The Running Skeletons by Kenneth Robeson;Lester Dent

Author:Kenneth Robeson;Lester Dent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Blackmask Online
Published: 2001-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

HAM BROOKS missed Monk Mayfair almost immediately, chancing to glance across the driveway, which was as wide as a street at this point, and noticing that Monk was not in sight.

“Monk!” Ham called.

He was not alarmed until he got no answer. Then, suddenly apprehensive, he dashed across the driveway, plowed into the bushes. “Monk!” he called. “Where are you?”

Thirty seconds or so and there was no answer.

Then there was a crashing of shrubbery—a large, animated object traveling full speed. This proved to be Monk. He came toward Ham.

“Monk!” Ham said. “You silly mutt, what is the idea of acting—hey! Hey! Monk, what on earth?”

Because Monk gave no slightest sign of seeing Ham, knowing where he was, or knowing where he was going—except that he wanted to get there fast.

“Monk!” Ham yelled.

Monk's mouth was open its very widest, with jaw and cheek muscles straining as if he were trying to get it open wider. His throat was a thick column of sinew, the way a man's throat gets when he is strangling on his feelings.

“Where's that dog case?”

Ham screamed at him.

Monk did not have the case.

All he had was an inarticulate spasm, paroxysm, fit or whatever kind of a seizure it was, and an unearthly and unbounded desire to get as far away from there as fast as mad speed could do it.

Ham made a flying tackle.

He brought Monk down.

“Monk!” gasped Ham. “What happened? What on earth is the matter? Where's the case?”

Wordless and frenzied, Monk tried to get up and escape. Exasperated, Ham gave him a couple of wallops over the head with his sword cane. “You haven't any brains, blast you!” Ham said. “But I'll beat out the sawdust or whatever it is you've got in place of them. What ails you, anyhow?”

This either stunned or sobered Monk because he stopped struggling. He sat there for a moment, making visible efforts to relax and to get his vocal cords to functioning. He made a few croakings.

“I'll be superamalgamated!” he said.

“That's Johnny's word,” Ham said disagreeably. “Come to your senses, you accident of nature.”

Monk swallowed a few times. “Dog!” he gulped.

“What?”

“Dog.”

Ham immediately hit Monk over the head with his sword cane again. “You gossoon!” he said. “So you tried to double-cross me, and took a look at the dog yourself. That what happened?”

Monk nodded weakly.

“I wish I'd let you do it,” Monk said with bitter feeling.

Ham's anger subsided as he inspected Monk. It was very plain that something far out of the ordinary had happened to the homely chemist.

“Where's the dog?” Ham demanded in alarm. “You let it get away.”

“Box,” Monk said.

“The dog is still in the box?”

“Y-yes.”

“And where,” asked Ham, “is the box?”

Monk looked around foolishly and pointed two or three different directions. Apparently he was confused as to just what direction he had been coming.

“I don't see what they gave you a head for,” Ham said disgustedly. “Especially one that looks like that article you've got.”

Ham hauled Monk to his feet and began hunting. He set out in

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