Dent Lester - Trouble On Parade

The route to the street — down a hall and through a door — was without obstacle.

He began walking rapidly. With disagreeable speed his rage evaporated, boiling out of his mind and leaving as a nasty residue the certainty that he had probably made a fool out of himself. It had been done neatly and quickly. But it hadn't been the thing to do.

Presently a female voice spoke near his shoulder.

“I've been waiting around for you to get out,” it said.

The effect of having Mix Walden — the: Number 1" quarrelsome girl — accost him was somewhat like being hit by 2 kinds of lightning.

The first bolt being amazement that anyone could have approached him unobserved. And the second just normal astonishment. He found some difficulty in recovering his breath.

“You gave me a start,” he remarked.

“After the way you jumped,” she said, “you'd better look and see if you're still standing in your shoes.”

He saw that it was no marvel that she had approached him unobserved. Because she hadn't. She had simply been waiting in a doorway which he had passed — mantled in darkness — and she had leaned out to accost him.

“I saw them yank you into their jail,” Mix Walden added. “So I waited around. I don't like you. And I don't trust you. But I figured they weren't 'man enough' to keep you in jail for very long.”

“Thank you,” Doc said drly, “for the vote of confidence.”

“Confidence nothing! With your reputation, I knew they wouldn't lock you up. The worse they would do was let you go with a reprimand.”

“They didn't exactly 'let' me go,” Doc explained.

“Sure they did. You're out, aren't you?”

“I didn't leave with the proper ceremonies, however. I believe they will call it 'breaking out of jail'.”

Mix Walden sounded alarmed!

“You mean you busted out?”

“Yes.”

“Did you conk anybody?”

“Unfortunately, I had to do some shoving and upsetting.”

Mix grabbed his arm in alarm.

“Come on! We can't stand around here if you broke jail! They'll be looking for you. They'll be …”

She stared at his face in fright.

“Or will they? You didn't knock anybody off, did you?”

“Hardly.”

“Come on,” Mix ordered. “If you shoved that Inspector Carlew, he'll be as mad as a hornet! I know that pompous little fuddyduddy.”

Doc Savage permitted himself to be yanked into an alley where the going was very uncomfortable on his ankles. The paving seemed to be composed entirely of round stones about the size of footballs.

“Do you,” he asked, “know where you're going?”

“I hope to tell you,” said Mix.

“Is it a safe place?”

“You won't find a cop there,” Mix said. “But I can't guarantee you won't have your pocket picked.”

After some 15 minutes of twistings and turnings, Doc found himself halted and Mix rapping some sort of a signal on a door in which a peephole presently flew open, permitting them a view of a villainous-looking eye.

“Open up, Clarence,” Mix said.

Clarence started to unbar the door … then became cautious and returned his eye to the peephole to demand, “Who's that you got with you, Mix?”

“This is Joe Blow from Boston. He just punched Inspector Carlew in the nose and he's on the lam,” Mix said.

Clarence opened the door with pleasure!

“Make yourself at home, Joe,” he said happily. “Soaked prissy Carlew one, did you? By golly, that's great!”

“He spit in Carlew's eye and also broke 2 of his ribs,” Mix added.

Doc whispered, “Don't lay it on so thick.”

They were escorted to a corner table in a room so dimly lighted that Doc felt like striking matches to see where he was going. The joint, he decided, was some kind of whisper-low. Although what a speak-easy was doing in Nova Scotia, he didn't know.

Mix must have read his thoughts because she explained, “Clarence used to run a speak in New York. But they chased him out, and now he has to live here. He gets awful homesick for the old days and keeps this place so he'll feel more at home.”

Doc took this explanation with some salt. He thought it might be well to heed her first warning about getting his pocket picked.

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

Clarence brought them 2 glasses and a bottle which Doc felt — from the odor — must contain varnish remover.

“Just some hot coffee, please,” Doc said.

“Hell!” Clarence said. He was insulted.

“My pal wants coffee for a chaser,” Mix explained.

Clarence pointed at the bottle and said, “That's the chaser. I'm going after the stuff that it chases now.”

He strode off.

“If you don't drink, pour it on the floor,” Mix suggested. “Clarence will feel hurt if he thinks you're not accepting his hospitality.”

“It'll probably eat holes in the floor,” Doc said dubiously.

Mix leaned across the table, lowered her voice, and got down to business.

“Listen! You talked to my sister, didn't you?” she demanded.

Doc admitted that he had. He didn't add that he had fed her sister a "Mickey".

“The reason I waited around the jail for you,” said Mix, “is because I'm worried about Jane.”

“I'm worried about her, too,” Doc admitted.

“You got her into a mess, didn't you?” Mix demanded.

“I … well, not intentionally.”

“You,” said Mix, “fed her knockout drops.”

“Did I?”

“Don't kid around with me, brother! I know you did. And so do the cops.”

“How did they find it out?” Doc asked curiously.

“The assistant manager of the hotel was suspicious. And he had the hotel physician go up to Jane's room. He saw that she had been drugged. There wasn't any liquor on her breath. It was on her dress. And Jane doesn't drink, anyway.”

Doc Savage decided it would be prudent to say nothing. And he did so.

Mix gave him a grim look.

“You got Jane into it,” she said. “Now, pal, it's up to you to get her out!”

“How?”

“By finding her, stupid!”

Clarence returned at this point with a second bottle, the contents of which accomplished what Doc had believed was impossible — smelling worse than the first bottle. Clarence had another glass. He filled it and theirs.

“Here's to Inspector Carlew, the pussy-face,” said Clarence. “May all of his children be ant-eaters!”

They were — Doc saw with horror! — going to have to partake of the beverage or else insult Clarence.

At this point, Doc had a flash of wisdom and — shoving back his chair noisily — made a grand gesture (several of them), lifted the glass to his lips, swallowed roundly, and sat it down empty. He patted his lips delicately and said, “It would be a shame to spoil such a gentlemanly potion with a chaser.”

Clarence looked startled. But he drank his own glass empty and for a moment, it seemed he was going to go unscathed.

Then he said “Who-eee!” hoarsely and began to stamp the floor and flap his hands against his middle as if trying to cool off the interior.

He said “Who-eeeee!” again and tried to say more. But the words seemed to balk at going from his lungs into the route the liquor had traversed. He walked off stamping hard on the floor, looking dazed.

Mix was wiping tears out of her eyes although she had taken only a sip.

“My God! Have you got a lead-lined throat?” she demanded.

Doc smiled and remarked, “Not a bad beverage. Not at all.”

Pleased with the impression he'd made, he decided never to reveal that he'd exercised a little of what magicians call "misdirection". He had poured the potion on the floor instead of drinking it.