Part 12 (2/2)
”Depend on the head skunk to be out of the den when the roof fell in.”
”I'll bet,” said Rhoda Haven triumphantly, ”that Henry Peace did this.”
”Humph!” Monk said.
They looked around the vicinity for some trace of the hurricane-Monk stated an unnecessary number of times that it couldn't be Henry Peace that had done all the damage. They found no one.
A Horst thug stirred, groaned, sat up, wanted to know, ”Where's that red-headed devil?”
”You see!” Rhoda Haven e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed triumphantly. ”It was Henry Peace!”
”Rats!” Monk said grumpily.
Ham walked over to the hospital and entered. When he came out and joined them, he looked so downcast that Monk commented on the fact.
”You went in there like a lion and came out like a postage stamp,” Monk said.
”Like a postage stamp?”
”Licked.”
”This is no time for such cracks!” Ham snarled.
” Jep Dee is gone from that hospital!”
THERE was a prompt rush for the hospital, where they put barrages of questions that got them no information of value. The visit to the hospital did, however, impress Rhoda Haven with a point. The information that Monk and others were a.s.sociated with Doc Savage worked wonders with the hospital people. They fell over themselves to offer any service. There were comments of the highest character regarding Doc Savage's ability.
”This Doc Savage,” Rhoda remarked when they were outside, ”must be quite an individual.”
Monk nodded violently. ”For once, you're right in your judgment of somebody!”
Johnny rubbed his bony jaw.
”Perscrutination seems pragmatical,” he stated.
”Put it in English,” Rhoda Haven requested.
”I suggest,” said Johnny stiffly, ”that we now resort to asking questions of people-you included.”
”I see.””The questioning to be coupled with such persuasive violence as may be necessary,” Johnny added.
”I see,” Rhoda Haven repeated coolly.
A man walked up boldly in the darkness.
”You Doc Savage's men and party?” he asked.
”You said it,” Monk told him.
”A guy named Henry Peace sent me,” the stranger explained. ”He said to tell you he'd taken somebody named Horst, and was waiting for you with a man named Jep Dee. He said for me to show you where he was waiting, and to bring you if you wanted to come.”
Monk scowled blackly, said, ”We don't want to come.”
”Try not to be as simple-minded as usual,” Ham advised the homely chemist. ”Of course, we want to go.”
Rhoda Haven turned a flashlight so Monk could see the triumphant expression on her attractive features.
”I notice,” she remarked, ”that most of the accomplis.h.i.+ng around here seems to be done by Henry Peace.”
Monk looked as if someone was feeding him worms. He did not say anything.
Ham and Johnny loaded unconscious Horst thugs into the trailer, tying them with bed sheets, fis.h.i.+ng lines and anything else they could find.
”Inchoation is contiguitudinous,” Johnny remarked.
”Eh?” said the messenger.
”Maybe he means,” Monk suggested, ”that now we start.”
”Why didn't he just say so?”
”He only speaks English when he has to.”
”Oh. One of them kind of guys, eh? I don't see why these foreigners who come over here can't speak American.”
The car attached to the trailer was a shabby-looking old heap, but at the first traffic light, Ham sprang out to inspect the motor in amazement. Instead of the wheezing four cylinders he had expected, he found sixteen polished ones that were snorting out at least two hundred horsepower.
Their guide was a rather hungry-looking fellow in overalls and a straw hat. He seemed somewhat dumb in almost every way.
He directed them to a lonesome, sandy road that led through some palmettos to a clump of lonesome-looking palms that stood up stark in the white moonlight. There he told them to stop.
The guide got out.
”There's five or six army machine guns covering you fools,” he said. ”You stopped your car over a buried case of TNT that's wired to explode when a switch over yonder is closed. If you want to get tough, just hop to it!”
Having delivered this news, he dived behind a convenient palm tree.
Chapter XII. THE BRONZE MAN.
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