Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace Read Online Free PDF Page A

climbing down.
    “My clothes will be ruined!” Ham exploded. The wasp-waisted lawyer was fussy about his attire. A legend surrounding his taste in clothes had it that tailors sometimes followed Ham down the street just to see fine garments being worn as they should be worn.
    “Or you can jump,” Monk suggested amiably.
    Ham let Monk go first, and observed the hairy chemist scrambling with the long-armed agility of an orangutan, into the trees, and then to the ground.
    He peered around the cabin, seeking an alternative.
    There was a parachute, but their present height was insufficient for its safe use.
    Finally, the fastidious attorney shinnied down the rope and managed to work his way down to the ground, ripping only a coat sleeve.
    When he was on the ground at last, Ham waved his dark cane as if he wanted to thrash Monk about the face with it.
    “I have ruined another fine coat because of you!”
    “You should start dressin’ properly for our little expeditions,” Monk told him innocently.
    Ham looked up. “How are we going to get our prisoner to the ground?”
    “Watch this,” said Monk.
    Reaching up into a lower branch, the apish chemist grasped the heavy wire that ended in the collapsible grapnel.
    With his mighty shoulders heaving, Monk began hauling in the dirigible closer and closer to the ground.
    “Why didn’t you do that the first time!” Ham flared.
    Monk grinned. “I been hankerin’ for some exercise. Come to think of it, you could stand some, too.”
    While Monk held the airship close to the ground, Ham reentered, and pushed the prisoner out unceremoniously.
    Releasing the airship, Monk hefted the limp man across one burly shoulder and bore him toward the grim gray buildings.
    “I never like visitin’ this place,” Monk muttered.
    “It might do you some good if you were to spend time here, having your monkey brains cleaned out and straightening up your ridiculous baboon behavior!” snapped Ham.
    They were within the inner perimeter, within sight of the electrical fence. Towering evergreens dotted the landscape. Many had knotholes. These concealed television cameras that were monitored by technicians in the log lodge.
    Certain arrangements of stone, not recognizable except to those familiar with the glyphs comprising the Mayan language, warned of concealed pits and bear-traps that could snag a man’s ankles with steely mechanical jaws.
    They skirted these, finally coming safely to the main building.
    Armed guards met them, and they were permitted to enter.
    “Got us another patient,” Monk announced.
    “Yes,” added Ham waspishly. “And Monk has one, too.”
    A voice that was remarkable in his modulation asked, “Did you bring the telegram?”
    It was the unmistakable voice of Doc Savage.

Chapter III
    THE FOREBODING
    GULLIVER GREENE MOVED over and stood with his back to the one wall of the filling station which had no window. He kept the piece of the telegram in his hands and eyed it several times, chewing his lower lip thoughtfully. Globules of perspiration came out on his face and skidded over the greasy skin. Twice, he shook his head violently.
    Gull gave up. There was no way he could make sense out of it. He swung to the telephone, intending to call the town marshal at La Plata and the State Highway Patrol in Macon, the larger town to the south. The mysterious runt and his men had gone in that direction and might be headed off by the police.
    The telephone was an old-fashioned country instrument with a crank, and he sensed from the easy way the crank spun that the thing was dead, even before he listened and knew.
    He located the flashlight, went outside with it and the shotgun, listened for a while, then followed the telephone wire with a flashlight.
    Four poles away, in the direction of town, Gull found the wire down. It had been cut.
    While he was wrestling with the two ends of the wire, trying to get them to meet, someone sent a ring into the line, giving him a disquieting shock.