THEY made a competent search of the young woman's room. What they found did not give much satisfaction. She obviously had money to spend on clothes, and had good taste.

Monk removed his old-man makeup in the bathroom at the gloomy conclusion of the fruitless search.

Ham said, "That was sure a good disguise. And you did some fine acting. I don't see how she caught on."

"I had a theatrical make-up expert put it on," Monk said sourly. "He's in the same building with Doc's offices. I think I'll go in there and pull an ear off him. Of course, she saw through the make-up!"

They went downstairs, and after some arguing, found that the young woman had registered with the name of T. Hannah, Washington, D. C. That was all.

They arranged to be called immediately if the young woman should reappear at the hotel.

"Now," Monk said, "we get the home address of that messenger whose name she used, Neddie Wooster."

Neddie Wooster lived in the Bronx, and he was a scrawny-looking young man, obviously a 4F in the draft. He was home reading a newspaper. Fortunately, they found that he scared easily. And when he was scared, he talked very rapidly.

Ten dollars was the answer.

The ten dollars had been given Neddie Wooster by the young woman for the rental of his uniform and the privilege of using it for what she had explained was a "masquerade party." Neddie Wooster had only one uniform, so he had been forced to stay at home, which he hadn't minded until Monk and Ham turned up.

As scared as Neddie Wooster was after Monk and Ham got through with him, his story could not have been anything but the truth.

"Dead end," Monk said. "That's a foxy girl."

"Well, anyway, we've done enough that now we can face Doc Savage without blushing," Ham said.

"That is-I can." He grinned at Monk. "I wouldn't know about you!"

Monk asked gloomily, "You going to tell them I got into trouble because of a pretty girl again?"

"Am I?" Ham chortled. "Brother!"

Monk became belligerent and tried threatening Ham. "You keep your blat shut!" Monk yelled. "Or I'll hit you over the head so hard you'll be using your shoe eyelets for portholes."Ham wasn't impressed.

DOC SAVAGE occupied the eighty-sixth floor of the building in which Monk and Ham operated the preliminary inspection office on the fifth floor.

The eighty-sixth floor was devoted mostly to laboratory and library, but there was a small reception room in which the furnishings consisted of some upholstered chairs, an unusual inlaid table, and an enormous safe.

Monk and Ham told their story. Monk tried to leave out the part about his own misfortune, but Ham put that in, trying not to howl with mirth.

Doc Savage listened without comment and without visible show of emotion.

Doc Savage looked almost as unusual as his reputation, a characteristic which few famous people have.

He was a giant of a man, so symmetrically proportioned that his true size was not evident until one stood close to him, or saw him near some object to which his giant stature could be compared.

Tropical suns had turned his skin a deep bronze, and his hair was a shade of bronze only slightly darker.

His features were regular, handsome, but not fine-featured. His eyes were dominant, strange, like pools of flake gold always stirred by tiny winds.

The strength of the man, however, came from the things he did and said-or the way he did and said things, rather than from his unusual size and appearance. There was corded strength in his movements, and a quality of controlled power in his voice. He had these things to a great degree, and in that respect he did resemble men who have a great reputation, since greatness is probably more personality and character than any superhuman physical strength or wizardlike collection of knowledge.

Ham placed the wire-bound box on the table.

"There it is," he finished. "We X-rayed it. It shows empty under the X ray."

"We think," said Monk, "that it must be full of poison gas."

"What gave you the idea?" Doc asked quietly.

"What else could be in it?" Monk said.

DOC SAVAGE studied the box for a while. It was one of his peculiarities, one of the evidences of his unusual early life, that he rarely showed emotion.

There were few other evidences of his strange youth, which in itself was remarkable, because the upbringing should have produced a human freak.

Doc Savage had been placed in the hands of scientists in babyhood, under the direction and financial support of his father; and from then on, for many years, he had been trained for the specific job of following the strange and unusual career of righting wrongs and punishing evildoers in the out-of-the-way corners of the earth. He followed that career now.

The training had left him somewhat different from other men in personality, and certainly a great deal different in abilities. His physical strength was phenomenal. His mental equipment was fantastic.He finished inspecting the box, said, "Will you get a small pocket compa.s.s, Monk?"

Monk hurried into the laboratory, came back with a compa.s.s of the type Boy Scouts carry.

"You notice," Doc said, "the wire. It is nowhere tied in a knot or twisted together."

He pa.s.sed the compa.s.s close to the wire.

The compa.s.s needle was slightly attracted in many places.

"I don't get it," Monk said. Then Monk's eyes got wide. "Blazes! Wait a minute! A recorder wire!"

Like any mystery, it was simple when understood. Doc Savage had used the method of recording conversation on wire for a long time. It was more efficient than using wax records for recording, particularly when recordings over long periods of time were necessary.

Ham dashed away and came back with the device which took the magnetic impulses off the wire and transferred them into sound.

(Magnetic recording on steel wire has been practical for a long time, but only recently have commercial models of such a device been prepared. This is probably the future form of voice recording and will displace wax dictaphone and wax phonograph methods. For steel wire cannot be shattered, and it can be used over and over again when previous messages are "erased" by demagnetizing. This device incidentally, is one of the scientific gadgets introduced and used by Doc Savage long before such apparatus was marketed or even patented.) The wire had been recorded on a machine of different operating speed from their own. As a result, the voice was a ducklike squawking and gabbling at first. But they got the speed right.

The recorded voice became coherent. It was a deep, educated, pleasant voice, with the harsh burr in it of a man who had used the voice, and loudly, in shouting orders. It said: "Mr. Savage, this is Major Sam Lowell, United States army, War Department Annex, Washington, D. C. I am taking this rather unusual method of getting a message to you because unusual measures seem necessary.

"I have reason to believe any normal method of communicating with you which I might take would result in this information falling into the wrong hands, with the consequence of danger to both of us.

"I could use a great many words explaining this thing. All the words would add up to little, however. So I am just going to say one thing: "I need your help.

"I am confronted with an inexplicable mystery, and I have the feeling that the thing is going to grow into, a matter of great importance. I have asked my superior officers who to consult, and they recommend you. They say you have offered your services in connection with unusual matters such as this. I a.s.sure you it is an unusual matter, and I want your help.

"Will you arrange to meet me Wednesday night, 10 p.m., the houseboat named 'Four Seasons,'

foot of K Street.

"The operative who will deliver this is a girl, in case you have not so discovered, and a verycapable operative in my department.

"This is very important, so I will expect you-and thanks."

That was all of the message, and Doc Savage switched off the reproducing apparatus.

Monk muttered, "She was capable, all right. But I didn't dream she was an army intelligence agent."

"That doesn't tell us much, Doc," Ham said.

"As much, probably," Doc suggested, "as could be trusted to a communication. This is war time, you know. And mistakes too often mean human lives."

"Army intelligence operative, eh?" Monk said, sounding pleased. "You know, I had the feeling that girl was all right all along."

"All you had," Ham said unkindly, "was your usual feelings when you see a pretty girl."

NORMALLY, there were five a.s.sociates in Doc Savage's group. There was a sixth, a young woman, Patricia Savage, who was Doc's cousin, who managed to nose into their troubles occasionally. Monk and Ham were two of the group.

The other three members were William Harper-Johnny-Littlejohn; Colonel John-Renny-Renwick; and Major Thomas J.-Long Tom-Roberts. Johnny was an archaeologist and geologist, Renny was an engineer, and Long Tom was the electrical expert of the organization.

Long Tom was in Russia at the moment, serving as consulting expert with the Russian army.

Doc Savage began trying to get Renny and Johnny on the telephone.

"Patricia is in California, setting up the physical-conditioning system for a new WAAC camp," Ham said.

"We can sit back and breathe easy, knowing she won't barge into this."

Monk was eyeing the record-wire.

"Doc," he said, "do you know a Major Lowell?"

"No," Doc said.

"I don't either," Monk remarked. "Ham, do you?"

Ham said he didn't, and got Renny and Johnny on the telephone. "You want to talk to them, Doc?"

Taking the phone, Doc asked, "What are you two doing now?"

"Serving as ornaments." Renny Renwick had a big voice, the voice of something very large in a very cavernous hole.

"Then," Doc said, "you would not mind joining us to look into something that might be interesting?"

"It would sure be a relief," Renny declared.

"You and Johnny arrange to be in Washington as soon as possible," Doc said. "Meet us at the usual hotel.""Holy cow! Sure."

Doc Savage hung up the telephone. He turned his attention back to the box around which the voice-record wire had been wrapped. They had opened the box as a matter of course, and found it empty. Or Monk and Ham had considered it empty.

"If we get a chance to ask questions about this," Doc said, "we might ask questions about a green parrot and its nest."

Monk stared. "Green parrot and its nest! What the blazes!"

Doc indicated two very small feathers he had found in the box, and some small bits of litter. He pointed out what the other two had overlooked-that the feathers were breast feathers off a parrot, a green one, and that the litter was part of a nest, perhaps. At any rate, the twigs were tropical in origin, bits of lignum vitae and other growth typical to the tropics. South America and the Caribbean Islands.

"Do not overlook the parrot," Doc said.

Chapter III. THE WASHINGTON TRICK.

THEY sat down at the airport in Washington, the airport across the river used by the commercial planes, by midafternoon. The airline had a cab waiting, and they moved fast, because it was easier to do what they wanted to do before offices closed for the day.

Monk and Ham had received instructions on the plane, and they scattered to follow them. Their job was to check up and be sure there was a Major Lowell, and find out what they could about him.

They took along the wire-record, and a transcribing apparatus, to check Major Lowell's voice.

Doc Savage himself looked into the matter of the woman operative, T. Hannah.

There was some doubt in his mind whether her name was T. Hannah, which was the name under which she had registered at the hotel in New York City.

However, there was a woman operative named T. Hannah. She was not connected with the war department directly, or any of the other armed services. T. Hannah, it seemed, was a private detective agency operator.

Doc telephoned the T. Hannah agency.

"Miss Hannah," he was told, "is not available today. She is out of the city on business."

"In New York City?" Doc asked.

"I am sorry. You will understand that much of our business is confidential."

"This is Doc Savage," Doc explained.

There was some deliberation at the other end of the wire. "In that case," said the voice at the agency-it was a man speaking-"there is probably no harm in telling you that Miss Hannah went to New York to deliver a package to you."

"Does she have a green parrot?""Why, no."

"Can you give me any information concerning the package?"

"I am sorry. I cannot. As I understand, a client of Miss Hannah's wished the package to be delivered to you, and the circ.u.mstances were such that it was a somewhat dangerous job, demanding the personal attention of Miss Hannah. That is all I know about it."