“It won’t hurt you to know what you’re in for,” he smirked. “We’re gonna use you to keep Doc Savage from mixin’ in our business. To put it plainer: if Savage don’t behave himself, we’re gonna scrag you!”
“How lovely,” Monk said with deceptive gentleness.
Buttons <blinked> and drew back a little, remembering the terrible clutch of Monk’s furry paws. He could see Monk was not scared in the least. Which was not to his liking.
“This ain’t somethin’ to act sassy about!” he told Monk fiercely. “A gent named ‘Ben Johnson’ has a Radium mine up in the Hudson Bay country. And we’re after it! Johnson sent to Doc Savage for help. We’re dead serious about this! If Savage interferes, we’re gonna croak you. We’re gonna notify Savage of that right away!”
Monk listened to this with much interest. It was the first he had heard of a Radium mine. He considered it stupid of his captors to tell him about it in this voluntary fashion.
“Where’s it located?” he asked. “The Radium mine, I mean.”
Buttons and his helpers exchanged knowing looks.
“We ain’t sayin’, hombre.”
Monk settled back, his bulk crowding the men on either side of him. He marked the fact that the men were Westerners but did not mention it to them.
Monk’s eyes were small, twinkling stars in their pits of gristle. His bullet-of-a-head did not seem to hold room for more than a spoonful of brains.
But his appearance was deceptive. Monk had performed miracles in the field of chemical research during his career. Moreover, his wits were far from sluggish.
This was not the first time that Monk had been in a tight spot. Doc Savage and his men walked often in the shadow of deadly peril. Past experience had taught Monk it was a good thing to always have a trick up his sleeve.
Apparently greatly worried, Monk began to bite his fingernails. When he had given the fingers of one hand a thorough nibbling, he changed to the other. This nibbling continued several seconds.
In the meantime, Buttons Zortell had suddenly started feeling through his pockets. His face showed alarm. His fingers flew desperately in-and-out of his clothing.
“Them papers!” he gulped. “They’re gone!”
“What papers?” a man asked him.
“The ones that were in… “
Buttons bit off the rest. He had just made the disquieting discovery that he no longer possessed the documents taken from Bandy Stevens’s money-belt. But he did not want his prisoner to know.
Monk noted the byplay. He smiled in a small, secret way.
He remembered how his pretty secretary had made a gesture of hiding something in the laboratory.
He now felt certain Lea Aster had slipped the missing documents from Buttons’s pockets. She was a clever girl!
For several seconds, Monk kneaded his fingers together. Then — as though tired — he slouched over against the man riding on his left. Monk’s eyes were tightly closed.
He repeated the slumping procedure with the guards on his right, his eyes still pinched shut.
Both guards suddenly yelled, dropped their guns, and pawed at their eyes!
Without opening his own lids, Monk took a flying leap out of the slow-moving car! He hit the pavement running!
Opening his eyes, he dived for the handiest shelter — an alleyway. He popped into it before the first shot thundered behind him.
His captors had been taken completely by surprise!
Monk snorted gleefully as he ran.
Under his fingernails, he had carried caked deposits of several chemicals. He wore his nails long for that sole purpose. Dampened and mixed, the compounds gave off a potent form of tear gas.
“Doc himself couldn’t have done it any better!” Monk chortled as he increased his speed.
As a matter of truth, it was from Doc that Monk had copied the tear-gas trick!
Glancing upward, Monk discovered a fire-escape landing. He leaped, caught it, and hauled himself up. With an elbow, he pushed the glass out of the first window he came to. Bullets jangled noisily on the fire escape and gun sound cascaded deafeningly in the alleyway. Monk lunged through the window, escaping the deadly hail.
He found himself in a bedroom. A man came out of a bath adjoining, his face half-lathered and a heavy shaving mug in one hand. He threw the mug at the invader.
Monk ducked it easily. He made for a door. It was unlocked and let him out into a hallway that reeked cooking odors. He descended a flight of stairs, taking his time.
More shooting broke out before he reached the street. Once outside, he discovered a cop had come upon the scene. Buttons Zortell and his henchmen had fled after swapping a few bullets with the policeman. No one had been hit.
Monk lost several minutes in soothing the irate apartment dweller whose window he had smashed. He paid for the window as well as for the shaving mug which had been broken when the man threw it at him.
Hailing a taxi, he rode back to his office. He was paying the driver when Doc Savage hurried out of the building,accompanied by his 4 aides. They had just been up to the penthouse and they were uneasy.
“You guys can wipe the worry off your pans,” Monk grinned at them. “Everything is all right.”
“Everything?” Renny demanded. “Is…”
“Sure. It’s all hunky-dory. And say! I found out what was behind it. A fella named ‘Ben Johnson’ has a Radium mine up North. He wants your help, Doc. And these guys are tryin’ to keep him from gettin’ it.”
Ham laughed nastily.
“So you were dumb enough to fall for that sap story?”
Monk gave the dapper little sword-cane-carrying lawyer a look of injured innocence.
“Aw… go steal a pig!” he grunted.
Ham purpled. His fists clenched. He seemed about ready to explode inwardly!
Monk had only to mention pigs, hogs, or anything connected with pork to get Ham’s goat. This state of affairs harkened back to the World War. As a practical joke, Ham had taught Monk several very insulting French words, telling him they were the proper words to curry the favor of a French general. Monk had tried it… and landed in the guardhouse.
He had only been out a few days when Ham — then known only as Brigadier General Brooks — had been hailed up before a court-martial on a charge of stealing hams. From that day, he was called ‘Ham’. He had never been able to prove Monk had framed him. And that irked his lawyer soul!
Ham shook his sword cane at Monk.
“One of these days, I’m gonna give you a close shave with this sword. A shave right down to your bones!”
Monk snorted and gave his attention to Doc.
“Do you think they fed me a phony story, Doc?”
“They probably did,” Doc told him. “For some reason, they seem to want us to dash off for the Hudson Bay country on a wild-goose chase.”
“Then why’d they kidnap me?”
“Merely to make their story look better. They wished to impress me with their opposition to my going North, hoping that would only make my determination the firmer. They are very clever.”
“Yeah. I should’ve known they were acting too stupid when they told me about the Radium mine. I reckon they intended to hold me a few hours, then let me escape. They gimme the mine story so I’d carry it to you.”
“They’re taking great pains to get us out of the city,” Renny put in. “Why is that?”
“You’re wasting time asking Monk that,” clipped Ham, still smarting from the pig reference. “The ‘Missing Link’ wouldn’t know!”
Monk grinned from ear-to-ear.
“You don’t say! You little shyster, I’ll bet I can cast a lot of light on the mystery!”
“How?”
“The leader of the gang — ‘Buttons’, his pals called him — was carryin’ some kind of papers. My secretary snitched ‘em!”