Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (11 page)

Plugging the jack back into its receptacle, Monk got back to work. The cockpit settled
down into a calm atmosphere, in which the muted drone of the two radial engines seemed
somehow far away.

Monk was busy some time. Finally, he seemed to obtain results.

“Where can we meetcha?” he asked excitedly. “Great Blasket Island? We’ll find it.”

Monk snapped off the radio. “I found an Irishman with a bargeload of aviation fuel.
He says he can meet us at Great Blasket Island, which is just about the westernmost
point of Ireland.”

Doc nodded. He changed course slightly, taking the monster speed plane southward.

“Bally good luck there should be a quantity of fuel there,” Ham sniffed.

“Luck of the Irish, I calls it,” Monk said, beaming.

IT was somewhat past midnight when Doc dropped his plane in Dingle Bay, off the western
coast of Ireland. Great Blasket was the largest of six isles, looking like a pod of
whales bathing in the moonlight. The streamlined hull knocked up sheets of spray,
carving a wake that collapsed on itself.

“The worst leg of this daggone trip is behind us,” Monk muttered sleepily.

“I’ll wager the worst prospects lie before us,” Ham rejoined, flourishing his ever-present
sword cane.

The pig, Habeas Corpus, crawled from under Monk’s chair.

Ham gawked. “What is that insect doing here!”

Monk shrugged. “Sleepin’, I guess.”

“But you agreed to leave him behind if I left my Chemistry back in New York!”

Chemistry was Ham’s pet—a runt ape of no discoverable species he had picked up in
South America.

“I
did,” Monk said innocently. “Somebody musta forgot to tell Habeas.”

Monk scooped up the pet pig, and began scratching behind its wing-like ear. “Habeas,
I guess you don’t hear none too good,” he said amiably.

Ham looked mad enough to unsheathe his sword cane and wrap the fine blade around Monk’s
nearly non-existent neck. Instead, he settled for guessing out loud how many cuts
of meat the scrawny porker might produce if the opportunity ever came to butcher him
for food.

Monk clapped both hands over Habeas’ long inquisitive ears.

“Don’t listen to him, hog. He don’t eat pork anyway. He just likes to rag on his betters.”

The porker opened its mouth and seemed to say, “Shoats are superior to shysters in
any book.”

At that humorous example of ventriloquism, Ham purpled and stamped around in the cabin,
fuming, until Doc Savage announced, “We will refuel as rapidly as possible.”

Doc Savage, handling the controls, ruddered the plane in toward Great Blasket Island’s
northeastern shore. When he blooped the powerful motors, they threw off streams of
air, which in turn scooped up great fans of spray.

In the water, a low shape showed—a barge. Amidships this craft was decked over. On
the deck stood numerous metal drums.

A man stood amid these drums. He was alone on board. Lifting arms, he waved them in
greeting.

Doc piloted the big plane toward the large seagoing platform. It glided to a point
very close to the barge, reversed engines, and dropped a sea anchor electrically.
A splash near the nose told of the anchor entering the water.

Doc shoved open his window, waved once.

The dark shape in the barge called out, “Faith, are ye the party what wants gasoline?”

“We are,” Doc admitted.

“Wonderful luck! For I have all you need!”

The son of Erin stepped into the floodlights. He wore a cloth cap and a Mackintosh
coat that fit him like a swaddling blanket.

Ham threw open the hatch.

“Monk,” Doc suggested, “see if his gas is all right. If it is, we’ll patronize him.
The time we’ll save makes it worth the cost.”

With monkeylike agility, the homely chemist sprang to the barge. He carried a bottle,
which he filled with gasoline from a drum. Then he sprang back to the plane, entered
the cabin and for possibly two minutes was very busy analyzing.

“It’s good gas,” he told Doc.

The Irishman—he introduced himself as Patrick Allerton van Shaughnessy—had a hand-force
pump on his barge. It was of large capacity. With it he rapidly transferred fuel to
the big plane tanks.

“Fill ’em up,” Monk said. Doc remained in the cockpit. He was too conspicuous and
they were soon to be flying into what might turn into a war zone. No point in stirring
up the press. Doc always avoided publicity.

“Goin’ far?” the Shaughnessy inquired cheerily.

“Clear to Russia,” lied Monk.

“Brrrr! Be cold up there.”

Monk was standing atop the broad wing.

Ham stuck his head out the cabin door. “Why don’t you give him a hand, you lazy ape?”

“It’s his gas, his pump, let him earn his fee,” snarled Monk.

They fell to arguing, with the result that Monk Mayfair reentered the cabin to make
sure Ham had not locked Habeas the pig into a valise, with the intent of dropping
him into the water.

After a bit, Monk returned to his post, saw that the Irishman was in the middle of
exchanging drums and said, “Shake a leg, Paddy. We’re in a powerful hurry.”

“I be goin’ as rapidly as I am able, sor,” the Shaughnessy returned.

Monk nodded, sat on the wing, and proceeding to whistle impatiently. Whether it was
Monk’s ferocious appearance, or the whistling, the Irishman pumped furiously.

After two more barrels of fuel had been drained, the Irishman removed the nozzle of
his hose and beamed, “Tis done! It’s be wantin’ my pay, I am now.”

Monk clambered down and peeled out a number of large bills from a fat wad he extracted
from one pocket. “There you go, my good man.”

“Think nothing of it, sor,” said the Shaughnessy.

Returning to the cockpit, Monk said, “Let’s get this crate in the air, Doc.”

Doc Savage was watching the Irishman. The latter ducked behind the drums stacked in
the landward side of the barge, disappearing from sight. The flaky gold in Doc’s eerie
orbs became agitated whirlpools.

“Hold on,” Doc said. The giant bronze man flashed to Monk’s chemical equipment. Monk
had a portable laboratory, which he had perfected himself. He never went on an expedition
without it. From Monk’s paraphernalia, Doc drew a fat syringe and a glass vial.

Grimly, Doc siphoned gas from the fuel tanks. Next, he introduced selected chemicals
from Monk’s assortment. What the bronze giant discovered caused him to hastily cork
the glass tube.

“This fuel has been contaminated!” he rapped.

“What’s wrong with it?” Ham demanded.

“Toward the last, the fellow must have pumped a tank of chemicals aboard,” Doc explained.
“The chemical additive is of a nature to clog the fuel lines. The vibrations of our
motors, for instance, would cause the stuff to mix with the aviation fuel, with the
result that we would run out of fuel—or seem too—after an hour or two of flight.”

Ham howled, “On our present course, we would have gone down over the water!”

“That shamrock shyster!” Monk growled. “I’ll murder him for this! I’ll—”

Monk swallowed the rest.

Abruptly, Doc Savage left the plane, ran onto the wing and made a leap for the barge.
Other than the drums, it was empty.

Doc slipped into the water. His hair soon vanished beneath the waves.

Monk waited. When Doc came up, Monk intended to yell and ask the bronze man if it
would not be all right if he went along. Monk hated to miss action.

But Monk did not see Doc Savage reappear.

DOC SAVAGE came up many yards from the floating plane, and only a short distance from
shore. Two or three silent strokes put him on land.

The Irishman was not on shore. Doc had not expected him to be.

Doc’s spring-generator flashlight, which gave a thin white rod of a beam, was waterproof.
He thumbed it. The flashbeam spouted illumination. The fellow who had planted the
chemical clogger had evidently taken no chances and fled the vicinity.

There were footprints. Doc traced them with his flash ray.

The bronze man worked to higher ground, and into a coastal forest.

The forest was not deep. On the other side of it there appeared to be a village. There
were no lights at this late hour, and the peaty smell of hearths came to his sensitive
nostrils. At this time of year, people went to sleep with their furnaces lit for warmth.

Deciding that he stood little chance of overtaking the Shaughnessy on foot—given the
other’s familiarity with the forest—Doc kicked off shoes and socks. A substantial
tree made an efficient ladder. Doc went up this.

Perched on a high bough, he sighted a nearby limb, gave a leap. He caught the other
limb easily and swung atop it. The footing swayed and bent under him as he ran along
it. A moment later, Doc was in another tree.

Going even higher, the bronze man found a forest lane of the aerial type—although
a man accustomed to city sidewalks might have sworn progress was impossible.

Aided by the brilliant moonlight and the uncanny acuity of his eyes, Doc swung from
tree to tree. An experienced circus aerialist could have managed most of the leaps,
but the idea of doing them under such conditions would have turned him white-headed.

The village came into view. It was a dark cluster of thatched roofs. From branch to
branch Doc dropped downward, finally reaching the ground.

Doc waited there. The bronze man was confident he had distanced the Irishman. The
fellow should be coming out of the woods in a few moments.

A twig snapped. Another. This was all the trained ears of Doc Savage needed to ascertain
the other’s steady course.

Using increased wariness as he drew near, Doc came within a few yards of the procession
of snapping sounds. He could hear a man breathing heavily. The breathing was rasping,
labored.

Doc headed for the spot where the man should exit the forest. Pressing himself to
the bole of a particularly large tree, the bronze man laid in wait.

Footfalls approached. Someone coming. In the murk, he was a bear-like form in a Mackintosh
coat.

Doc Savage stepped into his path with a suddenness that was breathtaking. One moment
the path ahead was clear, and the next there was a metallic Atlas blocking the way.

The Shaughnessy leaped backward with cat-like speed. Fingers were suddenly about his
throat, squeezing. He was being pressed to the ground. The Irishman squirmed on the
woodland path. He went to the verge of unconsciousness. He gulped great quantities
of air in and out of his mouth.

Doc relented, withdrew his terrible corded hand.

The other’s hand dived into his coat pocket. He did not draw the gun which was apparently
there, but pointed it at Doc without removing it from his pocket.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Doc’s golden eyes gazed piercingly. The moonlight was faint here.

“Doc Savage,” said Doc. “And you?”

“Sure, and my name is Patrick Allerton—”

“Your
actual
name,” Doc pressed.

“Zirn. Emile Zirn,” said the other.

“Which Emile Zirn are you?”

“Why, I am the genuine Emile Zirn, naturally.” His Irish accent had faded away like
so much blarney. He stood up.

“Let’s state it more clearly,” Doc said. “A man named Emile Zirn disappeared from
the passenger liner
Transylvania
en route to Southampton, England.”

“I am that Emile Zirn,” the other admitted. The man had not removed his gun from his
pocket—or his hand either. “Only I was not on board the liner when she left Southampton.
My enemies seem to know everything that was going on. I feared they would try to kill
me aboard the liner. So I disembarked at Southampton.”

“You must have come to Ireland by boat,” Doc said dryly.

“I did.”

“And how does it happen that you are here in the Irish coast hawking gasoline?”

“I fled to Ireland to escape my enemies. I heard your radio call, and knew that you
were Doc Savage. I knew also that you must be traveling to Egallah, a terrible place.
Knowing that you are a champion of humanity and knowing that Egallah is a place to
which men go and never return, I decided to save your life the best way I knew how.”

“By doping my fuel?”

“Precisely. I gather you have deduced the truth.”

“Our plane might have gone down over difficult terrain—or water—with fatal consequences,”
the bronze man pointed out.

The other shrugged. “But you are a superior pilot. You would have landed safely. You
are a wizard of death-defying escapes. You are a genius, a modern Prometheus. Why,
Thomas Edison has nothing on you. Einstein is scarcely your equal. You are renowned
for roaming the world and setting difficult matters to rights.”

After this long speech, Emile Zirn drew a full breath into his lungs. That distracted
his mind slightly. There was a blinding flash of bronze in front of him. He felt a
terrific wrench of his arm. Cloth tore loudly.

Emile Zirn stared. His gun was now in Doc Savage’s hand. The big bronze man seized
it before Emile Zirn realized what was happening.

Emile Zirn rubbed his eyes. He had just seen a man move so fast that it was like magic.

DOC SAVAGE looked at Emile Zirn’s gun. The weapon was an automatic with a barrel the
size of a fountain pen and almost twice as long. It was a gun which fired a bullet
of small diameter but great velocity and carrying power.

“I do not like to have a gentleman point a gun at me while I talk to him,” Doc said.

Emile Zirn shrugged, said nothing.

Doc used his powerful flashlight, trickled the beam over Emile Zirn from head to foot.
He clicked it out.

“Emile Zirn was reported killed,” Doc advised.

“I am alive, as you can see,” asserted the other. “Not dead.”

“We will accept that for the present,” Doc told him.

“How do I know that you are in fact the famous Doc Savage?”

Before the bronze man could reply, Emile Zirn struck out with a balled fist.

The immediate consequence of this was that the metallic giant barely reacted while
Emile Zirn tucked his throbbing fist under one arm and made expressions of agony.