sum I could afford.
The thing that bothered me about this Mayfair person was an att.i.tude he had manifested toward me. He had inferred, if that is the word, that I was a stuffed s.h.i.+rt, and that I fancied myself as a boy-wonder.
Mr. Mayfair seemed rather an oaf.
But I would try being more polite to him than I intended being to Dido Alstrong.
HE hadn't changed. He was an Alstrong, with that acquisitive mouth and the pus.h.i.+ng ways.
”H'ar yuh, Henry, you mental wizard!” he came in squealing. ”H'ar yuh, old school pal!”
”Good morning, Alstrong,” I said stiffly.
”Henry, you haven't changed a bit!”
”Nor have you, Mr. Alstrong,” I replied. He hadn't either, except to become a bit more repulsive.
”Where 'ja get that Mr. Alstrong stuff?” he howled. ”Henry, old pal!”
My reserved smile was intended to be a warning. I didn't intend to start calling him Dido, and the old pal stuff was quite repellant.
Dido didn't press for intimacy. He glanced about my laboratory, then burst forth in boisterous admiration.
”Some diggings, Henry!” he shouted. ”By G.o.d, this is about as snitzy a layout of laboratory equipment as I've run across. Who you working for here?”
The inference was plain. He considered me to be so mouse-like that I would be forever working for the other fellow.
”I'm self-employed.” My tone was stiff. ”This happens to be my own establishment.”
”The h.e.l.l you say!” Dido roared. ”Say, now, that's something! Looks as if you're doing all right for yourself, boy, old pal.”
”I'm fumbling along.”He was shaking his head wonderingly. ”Doing research for yourself, eh? Now that sure surprises me.”
His greedy little eyes appraised me thoughtfully. ”Maybe you have changed, at that.”
”In what way?”
He roared at this. ”Man, I figured you would always be the unsung genius, without enough push to capitalize on your own brains. Maybe I was wrong.”
He wasn't wrong, and I did a burn. I recognize my shortcomings, and they are painful to me.
”Genius,” I said rigidly, ”comes from the Latin gignere, and means a demon, a peculiar character, an elemental spirit of fire or water, a guide, a G.o.dling dwelling in a place, as well as uncommon native intellectual power.”
Dido let out a whoop. ”By golly! By golly, you still say things like that, don't you? You haven't changed so much!”
THE fellow was upsetting me. He always did. But the irritation wasn't extensive enough to dull my wits, and I could see that he was quite frightened about something. I was remembering back to our university days-Dido always had a whooping, boisterous, overbearing manner, but it was particularly accented when he was in a sc.r.a.pe. I determined not to let him roil me excessively.
I consulted the clock elaborately and remarked, ”It's been interesting meeting you, Mr. Alstrong. But unfortunately you have caught me at a rather busy time.”
He ignored this hint for him to go. He would. ”You're a sight for these sore old eyes, Henry! By G.o.d, I've often thought of you. Do you remember the time at the university that I was out with that blonde, and I told her I was you, and she was just tight enough not to know the difference, and the next day-”
”Really!” I said sharply. ”I'm afraid I haven't the time to listen to you-er-reminisce. Some other occasion, perhaps.”
”You mean you got an appointment?” he demanded.
”Well-yes.”
”When? What time?”
”Noon,” I was forced to confess. ”But I must prepare my arguments thoroughly so that-”
”h.e.l.l, you got over an hour!” Dido bellowed. ”This won't take that long.”
”Well, I-”