Dent Lester - Trouble On Parade

The drunks were heaved in after Doc and Smith arrived. For a few minutes, they were very noisy. But Smith put his face to the bars and said, “Shaddup or I'll kick the viscera out of both of you!”

Both soaks looked at Smith's hell-colored whiskers. It was a sight which shocked them into silence.

The jail corridor received a bright bath of light from naked electric bulbs. Doc Savage watched Smith thoughtfully while the latter endeavored to lie on a cot and relax. An attempt which failed. Then — successively — Smith stared out of the cell window … tried unsuccessfully to tear out the bars with his hands … glared at the 2 cowed inebriates … and finally began pacing his cell, gradually increasing his speed until he was almost trotting.

Smith was as uneasy as a flea on a griddle!

“You'll get out-of-breath,” Doc said.

Smith jerked to a stop.

“You got me into this!” he growled.

“Take it easy and you'll last longer,” Doc advised. “You'll wear your legs down to stumps at that speed. You're likely to have years of it ahead of you, you know.”

Smith was extremely distressed by this.

“I wish I'd never met you,” he said.

“You're going to wish it still more,” Doc informed him, “unless you tell the whole truth about this affair.”

Smith snorted: “You're not doing so well. You're in jail, too!” But he didn't get much conviction into it.

The door at the end of the corridor flung open. 2 constables entered, unlocked the door of Doc Savage's cell, and invited him out.

Doc grinned at Disappointed Smith's discouraged look and said, “You see? I'm already free.”

One of the constables cheered Smith considerably by telling Doc, “You're only being taken to the Inspector's office to answer some questions.”

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Inspector Carlew exhibited a better frame-of-mind. He indicated a chair and pushed cigarettes across the desk, asking, “Care to smoke?”

“Have you found that girl?” Doc demanded.

The Inspector shook his head. “As a matter-of-fact, I was hoping you could help us with that.”

Doc Savage leaned back.

“I've got a story to tell you,” he said. “So listen.”

For the next 5 minutes, Doc talked carefully. Not hesitating particularly anywhere. But not hurrying and checking each statement with his memory for accuracy as he went along. When he finished, he had presented a complete story of events from the time he had received the telephone call about the boats for sale.

“That's the whole history,” he finished. “Now you know why I can't tell you where the girl is, or who got her, or anything else.”

Inspector Carlew lifted his cigarette to his lips, pulled smoke into his lungs, blew the smoke in a foaming flood across the desk top, after which he fell to examining his fingernails. Doc Savage — astonished! — realized the Inspector hadn't believed the story.

“What,” Doc demanded, “makes you think I'm a liar?”

Slightly irked, the Inspector said, “I haven't said I disbelieved you.”

“That isn't good for Jane Walden,” Doc said.

The Inspector looked up swiftly.

“Why?”

“Because,” Doc said, “I think she's in danger. Pretty serious danger.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that her life may be menaced. Or worse, she may have been murdered already.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don't know it. I just think it.”

Inspector Carlew placed his cigarette on an ashtray, then used the hand that had held it to level an accusing and threatening gesture at Doc Savage.

He said angrily, “I demand to know why she's in danger and where she is!”

Doc Savage revised an earlier opinion that the Inspector might be a pretty good guy if slightly overzealous.

He decided the Inspector was a pompous ignoramus.

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

While Doc Savage and Inspector Carlew were still eyeing each other — the Inspector with arrogant disbelief and Doc with newly acquired disrespect — a constable thrust his red face inside the room and announced, “Mr. Foreman and the magistrate are here.”

“I'll see them now,” said the Inspector. “Send them in.”

Stanley K. Foreman — owner of the Zipper — gave Doc an unpleasant glance and addressed the Inspector.

“Magistrate Spilling has been kind enough to prepare the charges against this man together with affidavits which I will sign now.”

Doc Savage frowned. “Charges against me?” he demanded.

“That's right.”

“Why all the rush?”

“I live on Parade Island,” Foreman snapped. “I want to get home away from this heat. I wish to leave immediately, and the Magistrate was kind enough to cooperate.”

“You're clearing out of here at once?” Doc asked.

“I'm leaving. Yes.”

“In kind of a hurry, aren't you? You're not — by any chance — afraid of something that might happen?”

StanleyForeman's face did a quick change from suave mahogany to enraged bull-red coloring.

He said, “What have I got to be afraid of? You're the one who is in trouble! You're the pirate who took my boat!”

“I can explain that,” Doc said.

“I hope you can. To the judge. And it better be good!” Foreman said grimly.

“But you,” Doc said sharply, “had better have a story, too. Only I doubt if you can dig up a good enough one.”

He was disappointed when this had the effect of startling Foreman into making a retreat into silence. The man clamped his lips indignantly and didn't open them again, causing Doc to decide that the fellow had better be considered as one of the dark animals in the cave of mystery.

There were, Doc decided, some dubious points about Foreman.

It was a suspicious coincidence that Foreman had happened to stand alongside him when he was looking at the thermometer and remark that a smart man would be getting back to Boston in a hurry. Also, Foreman seemed a trifle over-vindictive in filing the piracy charge. Although it was understandable that a man who owned such a fine boat wouldn't want strangers borrowing it. But Doc mentally attached to Foreman a tag marked “suspicious”.

Inspector Carlew was glowering at Doc Savage.

“You've got to stop trumping up false charges against respectable people!” he snapped.

Doc's temper slipped.

“Don't tell me what to do, you nincompoop!” he said irately.

He knew — when it was too late to recall the words — that he had made a tactical blunder. It was not good policy — regardless of whether-or-not the Inspector was a "nincompoop" — to call him one since it automatically insured the Inspector's interest in keeping Doc in jail. This would have been the case whether the Inspector was a dope or not. Visions of an extended residence in the Yarmouth jail began to assail Doc, unpleasantly.

He was still angry. And he didn't like jails. And these 2 facts joined together in his mind, starting an emotional landslide which broke out in a rash of action. He decided to leave. And since peaceful departure wasn't practical — to leave violently!

Doc grasped the Inspector's desk and overturned it, upsetting the Inspector and also knocking Stanley K. Foreman to his knees. The astonished constable said, “Here! Here! None of that!”

The magistrate — Mr. Spilling — withdrew 2 paces and placed his hands on both cheeks like an alarmed schoolgirl.

The constable attempted to intercept Doc as he made for the door. But he was successfully deposited on the floor by a quick stop and an outthrust foot. Doc noted — with pleasure — that the door had a lock that could only be locked with a key. And the key was in the keyhole. He changed the key to the other side and locked the door as he departed.