Doc Savage - Up From Earth's Center Part 8

"I don't care!" Clancy told her. "He's crazy, and he's not the only crazy one around here. And if all this doesn't stop, you and I are going to hunt a new job."

Doc asked quickly, "Will you show us where Gilmore was hiding?"

"No, he won't!" Clancy's wife snapped.

"Yes, I will!" Clancy said. "I don't care what happens. I'm sick of mystery, talk about devils, and goings-on. I want to stop it, and I figure Mr. Savage is the man who can stop it. I've heard about you, Mr. Savage."

Doc told Monk, "Get your blacklight scanner. I'll get mine. Clancy, paying no attention to further objections by his wife, led them about two hundred yards up the mountainside to a stone-and-log structure that at first seemed to be a guest cabin, but which Clancy said was rented out every summer. "Gilmore was holed up here," Clancy explained. "From the window, you can see the trail to the lodge, and there's practically no other way to get up here. You can come down from the other side, down the mountain trail, of course, but it's a roundabout way, and you can see that route from the window, too. There's a back door, so - "

"What do you find?" Doc demanded of Monk The latter had been casting the beam of his ultra-violet light projector about experimentally "You sprinkled that tracer stuff where everyone would walk in it!" Monk exclaimed, wheeling to turn the beam on his own footprints, which glowed a rather evil shade of green, mixed with a reddish cast.

"Poke around with that scanner and see what colors you get," Doc told him. "That'll tell us who was here.

Let's not waste time."

They cast the beam of light about, calling out colors as they distinguished them. Monk found another shade of green, Doc located a yellow-purple and a blue.

"Williams brought Ham Brooks and Miss Sullivan here," Doc said, interpreting the findings. "They picked up Gilmore Sullivan - presumably Williams did that by force, probably with the threat of a gun - and they departed on the trail that climbs the mountain."

Clancy had been a skeptical onlooker. "That sounds like tall guesswork to me."

"No, it's probably close to what happened," Doc told him. "Ham Brooks and Miss Sullivan walked close together in approaching the cabin, they stopped in one place while Williams moved over to a window, then came back. After this, they all entered. Ham and Leona then stood in one spot, while Williams did the moving about. That indicates he probably had a gun and was making them stand still. And from the places Williams walked, it is pretty clear he aroused Gilmore Sullivan from sleep on that bunk yonder, and forced him to accompany them. We have, of course, no record of Gilmore's footprints."

"Aw, nuts," Clancy said unbelievingly "How come they're leaving footprints?" substances in the bedrooms they occupied, and they walked in it and now they leave prints which become conspicuous under black light," Doc explained.

"I don't believe it," Clancy said.

"You're a hard guy to convince," Monk told him.

"If you had been around here the last six months," Clancy said, "you would be a hard guy to convince, too."

"What do you mean by that?" Monk asked.

"Clancy!" warned Clancy's wife.

Clancy said, "For six months, or almost that, Gilmore's been sure a devil was chasing him. Not a full-fledged devil, but a junior-grade one of some sort, who didn't have full devil powers. Lately Miss Leona has started believing it was a fact. Now I ask you - "

"We have heard all that, Clancy," Doc told him. "Why are you repeating it?"

"I was just going to ask you how a man could believe anything around here," Clancy said. "With suchgoings-on! My G.o.d, everybody has jumped the trolley Doc shrugged. "A little skepticism keeps a man on solid ground, Clancy Too much of it keeps him from realizing when he's undermined. Come on, everybody Let's see where the trail leads."

The moon had dropped out of sight, but there was some bluish cold light from stars. They managed the steep, narrow trail with difficulty. The footprints were quite obvious, except at times when there was some fluorescence by minerals in the earth or stones underfoot to confuse them.

"The tracks turn off here," Monk exclaimed suddenly He thrust into the bushes, using the white beam of his regular flashlight. "Hey, here's a side trail. They took it."

"Ye G.o.ds, they're going to Gilmore's cavern," Clancy exploded.

"Leona told me about this cavern of Gilmore's," Doc said. "So it's up this way, is it?"

"Pretty close, not more'n a quarter of a mile," said Clancy.

"I understand Gilmore spent a lot of time the last few years exploring this cave, so it must be a large one.

"I guess it's a big one, all right."

"You've been in it?"

"Not me. Well, about ten feet," Clancy admitted hurriedly "Me, I'm no caveman. I keep wondering what if the roof fell in on me."

They continued the climb, and came eventually to a heavy wooden door that closed an aperture in the stone.

"That the cavern entrance?"

"That's it," Clancy replied. "And they went in, didn't they?"

Mr. Wail burst out in a shrill voice, "I'm getting out of here!"

"Grab him, Monk," Doc ordered.

VII.

A FEW red fingers of dawn were thrusting upward in the eastern sky The cave entrance was high, affording a view of the valley, which was now floored with cottonlike fog. Presently Monk Mayfair returned, panting, from the lodge. "Here's the stuff you wanted, Doc," he said.

"You brought the rope, the gadget case, the generating flashlights, and sandwiches and water?" Doc demanded.

"Yep. All of it. Why you wanted grub enough for a week, I can't imagine. I don't plan to stay in n.o.body s cave a week."

"Me, neither!" declared Clancy vehemently "Clancy, you're not even going in there!" his wife told him.

Clancy nodded. "My idea exactly, if I can make it stick." He looked up at Doc Savage anxiously "You seem to suspect everybody around here, Mr. Savage, and I can't say I blame you. We did hide out poorGilmore, pretending we didn't know he was here. But what about it? Do I have to go cave crawling? I sure don't hanker after the idea."

"You'd like to stay outside, is that it?" Doc Savage asked.

"Didn't I make myself clear?"

Doc eyed him intently "You have some plans, I take it?"

"Not any you would object to, if you're on the up-and- up, Clancy said.

"Indeed?"

Clancy said grimly, "I'm going to call the State Police. That's my plan."

"Good for you, Clancy. You do that," Doc said.

"Whew! You mean I don't have to go in there?"

"Not if you call the police."

"I'll see that he does, Mr. Savage," Clancy's wife said emphatically. Doc approached the wooden door, listened, heard nothing suspicious, and wrenched the door open. Nothing happened. He tossed a rock inside. It clicked against stone, magnified echoes returned, and there was silence.

"Monk, are you ready to go in?" Doc asked.

"No," Monk replied. "But I'm as ready as I'll probably ever be. You want me to go first?"

"Tie one end of the rope to Mr. Wail, and we'll let him lead the way like a bloodhound," Doc said dryly "Does that meet your approval, Wail?"

Wail sneered. "You'll wish you hadn't done this. You'll wish it more than you ever wished anything in your life."

"Lead on, Wail," Doc ordered curtly. "Leona Sullivan and my friend Ham Brooks are in there somewhere. If you think we're not going to help them, you're crazy."

To enter the cavern mouth was a nerve-wracking thing. The entrance was narrow, even the pallid icy moonlight must have been a background that silhouetted them, and it was a perfect spot for an ambush.

But they pa.s.sed inside and traversed about forty feet without contact with any physical danger.

When Doc was inclined to halt, Mr. Wail gave the rope an impatient jerk, saying, "Come on, come on!

Nothing is going to bother you yet."

Doc gave the rope a wrench of his own, hauling Wail back on his heels. "I take it you've been this way before," Doc said.

"Did I say differently?"

"No."

"I chased Gilmore Sullivan all over this place," Mr. Wail said. 'And, believe me, it was some job. Not a very successful one either, or I wouldn't be here now."

Doc said dryly, "We're to understand that you didn't catch Gilmore?" "I caught him all right. Several times. But it didn't do me much good. I couldn't handle him all in one batch, and he got to the exit and escaped before I got him worn down to my size.

"You're frank, anyway," Doc told him. 'An unusual sort of frankness, too, the kind that can get you into trouble."

Wail snorted. "You haven't any trouble that will compare with the doses of it I've already had. In fact, speaking as a lad who has had quite a sojourn in Hades, I can say that when you threaten me with trouble, you're being pretty d.a.m.n childish."

Monk put in grimly, "Tell me this, Wail: How are your physical senses? Do you feel pain?"

"Unfortunately, my body for the time being is as human as yours.

"Then," Monk said, "if I gave you a good kick on the fantail deck, you would feel it? Now, if you don't shut up about this Tophet stuff, that's what you're going to get."

"Worry you, do I?" Wail asked.

"You irritate me, anyway "That's right, you probably haven't brains enough to be worried. Worry is the exclusive burden of the intelligent mind."

Monk said, "Oh, dry up and let's listen. The footprints show Miss Sullivan, Ham, Williams and probably Gilmore Sullivan entered here. This place can't be so big, and we may be able to hear them."

"It'll surprise you how big this place is," Wail said.

Their straining ears caught no sound. Not even the dripping of water, Doc noted, and he reflected that it was evidently a dry cave at this level. There was a p.r.o.nounced flow of air against their faces, and it was freighted with a faint and not distasteful odor.

"Odd odor," Linningen commented. It was practically the first word the psychiatrist had spoken.

"What," asked Wail curiously, "would you say the odor was?"

Linningen pondered in the darkness. "It has a flowery quality," he remarked. "I would say, if I were outside, that there were flowers some distance away But in here, I presume it means the presence of some sort of subterranean plant life, or possibly a reaction of chemical nature between the content of rock strata and moisture."

Wail seemed to consider this funny. He burst into a cackling roar of hilarity. The sound of his laughter rose and tumbled away, hit the walls and interstices 01 the cavern and came gobbling back with a tremulous labyrinthine overtone that gave it a demoniacal glee. The laughter kept up, and Doc Savage, suddenly unnerved by the satanical reverberations of the mirth, gave Wail a hard poke in the ribs with his thumb. That stopped the unholy yakking.

"Lead on," Doc said. "Monk, you fall back about fifty feet with Linningen. Better just keep us in sight, in case there is an ambush. That way, we will not all be trapped. And use your flashlights sparingly."

"Flowers!" Wail exclaimed, giggling. "Can you beat that! The boys in the outer room would think that very funny."

The way led downward. Doc Savage played his flashlight beam on the walls, took note that the stratawas not unusual, being typical of the caves which were a tourist attraction in New York state, and parts of New England. Like practically all such subterranean labyrinths from Mammoth Cave to Carlsbad Caverns, the two best-publicized natural caves, it was the work of time and seepage water against rock strata that was either soluble or softer than the surrounding stone.

One fact became evident. At least one person in the party they were following knew where he was going.

There being no trail, progress was vastly a different matter from strolling along a prepared route inspecting the wonders of such a cavern as Carlsbad. This one was far from being as large as Carlsbad, and for the time being there were no stalagmites or stalact.i.tes. Jagged patterns in the stone, however, often bore a resemblance to the stone icicles.

The rate of descent was astonishing. More and more frequently, there were declines where they had to slide for yards, where the return trip would not be easy.

Monk called nervously from some distance back, "Doc, is there much danger of this fluorescein stuff fading so we can't find our way back out by following the trail it makes?"

"Not much," Doc said. "But pick up loose stones whenever you find them, and make cairns.

"O.K. But there aren't many loose stones."

Several times they halted to rest. Now the silence came to their attention, the utter and complete silence of a tomb, and coupled with the darkness which was absolutely complete when their flashlights were extinguished, it was an unnerving experience. Monk began clicking two small rocks together during the rest periods, working out a signal code based on Morse, and Doc Savage, after his initial feeling that the act was childish, welcomed the little sounds that broke the silence. After that, he replied to Monk.

Consulting his watch, Doc was astonished to find they had been engaged in the descent into the entrails of the earth for nearly six hours. Time had pa.s.sed rapidly, and he called a halt for lunch.

"You better go easy on your stock of food," Wail said contemptuously "You've got farther to go than you think."

"We've come quite a distance already" Doc remarked.

"A couple of miles," Wail said.

"No, more than that. We must be making at least two miles an hour, and we've been at it six hours."

"I meant straight down," Wail said.

"Oh!" Doc was impressed in spite of himself. Wail was probably right, at that.

"How much farther would you say we'll have to go before overtaking Williams and his prisoners?" Doc inquired.

This drew no answer, although Wail had been quite willing to talk up until now. Turning the light of his flash on Wail's cherubic but somehow evil face, Doc saw with astonishment that Wail looked greatly worried.