Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (19 page)

“Well, it’s like this,” Doc began, dropping his voice even further.

The jailer leaned in to catch every syllable in his attentive ear, the glass window inhibiting his hearing somewhat.

“In the cargo hold,” whispered the bronze man, “they got a new type of poison gas. I think one canister is leaking.”

“Leaking!”

“That’s right,” returned Doc. “The reason I got into this here fix was that I smelled something peculiar. Went out like a light. Came to, and it was almost the next day.”

“You don’t say!”

“Swear on my momma’s apple pie,” Doc asserted.

While he was talking, the bronze man removed one shoe, gave the heel a twist, and extracted from the hollow that was exposed a single glass ball no larger than a child’s marble and, holding his breath, crushed the capsule.

Released from the spherical confinement was a volatile mixture that instantly vaporized. It produced a rank odor that was difficult to pin down, other than it was nasty. The odor filled the brig’s tiny cell, soon seeping out of the small space through the keyhole and the narrow gap under the door, where it infiltrated the nostrils of the interested guard so rapidly that he shrank back in alarm.

“I smell it!” he exploded.

“I do, too!” Doc yelled. “Quick, get me out of here before I’m overcome!”

The Master at Arms hesitated, but he knew that he would be held responsible if his prisoner died through his negligence. So he brought out the key to the door padlock, unlocking it in haste.

“Out, Goines!” he urged. “We’ll run for it.”

At that point, Doc crushed the other glass ball, the one he had excavated from his other shoe heel. This time a colorless and odorless gas was produced.

Doc waited a full minute until the anesthetic gas had dissipated before he resumed normal respiration. The mixture was now harmless.

When he opened the cell door all the way, Doc stepped out and found the Master at Arms lying on the floor, peacefully asleep.

The tiny glass balls were of a type the bronze man had been using for many years and they had never failed to extricate him from situations where physical violence was either not called for, or not practical. The first had contained a vapor concocted to make a foe think he was facing poison gas. This was often enough to trick an enemy into blind retreat.

Doc hesitated briefly. Should he remove his disguise? Or keep it? There was no question that elements of the crew were looking for Doc Savage, and it was imperative that he reach his stateroom cabin in order to make a proper disposition of Seaman Goines.

It was a conundrum. Either decision entailed risks as well as advantages.

Hastily, the bronze man removed the make-up from his face and hands, the only parts of his skin that were exposed. He used some rag waste he found and did as thorough a job as possible. The nappy wig that disguised Doc’s metallic hair came off, and the bronze man stuffed this into the bottom of a half-full waste basket.

Cautiously, he stepped out, and began working through the corridors. Doc managed to get several yards when the thought struck him forcibly that he was wearing a shirt that said in stenciled letters, GOINES.

Undoing the button of one short sleeve, he exposed some of the make-up that had darkened his skin. He rubbed this off on the name, obscuring it. It was an indication of the bronze man’s nervousness and haste that he had overlooked that important detail until this moment.

DOC WORKED his way through the ship, avoiding the cabins on B Deck where Diamond and his crew were distributed, and endeavored to turn his back and hide his face whenever he came upon a roving seaman.

The bronze giant made uncanny progress until he happened upon Monk and Ham lugging an enormous steamer trunk along a cross-ship passage.

The two were struggling with it, and it did not require the astuteness of a modern Sherlock Holmes to determine what lay within the commodious receptacle.

Monk was leading, but he was walking backward, while Ham struggled to hold up his end of the trunk when Doc Savage drifted up and remarked, “I hope the trunk contains what I think it does.”

“Blazes!” exploded Monk, blunt head swiveling around, small eyes popping.

“Doc!” bleated out Ham. “We got your message.”

Stepping around Monk, Doc reached for the handle Ham was struggling with and said, “Let me take that.”

Ham was so astonished that his foppish monocle popped out and fell to the deck. “Doc, how did you escape?”

Doc Savage told him in succinct sentences, concluding with, “When the guard wakes up, he will think he fell victim to the same spell that Seaman Goines is supposed to have experienced.”

“Smart!” grinned Monk. “But maybe you better let us handle this. Everybody’s lookin’ for you, and the sooner you’re back in your bunk, the better it will go.”

Doc’s expression was blank.

Ham explained, “We told the Chief Warrant Officer that the man in the bunk was actually you in disguise. You need to hold up our end of that particular fib.”

“That was no fib,” said Doc. “That is a whopper.”

“Just so long as it goes over,” murmured Ham.

Doc thought swiftly, and decided the suggestion was not only smart, but imperative.

“Good luck,” he told them. Then hurried off.

Doc Savage found the going difficult from there on in. Several times he had to backtrack and duck into alcoves, and generally sneak a circuitous route back to his stateroom cabin.

During his prowling, he encountered lanky, Lincolnesque Morris Byron.

“Everybody’s looking for you!” hissed Mental. “From Captain McCullum on down to us lowly Able Seamen.”

Doc said, “Pretend you just found me and are escorting me to the bridge.”

Mental looked stricken. “If I’m seen doing that and you don’t end up on the bridge, what do you think will happen to me?”

“Play along. I am returning to my cabin. You can say that I was having trouble navigating and had to lie down again.”

Mental admitted, “That makes half sense.”

“It’s all the sense I have at the moment,” said Doc wryly. “We are in a fix, and we need to extricate ourselves.”

As they walked along, they encountered various crewmen. To cover for the inexplicable spectacle, Seaman Byron said cheerfully, “Look who I found.”

That aroused no particular suspicion, and so they were not stopped.

In no time at all, they reached Doc’s cabin, and stepped in. It helped that the ship’s crew was busy making it ready for the blow. By now word of the hurricane approaching had filtered down to the lowermost decks and everyone knew they were going to be in for a time of it, whether at anchor or out at sea.

Once inside the cabin, Doc ducked into the washroom, and quickly showered off the last elements of make-up that would betray his successful impersonation of Jury Goines.

When he stepped out, Mental Byron said conversationally, “What do we do now?”

“You will escort me to the bridge, where I will confer with Captain McCullum. Let us hope that everything else went according to plan.”

Mental looked puzzled. “Everything else?”

“It,” said Doc Savage, “is a very long story.”

Chapter XX

PREDICAMENT

EVERYTHING DID NOT go according to plan. Far from it.

Monk and Ham succeeded in conveying the trunk all the way to the brig below decks, where they set it down beside the peacefully sleeping Master at Arms.

“Wonder if he’ll end up bein’ tossed in the jug for fallin’ down on the job?” wondered Monk, as Ham undid the trunk latches.

“Never mind that! Help me with this.”

Stooping, the hairy chemist flipped latches, flung up the lid, and excavated the still unconscious Seaman Goines, grunting with exertion. Together, they conveyed him to the plank bunk, closed the steel door and found the key with which to lock it.

Ham was the one doing the locking and he almost succeeded when an angry voice behind him bellowed, “What the bloody hell is going on here?”

Monk and Ham turned, and their faces blanched. Blood drained out of them until they looked like proverbial ghosts.

Monk made
blah blah blah
noises, his thick tongue tangling.

Ham cleared his throat and thought swiftly. But then he realized nothing he could say could possibly explain away what they had just been discovered doing.

It proved to be unnecessary, for Captain McCullum took one look at the tableau and jumped to his own conclusions. That they were the opposite of what Monk and Ham were actually trying to pull off was beside the point.

“Why are you two trying to break that man out of the brig?”

Monk and Ham swapped befuddled looks, and each one caught the other’s eye, as if to say, “You explain it.”

Neither man could. In fact, it was difficult to say whether the Skipper’s misperception of their actions boded for good or for ill. So they kept their mouths shut and said nothing.

“I asked you a question!” roared McCullum.

Normally, Monk and Ham would have tossed the matter into Doc Savage’s lap, saying that they were under orders. That excuse would not fly here. It would only implicate Doc Savage in something that he, in fact, was not attempting to do.

The only positive development was that Seamen Goines—the real one, that is—was in his proper bunk at last. And Doc Savage was at liberty. For how long was damnably difficult to guess.

Mouths sealed, faces grave, Monk and Ham simply stood there, for once paralyzed in thought, word and deed.

“Is that going to be the way of it?” demanded McCullum. “In that case, I am confining you to the brig until I get to the bottom of this situation.”

“The brig is kinda full,” pointed out Monk.

From behind the Captain came another voice, that of Chief Warrant Officer Greer.

“It will be no problem,” he said bitterly, “to release Seamen Goines and confine him to his own bunk in order to accommodate you gentlemen.”

If this were taking place on land, Monk and Ham would have rushed the officers and made a break for it, with the blind intention of untangling the knot of their implication at a later date. Inasmuch as they were on a ship, that particular out seemed impractical.

True, they were docked. And they could jump ship conceivably. But that would leave Doc Savage alone to explain this complicated stew.

Monk simply signaled his hopeless surrender by erecting his overlong hairy arms. The blunt-nailed fingers almost touched the low ceiling of the brig.

Shrugging, Ham followed suit, his handsome face dejected.

In short order, additional crew were summoned, Seaman Goines was lugged out and away, and Monk and Ham were invited into their new quarters.

The door slamming on their unhappy faces made a regal sounding
clang
like a gong that had been struck, signaling something portentous.

The unconscious Master at Arms was also lugged off, and Monk and Ham were left in ruinous solitude. They sat down on the bunk, faces long, postures utterly sunk into defeat.

“What I want to know is how Doc Savage is going to explain all this?” mused Ham.

“He’s gonna have to do some tall talkin’,” muttered Monk. “Especially if he hopes to spring us.”

“Somehow, I do not think even Doc Savage can extricate us from this fix any time soon.”

Monk sighed heavily. “That means he’s gonna have all the action to himself when he finally ties into Diamond and his crew.”

“No,” countered Ham. “That means Doc will have to stand alone dealing with the enemy.”

Monk considered that for a time, then offered, “Maybe Don Worth and his friends will pitch in.”

“If everyone isn’t more careful than we were,” Ham groaned, “this brig is going to get terribly crowded, awfully fast.”

That happy thought ringing in the air, the two men lapsed into a sullen silence.

TRAILED by his C.W.O. and a complement of sailors, Captain McCullum came bowling up the companion when Doc Savage, escorted by Seaman Morris Byron, turned a corner.

There was nearly a collision. But Doc Savage, his metallic face impassive, said, “I was just coming to see you, Captain.”

McCullum glared. “We have been turning the ship upside down for you.”

“It was necessary for me to operate in secrecy. Unfortunately,” Doc added, “I encountered difficulties of my own.”

“Let me tell you, they’ll be nothing like the difficulties you’re facing now.”

A bad feeling surged through the bronze man’s giant frame. But he let the ship’s master spell it out for him.

“Your two friends were just caught red-handed, attempting to liberate Seaman Goines from the brig. Would you care to explain that, Mr. Savage?”

Doc was so shocked by the misunderstanding of Monk and Ham’s actions that words momentarily failed him.

Composing himself, he decided to make a clean breast of it.

“Captain, my aides were not trying to release Goines.”

Chief Warrant Officer Greer piped up and said, “Don’t hand me that rotten bilge! They had a steamer trunk open, ready to receive him.”

Doc said, “The trunk was used to convey Seamen Goines
to
the brig, not from it.”

Captain McCullum and his C.W.O. had been looking stern, but now their expressions simply froze.

“That does not make any sense! And you know it, Savage!” barked the Skipper.

“It will once I have explained it,” returned Doc levelly.

“In a pig’s eye!” said McCullum. “Turn around and march! I am confining you to your quarters. The only reason you are not being tossed into the brig is due to your high standing with the government—and the fact that there is no more damn room.”

“If you allow me to explain—” protested Doc.

“Seaman Byron,” ordered the Captain. “Kindly escort Mr. Savage to his quarters. I will post an armed detail outside to ensure that he does not leave without permission.”

Seeing that there was no arguing the point, Doc Savage acquiesced. “Very well. When you are ready to hear my account, Captain McCullum, I will be prepared to give it.”

The Skipper remained unmoved. “Washington is going to hear about this, Savage. You are jeopardizing the safety of the ship, its crew and its mission. If I have my way, you’ll be put off in Nassau and, it is to be hoped, incarcerated there.”