Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (22 page)

Doc Savage said, “If I am not mistaken, this was explained to you.”

“All that you coughed up was that you had that particular trick pulled on you before. Which explains exactly nothing.”

Hornetta folded her arms defiantly.

Ham Brooks quipped, “You should know that a magician never reveals his tricks.”

To which Monk Mayfair added, “Yeah, that’s right. Not only that, but Doc’s secrets keep him alive.”

Hornetta Hale flounced around, presenting her attractive back to them all. She looked over one raised, sun-blistered shoulder.

“You know my terms. They stand just the way I do. If you want me to turn around, start yakking.”

Doc Savage heaved a tiny sigh—which was a mountain of emotion where the bronze man was concerned.

“Getting out of the sedan was no effort whatsoever,” he began.

Hornetta whirled. “That van was sealed so tight you couldn’t open the car doors a crack once you were trapped in the back. So don’t hand me that hooey!”

Doc Savage continued patiently, “As you know, we have fallen for that trick in the past. So my new automobile was designed with that future eventuality in mind.”

Hornetta eyed the bronze man skeptically. “In other words, it was built so you could get out if it ever happened again?”

“Precisely,” remarked Ham Brooks.

Doc Savage looked at Hornetta Hale in the hope that she was satisfied by that explanation.

But the blonde spitfire was not. She wiggled her fingers at the bronze man, saying, “Give.”

Doc Savage gave what was for him a rather long speech.

“The interior of the sedan was rigged so that the driver, by pushing back on his seat, could crawl into the rear seat, and by removing the seat cushions, thereby wriggle into the trunk.”

Hornetta looked very interested.

“Once in the trunk, it was a simple matter to actuate a catch, which caused the trunk to spring open.”

“I get it now,” Hornetta crowed. “But that does not explain how you got out of the van interior. It was locked tight.”

“By standing on the sedan’s hood, it was possible to apply acid with a special tool on the underside of the van’s roof.”

Hornetta cocked a dubious eyebrow. “Acid?”

“By painting a nearly complete circle in the roof,” continued Doc, “a large hole was created. It was then possible to push up the top of the roof in the same way that the lid of a soup can might be opened after the application of a can opener.”

“Clever,” said Hornetta. “But how did you get the vehicle out of the van?”

“By crawling to the back end, hanging upside in front of the door, anchored by a small grappling hook and line I always carry, and picking the padlock. Once the doors opened, it was possible to swing into the van interior.”

Hornetta made nearly comical faces as she processed the mental pictures created by Doc’s succinct account.

“I drove along the whole time, and I didn’t hear anything. Spill.”

Doc Savage said, with more patience than he possessed at the moment, “I climbed back into the car, engaged the motor and released the brake when you were on an uphill grade, and the sedan rolled out the back.”

“I would’ve heard that!” Hornetta snapped. “I’d have seen you out my rearview mirror.”

Doc Savage related, “You may recall that Monk’s pet pig was putting up quite a fuss at the time. This covered any noise we made. Furthermore, the sedan was equipped with aviation-style shock absorbers. This allowed it to land safely without a ramp. With the engine running, the sedan shot ahead rather briskly. After following the van closely for a time, we waited for you to go around a tree-shaded bend in the road. At which juncture, we pulled over to the side of the road, and parked. Possibly you noticed the vehicle then, but failed to realize it was the one that had been inside your truck.”

“Impossible!” raged Hornetta.

Monk Mayfair inserted, “Like it or not, that’s how it happened.”

Fuming, Hornetta fretted for almost a minute as if searching for a retort. It was clear that the salty female was smarting from having been outwitted in such a spectacular fashion.

“One second, buster! Who closed the doors to the van?”

Doc Savage hesitated.

“Out with it!”

“It was necessary to fool you into thinking that nothing untoward happened.”

“Watch what you call me. I do not like that word, fool.”

“Just a manner of speaking,” the bronze man reassured her. “My associate, Monk here, climbed out onto the sedan’s hood and reclosed the doors, replacing the padlock, which I had previously pocketed.”

“You never suspected a thing,” chuckled Monk.

Hornetta Hale was struck, for once, utterly speechless. Her brow began to furrow, and she appeared to be searching her memory.

“That tangled-up yarn you just spun,” she said archly, “does not make a whole sweater.”

Doc asked, “In what way?”

“When I flung open the doors, I didn’t notice any hole in my roof.”

Doc Savage admitted, “I neglected to mention that I left my coat over the roof in order to mask the outlines of the lid, which I forced back down into place.”

By this time, Hornetta Hale was almost lobster-red with indignation.

“No sale!” she snapped at last. “I don’t buy any of that hogwash you just slopped over me.”

With that, she placed two fingers against one corner of her mouth and made a sideways zipping motion, leaving her lips completely sealed.

“Double-crosser!” raged Monk Mayfair.

Long Tom spoke up. “Let me shake some truth out of her, Doc.”

Doc Savage regarded the woman with the sealed lips as if facing one of the most intractable problems he had ever encountered outside of a scientific laboratory.

“We are going to be stuck with one another until the end of this affair,” he said with just a trace of steel edging his voice. “Cooperation will be essential.”

Hornetta Hale said acidly, “Go climb up your right leg and slide down your left. Don’t forget to tighten your shoelaces while you’re about it.”

With that, she once more presented them with her defiant but very sunburned back.

“That,” fumed Ham Brooks, “seems to be the end of that.”

Chapter XXI

HORNETTA STINGS AGAIN

HAD HIS COUSIN, Patricia Savage, not gone missing under such mysterious circumstances, it is unlikely that Doc Savage would have behaved as he did now.

The bronze man strode up to Hornetta Hale, seized her fiery red shoulders, and spun her around until the startled blonde was facing him.

The strength of the Herculean bronze man was undeniable. Hornetta Hale momentarily lost her facial composure. She looked on the verge of being afraid of the towering metallic Samson who stood over her.

“My cousin is missing,” Doc Savage said harshly. “It is imperative that we locate her without delay.”

“I don’t know where she is!” Hornetta retorted hotly, her naturally feisty female personality reasserting itself.

“You know a great many answers to our questions.”

“What if I do?” she sneered.

“Has this anything to do with your having antagonized a certain foreign dictator years ago, when you flew rings around his nation’s passenger dirigible?” queried Doc.

“No comment,” snapped Hornetta.

Doc Savage’s ever-active flake-gold eyes were boring into Hornetta’s strikingly blue ones. The bronze man modulated his vibrant voice until it became quiet but compelling.

“You will explain why you were so anxious to obtain a submersible.”

“What are you doing!” Hornetta demanded, trying to look away.

The bronze giant would have none of it. He forced her to meet his penetrating gaze, then demanded, “Why were you marooned on that island in the first place?”

“That’s my business! I tried to hire you, but you wouldn’t make a deal.”

“Who are the Men Under the Sea?” Doc questioned. “And what have they to do with the sign of the twisted cross?”

“How do you know about that?” Hornetta flung back.

“Do you not remember the message you carved into the palm tree on that Caribbean cay?”

“Oh. So you checked the island out, did you?”

Not taking his whirling eyes off the blonde girl, Doc Savage nodded firmly. “Tell me about the ones who live under the sea,” he directed.

Hornetta Hale found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the bronze man’s compelling orbs. They fascinated. They seemed alive in a very strange way, as if their animated depths were full of radiant lights like aureate stars. There might have been a galaxy of golden sparks in either eye.

The more Hornetta peered into them, the more they seemed to expand, enlarge, and all but swallow her.

“They—they are hideous,” Hornetta blurted out. “Monsters. Spawn of a terrible civilization. They aim to take over the world.”

“Why did you carve that symbol?” pressed Doc.

Hornetta seemed on the verge of divulging a modicum of truth, but abruptly she shook her head and snapped her eyes shut.

“Stop trying to hypnotize me!” she spat.

Doc released her abruptly, his features dark with suppressed emotion.

Monk Mayfair interjected, “Do we have any truth serum on board?”

Doc Savage told Monk, “Go look.”

The apish chemist went below, rummaged around for a time, and came back holding a hypodermic needle that had been fully charged with a rather murky-looking chemical.

Monk asked seriously, “Should I just jab her with this?”

Doc Savage nodded. “I will hold her for you.”

Hornetta Hale began flailing frantically, attempting to wrest out of the bronze man’s metallic fingers, but it was no good. The grip was unbreakable.

Monk ambled over, and seized Hornetta’s right arm at the elbow. Her arms were bare, so there was no necessity of lifting sleeves.

“No! Stop! Wait!” Hornetta snapped. “I’ll talk. Just put that needle away.”

In the act of introducing the truth serum, Monk looked to Doc.

Doc Savage told Hornetta, “Last chance, young lady!”

“That symbol I carved. You recognized it? You know what it means?”

Doc Savage nodded. “It is the political sign emblazoned on the flag of one of the warring European nations.”

“It’s more than that,” Hornetta returned. “That mark is as old as civilization. I found it on Hopi pottery and Navajo blankets. In temples on the Indian subcontinent, and elsewhere.”

Doc Savage nodded. “It is an ancient symbol, having many meanings. The significance of the symbol varies from nation to nation, depending upon the era.”

Now that things were taking a conversational turn, Hornetta began subsiding.

“There is an island in the Caribbean, and on that island is an ancient ruin,” she informed them. “That mark can be found on that island.”

“What is the significance of this island?” asked Doc.

“It is the isle where the Men Under the Sea dwell,” replied Hornetta matter-of-factly.

Ham Brooks was listening very closely, and said, “This is not the first wild tale she has attempted to tell us.” Suspicion threaded his well-bred tones.

“This time I’m leveling with you,” insisted Hornetta. “Find that island, and you’ll find your cousin. That’s my guess. If the mermen took her, that’s where they would hold her.”

DOC SAVAGE searched Hornetta Hale’s fiery face, as if searching for signs of truthfulness. He did not speak, but the bronze man would have been the first to admit—assuming he was willing to be so uncharacteristically forthcoming—that he was an utter failure at reading the female face.

“Can you lead us to this island?” he asked finally.

“Turn me loose, and I will. It’s a promise.”

Ham Brooks objected vociferously. “Doc! You can’t possibly trust this woman after all she has said and done!”

Monk Mayfair added, “She’s poison. She’s shown that a bunch of times. Don’t listen to her. She’ll just fly away on us.”

Although normally impassive of countenance, Doc Savage’s expression twisted slightly at the corners of his mouth and around the eyes. His normal emotional reserve was cracking. He was genuinely torn.

At last he said, “Time is of the essence.”

“No fooling,” murmured Hornetta. “Do you let me go, or do you jab me with that thing, and lose some of the who-knows-how-many-hours of search time?”

With evident reluctance, Doc Savage released Hornetta Hale and said, “Take us to the island of the Men Under the Sea.”

Monk and Ham began objecting in raw voices, talking over one another to such a vociferous degree that their precise words blended and mixed in a verbal confusion.

It was Long Tom Roberts who became the voice of reason.

“Doc’s right,” he said. “If we’re ever to find Pat, it’s now or maybe never. And that never probably means forever.”

That silenced everyone. Hornetta Hale backed away from them all, turned to the rail, and made a great splashing dive into the Caribbean Sea.

She wasted no time in backstroking to her waiting plane. Climbing aboard, the prickly blonde started up her overpowered engine, and was soon running the plane into the soft Caribbean headwind.

Doc Savage lunged for the controls, began jazzing the big Diesel engines.

As they watched, Hornetta’s yellow-and-black ship with its Wasp radial engine went banging along the water’s surface. It jumped into the air, started spiraling upward, evidently to give them time to orient the
Stormalong
in the proper direction.

Hornetta flew south, staying low, only one thousand feet high. Doc Savage sent the
Stormalong
surging after her.

Long Tom muttered, “We’re taking a long chance, but it’s the only chance that makes sense.”

“I still don’t trust that glory hound,” Monk growled.

“My sentiments exactly,” added Ham Brooks.

It was rare that the two friendly foes ever agreed upon anything, even rarer where they did not fall over themselves putting halos on himself and adorning his romantic rival with horns and a spiked tail in an effort to impress a beautiful woman.

That Hornetta Hale was a delectable morsel no red-blooded man could deny. But her fierce personality, her stubborn contrariness, and other quirks of her free-spiritedness, had cooled any fires of desire Monk and Ham might otherwise be harboring.