Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) Read Online Free

conversation?”
    “The young woman has been telling your friend all about her plantation in Louisiana and has invited him to come back with her on a vacation.”
    “I suspected as much! She is nothing less than a gold digger. If she only knew the state of Monk’s finances, she would whistle a different tune.”
    “Mr. Monk appears to be very interested in going to Louisiana.”
    “Monk always talks like that. But I happen to know that he has no time for any such frivolous trip at present.”
    “On the contrary,” corrected the waiter. “They have just now agreed to take the morning train to Shreveport, from there to drive to the young lady’s plantation.”
    “You don’t say!” Ham blurted out. His eyes grew narrow. “Perhaps that hairy mistake is just leading her on. Monk is not going to turn down an opportunity to make some money for a vacation he doesn’t need.”
    “From what I overheard, Mr. Monk sounded very sincere,” supplied the waiter.
    The maître d’ came from the front of the restaurant and signaled to the waiter that he was needed. The waiter made excuses, was gone ten minutes, after which he returned to report, “Mr. Monk and the attractive young lady have departed, sir.”
    Removing his napkin from his throat, Ham snagged his elegant cane, and bolted out the back without another word.
    Circling the block, he emerged onto a crosstown street in time to see the hairy chemist pouring the smiling blonde into the back of a taxicab. Monk clapped the door shut, handed the driver a bill, and waved the cab away.
    His grin was so wide, the ends could have met at a point over the back of his neck. He rubbed his hairy hands together gleefully.
    Sauntering up, Ham Brooks accosted the homely chemist and remarked, “So there you are! I have been searching for you.”
    Monk’s grin half collapsed. He turned, eyeing the dapper lawyer suspiciously.
    “You been followin’ me, you sneaky shyster?” he growled.
    “Hardly,” sniffed Ham. “I have eaten and merely wished to ascertain that you had done so as well.”
    “Dandy of you,” said Monk blandly, noticing a suspicious dab on spaghetti sauce on Ham’s chin his napkin failed to sop up.
    They stood staring at one another for a few seconds, after which Ham remarked casually, “So how did it go with your latest obsession?”
    “She thinks I’m the niftiest thing to be found in New York City,” boasted Monk.
    “She has not yet been to the dog pound, I presume?”
    Normally such a cutting remark brought a surly response from the hairy chemist, but Monk was so intoxicated by his blonde lunch companion that he failed to offer any riposte.
    Instead, he said, “Davey and I are takin’ the train back west to her stamping grounds, and she’s going to show me her father’s plantation. It’s a sugar mill now.”
    “What about your sea trip to Europe?”
    “Aw, I can do that another time. There’s no rush. There are plenty of boats crossin’ the Atlantic in the convoys.”
    “And a goodly supply of German raiders prepared to sink them during the crossing,” chided Ham.
    “All the more reason to put off that trip for a better time,” said Monk.
    By now, they were walking along in the direction of Doc Savage’s headquarters.
    “Has it occurred to you that that glossy wench may be up to no good?” inquired Ham.
    Monk grinned and said, “When I bowl ’em over, they go down like tenpins.”
    “It might behoove you to do a little background checking on your new friend, in case this is a clever trap.”
    Monk scowled like a gorilla who discovered a coconut he had taken the trouble to crack open was dry as a bone.
    “What kind of trap would be waitin’ for me out in Louisiana? And why would anyone set one? We ain’t involved in anything right now. Neither is Doc Savage. There’s no trouble in the air, so there can’t be any trap.”
    Ham reminded, “There have been times in the past when traps have been laid for us before we discovered the