Читать книгу Mad Mesa: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6

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Sue City, Missouri, is a settlement that can be found on the larger maps. It does not have a reputation for size, but it is a lively place, supplying the needs of the agricultural community, and on Saturday nights staging square dances and boxing matches, as well as holding, once a year, a homecoming that is an event.

Samantha Nona Idle lived near Sue City, in the big white house on the gravel road. She kept house for her Aunt Annie and her Uncle Herm, who had raised her.

Nona was a striking girl. She was tall and firm and streamlined, and bore some resemblance to her brother, Tom Idle. She had managed to drop the Samantha from her name by carefully telling nobody about it for a number of years. She was intelligent, and was specializing in voice at the State University in Columbia. The boys liked her looks, and her college professors liked her determination to make something out of herself.

The mail carrier left Tom Idle’s letter in the galvanized mailbox under the big elm tree at the gate.

Nona did not mention her brother’s letter to anybody. He had requested this. He did not want the neighbors to know he was in the penitentiary.

The next day, Nona left for New York to see Doc Savage.

She went by bus because it was cheaper. Money was a scarce commodity around there.

That evening, the airplane landed at Sue City. The plane was piloted by the man with the black gloves.

The plane came wabbling down out of the sky as if something was wrong, and landed in a cow pasture on Nona Idle’s farm. The pilot climbed out and doubled up on the ground.

“Damn, but I’m sick,” he croaked. “Must be somethin’ I ate.”

His condition improved quickly when there was talk of taking him to a hospital. He stated that all he needed was a rest, and he managed to persuade Aunt Annie and Uncle Herm to put him up for the night.

“You seem depressed,” remarked the pilot, at the supper table that evening.

“I reckon as how we’re gettin’ old and lonesome,” said Uncle Herm. “Anyhow, we sure hate to see one of the family leave.”

The pilot had not removed his black gloves to eat, but he did explain that he intended to consume only a bite or two because of his upset stomach. He was suave, effusively friendly, and his manner had overcome Uncle Herm’s first dislike for the fellow. His body—like jointed sausages—was dressed in an expensive, neat suit, and dark glasses concealed the evil character of his eyes, which were like bird eggs that hadn’t hatched.

“One of your children leave recently?” the pilot asked.

“Not exactly. It was Nona Idle. We raised her.” Uncle Herm sighed regretfully. “That’s sure gonna be a long bus trip, all the way to New York.”

“Nona Idle has gone to New York?”

The pilot barely kept a rasp of anxiety out of the question.

“Yep,” said Uncle Herm.

“Why?”

“That’s what kinda worries us,” Uncle Herm explained. “She didn’t say. Ain’t like the girl not to tell us, neither.”

The pilot took off in a hurry in his airplane. His stomach was better, he said—but as a matter of fact, he looked sicker than when he had landed.

He flew toward New York.

Mixed with the motor fumes in the wake of his plane was sulphurous haze of curses which the pilot flung at the Idles, brother and sister, at Big Eva, at himself, but most of all at a man named Doc Savage. He swore himself into such a stew that he began talking aloud to his plane.

“What if I don’t manage to stop that girl?” he yelled at the plane.

The possibility was good for several minutes of anxious snarling.

Later, he settled down grimly to the business of flying to overtake Nona Idle.

Nona Idle reached Columbus, Ohio, with a conviction that bus travel was almost as comfortable as railroad. She had the good sense to resist the impulse which seems to seize bus patrons to fill up on hamburgers and ice-cream cones at every hot-dog stand. When she reached Columbus, she was hungry, but she felt well.

Beyond Columbus, on U. S. Highway No. 40, the bus swung into one of the comfortable roadside stations, and Nona Idle, noting the clean-looking restaurant in connection, decided to have her first meal.

A man wearing black gloves slid onto the adjacent seat shortly after she started eating.

The man did not say anything, did not appear to as much as notice the tall, very pretty girl at his side. When a waitress came, he spoke in a loud voice.

“I am Dr. Joiner,” he said. “Has anyone called for me?”

“Dr. Joiner. No; no call,” the waitress replied.

“I am a medical doctor, and I was supposed to receive a call here,” the man added, a bit unnecessarily, Nona Idle thought.

Nona noticed the man’s black gloves, and thought it curious that he did not remove them. She wondered what was wrong with his hands—or did he wear gloves to keep his hands soft and supple? Incidentally, she was aware that he did not once look at her. Men who did not notice Nona Idle were scarce.

Suddenly, the man whirled and pointed out of the window.

“Look!” he exploded.

Nona Idle naturally turned on the stool—they ate on white stools in the lunchroom—and stared. But she saw nothing except a car passing.

“I’m sorry,” the black-gloved man said. “I guess I’m seeing things. That car looked just like an elephant when I first saw it.”

Nona went back to her chicken-fried steak, French fried potatoes and buttermilk. “He’s a goof,” she thought.

She had not noticed the man empty a small bottle of amber liquid into her buttermilk while her attention was diverted by the imaginary elephant.

Nona finished her meal, got off the stool, took one step and buckled to the floor.

“Here, stand back!” barked the black-gloved man. “I’m Dr. Joiner!”

He made a phony examination of Nona Idle. The waitress pushed people back and told them to give “Dr. Joiner” some room.

The black-gloved man straightened and made a weighty pronunciation.

“This young lady has compound pulmonary palpitation,” he said.

He gave the bystanders a look of heavy seriousness.

“I must rush her to a hospital!” he added.

Nona Idle was carried out and placed in the black-gloved man’s car. No one happened to notice, due to the excitement, that this was a rented machine. The man drove off with his unconscious passenger.

When he had left the roadside dining room behind—he was not driving toward a hospital—the man spoke grimly to himself.

“That,” he said, “keeps Doc Savage out of it.”