Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (20 page)

Doc objected, “If you do that, the problem of your passengers will be more difficult to solve.”

“I have an entire crew of Able Seamen available to me,” snapped the Captain. “My men are up to any challenge presented to them. Now get out of my sight.”

Reluctantly, the bronze man turned around and, escorted by Morris Byron, retreated to his cabin.

Mental undertoned, “What are you going to do now?”

“Hope for the best,” replied Doc. “But I am expecting the worst.”

“I can hardly see how this could get any worse.”

“Between Diamond and the hurricane,” replied Doc Savage, “the potential for disaster is increasing by the hour.”

“And we have no idea what shape that disaster will take, do we?” murmured Mental.

“None whatsoever,” said Doc Savage tightly.

Chapter XXI

FASCINATING RING

THE INDIVIDUAL WHO was entered in the ship’s register as C.C. Weed came up to Diamond’s new stateroom and knocked vigorously.

The knock was timed—two raps, followed by four—so there was no need to identify himself.

The door fell open and the man stepped in.

“Big doings, chief,” he said.

“Then spill it, Weedy,” invited Diamond. “I could use some diversion, after being cooped up here so long.”

“That blow in the air? It’s no gale. Scuttlebutt is there’s a big hurricane on the way.”

Diamond considered this. “How big?”

“King Kong is a chimp compared to it.”

A crafty gleam came into Diamond’s cold amber eyes. “That could work in our favor, or against us. No way to tell. What else?”

“Doc Savage’s men got into some kind of trouble. I don’t know what. I’m just hearing talk among the crew. They’re in the brig.”

Diamond smiled in a way that looked as though he was out of practice. One side of his mouth lifted up, and it looked as if that side of his face was about to crack. The other side just sat there, inert as stone.

“Do tell.”

“And the best part is Doc Savage himself has been confined to his cabin. Under armed guard. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Trouble is sometimes an enemy, but often a friend,” Diamond said slowly. “Up till now I figured the bronze guy was hiding on board and keeping an eye on us. I was right in my figuring. Now, he can’t do that anymore.”

“Don’t you think he tipped off the skipper to us?” pressed Weed.

“I don’t figure it either way. He might have, he might not have. We will know soon enough.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“With Doc Savage out of action, McCullum is going to move against us or he’s not. If he doesn’t, that might mean we’re in the clear.”

The other man looked worried. “We’re pressing our luck waiting to see.”

Diamond fingered a hole in his left earlobe. “We can’t exactly leave the ship, now can we? You know full well we’re not at liberty to do that under the terms that we are sailing.”

“So we just wait, huh?”

Diamond nodded. “We wait. Get out there and rig your ears to take in all they can. Unload them for me when you have something more.”

The man exited quickly, and Diamond sat down on his bunk, his hard eyes narrowing, assorted expressions traipsing across his nut-brown features. He tried to smile a few times, as if considering the possibilities of these developments, but his face appeared not to be up to the task.

Lying down, he lifted one arm and scrutinized the ring on his right hand.

The ring was simple metal, resembling a wedding ring, but it was on the wrong finger. In the cabin light, it resembled gold, but as he moved the circlet with his thumb, reddish highlights gleamed that made it seem more coppery than golden.

The man who called himself Diamond eyed the ring, which he regarded a very long time as if it possessed more significance than simply a band of some rich metal.

“Five will get you ten that Doc Savage was the big black sailor that was shadowing me,” he told himself. “I half suspected it, but now I know it. One thing’s for sure, that metallic meddler doesn’t have a clue what it’s all about.”

Chapter XXII

DEVIL’S BROTH

MORRIS “MENTAL” BYRON went searching for Don Worth, knowing that the young boatswain would want to know about the disposition of Doc Savage immediately.

He searched the forward deck, then went amidships, and finally found him standing cargo watch below decks, as crates were being distributed about the hold and made fast. This material consisted of tungsten and platinum and other war-related metals that were intended for English industry. There was not a great quantity of it, the
Northern Star
possessing a modest cargo hold for its size, but every ounce of critical war material counted in the struggle against the Axis.

Taking Don aside, Seaman Byron whispered, “Doc Savage has been confined to quarters, Boats.”

Don Worth was trying to control his emotions. He managed to dampen down his expression to a disappointed frown.

“This is very bad,” he murmured.

“It gets worse,” said Mental. “Monk and Ham got tossed into the brig. They were caught red-handed trying to get Seaman Goines out.”

“Why would they do a crazy thing like that?” demanded Worth.

“They didn’t. They were sneaking the
real
Goines in, and managed to shut the door just in time for the Skipper and the Chief Warrant Officer to barge in on them. Captain McCullum jumped to a conclusion, and landed in a misunderstanding. Doc Savage tried to explain it all, but that only made the Skipper even madder. So he confined Doc Savage to his quarters.”

“That means it’s up to us to keep an eye on Diamond and his crew.”

Mental nodded. “Which will be hard to do since half of them don’t even come out to eat. The others take their food in to them. Some of them are claiming to be seasick.”

Don Worth pondered these developments and finally said, “We better tell the others.”

Mental nodded. “Maybe we can cogitate a way out of this.”

“I’m not sure even four brains are enough to untangle this Gordian knot,” complained Don.

Turning over the watch to a deck cadet, Boatswain Worth and Seaman Byron went straight to the mess hall. Along the way, they collected B. Elmer Dexter.

Dex listened to their account with both ears, and by the time they reached the kitchen, he was bubbling with possibilities.

“Maybe it’s time to start agitating.”

“There will be no agitating until we figure out what we want to result,” Don said firmly. “There isn’t room in the brig for all four of us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be confined to quarters. We have to step carefully if we are to help Doc Savage.”

In his youth, Mental Byron had been something of a philosopher, and addicted to homespun aphorisms. He uncorked one now. “Whether walking through a cow patch, or creeping toward trouble,” he ruminated, “it always pays to look at your footprints before you make them.”

“And how,” agreed Dex.

They found Leander Tucker in the galley, washing out the big stainless steel stewpots used to make soup for the ship’s crew. He was industriously scrubbing it with a steel wool pad the size of a catcher’s mitt.

Seeing his approaching comrades, and the glum cast of their faces, he asked, “What’s wrong now?”

“Plenty,” said Don grimly.

IN THE PRIVACY of the galley, they conferred for several minutes. At the end of the recitation, Tucker whistled and said, “Throw in a hurricane, and this is the damnedest stew you ever imagined brewing.”

Elmer chimed in. “Yes, a devil’s broth.”

“That is why we don’t want to add anything volatile to the mix,” insisted Don Worth. “Here is what I want you all to do. The crew doesn’t know anything about Diamond and his gang. Only certain ship’s officers, Doc Savage, his men, and ourselves. Keep an eye on the cabins where Diamond’s men are distributed. Watch for anything out of the ordinary. Report everything to me. And if we come up with something dire, I’ll take it to the Old Man. He likes me. He will listen.”

“Well, that’s what we were doing all along, isn’t it?” asked Seaman Byron.

Don Worth nodded. “But now we’re looking for any little thing, or things, that might add up to a big thing. I want something concrete to lay before Captain McCullum. Anything. Understood?”

The three nodded their heads in agreement. “We’ll come up with something,” assured B. Elmer. “Count on it, Don. We won’t let you down.”

“It’s Doc Savage I don’t want to let down. He’s onto something. And if we can bust it open, we may be able to save the ship and its crew from—”

Every man looked at him expectantly, curiosity written on their youthful faces.

“—from whatever wicked scheme is in the offing,” he finished sheepishly.

“In other words,” lamented Tuck, “we know next to nothing.”

“We know more than the crew, so keep your eyes open, and find something I can lay before the Skipper so we can exonerate Doc Savage.”

They began to break up, leaving Leander Tucker to his pot scrubbing, when the First Mate wandered in and said, “Make ready. We’re leaving port in less than an hour.”

Don Worth looked momentarily flummoxed. “I thought we were remaining in port until the hurricane passes.”

“We were,” the other offered. “But the latest weather report says the system is stalling down near Cuba, and the Skipper wants to make a break for it now, hoping to outrun the blow.”

“Risky,” clucked Mental Byron. “Even a slow-moving blow can suddenly pick up steam and break loose like an enraged bull. That thing could chase us clear to who knows where.”

“Captain’s orders,” said the officer. “Everyone to your stations.”

They filed out onto deck, and went their separate ways, intent upon their immediate duties, and worried that they had just lost their best opportunity to uncover some shenanigans on the part of Diamond and his mysterious gang.

Up on deck, the air was still unnaturally still, the sweltering humidity wringing moisture out of their skins, as the last of the palleted cargo was hoisted into the hold and made fast.

Crewmen bustled about with quiet urgency, tension on their faces, speaking less often than normally. All knew that Captain McCullum was taking a long chance, and if he had miscalculated, the
Northern Star
was bound to pile into a meteorological monster of unprecedented size.

Within very short order, heavy ropes were cast off, and tugboats began pushing the mighty former liner out to the beautiful harbor that brought to mind Homer’s ancient phrase, the wine-dark sea, for it was more indigo than any lighter shade of blue.

In their fragile wooden craft, native bumboat men lazily poled out of the way, clearing a channel out of the harbor.

Except for the growing humidity and the unnatural silence of the atmosphere, it was a perfect tropical day.

Chapter XXIII

MISSTEP

THE SETTING OF the tropical sun changed the atmosphere aboard the
Northern Star.

The
big vessel had been stealing along turquoise waters when the sinking sun first touched the sea, causing jeweled fire to spring amid the placid calm of the Caribbean.

The Bahama group consisted of an incredible number of islands and cays, and the
Northern Star
was obliged to work its ponderous way among them, for even this far along in the war, the menace of Nazi raiders had not been abolished.

The wolf packs generally operated at higher latitudes and deeper into the Atlantic, of course. But the occasional lone raider still struck at some shipping in the Caribbean and further south. By sticking to the islands as she steamed east, the
Northern Star
had less exposure, for enemy submarines did not, as a rule, dare penetrate the islands and their tricky shoal waters.

The sinking of the sun doused the bright prismatic perfection of the sea, which turned gory and then dusky and finally dark as India ink. The blazing orb dropped like a hot stone into the waters, and when the last smoldering slice slipped below the horizon, suddenly all was blackness around them.

Where they could, Don Worth and his shipmates kept watch for signs of Diamond and his crew, who appeared content to remain in their cabins. This was not so unusual. Seamen often retreated to their quarters when not on duty, or standing watch. Most commercial vessels—even the large ones—were cramped and difficult to navigate. Not much went on aboard ships that seasoned sailors would consider a novelty. These men probably passed their time reading.

When mess was piped, one by one, a few filtered out.

Where before they had watched for unusual behavior, now they were alert to anything, anything at all. No matter how minor. They were handicapped by the fact that they could not be certain which passengers were included among the Diamond contingent, and which were not. There was nothing to distinguish them. Or so all believed.

It was Leander Tucker, not surprisingly, who began noticing something that the suspicious ones all had in common.

He was serving up lumpy mashed potatoes when he observed a passenger he had not noticed before wearing what looked like a wedding ring. But it was not worn on the left hand, or on the correct finger, and there was nothing unusual about the band, which appeared to be made of gold.

Seaman Tucker made a mental note of it, and a few minutes later he found himself slapping ham and eggs onto the plate of another passenger who wore a virtually identical ring on the same finger.

Tuck stared at it, and thought to himself that it looked rather reddish for gold, but did not appear to be copper.

When Seaman Byron came by for his share of grub, Leander whispered to him, “I noticed that two of the passengers are wearing these funny rings. They look like gold, but I’m not sure that they are gold. Tell the others to watch out for passengers wearing gold-looking rings on their right hands.”

“Got you,” returned Mental.

Wolfing down his meal, Mental Byron went in search of the others. He found Don Worth first. The latter was on the afterdeck watching the dark patch that had swallowed the sun.