Doc Savage - The Freckled Shark Part 15

"Nonsense!" Doc said too promptly.

Johnny said grimly, "It's the only way we've got of maybe learning enough to save Ham."

Doc thought that over.

"You're probably right," he said, with somewhat the resigned air of a Christian about to be thrown to the lions. "I'll turn into Henry Peace."

Doc Savage walked on ahead of the party, to scout their course. The first street lights of Key West were not far ahead.Johnny rejoined Monk and Rhoda Haven, and after glancing at the young lady, felt like sighing. Doc Savage might be a scientific genius, a mental wizard and a muscular phenomenon-but his knowledge of women put him in about the same category as a babe in arms. That was, of course, the result of the bronze man's determination to avoid feminine entanglements.

Doc Savage held the conviction that, if he ever fell in love, his enemies would strike at him through his sweetheart or wife.

Probably he was right, Johnny realized. So it was a good idea. But Johnny was also convinced that any good idea can be carried too far, and Doc had overdone this one. He'd had absolutely nothing to do with femininity. The result was that Doc had acquired an abysmal ignorance, Johnny believed, of the fair s.e.x. Doc was also scared of them.

Doc Savage had protested a great reluctance for becoming Henry Peace again, and making pa.s.ses at pretty Rhoda Haven.

Johnny secretly suspected that the bronze man really liked the idea. He did, or he wasn't entirely human. Johnny thought he was human.

They reached an avenue lined with palms. In the palm shadows, it was very dark. Doc was still leading.

Suddenly, from ahead, there came a yell.

"Get your hands up, dang you!"

It was Henry Peace's voice.

Blow sounds followed. A crash of palmettos, as if someone had been knocked into the vegetation under the palms.

More blows. Then running feet hammered the ground.

Doc Savage's voice crashed out.

"It's Henry Peace!" Doc shouted. "He's running. Wait there!"

A crashing went away through the brush. It sounded very much like Doc Savage pursuing Henry Peace.

Monk snorted, for Rhoda Haven's benefit, said, "Your red-headed, freckle-faced hero b.u.mped into a real man. And there he goes. Runnin' like a rabbit."

"Henry Peace," said Rhoda Haven indignantly, "will make this Doc Savage look tame before he's done!"

Monk snorted so loudly that he hurt his nose.

"All your bragging about Henry Peace," he said, "goes in one of my ears and out the other."

"That," Rhoda Haven said coolly, "is because there's nothing in between to stop it."

Henry Peace came out of the palm shadow into the moonlight. He had a revolver. He pointed the weapon at Monk. But he spoke to Rhoda Haven.

"After we're married," he said, "we're gonna lead a more peaceable life than this."

Rhoda Haven, in view of the way she had been holding up for Henry Peace, reacted in a strangely contrary fashion.

She walked over and tried to slap Henry Peace. He caught her wrist and held her easily.

The young woman stamped a foot indignantly.

"I wish," she snapped, "that I had been made a man."

"You have," Henry Peace a.s.sured her cheerfully. "I'm him.

Doc Savage had put on the Henry Peace disguise while walking down the road ahead of them.

WHILE Rhoda Haven maintained an indignant silence, Monk and Henry Peace exchanged a few words. They did notswear, exactly, but there was enough acid in their tones to bleach the surrounding tropical vegetation.

"You do what I tell you!" Henry Peace warned Monk, waving his revolver.

"You can't hit the side of a barn with that!" Monk growled. "I saw a sample of your shooting on Long Island!"

"I should have let them throw you in the cistern that time!" Henry Peace told him.

Evidently Monk's confidence in Henry Peace's bad marksmanship was not as strong as he claimed, because he let himself be made a prisoner.

Henry Peace marched them off to the right, to a lonesome spot on a sandy beach. He bound Monk and Johnny, ankles and wrists, with their own belts. Then he addressed Rhoda Haven.

"About time," he told the young woman, "that you give me the truth on this mess."

She had been thinking over the situation. And she had reached some conclusion.

"You got Jep Dee out of the hospital?" she asked.

"Yep."

"Where is he?"

"Little place down the beach from here."

Rhoda Haven said, "Go get him."

"Why?"

"Jep Dee is the only one who can help us. He knows the meaning of that piece of freckled shark skin. He knows the whereabouts of the spot to which Horst's men probably took my father."

Henry Peace nodded grimly. "I'll bring Jep Dee. You watch these two Doc Savage men."

He walked off into the night.

The moment Henry Peace was out of sight, his way of carrying himself changed, and his stride altered-he became Doc Savage in everything but appearance. Acting the part of a personality as different as Henry Peace was a mental and physical strain, and he was glad to relax.

Henry Peace had not told the exact truth about where Jep Dee had been left. Henry Peace, in fact, did not stick exactly to the truth in a great many of his statements. This was in marked contrast to Doc Savage, who never told anything but the truth, even when a lie might be convenient to mislead an enemy.

Jep Dee was in a tourist cabin near the center of town.

Doc Savage was thoughtful as he walked. He was puzzled with himself. He was rather enjoying being Henry Peace. He didn't approve, exactly, because Henry Peace was an untruthful rascal who had a weakness for a pretty girl. Henry Peace was boastful, insolent, and made love at every opportunity.

It wouldn't do, Doc Savage decided uneasily, to play Henry Peace with too much enthusiasm.

It might become too pleasant.

To get his mind off the distressing idea that Doc Savage, the man of determination, might be tempted to really turn into an untruthful rascal named Henry Peace, the bronze man stopped and bought a morning newspaper. He wanted to learn how much commotion the events of the night had created in Key West.

He saw the advertis.e.m.e.nt at once. It was half a page, hence hardly to be missed. It said: DOG SAVAGE.

JOHN DOE WISHES YOUR HELP. THIS NEWSPAPER WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH HIM.

Chapter XIV. HAVENS-CROOKS.

INSTEAD of going on for Jep Dee-who would be safe enough where he was awhile-Doc Savage removed his Henry Peace disguise, then called the newspaper.

"The advertis.e.m.e.nt," he explained, having identified himself, "seemed rather imperative."

"I presume it is," said the voice at the newspaper. "John Doe is waiting at the Caribbean Hotel."

When Doc Savage looked it over, the Caribbean Hotel seemed a respectable hostelry of some size.

He spent twenty minutes going to different places around and in the hotel, standing and looking and listening. This satisfied him that, if it was a trap, the trap was inside the room.

"Mr. Doe," the hotel clerk said, "is in the penthouse suite."

"Thank you," Doc Savage said, "but I think it is rather late in the night to make a call."

He walked out, leaving the impression he would be back later. He went around to the back of the hotel, took out a small grapple attached to a silk cord, tossed it and snared the fire escape, to which he climbed. He took his time, made no noise, and reached the roof.

The roof was a garden. In the center stood a Spanish type of bungalow, rather small, very neat, very flamboyant, and probably stunningly expensive.

All the bungalow doors were closed. The bungalow itself was dark.

Doc Savage produced-from a vest which contained a number of pockets holding unusual gadgets-a contrivance which resembled a small bicycle pump, but which had a long needlelike spout.

He filled this oversized hypodermic from a nonbreakable metal bottle which was also in the vest, and squirted the contents under a door. He refilled the hypo and squirted more fluid under all the other doors he could find.

He ambled over to the penthouse balcony and stood looking at the Gulf Stream. The sea was moon-kissed, stretched away and seemed to blend with the sky, and the riding lights of boats in the harbor were scattered sparks that bobbed a little.

When the gas he had squirted under the doors had had time to take effect, he put on the underwater lung, which was also a gas mask, walked to a door, took hold of the k.n.o.b, and without much apparent physical effort, tore k.n.o.b and lock out of the door. He walked in.

There was only one man there, so he must be John Doe.

John Doe would make a good football player, of the boy-he's-not-big-but-can-he-carry-that-ball type. Unquestionably, he was in good physical trim. He was senseless, but his muscles felt like truck tires, anyway.

His face was the color of good smoking tobacco. Doc opened his shirt and noted that his chest and the rest of him was the same color.

John Doe had been sitting in a chair, fully dressed, waiting in the dark. There was a long-nosed automatic on the floor at his feet, so probably he had been holding that in his hands.

Doc searched John Doe. Then he searched the penthouse. There was no baggage.

There were twenty-five cartridges for the automatic in John Doe's pockets, but absolutely nothing else. Not a thing to show who he was.

John Doe woke up after a while.

"I am Senor Steel," he said.

HE was not what Doc Savage had expected. In appearance, at least. He did not look like the kind of man that the newspapers had painted.

True, however, the newspapers had never printed Senor Steel's picture. It was said there were no photographs of him in existence. It was reported that there were X-ray machines planted to throw beams across every door in the palace of the dictator of Blanca Grande. The X rays would ruinously fog any films that photographers might try to carry in or out of the palace. As a matter of fact, Doc Savage used the same gag in his New York headquarters. The two men didn't want their pictures taken for similar reasons.

Both Doc Savage and Senor Steel had enemies who would gladly hand their pictures to hired killers.

The similarity stopped there, as far as Doc Savage knew. For the last year or two, many stories had spread concerning Senor Steel, dictator-president of the South American republic of Blanca Grande. He did not stand well with the American government-for one thing, he had followed the example of others in appropriating the property of United States oil companies. And there were other stories, not wholesome.

Senor Steel looked young. Except that there was grimness around his mouth and eyes.

"You are Doc Savage," he said quietly.

"Yes."

"I will not waste time," Senor Steel stated bluntly. "Here are the facts: I am president of Blanca Grande. I do not have a good reputation."

Doc nodded, said nothing.

"My reputation is bad," said Senor Steel, "because lies have been spread about me. Political lies."

He waited for that to soak in, then went on. "Stories have been told of my imprisoning and shooting numbers of political enemies. People, prominent and good people of Blanca Grande, have vanished, and I was given the credit both at home and abroad. The truth is that I had nothing to do with those people disappearing."

Doc Savage looked interested.

Senor Steel said, "One of my political enemies is responsible. This enemy is a professional soldier of fortune. He helped me with the revolution by which I gained the presidency of Blanca Grande. I found out that this soldier of fortune was a bloodthirsty rascal who expected to loot the treasury. I ran him out of the country. Since then, he has schemed against me."

"The soldier of fortune's name-"

"Tex Haven."

Doc said, "You claim that Tex Haven is a crook?"