Chapter IV

“Would I be sweating like this if I LENA

wasn’t?” Willis asked.

 

Doc Savage glanced at Lena Carlson THERE was no shooting, however.

with interest. He saw a tearful young woman, The girl lost her nerve. At the last moment, blue-eyed, red-headed, with an unusual she released Doc, whirled and tried to run.

quantity of good looks. But she didn’t seem They caught her and took the gun away from like a person who would make somebody like her.

Willis burst out in a cold sweat.

Doc Savage was actually disappointed Doc said, “So you are the Lena Carl-that she had not shot him. The little .32-son?”

caliber bullet from her gun would not have

“Yes,” she said. “So you’ve heard of had much effect on his bulletproof undergar-me.”

ment, except that it would have given him a

“No, ” Doc admitted. “I haven’t.”

hard whack on the ribs.

“You must have lived in a barrel all If she had shot him, he would have had your life,” Lena Carlson told him. She a chance to fall over and play dead, possibly seemed disappointed.

getting a chance to surprise the three men.

Doc was a little irritated and he said, Now there was nothing to do but put up his

“I’m Doc Savage. Have you heard of me?”

hands, and this he did.

“I would like to say I haven’t, but I have, The man who had disarmed the girl vaguely.” She was not impressed, or didn’t was pale and perspiring when he finished, sound as if she was.

although it only took a moment.

“Anyway, we are even,” Doc admitted, Another man laughed at him. “Is she and was amused by the fact that the girl had something that’ll explode, Willis?” he asked.

managed to irritate him slightly.

“She’s been known to,” Willis said.

“What are you grinning at?” she de-

“And when Lena doesn’t explode, it’s only manded. “You’re not one of them, are you?

because she’s thought of something more They’re pointing their guns at you.”

disastrous.”

“That’s right,” Doc agreed.

“Lena?” The man pointed at the girl.

“I thought you were,” she said.

“Her? Lena Carlson?”

“You made a mistake.”

Willis nodded.

“I did not,” she said sharply. “A good

“You’re sure?”

idea is never a mistake. That was a good 16

DOC SAVAGE

idea, grabbing you and pointing my gun at The enemy had, it seemed, incau-you. It just turned out that you were not what tiously drawn his lookouts from the street and I thought you were.”

the lower floor of the old building, after learn-Willis took whatever levity there was ing that Doc Savage was captured. So Ham out of the situation by asking, “Shall we shoot Brooks was free to walk up to the second them here, Sam, or what?”

floor unmolested.

“The shots would make a hell of a Ham felt in the coat pocket in which he noise outdoors,” Sam said. “Take them in-had placed gas grenades. He had placed gas side.”

grenades in one pocket, smokers in another, Doc Savage went through the motions explosives in still another, and so on.

of becoming frightened. He looked terrified Without being aware, he got a smoke and his captors would have been suspicious grenade instead of a gasser. The grenades if it hadn’t been for the impressive show he all felt alike, but were different colors.

put on.

Holding the grenade aloft, Ham said, Doc’s face became almost purple. A

“It’s all off, you guys! Nobody move! This is a pale face would have been more effective, grenade I’ve got!”

but it’s possible to make your face purple by The way the men reacted told Doc holding your breath and bulging your neck Savage something about them. It told him against your collar, whereas a pale face is they were not mere crooks. Common crimi-difficult to fake. He trembled and his lips nals would have been confused, and would moved wordlessly.

have given up.

He tried to speak. What he said was But these men had military training. It inarticulate, but loud, and sounded like a was evident from the way they acted.

frightened gurgling and moaning.

Ham saw what he was up against,

“Stop that!” a man snarled. “Or we’ll threw his grenade. The anaesthetic gas in shoot you right here.”

the grenades was a quick-acting, odorless Doc became silent.

and colorless vapor which would bring sud-

“What’d he say then?” Willis asked.

den unconsciousness. Too late, Ham saw

“Hell, nothing,” said Sam. “He just this was no gas grenade. It was a smoker.

blubbered from fright. Boy, I’ve heard a lot of This grenade was black and white this Doc Savage. They had his nerve over-checkered, which meant smoke. For simplic-rated. ”

ity and to avoid confusion, Doc followed the Lena Carlson looked at Doc Savage same system of marking by colors as the thoughtfully. She did not seem convinced.

navy —red for gas, yellow for explosive, white

“I wonder,” she said, but only with her for shrapnel, and so on.

lips.

The smoker popped loudly and in an instant the room was full, incredibly full of smoke. Smoke that was as black as drawing THE trick which Doc Savage had just ink.

pulled paid off as soon as they were in the The room became full of confusion.

old building. The trick was a simple one. The

“Drat it!” Ham said. “I’m sorry, Doc. I pretended fright was a cover-up for the loud didn’t know that was a gas grenade.”

gurgling, which was really a single word in

“Have you got a gas mask?” Doc de-the Mayan language. Mayan was a little-manded.

known tongue, and Doc and his associates

“No!” Ham cried. “We’ll all be killed!”

used it, because of its unorthodox sound, when they wished to converse without outsiders understanding them. The tongue was ACTUALLY there was no gas, unless ancient Mayan, and as far as they knew they the harmless smoke could be called a gas.

were the only men in the so-called civilized But the smoke had an acrid stinging effect on world who understood it.

the lungs and a heavy pungent odor. The Ham Brooks was following Doc closely, smoke, in fact, smelled a great deal more like so Doc had spoken loudly enough in Mayan gas than most gases smelled.

for Ham to overhear.

Sam yelled, “Don’t shoot! We’ll hit each Ham had thereupon come into the other!”

building.

 

HELL BELOW

17

He also shouted, “Gas! Get out of three times in reluctant admiration. Ham was here!”

still carrying his sword cane, which he hadn’t The girl, Lena Carlson, thought there had an opportunity to use, and he waved this was gas, and she made a break for the win-angrily.

dow. Doc Savage, knowing that if she got out

“I’ll bet we discover,” he said, “that of the smoke she might be shot, lunged for those fellows have been trained in that sort of her and caught her.

thing.”

“Let go of me!” she said, taking a judo

“Go telephone the police descriptions,”

hold on his little finger, and trying to insert a Doc said.

thumb in his eye.

Ham dashed off to find a telephone.

“Sh-h-h!” he warned, rescuing his little Doc Savage went back upstairs, sus-finger just before she disjointed it. “There’s pecting the girl Lena Carlson would have fled, no gas”—this in a whisper—”and the thing to but she hadn’t. Lena was sitting on the floor, do probably is get down on the floor and stay and she was indignant.

there. ”

“That was a great idea, telling me to lie She obeyed.

on the floor,” she said. “They all used me for The enemy rushed from all directions a carpet on their way to the door.”

toward the door. No one could see where he

“Things were a little confused,” Doc was going, and no one wanted to stay in the admitted.

room. There was no shouting, probably be-

“I think you stepped on me yourself,”

cause they thought the place was full of poi-she said. “There was one who weighed a ton, son gas and were all holding their breath.

anyway.”

They ran out into the hall and went Doc was irritated with her again. “You thundering down the stairs.

succeeded in messing things up nicely,” he Doc Savage, trying to capture at least said.

one man, had no luck whatever. Someone

“What’s the matter, sensitive about had kicked a packing box into the middle of your weight?” she asked.

the floor and he had the misfortune to stum-Doc was not sensitive about his weight.

ble over that and lunge into Ham, who hit him He was not fat. He knew she was trying to rib a respectable wallop thinking he was an en-him, and knew he should not be irritated, but emy. They got that straightened out, and he was angry anyway.

charged into the hall.

“Your interference,” he told her, There was a little smoke in the hall, but

“wrecked our plan.”

none on the stairs.

“What plan?”

They reached the stairs, but quickly

“Ham Brooks was stationed outside,”

ducked back, just in time to avoid a flock of Doc told her, “and he was going to follow bullets which came up. The fusillade was them when they left. He was going to trail deafening.

them around until we found out what we After the one volley, Sam’s voice said, thought it necessary to know, so we would be “Savage, can you hear me?”

able to round them up.”

“I can hear you,” Doc answered.

“If Ham Brooks is the one who made

“We’ve got Monk Mayfair and Too-Too that smoke, he wasn’t in the street,” she said.

Thomas,” Sam said. “You bother us any

“Naturally not,” Doc said. He explained more, and we’ll kill them both.”

that he had called out a signal which had

“Aren’t you a little mixed up,” Doc brought Ham to their aid, not telling her how-asked, “as to who is doing the bothering?”

ever that the signal was in the Mayan lan-

“Did you hear what I said?” Sam de-guage or that it was even in any language at manded.

all. He just said his loud gurgling noise had

“Yes.”

been a call for aid.

“Well, think about it.”

“And because you grabbed me, they Sam and all his men then made their got away,” he told her.

escape.

“I thought you were one of them.”

 

“They didn’t even know you were on the roof,” Doc said.

THEY all got away in the street so

“I guess they didn’t,” she admitted. “But quickly that Ham Brooks whistled two or I thought they did.”

 

18

DOC SAVAGE

“They didn’t come out on the roof be-had clamped down on her hare-brained bid cause you were there. They came out to set for publicity.

a trap for me.”

Before that, there had been other

“All right, all right, I made a mistake,”

things that had put Madelena Smitz-Carlson she said.

on the front pages and made her notorious.

Ham Brooks returned. He was breath-She was a spoiled, extremely wealthy heir-ing heavily, and he looked bothered. “I called ess who had never known a restraining hand.

the police and gave them descriptions of all She had flown oceans, gotten in and out of those fellows, and told them you wanted all kinds of scrapes, and generally pursued a them picked up, ” he said.

career of making headlines.

Then Ham pointed at Lena Carlson She was Madelena Smitz-Carlson, all and asked, “Is she the monkey wrench that right. Doc Savage listened to her as she dropped into our plans?”

identified herself proudly, with a touch of an-Doc admitted she was.

ger because they were not awe-stricken.

Ham gave the girl an enraged stare.

“Here, ” she said, “is what has hap-

“They’ve got old Monk Mayfair,” he pened to me.”

shouted angrily. “Except for you, we would It was simple. Somebody had tried to have been able to rescue him.”

kill her. She didn’t know who.

Ham was not in the habit of shouting

“Three times,” she said. “The first time angrily at pretty girls. But then Ham thought a they drilled the exhaust stack of my plane great deal of Monk, although he and Monk and piped the fumes into the cabin. Carbon never spoke a civil sentence to each other if monoxide, you see. My mechanic found that.

they could think of an insulting one.

The second time it was poison, cyanide in a The girl, for the first time, looked champagne cocktail in the Club Lido out slightly contrite.

West; and the last time it was simpler, just a

“Maybe, ” she said, “you would feel bet-plain shot.”

ter if I told you my story.”

She had seen who had taken the shot at her.

 

“So I trailed him,” she said. “He was

“MY name is Lena Carlson,” she said.

not hard to follow, because I was riding when Then she paused as if that ought to he shot at me, riding a horse. I fell off the mean something, as if the whole world ought horse, and he thought he had killed me. So to know that name.

he was careless. I followed him here to Ham, noticing that she thought her Washington. ”

name would carry weight, was impressed.

She shrugged. “To make a long story But Doc Savage’s reaction was quite the short, and to include everything that is impor-contrary. He felt that the young woman tant, I followed him here, to this old building.”

should be spanked, shaken or otherwise re-

“Why did they try to kill you?” Doc lieved of self-importance.

asked.

Lena wasn’t satisfied with the reaction

“I don’t know.”

to her name, so she said, “I trust you’ve Doc Savage and Ham Brooks were heard of me.”

both silent when she stopped talking and she Doc had. He had just remembered became indignant.

where and when. Or rather, he had con-

“I’m not lying!” she snapped.

cluded that she must be Madelena Smitz-

“You have no idea what’s behind this?”

Carlson.

“None,” she said sharply.

And who hadn’t heard of Madelena Doc Savage considered the situation Smitz-Carlson? Possibly Hottentots in Africa for a while.

hadn’t heard of her, and perhaps some of the

“Do you,” he asked, “know a man inhabitants of Germany and Italy where the named Too-Too Thomas?”

news was censored. Because, before the

“Too-Too—oh! Oh, yes, of course, ” she war, in fact, before there was much convic-said. “I know him, yes, of course.”

tion there was going to be a war, Madelena

“Who is Too-Too Thomas?”

Smitz-Carlson had made headlines by offer-

“My partner,” she explained. “My part-ing to kidnap no one less that Herr Hitler ner in the ownership of a ranch called the himself, but the government and newspapers Rancho El Dirty Man, in Lower California.”

 

HELL BELOW

19

“Have you seen him in Washington?”

This was William Harper Johnny She looked surprised. “Is he here?”

Littlejohn, the archaeologist-geologist and Ham told her, “Either you’re a twenty-walking dictionary.

four-carat, fifty-caliber liar, or you know al-Ham asked, “Who’s there with you?”

most as little about this mess as we do.”

“Everybody.”

 

“At headquarters?”

 

“Yes.”