Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (10 page)

On the theory that a woman discovered in the company of such men as the Continental assassin and the others was as likely a kidnap victim as not, Pat resolved to liberate her at the earliest opportunity.

Creeping around to the front door, Pat used a hairpin on the lock. One of her less ladylike skills was lock-picking. Doc Savage had taught her a few tricks of the trade, knowing of Pat’s propensity for getting herself into trouble. It was supposed that the bronze man had grown tired of rescuing his scrappy cousin from peril, and decided to equip her with a few necessary skills.

The lock quickly surrendered. Pat slid in, gun in hand, and eased through a well-appointed entryway. This led to a parlor dominated by a long sofa and matching armchairs upholstered in mohair. Along one wall, a grandfather clock ticked the minutes away.

VOICES were emanating from another room—evidently a library of some sort. Pat could catch glimpses of walnut book cases filled with expensive tomes that appeared from the perfect condition of their spines to be decorative rather than purchased for perusal.

A man was saying, “Now that this woman has been prevented from seeing Doc Savage, and
der bronzemann
has been neutralized, we have no time to waste.”

That was the Continental fellow. No mistaking that suave voice. Pat recognized it at once.

“Everything now depends upon returning to the lagoon to accomplish what has begun,” he continued.

“Ja,”
another agreed. “Should we fly?”

“Too risky. We will go by boat. Liners are leaving for South America daily. We will blend in with the passengers. If we encounter difficulty, it may become necessary to commandeer the boat, but let us hope that such unpleasantness may be avoided.”

“That will take time,” a man pointed out.

“We have time. Our objective will not arrive at the secret location for another two days. We have planned a long time for this—many months. And now events are coming to a head.”

They spoke reasonable English. But their pronunciation was not American. Pat recognized that they were the accents of one of the European warring powers that had stirred up so much trouble until finally war had broken out in Europe.

“Then it is time to book passage,
mein Herr Graf.”

“Attend to it, Pippel.
Schnell.
”

The one named Pippel clicked his heels—if Pat recognized the sound correctly—and came out in search of a telephone.

Pat took up a crouching position behind one of the overstuffed chairs of expensive workmanship. Her bronze-haired head was cocked, eager to capture more information.

The whizzing of a dial mechanism came, followed by a rapid exchange.

“Yes. I wish to book passage on the next steamer for Nassau in the Bahamas. Yes? The
Caribbulla?
It will suffice. Leaving tonight? That is acceptable. Yes, there are five in the party. Book under the name of…” the man seemed to hesitate. “Jon Schmidt. That is right, Schmidt. Thank you.”

Hanging up, Pippel returned to the library, saying, “It is all arranged.”

“Not quite,” Pat murmured. Coming out of her crouch, she stepped lightly toward the open library door, hogleg in hand.

Her intention was to get the drop on the group, cowgirl style.

Her intentions were good. The results were not.

Pat stepped boldly in, and started to say “Reach!” She swallowed the word, half-spoken.

For the six men were ready for her. They had spike-snouted foreign pistols out and all six were pointed at Pat and her frontier Colt.

Mentally, Pat did the arithmetic. Six guns against a six-shooter. She had one bullet for each man. They had, probably, nine slugs in each magazine.

Pat Savage did the only sensible thing.

“I surrender,” she said weakly.

The Count pointed to Pat with a new cane. “Please to drop the pistol on the rug,
fraulein.
”

Pat obliged. She set it down carefully rather than drop it. The weapon had belonged to her father and to his father before him. It was a family heirloom she did not wish to damage.

When she was done, a blonde-haired woman walked up, appraised her comprehensively, and asked, “Miss Savage?”

“Miss Hale?”

“She knows too much,” snapped the blonde, and promptly cracked Pat Savage over the head with a porcelain vase which shattered amid her luxurious bronze hair.

Pat crumpled to the nappy rug and lay still.

The Count—he was clearly the leader of the foreign band—began issuing harsh orders.

“Berling. Kolb. Vollensack. Be so good as to place her in the trunk of the autocar.”

“Shall I kill her first?” asked one.

“No. Not necessary. We will make other arrangements.”

“Perhaps we should take her up in the plane and dump her in the Sound?” another man suggested.

The Count’s serious mien brightened. “An excellent idea. Change of orders. Take her to the seaplane hangar. We will all take a nice airplane ride and Miss Savage will go for a rather unhealthy swim.
Nein?”

This seemed to be an attempt at humor on the part of the leader, but no one laughed. They were too truculent of face for laughter. In fact, they looked very grim indeed as they bundled the insensate bronze girl in a bedsheet and lifted her by the simple expedient of taking hold of both twisted ends.

In a grim silent line, the group wended their way down to the seaplane hangar. The undergrowth was not well-tended here. There were weeds, late fall wildflowers. Cattails predominated. Recent abundant rains had caused them to grow to phenomenal height.

From across a clearing, a voice called harshly, metallically, “Lay ’em down, you yeggs! You’re in a spot!”

Chapter X

THE PUGILIST

MONK MAYFAIR AND Ham Brooks chose that exact moment to pull up in Doc Savage’s new sedan.

They had made fair time leaving the city, but to travel the entire length of Long Island was a chore. Even running with a concealed siren caterwauling, it had taken over an hour to arrive at their destination.

Prudently, they had parked several blocks before their destination and were approaching by foot.

They arrived in time to spot the procession of men working their way down to the oceanside boathouse which doubled as a seaplane hangar.

That was when the disembodied voice had crashed, “Lay ’em down you yeggs! You’re in a spot!”

There was no sign of the author of the harsh warning.

The Continental leader began snarling, “Down, you men!”

The others flattened with military efficiency. They did not even drop their sheeted burden, but fell atop it. One hunkered behind Pat Savage’s concealed form, fully prepared to use the unconscious girl as a shield.

The leader was calling to his men. “Someone is over by the hangar. Acts like he has a pistol. He yelled—”

“Stay down!” invited the voice from across the clearing. “I’ve done enough kiddin’.”

The voice resembled that of a brawler of the waterfront variety.

The leader took deliberate aim at the voice, which seemed to be coming from the cattails. The swiftness with which he did that showed that he had been thinking of it. He fired. Gunsound whacked, echoed and reëchoed.

“Lay to with some sense!” rapped the voice that might have belonged to a dockwalloper.

Monk and Ham decided that falling flat was a smart decision, too. They got down on their stomachs, produced their mercy pistols. Unlatching their safeties, they began crawling forward.

“Whatcha think is up?” Monk muttered.

“Quiet, you ape,” snapped Ham. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

Gunfire was erupting from the men. They began scything weeds with smart precision.

Return fire was non-existent.

The Count’s men paused, then they climbed to their feet and began advancing in an organized skirmish line. They fired sporadically as they advanced.

Monk lunged forward in the middle of the cannonading. His rusty fist whistled and dropped a man. He booted another in the middle, with an eye to results rather than ethics, and folded the fellow like a jackknife. Then he jumped on Pippel’s back with both feet, kept jumping, as if he were hopping on a trampoline.

Ham swept in, employing his sword cane. He plinked a man in the shoulder. The other, to his astonishment, wheeled and uncorked three shots, knocking the sputtering lawyer into a drainage ditch.

Bellowing, Monk seized the shooter by the back of the neck and began bouncing him in place. Various objects—keys, a wallet and extra money and coins—began falling out of his pocket. The pistol in his grip came loose, showing that it had a “broomhandle” grip.

When Monk stopped slamming him, the man corkscrewed in such a fashion his knees seemed to knock together as he fell on his face.

Scowling, Monk Mayfair looked around for another victim.

“That is quite enough violence,” a precise voice said coldly.

Monk’s piggy eyes fell on the speaker. He was the Continental leader. In one hand was a Mills bomb. He held it in such a way as to suggest he was unafraid to use it.

“If I and my comrades are not permitted to leave,” he said coldly, “then I shall be forced to blast us all into eternity.”

Monk saw that the man was deadly serious.

“That would be like committin’ suicide,” Monk pointed out.

“No,” clipped the man. “It
would
be suicide. Such I am perfectly prepared to commit. Now stand aside. Your friend as well.”

For Ham Brooks was clambering out of the drainage ditch, apparently uninjured. Only his chainmesh undervest saved him from serious injury, if not death. He flicked leaves off his fastidious person.

“I’ll be damned,” exploded the barrister. “What’s behind this mad behavior?”

“We’ll danged soon find out,” grumbled Monk, keeping his superfirer trained on the Count. He was calculating the odds of putting the man out with a blast of mercy bullets before he could pull the pin on his hand grenade.

Then an entirely strange voice broke into the discussion.

“You’ll find it’s something unpleasant unless you stand very still.”

Monk’s neck was nothing to speak of. He had to turn his entire apish torso to look behind him, at the opposite side of the road.

A huge figure had lifted out of the weeds and was braced on widespread legs. It was an individual who looked like a prizefighter. He had a nickeled revolver which was small in his scarred, lumpy fist.

Monk started to swing his machine pistol around. The nickeled revolver lipped flame and noise. Monk ducked wildly.

“I’m levelin’ about it,” said the big man. “You two guys come loose from them guns or you’ll be picking lead out of yourselves.”

Monk considered that, then let fall his gun. Ham did the same. The pig, Habeas, sat down dog fashion and watched the proceedings with beady-eyed interest.

The pugilistic one gestured at Monk and Ham; then he pointed up the road. It ran west, toward the setting sun.

“You’d better take Horace Greeley’s advice,” he said. “And do it fast.”

“Huh?” Homely Monk seemed not to understand.

“Pick ’em up and lay ’em down,” growled the other. “Get on your bicycles. Raise a dust.”

Scowling, Monk began to run. Ham trailed him. They looked back. The prizefighter snarled loudly and lifted his gun. The two men ran faster, ceased looking back.

The pugilist looked at the hog, Habeas Corpus, and said, “Scat!”

The shoat ran after the two men.

THE MAN who looked like a prizefighter laughed grimly. He was a human hulk. Facially, he resembled the caricature which cartoonists drew to depict Old Man Prohibition a decade back. Pounding fists in the past had thickened his eyes and brows. His nose had a too-perfect shape which suggested that it had been made over by a plastic surgeon. Thin gray lines of old scars were plentiful on his face and a thick net webbed his solid hands. He wore old khaki clothes of a disreputable type.

“Come on, you guys!” he rapped at the Count and his companions.

“Who are you, if I may inquire?” drawled the Continental fellow, pocketing his grenade.

“Starr. Gloomy Starr.”

The man fit his description. He was a tall tower of muscle with a face that rather resembled an unhappy dray horse.

“I heard the ruckus and figured I’d join in,” offered Gloomy.

“To what purpose, Mr. Starr?”

“I hear shootin’ and it’s like a call to action. I’m for hire, I might add.”

“We appreciate your assistance,” said the leader coolly, “but we do not need your help.” He snapped his fingers once, sharply.

Two men went to drag out the sheeted form of Pat Savage.

The pugilistic one showed sudden interest. “What have we here?” he murmured. “A body maybe?”

“None of your concern, Mr. Starr.”

Starr smiled broadly, displaying massive, horse-like teeth. “Call me Gloomy.”

A sudden thought struck the Count. “By chance can you fly an airplane?”

“Sure as shootin’. Can ride a horse, too.”

“We have—er—a disposal problem. Would you be interested in attending to it for us?”

“How much?”

“Five hundred.”

“Dollars?”

“What else?”

“Way you gents talk, I kinda question the currency. No offense.”

“None taken, I assure you.”  The other bowed in courtly fashion. With his cane, he pointed to the brick structure by the water’s edge. “The aircraft sits in that hangar. We will wait for you here.”

“Glad to oblige,” said Gloomy Starr, packing the sheeted form over one shoulder and bearing it into the boathouse.

Minutes passed, then a green-and-white float plane scooted out and took to the skies, engine howling.

They watched the aircraft through field glasses. The pilot showed moderate skill at flying, but that was all that was required for the task at hand.

Before long, a sheeted bundle came tumbling out of the plane. It made a white splash in the surface of the Sound. Then the plane came about and ran toward them.

“When he lands, we will kill him, of course,” said Pippel, who was looking rather greenish after the severe manhandling Monk Mayfair had given him.