Chapter IV

23

STRANGE FISH

“He must have been. He had completed arrangements to decoy you to Oklahoma, then he fled.”

Doc Savage looked at the small man intently.

“Where,” he asked, “would Chapman go?”

“To Brazil, to a town named Villa Franca. Wait a moment.” He went away again, came scampering back with a bit of paper with a name and address pencilled on it. “I copied this down after eavesdropping on Chapman.

It is where he was going. Here.”

The name was Pedro Vascelles, and the town was Villa Franca, the street the Via de Havanas.

“Chapman overestimated his power over my conscience,” said the little man proudly. “He didn't think I would tell anyone about him. So he wasn't too careful to keep me from eavesdropping.”

DOC SAVAGE stood up suddenly. “I had better be moving.” He took the picture of Chapman. The small man followed him to the door, working his hands as if he was pulling taffy.

The small man said, “If I can be of any help—”

“You may be called on,” Doc said.

The small man watched Savage go down the walk, get in a car and drive away.

“Be called on!” the little man said violently.

He went downstairs, prudently calling, “Take it easy! It's me!” when he was on the steps.

The basement had a recreation room, almost entirely bare of furniture. The three men in the basement were cautiously distributed, one behind the furnace, another behind the fuel oil tank, the third back of a concrete post.

“He's gone,” the small man said.

They came out cautiously. “He take that story?”

“Seemed to.”

The three seemed doubtful. They weren't thugs. Not palookas of the dem, dese and dose variety. They were normal−looking men.

“Maybe,” one of them said, “the smart thing would have been for you to have brought him down in the basement, where we could have filled him full of lead.”

“That would have been damned effective, if it worked,” the small man agreed. “Trouble is, maybe it wouldn't have worked.”

“He's on his way to South America?”