Doc Savage - The Freckled Shark Part 14

The listeners, to a man, looked as if a cold wind had come down out of the north.

"Here-on this boat?" one croaked.

"No, no," said their informant impatiently. "Senor Steel is in Key West."

The news of the coming of Senor Steel seemed to have spread poison over the city of Key West, as far as they were concerned. Every man was obviously glad that the schooner-speedboat was leaving the vicinity.

Chapter XIII. SEnOR STEEL.

WHEN Johnny Littlejohn, Monk Mayfair and Rhoda Haven were convinced they had crawled ten miles through the mud and mangroves-it was probably a full half mile-they came to a road.

"Bivouacial quiescence," Johnny remarked.

"He means," Monk explained, "that here is a good place to rest."

They flopped down on the coral sand of the road. They had heard the powerful Diesel motors of the yacht and guessed what they were; but that sound was gone now. Enough of a breeze was blowing to rasp mangrove boughs together occasionally, a sound somewhat as if skeletons were being moved about.

No one said anything. They were too tight with strain, wondering what had happened to Ham Brooks, Tex Haven and Doc Savage, to feel like making words.

Suddenly, they heard a strange sound. It was a trilling, pitched low, and possessed of an exotic quality that made the nature of the sound difficult to define. It was weird, might have been the work of a vagrant wind in the naked mangroves and it had a ventriloquial quality that made it seem to come from everywhere.

Monk sprang up.

"I better go," Johnny said, using small words.

"Huh?" Monk said.

"I better go," Johnny repeated, more firmly.

Monk muttered something about going ahead if he was so danged anxious, and sank back to the road sand.

Rhoda Haven reached out and gripped Monk's arm, asked, "What was that strange noise?"

"It might be the wind," Monk told her, and was good enough a liar to make it sound truthful.

Johnny walked down the sandy road, taking quick steps with his long bony legs. He did not know from what direction the sound had come, but he did know it had been made by Doc Savage.

That weird, exotic trilling note was a characteristic of the man of bronze, a thing which he did unconsciously in moments of mental stress, and sometimes made deliberately to indicate his presence.

Having gone some distance, Johnny stopped. A moment later, without any noticeable sound, Doc Savage was a bronzed tower in the darkness beside the gaunt, big-worded archaeologist and geologist.

Doc Savage said, "They got away with Ham and Tex Haven. Boat. A fast boat."

Johnny said several small words. They were not profane words. They were just short words that showed how desperate and puzzling he considered the situation.

"I want," Doc Savage said, "your advice.""My advice?"

"Do you think I had better let the girl know that Henry Peace and Doc Savage are the same persons?" the bronze man asked.

JOHNNY gave the query some consideration. He was by nature something of a psychologist, in contrast to Monk, who liked to b.u.mp people around with his fists, or Ham, who liked to sway people with his agile tongue and was not averse to b.u.mping them with his fists or p.r.i.c.king them with his sword cane, either.

Johnny said, "You put on a disguise and called yourself Henry Peace in the first place because-"

"When Rhoda Haven came to us in New York, she did not tell the truth," Doc Savage explained quietly. "I hoped to take the personality of Henry Peace, just a knockdown-and-drag-out young soldier of fortune, and join Rhoda Haven and her father, and thus learn what it was all about."

"And-"

"It did not work," the bronze man said disgustedly.

"Maybe it's nearer to working than you think."

"What do you mean?"

"The girl," said Johnny, "is in love with you."

Doc Savage made a sound that was dubious.

"You're mistaken," he said. "Whenever I'm around, she acts as if ants were in her oatmeal."

"Yes, but when you're not there-"

"When I'm not there-what?" Doc demanded.

Johnny rubbed his long jaw. He found this situation interesting.

"Just the same," he said, "I think it would be advisable to turn into Henry Peace again and join us."

Doc Savage did not seem enthusiastic about that. "I doubt if she will tell Henry Peace anything."

"I'm betting she will."

"Well-" The bronze man changed feet uncomfortably. "Oh, all right. Henry Peace will turn up again, then."

"When Henry Peace shows up," Johnny said dryly, "he had better watch out for Monk."

"What's the matter with Monk?"

"He's acquired an elephant-sized dislike for Henry Peace."

"Maybe," Doc Savage said thoughtfully, "I had better tell him who Henry Peace is. I didn't tell him earlier because I knew that as long as the Henry Peace disguise had Monk fooled, it would fool anybody."

Johnny snorted.

"It would be more fun," he said, "if you didn't tell him."

This terminated the conversation, and Johnny went back to the other two. He found Monk telling Rhoda Haven what he thought of Henry Peace, which was practically nothing.

"When I get through with that Henry Peace," Monk said, "he'll be pounded down small enough to get lost in caterpillar fuzz."

After this promise, Monk drew Johnny aside. He knew, of course, that the long archaeologist had gone off in thedarkness to consult with Doc Savage.

"They got Ham and Tex Haven," Johnny explained.

He did not add that Doc Savage had decided to go on being Henry Peace. Monk did not know that Doc Savage was Henry Peace. Monk detested Henry Peace. It was going to be interesting when Monk found out who Henry Peace really was. Ham Brooks, who had spent years squabbling with Monk, would like to see that.

Johnny s.h.i.+vered. He suspected that unless they did something drastic in a hurry, Ham Brooks might not live to see anything much.

Shortly, Doc Savage appeared. One moment there was moon-silvered darkness about; then the bronze man stood silent beside them.

"We have not much time to waste," he said quietly. "The Horst men will keep Ham and Tex Haven alive for a while and torture them in an effort to learn the whereabouts of Jep Dee. But they do not know where Jep Dee is, so they will eventually be killed."

RHODA HAVEN was a soldier of fortune's daughter. She had the temperament, the courage, the fatalism for her profession. She was something of an axman of fate; like her father, she could attack something gigantic and chop away at it, and when the terrible moments came-the moments when there was no telling where the giant would fall, or what It would crush-she could clamp her lips, put up her chin, and take what came, and know that what had happened would not have occurred if she had not used the ax.

"Do you know where they took my father?" she asked in a level voice.

"How could I know?" Doc Savage countered. "You did not tell my men the truth when you first came to us in New York. You have not told them much since."

"I have not told them many lies," the girl countered grimly.

Doc Savage came to the point. He put a blunt statement of facts.

"You and your father and Jep Dee are after something," he said. "Jep Dee hunted for it here in the Florida Keys, while you and your father waited in New York. Jep Dee must have found what you sought, but he was caught by Horst, and barely escaped with his life. He was delirious, and muttered stuff about thirty-some people being in imminent danger of death. He had a piece of freckled-looking shark skin on him when he was found. He mailed it to you and your father.

Horst came to New York and tried to get the shark skin and kill you. You came to me and tried to get me and my men to chasing Horst. Obviously, that was to keep Horst occupied while you and your father went ahead with your original plans to get something down here in the Florida Keys."

"You have," said Rhoda Haven levelly, "learned a lot."

Doc Savage put a question as blunt as his statement of facts.

"What is the something?" he asked. "What are you after?"

Rhoda Haven hesitated.

"You want to know what the piece of freckled shark skin is?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And you want to know what my father and I are after?"

"Yes."

"And about the thirty-some people who are going to die if something isn't done?"

"Exactly."

Rhoda Haven compressed her lips. She was thinking. She thought of all that she had heard of this remarkable man of bronze-things which she had thought fantastic when they first came to her ears, but which she was beginning torealize were true. Through her mind ran the legends of the feats he had performed, of his strange career of righting wrongs and punis.h.i.+ng evildoers throughout the far corners of the earth.

These legends of the doings of Doc Savage were many, and some of them were fantastic, but all had one thing in common. Those who fought the bronze man with tremendous treasures at stake-always lost them. The bronze man's wealth was fabulous, she had heard, a great h.o.a.rd piled up of the treasures, the great inventions, which he had taken in the course of his adventures.

The thought of losing everything that she and her father were fighting for settled on her mind an ice that froze any warm impulse she felt to confide in him. She was a fighter. She would continue fighting.

She said, "My father and I are fighting for tremendous stakes, part of which are rightfully ours. We knew the chances we were taking when we began."

"But-"

Rhoda Haven lifted a silencing hand.

"I'm going to do what dad would want me to do," she said. "I'm going to refuse to tell you anything."

"You-"

"We'll solve our own problems. We always have."

Doc Savage's strange, flake-gold eyes studied the young woman. "Mind telling me why?"

"Greed, maybe. When we risk our lives like we have-I'm referring to my father, Jep Dee and myself-we expect to get what we're after."

"At this stage of the game," Doc Savage reminded dryly, "you are almost licked."

That was true. The girl could think of no effective answer. Except one. A gesture of verbal defiance.

"Don't forget," she snapped, "that Henry Peace is still running around loose and doing things!"

AS a result of that remark, it was a perfectly natural move for Johnny Littlejohn to drop back alongside the bronze man after they had started along the road in the direction of Key West. Johnny made sure that neither Rhoda Haven nor Monk would overhear him.

"You see," Johnny told Doc Savage.

"See what?"

"She's that way about Henry Peace."

After this remark, Johnny watched the bronze man with interest. He could see that Doc was fl.u.s.tered. In fact, the bronze man stumbled over a rut and almost fell down.

"Blast it!" Doc said.

Johnny did not think he was referring to the rut. "The thing for you to do," Johnny advised, "is to turn into Henry Peace again."