IN THIS ISSUE: - Savagepedia

There was no signature.
A silent group, they went back to the room where
they had found the vermilion missive.
I
t was Long Tom who gave voice to a new discovery.
He leveled a rather pale hand at the box which held
the ultraviolet light apparatus.
"That isn't sitting where we left it!" he declared.
Doc nodded. He had already noticed that, but he
did not say so. He made it a policy never to disillusion
one of his men who thought he had been first to notice
something or get an idea, although Doc himself might
have discovered it far earlier. It was this modesty of
Doc's which helped endear him to everybody he was
associated with.
"The prowler who came in and left the red note
used the black-light apparatus," he told Long Tom. "It's
a safe guess that he inspected the window Johnny put
together."
"Then he read the invisible writing on the glass!"
Renny rumbled.
"Very likely."
"Could he make heads or tails of it?"
"I hope he could," Doc said dryly.
They all betrayed surprise at that, but Doc, turning
away, indicated he wasn't ready to amplify on his
strange statement. Doc borrowed the magnifying glass
Johnny wore in his left spectacle lens, and inspected
the door for finger prints.
"We'll get whoever it was!" Ham decided. The
waspish lawyer made a wry smile. "One look at Monk's
ugly phiz and nobody would try to get out of here."
But at that instant the elevator doors rolled back,
out in the corridor.
Monk waddled from the lift like a huge anthropoid.
"What d'you want?" he asked them.
They stared at him, puzzled.
Monk's big mouth crooked a gigantic scowl. "Didn't
one of you phone downstairs for me to come right up?"
Doc shook his bronze head slowly. "No."
Monk let out a bellow that would have shamed the
beast he resembled. He stamped up and down. He
waved his huge, corded arms that were inches longer
than his legs.
"Somebody run a whizzer on me!" he howled.
"Whoever if was, I'll wring his neck! I'll pull off his ears!
I'll give—"
"You'll be in a cage at the zoo if you don't learn the
manners of a man!" waspish Ham said bitingly.
Monk promptly stopped his apelike prancing and
bellowing. He looked steadily at Ham, starting with
Ham's distinguished shock of prematurely gray hair,
and running his little eyes slowly down Ham's wellcared-for
face, perfect business suit, and small shoes.
Suddenly Monk began to laugh. His mirth was a
loud, hearty roar.
At the gusty laughter, Ham stiffened. His face
became very red with embarrassment.
For all Monk had to do to get Ham's goat was laugh
at him. It had all started back in the war, when Ham
was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks. The
brigadier general had been the moving spirit in a little
scheme to teach Monk certain French words which had
a meaning entirely different than Monk thought. As a
result, Monk had spent a session in the guardhouse for
some things he had innocently called a French general.
A few days after that, though, Brigadier General
Theodore Marley Brooks was suddenly hauled up
before a court-martial, accused of stealing hams. And
convicted! Somebody had expertly planted plenty of
evidence.
Ham got his name right there. And to this day he
had not been able to prove it was the homely Monk
who framed him. That rankled Ham's lawyer soul.
Unnoticed, Doc Savage had reached over and
turned on the ultra-violet-light apparatus. He focused it
on the pieced-together window, then called to the
others: "Take a look!"
The message on the glass had been changed!
T
here now glowed with an eerie blue luminance
exactly eight more words than had been in the
original message. The communication now read:
Important papers back of the red brick house at corner
of Mountainair and Farmwell Streets.
"Hey!" exploded the giant Renny. "How—"
With a lifted hand, a nod at the door, Doc silenced
Renny and sent them all piling into the corridor.
As the elevator rushed them downward, Doc
explained: "Somebody decoyed you upstairs so they
could get away, Monk."
"Don't I know it!" Monk mumbled. "But what I can't
savvy is who added words to that message?"
"That was my doing," Doc admitted. "I had a hunch
the sniper might have seen us working with the ultraviolet-light
apparatus, and be smart enough to see what
it was. I hoped he'd try to read the message. So I
changed it to lead him into a trap."
Monk popped the knuckles in hands that were near
as big as gallon pails. "Trap is right! Wait'll I get my
lunch shovels on that guy!"
Their taxi was still waiting outside. The driver began
a wailing: "Say—when am I gonna get paid? You gotta
pay for the time I been waitin'—"
Doc handed the man a bill that not only silenced
him, but nearly made his eyes jump out.
Shark Bytes #2 - October 2004 40