Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray Page B

later, Doc Savage was dropping down the wire. He landed on a projecting gable. Three bats poked dark, curious heads out of the eaves, seemed to peer about, and winged off into the night, squeaking.
    Eyes sharp, nerves on edge, they watched expectantly.
    For a very long time, nothing seemed to happen.
    Inspired by past experience, they did not remove their gazes from the linked airship and roof. Slowly, they drew closer.
    Then, while their eyes were resting upon the rambling roofline, the silhouette vanished.
    Nothing audible came to their ears. One moment a stark silhouette broke the tree line, and then next, it was gone!
    Again, the leaves in the trees commenced rustling as if stirred by some power that was not the wind. For no breeze blew.
    They let out pent breaths. With them came a series of expostulations.
    “Blazes!”
    “Jove!”
    “Holy cow!”
    “I’ll be superamalgamated!”
    “Damn!”
    The last to speak was Long Tom Roberts. His voice was an anguished whisper.
    “Doc!” he moaned. “Where did he go?”
    There was no sensible answer to the question.
    WHEN Doc’s men had gotten their paralyzed mental processes going again, they rushed to the spot, pushing boughs and branches aside in their mad haste.
    Arriving, they all but collided with the slab foundation that did not support any structure.
    Monk laid a hand on it. It was cool to the touch. He said so.
    “What does that prove, you ape?” snapped Ham.
    “I dunno,” Monk admitted. “But it must mean something.”
    “It’s a cool night,” said Long Tom.
    Johnny seemed to be the one who demonstrated the most calmness and presence of mind. He circled the slab, using his monocle magnifier, which he habitually wore affixed to one lapel of his perpetually ill-fitting suit.
    “Fundament is constitutionally a hydrological matrix of aggregate, plus opus caementicium, ” he pronounced.
    “Say that again in English,” requested Renny.
    “This foundation consists of poured concrete.”
    “Anybody can see that,” Monk returned. “Tell us something we don’t already know.”
    “It is modern. The roof we discerned belongs to a Victorian home of the last century. They were built on stone foundations.”
    “Ergo?” prompted Ham.
    “Ergo, the hallucinatory habitation had to have been relocated from another fundament—foundation to you.”
    They looked around.
    Renny said, “How? The only road in or out is fit for a mule, at most.”
    Johnny fingered his monocle thoughtfully.
    “It is unlikely that it was disassembled and relocated on this spot,” he mused. “Wooden homes are not like European castles which can be broken down into their component stones and transported for reassembly.”
    “So we’re back to where we started,” complained Monk. “Nowhere!”
    Ham Brooks was gazing upward, dark eyes concerned
    “Our dirigible is drifting away,” he observed with worry.
    Monk decided to do something about that.
    Selecting a tall tree, he took off his shoes and socks and began to climb it like a great long-armed baboon. His arboreal agility would do credit to a squirrel.
    Reaching the top, the homely chemist roosted there and searched for the trailing grappling hook. He transfixed it with the beam of his pocket flash.
    It was dangling out of reach. As Monk watched, it moved away.
    Gathering his burly body, Monk launched himself off a branch and caught the guy wire.
    With a jar, the dirigible dropped several feet. Then it continued its lazy drifting, the apish chemist holding on.
    Hand over hand, Monk ascended the line until he came within reach of the dangling climbing rope.
    Monk began swinging side to side, building up bodily momentum. Now he brought to mind a Neanderthal man in action.
    “That hairy gossoon is certain to get his neck broken!” howled Ham. For a moment, he forgot himself. Fear for his friend’s safety was written all over his patrician features.
    Soon, Monk was swinging like a human pendulum. This brought him closer and