Chapter IV

18

STRANGE FISH

Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the lawyer of their group. He was a dapper man addicted to excitement, a Harvard accent and fine clothes. He detested pork in any form, which was the reason everyone called him Ham.

Doc Savage went back into the laboratory. He felt guilty about the way he had rushed away from the lab work at the prospect of excitement. He resumed the job he had been doing when the phone rang.

What I had better do, he thought, was let one of us see if there's anything to this matter in Oklahoma. Monk probably. Monk has the worst case of itching feet.

He was thinking that when Monk appeared in the door and said, “Phone again, Doc. Some nasty−sounding guy.”

The man had a gruff voice.

He said, “Mr. Savage, I imagine my directness may surprise you. I hope it does. I also hope it impresses you.

Because I am going to make a threat, which is this: If you tamper with this matter of Paris Stevens in Oklahoma, you are going to be sorry and you are going to get—I believe a good word is—smeared.”

And bang went the receiver.

DOC SAVAGE was blankly astonished for a moment. Then he called, “Monk! Trace that—”

“Don't put your receiver back on the hook,” Monk said. “I'm tracing it already. But don't hang up. As long as you keep your receiver off the hook, I think this automatic dialing system they use will hold the connection.”

For the next five minutes he talked, authoritatively, threateningly, violently, to different people in telephone company wire rooms. The matter of tracing a telephone call in New York City was not something to be tossed off glibly. It was, in fact, something that couldn't be accomplished without prior arrangements. Monk finally got the job done.

“The number that called,” Monk said, “was Marshland 0−9007. Here's the address. Doesn't sound bad.”

“Good,” Doc said. “Now you and Ham start collecting information. Light at it in earnest.”

“You going to that address?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe,” said Monk hopefully, “we'd all better go.”

“The job you picked was investigating that girl, Paris Stevens,” Doc reminded him. “She is supposed to have been a WAC. Find out where she served, where she was wounded, and get the low−down on her record. If you can get hold of anybody who served with her, do that. Talk to them on the telephone. Dig up everything.”

“You,” Monk said, “are trying to hog the excitement.”

“How do you mean?”