Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (9 page)

“Oh boy, Pat!” Monk said happily.

Depressing a stud permitted the door to open.

In flounced pretty Patricia Savage, Doc’s cousin and only living relative. She was smartly-attired in the latest Fifth Avenue autumn frock. Her skin partook of Doc Savage’s russet coloring, but lacked the metallic aspect. Her eyes were a frank and inviting gold.

A wealth of bronze hair crowned the vision that was Pat. At sight of the homely chemist, she bestowed her most inviting smile.

“Hello, Monk. How goes the war?”

“Makin’ progress, Pat. Doc ain’t here.”

Pat looked around her. “Where is he then?”

“No clue,” said Monk. “But you know Doc.”

Pat frowned. “I sure do. If he caught me here, he might bend me over his knee for a paddling and send me home.”

“Aww, Doc just wants to keep you out of trouble, is all.”

“Trouble,” said Pat Savage, “is my main meat. Any word on that Hornetta wench?”

“Nope. I got a posse of some of Doc’s private detectives out lookin’ for her.”

Pat dropped into a comfortable chair. “Well, maybe I’ll just stick around here and see if anything pops.”

“Suit yourself,” said Monk, picking up a desk telephone from a bank of instruments. Inserting a furry finger into the rotary dial, he gave it a series of brisk spins.

Pat picked up a magazine, and attempted to peruse it. It proved to be a particularly erudite scientific journal and the bronze-haired girl found it impenetrable. She eventually gave it up as a bad job.

Noticing a neat stack of newspapers on the big desk, Pat reached for one.

“Nix!” snapped Monk. “I’m savin’ those for when Doc gets back. The press has been beatin’ up on him pretty bad since all this trouble hit town.”

“I know,” said Pat. “I read the news rags, too.”

The newspapers did themselves proud.

SAVAGE FINALLY DOWNED

That was the way one sheet had it.

BAD MEN SHOOT BRONZE MAN

A tabloid said:

SAVAGE NOT SO SAVAGE!

“Maybe you should hide these instead,” sniffed Pat.

“Doc owns a few of these sheets,” countered the hairy chemist. “I think he might want to give some of them editors a good talkin’ to.”

Pat crinkled her pretty nose. “The way my cousin acts sometimes, he will probably give them all raises for being so darned honest,” she said wearily.

NOT long after, the buzzer whined again. Consulting the television device, Monk looked interested.

A man stood in the outer hall. He was doing a strange thing—he was carefully twisting a metal cap off the lower end of a Malacca cane which he carried. When he had the cap off, he pocketed it, then hung the cane over an arm.

The man looked prosperous, faintly Continental, as if he had just gotten off a trans-Atlantic ocean liner. Striking though, was the way his skin appeared raw and blistered. Even in black and white, this was noticeable.

Peering over the homely chemist’s shoulder, Pat Savage remarked cheerfully, “You don’t look pleased to see company.”

“I don’t like the look of that cane,” muttered Monk.

Pat arched one pencilled eyebrow. “You’re just allergic to them after all the times Ham tried to brain you with his walking stick.”

Monk scowled. “Take another look.”

Pat did. “I see now. The cap is missing from the end.”

“He just took it off.”

“Why do you suppose he did that?” wondered Pat, brow creasing.

“Gun or gas in the cane, maybe.”

“Recognize him?” asked Pat.

“Naw,” said Monk. “But after all that’s happened, I ain’t takin’ any chances. Step closer and roost on this rubber mat.”

There was a rubber mat on the floor behind the long desk.

Pat complied.

The visitor with the large red hands and cane entered with his hat in hand. It was the type of hat called a Tyrolean. A stiff brush was tucked into the band on one side.

“Good day to you,” he hailed, waving his hat. His voice sounded immensely pleased, like a voyager who had traveled far and had reached his long-awaited destination.

“We’re busy.” Monk returned shortly. “Whatcha want?”

“I seek the gallant known as Doc Savage.”

“He ain’t here,” said Monk. “I’m his assistant, Monk. State your business.”

The aristocratic man stood there on the decorative rug, cane gripped casually in both hands. He bent a supercilious eye on Monk Mayfair.

“I have important information for Doctor Savage, and only for him,” he announced. “It is imperative that I consult with him.”

Monk growled, “We don’t know where Doc is, or when he will be back. And if you try to use whatever kind of weapon you’ve got in that cane, it’ll be just too bad.”

The visitor looked nonplussed in a casual way. He was, they saw, the cool and nervy type.

“My information,” the man said without agitation, “concerns one Hornetta Hale.”

Monk began, “If you would bust loose with some info—”

“Watch it, Monk!” Pat suddenly warned.

The visitor was tilting his cane up at Monk. The tip pointed at the notch between the hairy chemist’s tiny eyes.

Monk tapped a small pedal on the floor.

Results were instantaneous.

The visitor shrieked unmanfully, dropped his came, and tied himself in a knot. Moaning, he tried to pick up the cane. When his fingertips came near the brass handle, blue sparks leaped toward him. This produced another howl of anguish.

Scuttling like a crab, the man attempted to crawl out of the reception room, moaning and shrieking.

Monk depressed the floor pedal again. He leaped out from behind the massive desk and across the electrified rug, which was woven of fine wire which could not be distinguished from the other fibers unless a magnifying glass was used. The current had merely given the man an uncomfortable shock.

The visitor had quick wits. No sooner had the juice stopped contorting his paralyzed body than he yanked a small two-shot derringer from somewhere and gave Monk Mayfair both barrels in the stomach.

The caliber of weapon was undoubtedly heavier than the typical .22 derringer round. Monk was thrown backward with great force. That was enough for the man to reach the elevator, although he stumbled once and had to pick himself up.

The door responded instantly. That was fortunate for the man and unfortunate for the others. For Pat Savage had come flying out, a ludicrously large six-shooter in one tanned fist. She had extracted it from her commodious handbag.

Pat aimed and managed to send one .44 slug ripping through the closing doors. After that, the cage was sinking.

“Darn it!” she complained. She raced for the super-speed express elevator, with the intention of using it to beat the man to the lobby. Pressing the button, she discovered the cage was parked at the lobby level. Her eager expression sank to the marble floor.

“Drat!” fumed Pat.

Monk picked himself up with difficulty and grabbed a telephone. “Building electrician!” he shouted. When the connection came, he said, “Shut off the juice to the visitor’s lift!”

“Will do, sir.”

Then a bang came over the phone wire, followed by two more bangs, a shout, and curse in the electrician’s voice.

“Hell’s bells!” the electrician snarled a moment later. “There’s a guy with a gun in there watching the switchboard. He’s masked. Wait a minute! He just lit out of here like his pants were on fire!”

Hanging up, Monk called the lobby and absorbed the unwelcome news that their courtly assailant had exited the building.

He ran out to join Pat at the special lift, growling,“They had it all figgered out. And that makes two of them, at least.”

“Your trick rug didn’t go so hot, huh?” Pat asked.

“Maybe,” admitted Monk, rubbing his stomach gingerly. “But my bulletproof vest sure saved my bacon.”

Halting, Monk stooped and picked up the cane which the Continental visitor had dropped. The examination he gave it was low and careful.

The cane barrel—hollowed out—yielded an ingenious mechanism consisting of a cylinder of compressed air, a valve which could be turned on by twisting the head of the cane, so that compressed air would feed into a tiny sprayer chamber. Monk noted the presence of a bilious liquid in the chamber, where it could be shot from the cane end.

“Sulfuric acid,” he said thoughtfully. “It would have done a swell job of blinding me. You, too.”

“Then maybe I was wrong about the rug,” Pat admitted sheepishly. “It saved your eyesight, or Doc’s, had he been around.”

Monk finally got his breathing organized. “Come on, Pat. Maybe we can still get a line on ’em!”

Down at the switchboard, the girl described two men, one masked by a handkerchief tied around his lower face, the other was the would-be assassin.

Both had fierce sunburns. The girl gave a good description of them. So did the doorman. A taxicab had taken them away. Oddly, Monk accepted this datum without disappointment.

“What do lobster-red hands mean?” Monk asked Pat when he was back in the office. “Remember, it’s almost winter here. Sunburn ain’t likely.”

Pat considered. “Dishwashing?” she ventured.

“No good.”

“Chemical burns?”

Monk shook his head. “Naw. I’ve been plenty burned by chemicals. It wasn’t that.”

“The tropics, then,” hazarded Pat.

“That’s an idea,” muttered Monk. “It might mean they had enough dough to go south. Only a scorching sun would peel a man that way.”

Within the hour, a desk phone buzzed. Monk scooped it up.

“Yeah? Great! Thanks.” The apish chemist replaced the instrument. “We got a line on them.”

“How?”

“Doc has this guy working for him, one of the graduates of our ‘college.’ He’s usually stationed in the cab stand outside the building, for things like this. The two hired him and they went out to Long Island. The cabby just gave me the dang address.”
²

“Swell! What are we waitin’ on?”

Monk made simian faces. They were comical in the extreme.

“I’ll ring Ham in on this,” he decided, reaching for the telephone.

“The more the merrier,” Pat said brightly.

“Nix! Doc’ll chew me out if I let you tag along,” protested Monk.

Pat pouted prettily. “Doc doesn’t have to know.”

“If you get injured, or worse, it’ll be my neck,” Monk pointed out.

He had the telephone receiver in hand again and said, “Shyster, meet us here at headquarters.” Monk gave an address. Pat, being no slouch, made a mental note of it.

“We can get there faster in my racing plane,” hinted Pat after the apish chemist hung up.

Interest registered on Monk’s simian features. “How many does it seat?”

“Two.”

“Swell. Ham and I will borrow it.”

“In that case,” Pat countered snippily, “forget it. I’ll meet you there, and may the best man win.”

“Aww, Pat,” said Monk.

But pretty Pat Savage was already out the door.

Chapter IX

THE SOUTH AMERICA TREND

PAT SAVAGE KEPT her racing plane stored at the seaplane base on the East River side of Manhattan island, at East Twenty-third Street. It was a two-place job, a glaring scarlet with black trim, boasting an engine that was overpowered for an aircraft of its class.

The establishment had an ingenious method of putting planes in the water. Pat had only to start her trim little craft, taxi onto a concrete turntable, and wait while the mechanism was engaged.

The turntable ramp was set at an angle so that one side dipped into the river. Pat’s plane was slowly rotated until the amphibian’s pontoon hull was delivered into the water.

Advancing the throttle, Pat slid off like a duck entering a pond, taxied some distance, and the smart little ship got on step. After some bumping along, the scarlet amphibian took to the air, and overflew the breathtaking ironwork structure that was the Queensboro Bridge.

Soon, she was winging toward the far tip of Long Island, near Montauk Point lighthouse.

Finding an address from the air was practically impossible, but with the aid of a handy road map, Pat was able to locate the spot. Barnes Road wound along to the shore and Pat imagined that putting down at the far end was the best place to begin her investigation.

She was mildly surprised to see a brick boathouse at the water’s edge, with a seaplane docked inside, its snout visible, prop gleaming in the sun. This part of Long Island is inhabited by the well-to-do, so perhaps it was not so unusual.

Pat eschewed the hangar, however, beaching her ship in a sleepy cove. Tossing out a sea anchor, she picked her way carefully along jetty rocks until she reached solid ground. The area was sparse of homes, so Pat was not challenged by local folk.

The bronze-haired girl hiked to the place where Barnes Road terminated.

This time surprise seized her with greater force. For the number she sought—three hundred and thirty-four—was that of a brick mansion that plainly belonged to the seaplane hangar. Or vice versa, actually.

“Looks like I beat the boys, for once,” she chortled as she reconnoitered the place.

That was not all she beat, it developed.

A long phaeton came sliding up. It eased onto a winding white gravel driveway and lurched to a stop.

Out of it stepped the Continental visitor of the day, his Tyrolean hat jauntily askew. Evidently, he had the presence of mind to carry it from the scene of his late embarrassment.

With him was a man wearing a rust-colored overcoat that Pat did not place. She had not been informed of the description of the earlier raiders on Doc Savage’s skyscraper establishment.

“Mr. Trick Cane himself,” Pat muttered. She unlimbered her six-shooter, which was charged with the same mercy bullets Doc Savage had invented. She rarely flung lead indiscriminately, although Pat was not shy about doing so if the occasion called for it.

As the pair entered the house, Pat slipped up, using topiary shrubbery for shelter. It allowed her to get within peeping-tom distance of a broad bay window.

Men were inside. Several of them. They were competent looking men with intelligent faces. There was a woman, too. She was seated in a high-backed stuffed armchair. Pat did not place her, and the angle did not allow her to identify the femme as the missing Hornetta Hale—if indeed it was she.