Part 7 (2/2)
I was almost glad she wasn't going with us, because it would save her from being subject to such remarks from these fellows. And particularly, it would spare her Mayfair's smirking, strutting and eye-rolling.
Savage, Mayfair and myself rode down to the lobby in the elevator.
There Savage shocked me. He strode to the telephone operator, and asked, ”You remember Henry calling and asking to be announced to Farrar.”
She recalled.
”Who,” Savage demanded, ”answered Farrar's telephone?”
”Why, Mr. Farrar, of course,” she replied.
”Thank you.”
The meaning of this byplay was a little slow soaking into me. Then I saw it's preposterous significance-Savage was seeking to establish that Farrar hadn't been a prisoner of the fellows upstairs, because he had personally answered the phone.
”That's stupid!” I declared. ”Farrar would have been forced to answer the phone by his captor.”
”Naturally,” Savage agreed in a rather odd fas.h.i.+on.
”Henry's getting to be quite a mastermind,” Mayfair said.
”Phoo!” I said. ”You fellows aren't accomplis.h.i.+ng anything.”
”Henry's brave as a hornet, too,” Monk Mayfair added.
I wished to strike him, but he was not the sort one did that to.
On the street, Savage said, ”Monk, I don't imagine Henry will feel too bereaved at not having your company. So will you do a locating job on polite-boy?”
”Sure, I'll find him,” Mayfair replied. ”I'll fetch him in. Take me about an hour, I guess.”
The preposterous confidence of the chap!
THE REX COSTUME COMPANY was on the second floor of a building just off Sixth Avenue in the part of the city that would correspond to the cuff of a b.u.m's trousers-tired, sloppy, and not entirely honest. There was a wide stairway leading upward, but it didn't smell too well and there were bits of trash, cigarette stubs and gobs of chewing gum on the steps, if one cared to search for them.
A Mr. Ivan McGonigle introduced himself to us-or to Savage, for it was Savage who did the talking.
Mr. McGonigle confessed to being the proprietor of the REX COSTUME COMPANY.
”You rent masquerade costumes?” Savage inquired.
”That's right,” said McGonigle. ”We supply shows, parties, and theatrical troupes.”Doc Savage placed Dido Alstrong's monkey-suit box on the counter.
”This one of your boxes?”
”That's right.”
”You supply the monkey suit?”
”That's right. If there's a monkey suit in there, we-”
”Take a close look at the suit before you jump at conclusions,” Savage suggested.
McGonigle did so. He was a red-faced man, brusque, with a certain shrewdness which had probably been taught to him by doing business in this district. The low-cla.s.s businessman type, I should say, and quite honest, but not a sort that I particularly fancied.
Presently McGonigle was positive. He pointed out a trademark, certain repairs to the suit, and the laundry marks which compared, as he showed us, identically with laundry marks on the other costumes in his stock.
”Ours,” he said. ”Now what about it?”
”You mean,” said Savage, ”that this is just an ordinary masquerade costume out of your stock?”
”That's right. We got about a half dozen of them. Not very good renters, incidentally. Got 'em about three years ago off a show that ran a couple of weeks and closed. You see, it was a show with political significance, or so they called it, with a scene showing how this collectivism was an animal thing that was going to return us to the status of tribes of baboons-”
”Do you,” Savage interposed, ”recall the fellow who rented this?”
”Why, think I do, vaguely. Talkative sort, kind of high-pressure, sort of a fat face-”
”That's Dido Alstrong,” I exclaimed.
”Sure. That was his name. Alstrong. You'd think a fellow like that would be more prosperous,” said the man who rented costumes.
”Prosperous?” inquired Savage.
”Sure. That's how I remember the man. We do a good business here, we get so many customers, how am I gonna remember one unless for a reason? This guy, he don't have the cash to put up a deposit. We demand a deposit, you know. He ain't got the deposit, he says, so he puts up a bit of personal property.”
Savage considered this. ”Thank you,” he said finally.
”You wanna turn that ape suit back in now?” the man demanded.
”No, not just yet.”
”Hokey-dokey.”
Savage turned. ”Come, Henry,” he said. He wore an abstracted look and I reflected, with some pleasure, that he had come a cropper. He hadn't learned anything of value. Quite probably, he didn't know what to do next.Down in the street, Savage popped me into his car.
”Wait a minute for me, Henry,” he said. ”I believe I overlooked something I should have asked the costume shop proprietor.”
He wheeled and re-entered the establishment. I endeavored to follow.
The presumptuous fellow had locked me in his remarkable armored car.
SAVAGE returned in not more than five minutes. His bronze face was inscrutable. ”You locked me in the car!” I said angrily. ”I resent such high-handed methods.”
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