Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (23 page)

“Count me in as part of your chorus,” Long Tom echoed. He snapped his fingers suddenly. “Say, didn’t that dame say she was out of gas?”

Doc Savage pointed out. “Hornetta said no such thing. However, she put on such an acrobatic aerial act as to lead us to that conclusion.”

Long Tom said philosophically, “So much for that.”

Monk turned to the puny electrical wizard and demanded, “What was all that tall talk about whippin’ Hornetta the next time you saw her? You didn’t lay a dang glove on her.”

“Aw, you’re just sore because you lost another fool bet with Ham.”

Ham frowned darkly. “Without doubt,” he fumed, “Hornetta Hale is the most infuriating female I have ever encountered in my life.”

“The word infuriating,” barked Long Tom, “is too good for that wily wasp.”

Doc Savage drove the thundering cruiser southward, rarely taking his golden eyes off the little hornet-hued plane which now seemed to be the only hope of recovering Pat Savage from her strange and bizarre captors. Whoever or whatever they might be.

Chapter XXII

DOUBLE SNARE

FOR NEARLY TWO hours, they followed the yellowjacket seaplane piloted by Hornetta Hale.

Hornetta maintained a reasonable airspeed, and flew low enough to be visible and within sight at all times.

This prompted Monk and Ham to reevaluate their opinions of the slippery amazon.

Ham offered cautiously, “Hornetta appears to be adhering to her part of the bargain.”

Monk grunted, “Much as I hate to admit it, the shyster may be right. That screwy dame ain’t tried to shake us yet. And she’s had plenty of chances.”

To which Long Tom contrarily suggested, “Unless that firecracker female is leading us into a trap.”

Doc Savage contributed nothing to this discussion. He was becoming visibly tenser as each nautical mile reeled behind them.

It was a warmish afternoon, and this part of the Caribbean appeared to be both vast and deserted. They saw no passing ships, and of course no airplanes, these remote reaches not being on any airline route.

Ham Brooks, noticing Doc’s concerned expression, put forth the question. “Hornetta is leading us somewhere. Do you think it is a trap?”

Doc Savage shook his head. “That is not my chief concern,” he said.

“Then what is?” wondered the dapper attorney.

Before Doc could answer, a thin muttering carried over the waves toward their ears. At first, only Doc Savage appeared to notice it, because he waved a metallic hand for Ham to be quiet.

Ham looked up, empty hands clenching. His sword cane was stored away for comfort and safety.

Abruptly, Doc Savage killed the Diesel engines.

The speedy cruiser continued knifing forward, momentum carrying it along.

Quiet followed. Before long, the sighing of the Caribbean winds became mixed in with that sultry song, and resolved into a growing sputtering.

Flying low, Hornetta Hale’s trim little amphibian plane bumbled into sight.

Monk exploded, “She’s running out of fuel for sure!”

At the radio, Doc attempted to raise the
Hornet.
He found the correct wavelength swiftly enough.

Out of the speaker came Hornetta’s succinct ripping complaint.

“I really ran out of gas this time.”

“Attempt to land near our boat,” Doc advised her.

No reply came. No doubt the acerbic aviatrix was too busy managing her stricken steed. The colorful craft began to wobble its wings, and lost additional altitude.

Banking, the
Hornet
swooped back around in their direction. They could see that its propeller blades were clearly defined, no longer spinning.

Hornetta glided along the surface of the Caribbean, smacking the ship down on its fat pontoons, executing a respectable but bumpy landing that made the yellow wings dance.

The ship soon wallowed, its wingtips rocking with the undulating waves.

Restarting the engines, Doc Savage sent the
Stormalong
in the crippled craft’s direction.

By the time they reached the plane, Hornetta had clambered down onto one pontoon and jumped into the water.

She began swimming in their direction, obviously there being no other recourse left to her.

As she swam, Hornetta wore an expression of extreme agitation. She was not the most pleasant person they had encountered in their years of adventuring, and they were used to her rather unfeminine facial expressions. But now she looked truly upset.

Doc Savage throttled down the cruiser and veered in the trouble-prone blonde’s direction in order to pick her up.

It was while the bronze man was executing this maneuver that a very strange thing happened.

Hornetta was swimming furiously, doing a dog-paddle, her blonde hair sometimes being the only thing visible between her flashing forearms.

Abruptly, she disappeared from sight.

Ham Brooks reached for a pair of field glasses. He clapped them to his eyes.

Something thin was cutting through the blue water like a blade. It resembled the fin of a shark, but sharks the world over are uniformly dull colors such a gray or brown.

This fin was a gangrenous reddish-green!

Then Hornetta’s head resurfaced, but she was screaming.
“It’s got me!”

“Who?” howled Ham.

Doc Savage advanced the throttle to its maximum. The engines roared, throwing up a violent wake, sending the cruiser lunging in her direction.

“Monk!” Doc rapped out. “Take the controls.”

The hairy chemist dived for the wheel, yelling, “What got her—a shark?”

Doc Savage did not reply. Kicking off his deck shoes, he flung to the rail. It was evident that the bronze man was going to jump into the water as soon as the cruiser reached the spot where Hornetta was flailing and thrashing in the waves

Before the prow knifed into position, Hornetta disappeared again. This time she did not resurface.

The liver-colored fin had also vanished beneath the sea.

MONK MAYFAIR killed the engines, gliding the last stretch of water to the spot where Hornetta had vanished, while Doc Savage pitched himself over the rail and knifed into the cool coral waters.

Immediately after, a startling apparition came up from below decks, throwing open the deck hatch. The figure made enough noise to be heard, so all heads turned at once.

Long Tom stood at the stern, so he was the first to yell out an identification.

“It’s that Count!” he howled.

It was indeed. The immaculate figure of Count Rumpler—as he styled himself—now stepped up from below, as if he had just come topside after an afternoon nap.

He wore his usual elegant ensemble, and a neat Tyrolean hat was perched jauntily on his head. He also sported a fresh cane. This one was cut from wood so that a spiral groove ran down its length.

The Count pointed his knurled stick held in one gloved hand at Long Tom Roberts and did something which caused a spurt of pale vapor to strike the slender electrical expert in the face.

Taken by surprise, Long Tom took a step backward and then began laughing uproariously. Tears welled up from his eyes. Overcome by this fit of laughter, he pitched forward.

DOC SAVAGE had meanwhile gone under the waves in search of Hornetta Hale.

He saw nothing at first. No shark. No blood. No sign of the troublesome blonde.

Then, fifty yards off, something could be discerned to the south.

It was a great bluish shadow, as large as a small whale. The bronze man knew that blackfish—otherwise known as killer whales–-could be found swimming in these waters. Blackfish were, quite naturally, ebony of hide with ivory markings.

This thing was an aquamarine hue—so closely blended with the coral color of the Caribbean Sea that its outlines were indistinct. It possessed a dorsal fin, not unlike that of a shark, but this fin was bluish-gray, not red.

What became of Hornetta Hale and the red-finned thing that had apparently snatched her was utterly baffling. But the blue creature gliding away was the only trail Doc Savage had, so he began swimming after it.

A strange thing happened as soon as the bronze giant arrowed toward its blur of a tail.

A jet of water, so powerful that it knocked Doc backward dozens of yards, struck him full in the chest with irresistible force, driving the air from his mighty lungs.

Air bubbles boiled from his mouth. A tightness clamped about his muscular chest.

Recovering his underwater orientation, Doc fixed his gaze on the uncanny thing.

It was even more indistinct now. Catching up to it would be impossible.

Reluctantly, Doc resurfaced for air.

The sounds of combat emanating from the becalmed
Stormalong
caused his metallic head to turn. Seeing the commotion on deck, the bronze man rushed toward the diving stage at the
Stormalong’s
stern, and grasped it with both hands, preparatory to climbing aboard.

To his utter astonishment—for the bronze man had been entirely unaware of the situation on the
Stormalong
—the clever Count swung in his direction.

Doc Savage had the presence of mind to hold his breath, thus when the jet of gas came his way, he was initially unaffected.

Seeing this, the Count drew a lean-barreled foreign automatic from his coat and pointed it at Doc Savage’s face.

The bronze man abruptly veered to the left, avoiding the spiteful snap of the weapon and its vicious bullet. His reflexes made his body a bronze blur. He vanished beneath the waves.

Meanwhile, Ham Brooks had not been idle. He swept up his sword cane, exposed the glittering blade, and came charging at the dashing gallant.

There followed a very strange duel as Ham’s blade collided and clashed with the Count’s sturdy cane barrel.

The Count was not a bad fencer. He might have won some awards in the past, but he distinctly belonged to the saber school of the art. He parried Ham’s first lunge expertly, and performed a riposte that sent the dapper lawyer gingerly dancing back and henceforth exercising greater caution.

Blade and barrel banged and clashed, while Ham Brooks fought to press the advantage against the hacking attack.

The problem turned out to be that the blade was not as sturdy as the barrel. And each time Ham struck, he found its edge slithering against the barrel, becoming caught on one of its spiral grooves.

Redoubling his effort, Ham lunged and lunged again, features working.

But nothing the determined lawyer could do appeared to defeat the debonair Count’s strong defense.

Stepping back a moment, Ham paused, seeking an opening.

It was at that point the resourceful Count pressed a stud on his cane and out from the far end jutted a tiny steel needle.

With a casual sweep of his hand, the Count brought the sharp tip slicing along the back of Ham’s outstretched fist.

The swipe drew blood, and Ham let out a yelp of pain. In that startled moment a spurt of white gas took him full in the face.

The expression on Ham’s face changed immediately from twisted anger to high hilarity. His laughter was on the high-pitched side, and rolled out in peals and peals and peals as if he were steadily losing his mind.

Then the dapper lawyer collapsed, joining Long Tom sleeping on the deck.

Monk now came on roaring, his upraised fist ready to pound his adversary to the deck floor.

Casually, the Count holstered his automatic, and this time brought forth a small glass jar filled with liquid from a pocket.

He drew back to throw it, and the jar smashed ahead of Monk’s pounding feet. The contents immediately vaporized, producing a spreading white cloud. The Count backed down below deck, locking the hatch behind him.

Monk began laughing almost at once. It was a great bellowing laugh. It shook his barrel chest and made him convulse and double over as if he could not contain his belly-quivering mirth.

Doc Savage got back aboard, reached into a pocket, and extracted a portable gas mask, which he drew over his head. It was another one of his pliable transparent cellophane hoods which sealed about his neck with an elastic.

Thus it was that when the vapor filled the cockpit of the cruiser, he was entirely unaffected.

Lunging for the hatch, the bronze man tried it, discovered that it was locked. He began using his bronze fists on the wood.

Metallic knuckles reduced the hatch to a broken shambles. Doc plunged downward.

Below deck, he was not greatly surprised to see the hatch of the diving well flung open.

Around the device, seawater stood about in fresh puddles. There was no question that the Count had entered the
Stormalong
by this means.

What appeared to be utterly baffling was how the debonair antagonist had done so and how he had managed to show up on deck, as dry and immaculate as if he had strolled off a seaside dock.

Doc Savage bent to one knee at the well, and peered downward.

There was little enough light, owing to the well’s high sides, so it might be excusable that Doc did not notice until it was too late the needle-tipped cane jutting up and swiping at his eyes, a strike which ruptured his cellophane protective mask.

The jet of vapor that followed quickly insinuated itself into the pliable shield, and reached the bronze man’s nose and mouth.

Caught off guard, Doc quickly suppressed his breath. He could hold it for a very long time.

But apparently sufficient quantity of the vapor crept into his nostrils so that, despite his iron will and absolute determination not to inhale, the bronze giant’s mouth fell open and he began laughing in a strange and uncontrolled manner….

It was a distinctly hideous sound.

Chapter XXIII

HADES CAY

MONK MAYFAIR SNAPPED awake with a start.

The simian chemist had been dozing, making the most amazing sounds as he snored. It was as if a flock of geese had formed an orchestra.

Now those sounds turned into a snuffle, followed by a succession of snorts, as Monk became aware of a scratchy sensation in his mouth and nose.