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

“Open up!” he called loudly.

“I’m coming! I’m coming! What is it now?” the sleeper demanded as he flung open the door.

From the expression on his weathered face, he evidently expected a different caller, for when he saw the dark features of Seaman Goines, he almost jumped out of his skin.

“What do you want?” he asked, flustered. “I was sound asleep.”

“Sorry,” said Doc Savage in a thicker voice than his normal resonant tone. “I must have gotten the wrong cabin. You’re not the party I was looking for.”

The man was sleepy, and therefore caught off guard. He asked what was under the circumstances a stupid question. “Who are you looking for?”

“Bald fellow, about fifty. Know him?”

The passenger blinked several times before answering and saying, “No, no, but I think I seen him around.”

“Well,” said Doc in a serious tone, “if you see him around, tell him I’m looking for him.”

Sleep still in his voice and eyes, the passenger asked, “What for?”

“What business is it of yours?” demanded Doc Savage.

“None, I guess. Forget I asked. Good night.” And the door was slammed in Doc Savage’s face.

THE BRONZE man retreated up the corridor a safe distance. He turned around. Pressing his back to a bulkhead, he waited for the door to open again.

It did. By this time Doc Savage had out his trick optical instrument which he had again rigged as a periscope, employing this to observe the man entirely unseen.

The passenger sidled down the corridor. Doc Savage followed him at a reasonable distance, pausing at each turn to use his periscope before rounding the corner.

In this fashion, he trailed the nervous man to a cabin where he knocked on the door and had a brief but heated exchange through the steel panel before he was allowed inside.

All that Doc could hear distinctly was that man identifed himself as Cannon. The bronze man recalled that a Joe Cannon was listed among the passengers. The name might or might not be an alias in this instance.

Creeping up to the door, Doc Savage applied the stethoscope bell, and heard fragments of an argument. The blacked-out porthole prevented him from being seen.

“A big black bruiser of a sailor,” the nervous passenger was saying. “He pounded on my door, askin’ for you.”

“By name?” asked Diamond, suspicion threading his voice.

“No. He just called you the bald guy. Pegged your age at about fifty.”

“Must be the same sailor I ran into a while back. But what did he want?”

“That’s what I tried to get out of him. But he wasn’t talkin’. Said it wasn’t any of my damn business.”

“Something is in the wind,” Diamond said with grinding fierceness. “It isn’t good. People are watching me, but no one is challenging my right to be on this overgrown scow. I think it was a mighty smart idea changing cabins.”

“What are you gonna do about this?” demanded Cannon.

“Nobody knows I’m in this cabin,” countered Diamond. “So I’m gonna stay here. You’ll bring me my meals. But get back to your berth. I need to think about this. I wasn’t planning on getting any sleep, and now I’m damn sure of it. Now get out of here!”

“Should I relay any of this to the others?”

“Tell Weedy, but only him. No sense making the others nervous. They got enough on their minds. Now get out.”

Doc Savage retreated out of sight, and moved back until he could reach his own cabin.

Once inside, he told Seaman Tucker, “It looks as if whatever they’re planning isn’t going to come off tonight. So we have time to watch them and learn more.”

“This can’t be good,” said Tucker.

Doc nodded soberly. “Rest assured, it is not. We are going to be running across the Atlantic to rendezvous with a convoy. These men are up to no good. The only question is: what are their intentions?”

Tuck shrugged elaborately, as if to say that he had no idea either.

Doc directed, “Find the others. Let them know what we now know. Tell them to turn in for the night. We will start fresh in the morning.”

A relieved look on his rounded face, Seaman Tucker again resisted an instinct to salute the Man of Bronze, and took his departure.

He found B. Elmer Dexter first, and related everything he knew in low whispers. Then they split up to locate Don Worth and Morris Byron, confident that the rest of the night would be peaceful.

Chapter XV

EXPLANATIONS

THE NIGHT, AS it turned out, was anything but peaceful. The steady wind picked up, and the weather began assuming squall-like conditions. The sky had a dreary, dead look, as if it were made out of slate.

There was nothing to be done about it, of course, except to push on to the Bahamas. The
Northern Star
, displacing twenty-five thousand gross register tons, was not bothered much by line squalls, but nothing of the sort materialized, except that the night winds blew as steadily as if King Neptune himself had thrust up his great bearded head from the Atlantic heave and was expelling his powerful breath upon them, endeavoring to push the ship back toward land. Doc Savage remained in his cabin, giving his full attention to Monk and Ham, who were slow to come out of their stupor.

From time to time, the bronze man attempted to engage the two in conversation, putting to them simple questions, but receiving only mutterings and mumblings that hardly made any sense.

As a physician, Doc was interested in unusual maladies and this was one of the most exotic he had ever encountered. He watched as time passed and their facial pores shrank back to their normal circumferences. He employed a magnifying glass to monitor these changes, recording everything in a little black notebook.

Seaman Goines had remained in the bunk. Not for the first time, Doc Savage wished he could spirit him away to another berth to give his aides a more comfortable place on which to lie. He had fetched blankets from Monk and Ham’s cabins to provide makeshift pallets on the floor.

When morning came, Doc was amused to discover that Ham Brooks was the first to regain his full senses. The dapper lawyer—hardly dapper now—groaned once loudly, lifted his head and shook it slowly.

“Where am I?” he murmured groggily, his van Dyke mustaches in disarray.

Doc Savage had been sitting nearby and stood up. “What do you remember, Ham?”

Without looking up, Ham took his head in his hands and murmured, “I remember Monk having some kind of spell and fetching him a glass of water. The next thing I recall was sitting down on the floor, feeling as if all the life was draining out of me.”

“Describe your sensations at the time,” prompted the bronze man.

Ham did his best, but it was clear that his brain was still foggy.

“Where did the fist of rock come from?” asked Doc.

Ham had to search his memory for that one. Finally, he got his thoughts organized and said, “There was a knock at the door. Monk answered it. A waterproof pouch was sitting outside the door. We opened it up, and found the stony hand.”

“It was after that that you began feeling woozy, was it not?” asked Doc.

“I’m not sure. Not long after.” Ham seemed to be ready to stand up and, as a first step, the befuddled lawyer looked all over, then in Doc Savage’s direction.

The expression roosting on his face was almost comical. For Doc was still disguised as Seaman Goines.

“Where is Doc Savage?” he demanded, searching the room with bleary eyes.

Clambering to his feet, Ham discovered the second Seaman Goines lying on the bunk bed, and he did a memorable double take.

The dapper lawyer had a reputation for being sharp-eyed, and quick-witted, too. Despite the fogginess of his mental machinery, he seized upon the truth rather rapidly.

“You are obviously Doc Savage,” he murmured.

“Not too obviously, I hope,” countered Doc with a trace of wryness.

Ham discovered that Monk was still flat on his back and remarked, “You would think that misshapen man-monkey would have come out of it by now.”

“His constitution is very different than yours, and for some reason he was more seriously affected.”

Looking around, Ham asked, “Where is that hand of stone now?”

“In the washroom, safely sealed in its waterproof bag,” explained Doc.

Ham declared, “In some strange fashion, I believe that infernal member cast some sort of spell upon us.”

“Not a spell,” corrected Doc. “As clearly as I can determine, the relic has the uncanny property of leaching mineral iron from the bodies of those who come under its influence.”

Ham blinked. “How is that possible?”

“It should not be possible,” admitted Doc. “And I may be mistaken. During your period of unusual stupor, the pores of your faces were dilated to an extreme degree. My theory is that whatever was drawn from your constitutions was pulled out through your pores.”

Alarm on his face, Ham felt his features, and said, “Now that you mention it, my face feels queer. Dry and tough, like leather.”

“Are you thirsty?” demanded Doc.

Ham managed to run his tongue around the inside of his mouth and made a smacking sound with his lips. Finally, he admitted, “Not unusually so.”

Doc nodded. “You did not seem dehydrated, according to my examination. It is very bizarre, and I cannot account for the influence of the rock fist on your health.”

Frowning, Ham murmured, “What puzzles me most is who left the infernal thing at the door?”

“Obviously someone who recognized either you or Monk, and sought to eliminate you from the picture.”

Absentmindedly smoothing his hair, Ham decided, “That means Diamond and his crew may have seen through our disguises. This is not good, is it?”

“Not good at all,” allowed Doc Savage. He was on one knee, again examining Monk. After a time, he decided to give the apish chemist a little encouragement to come back to his full senses.

The bronze man did this by slapping Monk sharply against one side of his head then, switching hands, slapping the other side.

Monk’s head lolled slightly, and he began mumbling.

Ham asked waspishly, “If you need any help, I will be happy to assist you. Slapping that stupid ape around is one of my hobbies.”

Doc said nothing to that. He did not take Ham’s request very seriously. The two were always bickering, and would always pick on one another.

After a bit, Doc left off and Monk began to rouse slowly.

WHEN his eyes came open, the homely chemist stared at the ceiling and did not show much interest in his surroundings. But his voice came squeakily.

“Where the heck am I?”

Doc Savage answered, “On the floor of my cabin, where you have been recuperating.”

Monk sat up slowly and painfully, looked around, saw Doc Savage disguised as a big Negro, and was not fooled for an instant.

“Nifty disguise,” he said. “Did you make it up?”

Doc shook his head slowly. “No, I am pretending to be Seaman Goines, who is resting on the bunk behind you.”

Without standing up, Monk swiveled his bullet head, saw Seaman Goines and grunted, “His own mother wouldn’t know who was which.”

Monk had some difficulty climbing to his feet, but his extraordinarily long arms helped him to lever himself until he stood his full five foot, five inches tall. Not very tall at all, when you came right down to it.

Monk’s gorilla arms hung loosely at his sides and he seemed not to know what to do with his hairy hands. He just looked around the cabin and blinked slowly.

“I feel like Count Dracula had sunk his teeth into me, and hung on for a good long while,” he mumbled.

“That is a very good description, if fanciful, of what actually happened,” Doc told him. “Your blood has been depleted of its iron content in a remarkable manner.”

Monk’s tiny eyes narrowed and he said, “I’m rememberin’ that black fist. It was made of rock. I think it did something to me.”

“It exerted a force or power that literally pulled mineral iron from your bloodstream in such a way that your pores opened up to accommodate the escaping iron.”

Monk was a chemist and he naturally understood the nature of chemistry. He exploded, “That’s impossible!”

“That is my conclusion,” said Doc. “There appears to be no other explanation for the bizarre phenomenon.”

“So Diamond tried to kill us, huh?” muttered Monk.

“So it would seem,” allowed Doc. “But there are more interesting developments to relate.”

Monk and Ham regarded the bronze man, who paused in his speech.

“Among the crew are four individuals we have previously encountered. You remember Donald Worth, as well as his three friends.”

Monk grunted, “Yeah, we met them over in Crescent City, back a few years when those little gold cavemen were running amok, terrorizing the place.”

“They joined the Merchant Marines after war broke out in Europe. All four are stationed aboard this ship,” explained Doc. “I have them out looking for signs of Diamond and his crew.”

“Any luck?” inquired Ham.

Doc nodded. “I previously encountered Diamond. He was no longer wearing the smoky gray wig that resembled a cloud of cigarette smoke. The man is rather bald, and his face looks coarser without the artificial hair, but he is—or was—berthed in a certain stateroom. When I checked on him a few hours back, another man had taken his place in the cabin. Diamond has relocated in an effort to avoid detection.”

“Well, that means he knows we’re gunnin’ for him,” grunted Monk.

“A conversation I overheard tonight indicates they have no plans to pull off anything dangerous overnight,” Doc continued, “so it is my intention to let them be until we can figure out their plan.”

Ham asked, “Why not round them all up and interrogate them?”

“We may yet do precisely that,” allowed Doc, “but without knowing which passengers belong to Diamond’s crew and which do not, I do not think it is wise to stir up this particular pot until we have made an inventory of its ingredients.”

This made perfect sense to Ham Brooks, who tended to be deliberate, but impulsive Monk growled, “I’m for rousting them out of their bunks and danglin’ ’em over the ship’s rail until they talk.”