Doc Savage - The Freckled Shark Part 18

So Senor Steel took Monk's machine pistol. He fumbled with the thing until he found how it operated.

He fired a short burst at Monk's chest.

Then Senor Steel wheeled and ran-not toward Doc Savage, but in the opposite direction, along the path-until he came to a sandy beach.

Far out to sea, barely distinguishable in the moonlight, was the approaching schooner. Senor Steel ignored it.

He pulled a tangle of vines aside and disclosed a buried, wooden box with only the hinged lid showing.

There were several lanterns in this-strange, square lanterns with lenses that seemed to be made of black gla.s.s. When Senor Steel switched the lantern on, it still gave no light.

It was an ultraviolet lantern that would keep the electric-eye death traps from functioning.

Senor Steel carried the lantern back along the path until he found Doc Savage's p.r.o.ne form.

He laughed once, then. A rather terribly gleeful laugh. And he fired a burst from the machine pistol at Doc Savage's chest.

Senor Steel then picked up Doc Savage and the bronze giant was limp. He carried the big form into the jungle, to a creek in the mangroves that had a mud bottom.

He threw Doc Savage into the creek. Then he stepped upon the bronze giant's body, and jumped around until he had trampled Doc's form some two feet in the mud.

"Good place for them both," he told himself.

He went back and got Monk. Monk seemed to be breathing, it dawned on Senor Steel when he had carried the apish chemist to the mudhole, so he shot him again.

After he had dumped Monk in the mud, he stood on him until the homely chemist was deep in the mire.

Then he got out and wiped his shoes on weeds.

"We question the prisoners to see if Doc Savage left any record of what he learned," he remarked to himself. "Then we b.u.mp them, and this thing is settled!"

He walked away.Doc Savage came out of the adjacent darkness, waded swiftly into the mud, groped for Monk, and dragged the unfortunate chemist out on dry ground.

Monk had regained consciousness under the mud. He was not very pleased with the situation.

Chapter XVII. HORROR CACHE.

DOC SAVAGE had two things to do at once. First, he had to keep track of Senor Steel, to be sure the man did not evade him. And secondly, he must keep Monk from making a noise that would betray the fact that they were both alive.

Keeping Monk quiet was the big problem. Monk wanted to make a noise, a lot of noise. He had mud to get out of his mouth, and a lot of words, all sulphur-coated, that he wanted to release. Doc Savage held the homely chemist's mouth and nose, shook him, pounded on him, and otherwise conveyed the need for silence.

After Monk got the situation straightened out, he was quiet. He cleaned out his mouth and nose, wiped his eyes, and sc.r.a.ped off his face as best he could.

"Somebody is gonna pay for this!" he snarled. "Somebody is sure gonna!"

"Let us hope so," Doc whispered grimly. "Do not make too much noise."

The bronze man did not follow Senor Steel immediately. Instead, he ran back to the cache-the hinged box in the ground under the vines-from which Senor Steel had taken an ultraviolet lantern. There were other lanterns, and Doc Savage got one of them.

He had previously followed Senor Steel to the spot, interrupting his operation of playing dead to do so.

The bronze man carried one of the lanterns, hurried along the path.

"Quiet," he warned.

Monk could walk now. He had been thinking, and the more he thought, the madder he became.

"That Senor Steel slugged me!" he gritted. "He's a crook."

"A large one," Doc admitted.

"He the head of this thing, by any chance?" Monk demanded.

"My guess is that he is."

They crept along in silence-there was still no sign of Senor Steel ahead-while Monk did some more thinking.

Doc Savage breathed: "Here are the ammunition drums you thought you lost. Also a spare machine pistol."

"Huh?"

"I slipped them out of your pockets the first time you fell in the mud. Later, when I examined your gun, I subst.i.tuted blank cartridges."

Monk muttered, "I don't get this!"

"It was to prevent Senor Steel killing you with your own weapon," Doc Savage explained. "He shot you a number of times while you were unconscious. He didn't know he was shooting blanks. Then he threw you in the mud and tramped you under. He thinks we are both dead."

"Both? He do that to you, too?"

"Yes."

"Hm-m-m.""His idea that we are dead," Doc Savage said grimly, "is going to make it much simpler for us to fight him. He won't be expecting much."

Monk rubbed his hard knuckles together fiercely.

"When I get hold of that guy," he said, "he's gonna think there's a blasted violent spook around!"

SEnOR STEEL was taking his time. The path-there were a number of the electric-eye death traps along it-forked in the approximate center of the island, and one arm led over to the deep water along the south side of the island. Here was an anchorage, protected by a hook of reefs offsh.o.r.e, where a craft could lie with safety in anything short of a full gale.

It was into this anchorage that the schooner came, two searchlights sticking out like long white whiskers from her bow to pick up the channel range-markers. She rounded the stake that marked deep water, and the anchor rattled down. A dinghy was put overside.

Ham Brooks and Tex Haven were dumped into the dinghy, and the craft was rowed ash.o.r.e.

Senor Steel's appearance on the sh.o.r.e got sudden gasps. They were not happy gasps, either. The men became uneasy. It was evident that they feared Senor Steel. They stood about with uneasiness in their manner. When Senor Steel did not say anything, they grew more worried.

"We've been doing the best we could, your highness," a man mumbled nervously.

Senor Steel said, "You've done excellently."

His voice was cold, but it was evidently warmer than the men had expected. They brightened perceptibly.

"What do you wish done with the prisoners?"

"Hold them here a minute," Senor Steel directed. "Horst should be showing up in the plane."

"Horst has Rhoda Haven and the Doc Savage a.s.sistant named Johnny," a man told him.

"I know that, you fool!"

The men withdrew to a respectable-and safe-distance. In all their minds were the things they knew about this Senor Steel. The diabolic cleverness of the man, his cold and almost insane rages when things went wrong. The fact that he was so unpredictable. He might, and on occasion did, do anything.

They were afraid to work for this Senor Steel, and they were afraid not to work for him. That summarized it.

The plane came shortly. It was a fast and modern job, with every appliance for safety and speed. The cabin fittings were the utmost in luxury-leather from Morocco, rare tapestry from Gobelins, a painting by an old master that had cost a hundred thousand dollars, in one end of the cabin. Senor Steel had wanted solid gold fittings. But gold was too heavy, so the handles and window cranks and such were only gold-plated.

It was the personal plane of Senor Steel, president-dictator of Blanca Grande, which was a very unfortunate South American republic.

It landed and unloaded Johnny and Rhoda Haven. Also Horst.

Horst was as scared of Senor Steel as the others.

"This Doc Savage," he said, "is a devil. I haven't been able to do anything with him."

Senor Steel showed his white teeth. "I have. He is dead."

He told about tramping the bodies of Doc Savage and Monk deep into the soft swamp mud. They were dead, he said.

He sounded very pleased.

"The only thing left," he added, "is to question the prisoners and make sure Doc Savage left no written record of what he learned.""What about Henry Peace?"

"Well, what about him?"

"He's a mystery to everybody," said Horst.

"Some soldier-of-fortune tramp. Forget him."

MONK MAYFAIR gripped Doc Savage's arm, said, "We could jump them now," in a low whisper.

"Not now," Doc breathed.

The palmettos were thick around them, for shrubbery grew with luxuriance close to the beach. The sand was soft, and had m.u.f.fled their footsteps.

Monk whispered, "I know we're outnumbered, but-"

"Let them lead us to this thing they call the cache," Doc said.

"Oh!" Monk understood, even if he was itching for a fight and didn't want to wait.

The march along the island path started. At this end, too, there was a cache of the ultraviolet lanterns that prevented the path death traps from working. They took no chances on one lantern protecting the whole group. They carried four.

They walked to the fork where the two paths joined, continued along the one that led to higher ground-higher ground being such only in comparison with the rest of the island. The greatest alt.i.tude was probably no more than twenty feet, and there were plenty of evidences that high hurricane water had swept over during the past.

They came to a hut.

It was not a hut that would attract anyone's interest. It might arouse a little pity, perhaps. It was very squalid. The old man who occupied the hut sat outside.

The old man had a beard, rather a remarkable beard, one that a family of nest-hunting mice could have envied. He also had wrinkles, such wrinkles that it was hard to tell which one was his mouth.

"h.e.l.l's fire!" he said. "Ain't I ever gonna get to go to bed tonight?"

He said that before he saw Senor Steel. Then he saw Senor Steel and got down on his knees and began protesting that he hadn't known his highness was along.

They went into the shack, lifted a trapdoor. There was sand. They sc.r.a.ped away the sand, and there was a wooden lid.

They lifted the lid, and there was a box full of gimcracks-rifle, revolver, knife, a good suit, a purse containing some money-such as an old man who was afraid of thieves might hide under his house. They took these out and opened the bottom of the box. This disclosed what seemed to be an ordinary abandoned well. Into the well they put a rope ladder which the old man of the hut produced.

They climbed down into the well, which was walled with brick, and pushed on certain of the brick, and finally stepped through a trapdoor into the cache.

It was lighted with electric bulbs, and it did not smell pleasant. It smelled, in fact, nauseating.

"They must be burning one of them now," Senor Steel said.

"Yes," a man told him. "Old Goncez, who hid all his gold somewhere before we got him. I think that tonight he'll tell where it is."

It was about this time that Doc Savage walked out of the darkness outside the shack and took the old man with the beard by the throat.

DOC SAVAGE had moved quickly, and the old man was taken by surprise.

Doc was also a master of certain methods of inflicting pressure on the spinal nerve centers so as to induce instantaneous paralysis. After he had pressed awhile, the old man became helpless, and could not cry out. Eventually, if certain readjustments were made, osteopathic fashion, on the nerve centers, he would be none the worse. But until then he could not move nor talk.

"You oughta let me biff him one!" Monk said.

"You'll get plenty of chances to biff people, I'm afraid," Doc advised grimly.

The elaborately secret entrance to the underground cache had been left open. Descending the ladder, they could not help grimacing. Even the swamp mud had a rather pleasant aroma by comparison.

Monk suddenly gripped Doc's arm, breathed anxiously, "Could this smell be gas?"