![]() ![]() Over the brows, there were rolls of gristle which might have been put there by much pounding. The ears were thickened, tufted with welts. His face was something with which to frighten infants. Nor was his great size the least of the man’s marked qualities. He had to bend over much more than anyone else as he came down the plane aisle. ![]() Once that’s accomplished, we can move back to that exception:Īnd if there was nothing exceptional about the appearance of the fat man, there was a great deal out of the ordinary about the last passenger to enter the ship. He turns out to have purchased two seats directly behind each other, and sits in the rearmost. The passengers who got aboard were prosperous looking ones, business persons obviously – with one exception.ĭent being Dent, the next person described is not the one exception but rather a fat man wearing a black felt hat and spectacles. The seats were comfortable, and each bore a number, for it was customary for passengers to make the reservations in advance. Their planes were huge tri-motored jobs that carried a pilot, copilot and a stewardess in the crew. … among the most modern lines serving the East Coast of the United States. Leo and the night manager discuss the mysterious telegram and then vanish from the book, never to be seen again.Įxcelsior! Excelsior Airways, that is, which turns out to be: Lemony Snickett has nothing on Lester Dent. “The dictionary defines an anonymous work as one of unknown authorship, which seems to fit in this case.” “The name was the result of a trick writing of the word ‘anonymous,'” Doc pointed out. Savage heard it through without comment then advised, “There is probably no A. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the appearance of the message then came out. He points out certain subtleties we might have missed earlier: Leo does, of course, send off the telegraph and soon after Doc Savage calls on the phone. MATTER OF VITAL DANGER TO THOUSANDS MERITS YOUR ATTENTION STOP PLEASE BOARD BOSTON TO NEW YORK PASSENGER PLANE OF EXCELSIOR AIRWAYS AT NOON TO-MORROW STOP GET ABOARD IN BOSTON STOP SUGGEST YOU USE DISGUISE AND BE PREPARED HIDEOUS AND AMAZING EXPERIENCE. Though he’s alone in the office, he investigates a wastebasket that overturns by itself, and then finds a mysterious message: a telegraph blank filled out as follow: At least, he did not believe in spooks at precisely 10 o’clock at night, as he moved behind the counter straightening the books of message blanks.Īt 10:05 Leo’s disbelief and spooks received a rude jarring. Leo Bell was a counter clerk in a Boston telegraph office. Much like Quest of Qui we begin with a certain number of negative assertions, this time about an individual: You have to respect Dent’s ability to plot and willingness to just go all the way with the weirdness at times. It’s also a fairly convoluted book, presenting the information as though sliding things into place to give us the final picture. How much that actually affects the book is something I’ll leave to you to judge. A closer look shows Doc is in the process of turning invisible the bricks behind him are starting to show through.Īuthor Lester Dent tries to pull off some tricky stuff in this book and it sometimes trips him up, unfortunately. Maybe just jazz hands the cover artist was fond of a particular kind of pose. On the red-toned cover, Doc confronts a machine with what seems to be a cabalistic gesture of some sort. For people interested in undertaking their own reads, here’s an excellent post about which Doc Savage books to start with. In the intervening time since Quest of Qui, they’ve undergone adventures The Fantastic Island, Land of Always-Night, and Murder Melody. We return to a gentler, more innocent world again with Doc Savage number 16: The Spook Legion. ![]()
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