Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (32 page)

“I’ll show you where Mr. McLean is being held,” Janet Falcon advised.

Doc nodded and grasped her arm lightly.

They hurried through the cobwebbed gloom of the washing house. When they crossed the cavernous room where lay the motionless figures of the men who had been overcome by Doc’s gas, the girl stared wonderingly. Evidently, she had reason to know just how tough these fellows were. Great admiration was in the gaze which she turned upon Doc.

“Did they ever say why they were holding you prisoner?” Doc asked.

“No. But I surmised that they intended to use my safety as a club to keep you in line,” Janet Falcon replied.

“In line?” Doc asked swiftly.

“I am not with them,” the girl snapped defensively. “What I meant was that they intended to use my safety to keep you from molesting them.”

Doc said nothing. They plunged down a long corridor. The walls were stout, made of rough planks resembling barnboard. Doors were massive, and as crude as those on a barn.

“Here it is,” breathed Janet Falcon.

Doc loosened the locking bar and heaved the door open. Blackness packed the room beyond. He spiked his flashlight beam inside.

“Malcolm McLean is not there!” Janet Falcon cried.

Doc Savage seemed to be giving all of his scrutiny to inspecting the empty cell. Actually, he gave close attention to the tone of the girl’s voice. He was trying to tell whether she was genuinely surprised or acting.

She sounded genuine.

“I don’t understand this,” she said wonderingly. “I thought he was here.”

“What made you think that?”

“The talk of the guards, which I overheard.”

“What was that talk?”

“They were merely grumbling about having to watch prisoners in widely separated parts of the building.”

Then Doc Savage had a realization that made him feel faintly foolish.

“How many captors in all?”

“Seven.”

“I encountered only three,” imparted the bronze man. A faint suggestion of disgust tinged his vibrant tones.

Janet Falcon hissed, “The others went somewhere in a group. I suspect to that horrid mine. More than once, they threatened to cast me down a shaft and leave me there.”

“It is remarkable that they did not do so, for they believe that you gunned down their leader, Duke Grogan.”

Doc Savage studied the woman in the flashlight glow. She turned her face away, and her green eyes grew brittle as glass.

“Did you?” pressed Doc.

“I—I would rather not say.”

Flake-gold eyes studied Janet Falcon intently. “That does not sound like a denial.”

“Nor is it an admission of guilt,” she returned firmly.

Doc Savage said nothing more. Although the bronze man was schooled in many disciplines, one subject had always baffled him. And that was women. The female mind and its inner workings Doc had never been able to fathom. Janet Falcon was no different. Doc could not tell whether she was lying, or simply being contrary.

“Come on,” he urged. “My men should be arriving any minute.”

DOC SAVAGE plunged out of the washing plant, Janet Falcon in tow.

The bronze giant moved in the direction of the slurry impoundment. Doc Savage had given the still pond careful scrutiny as he descended from the sky, and noticed something that had caught his attention.

Seen from the ground, the impoundment displayed a scummy surface that was unbroken except for a hole at the edge of one limb. Doc Savage stopped at this spot, and switched on his helmet headlamp, simultaneously clamping the special goggles used in conjunction with the infra-red lantern. Directing the unseen beam downward, he stared into the inky waters a long time without speaking.

“What are you looking at?” Janet Falcon wondered uneasily.

Before the bronze man could respond, there came a noisy commotion from the general direction of the road leading to the mine. A flurry of movement was visible beyond the impoundment.

Pounding into view came Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks and Long Tom Roberts. They appeared to be loaded for bear. Monk and Ham waved supermachine pistols, while Long Tom, the electrical wizard, clutched the peculiar-looking magnetic gun that he had invented.

The two groups came together, and the eyes of Doc Savage’s men went wide at sight of Janet Falcon, only dimly visible in the thin moonlight.

Long Tom was no appreciator of the feminine sex. He took one look at Janet Falcon and said, “We figured you for dead.”

The woman flushed. Her green eyes bathed the slender electrical genius with a frigid stare. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance once again,” she returned frostily.

Ham Brooks put in gallantly, “What Long Tom means is that we had all but assumed that by now Duke Grogan’s killers would have done away with you out of revenge.”

“Anyone could see that they have not,” Janet Falcon returned thinly.

Doc Savage interjected, “Three of Grogan’s gang have been rendered insensate. They lie back in the coal-washing plant. But there are at least four others in the mine.”

Monk said eagerly, “Let’s charge down there and clean ’em out!”

“Not so fast,” cautioned Doc Savage. “Abandoned mines are extremely dangerous. We cannot just blunder in without risking a cave-in, or worse.”

Long Tom suggested, “Why don’t we just wait for them at the mine entrance, and pick them off when they emerge?”

Doc told him, “There is another complication.”

“What’s that?”

“Janet Falcon insisted that Malcolm McLean was a prisoner of the Grogan gang. He was not in the separate cell in which he is supposed to have been confined.”

Monk howled, “That walkin’ cadaver! Ain’t he dead?”

“We all saw his body after he was struck down at the scientific exposition,” agreed Doc. “Yet I followed a man who bore a strong resemblance to McLean as he absconded with the late Myer Sim’s submersible automobile only a few minutes before.”

Ham frowned. “Could McLean be twins?”

All eyes went to Janet Falcon questioningly. It was a moment before she realized that she was expected to respond.

“I do not know Mr. McLean very well. He never spoke of a brother, much less a twin brother. Given his unusual medical condition, it is difficult to conceive of two of him.”

Doc stated, “His condition is not so unusual that others who follow chemistry as a career might also conceivably suffer from the affliction.”

No one knew what to say to that. For now, they had more pressing matters at hand.

Doc addressed Ham Brooks, saying, “You remain here with Miss Falcon. The rest of us will investigate the mine.”

The dapper lawyer looked momentarily taken aback. He did not wish to be left out of any action, yet Janet Falcon was a ravishing beauty, and had already caught his eye.

“I will be more than happy to make certain that Miss Falcon is safe,” he said graciously.

Monk Mayfair took the elegant attorney aside, growling low, “Normally, I would match you for it. But I’m hot to test out my new bullets on the Grogan gang.”

“So am I!” said Long Tom eagerly. The sour-faced electrical expert was not normally of gleeful disposition, but the prospect of inflicting punishment with his magnetic gun seemed to have turned him into a walking spark plug.

Led by Doc Savage, who had restored his metal helmet and was blending into passing shadows like an ebony ghost, they made their way up the rocky soil of the coal mine, a low hillock rising from the earth.

The mine entrance was a horizontal gash of a thing called an adit. The stony portal seemed clogged with inky shadows. A fading wooden sign read:

DANGER! UNSAFE MINE! DO NOT ENTER!

Per Order Ryerson Coal Corp.

Climbing carefully, dislodging rocky scree with every step, they reached the portal, and began listening.

No voices were heard, but there came the distant sound of scraping and digging.

Monk muttered, “Are they diggin’ for coal?”

Doc said, “Someone is digging for something. It is very peculiar.”

Long Tom offered, “Maybe they’ve got a small stove back at the washing plant, and they need to keep warm. This place could be some kind of temporary headquarters for the gang.”

Doc said nothing. Instead, he directed, “Wait here. All of you. I will reconnoiter.”

Not waiting for any objection, the bronze man melted into the shadowy maw of the portal, and vanished utterly into the drift.

Doc Savage switched on his infra-red helmet lantern. The dark-lensed goggles were drawn over his eyes. The invisible rays permitted him to walk carefully into the mine along a winding tunnel, following an old coal seam. From time to time, he came upon a vertical shaft that he was forced to work around.

The timbers ahead shoring up the fissured ceiling were stout, but dried out with age. They did not look as if they had much strength left in them.

Intermittent sounds of digging and scraping continued, and Doc Savage moved toward them.

The difficult passage was littered with so-called “gob” piles—broken bits of coal and loose rock, and the bronze man had to employ his greatest stealth in picking his way forward. This cost him a great deal of his customary speed.

As he moved along, Doc took note of his surroundings. It became evident that the method of extracting coal had been the room-and-pillar variety. Passages were cut through the coal seam at cross angles to one another, creating standing pillars of unclaimed coal ore, which served to support the roof until the seam was exhausted and the mining operation retreated, whereupon the pillars would be taken and the roof permitted to collapse.

All indications were that the mining company never reached this latter stage. For Doc moved past dark pillars still extant after the operation had shut down.

Doc came to a widening of the drift, signifying a space carved out of the immense seam that loomed gigantic.

Sounds grew louder, and a shrill voice was speaking. Echoes reinforced the bronze man’s sense of a great yawning space ahead.

“When you men are finished, you will return to guard the girl and await further instructions.”

“If you say so,” a man said. His voice was nervous.

The first speaker continued, but the shrill voice had a muffled quality.

“It will not be necessary to hold the girl for long—merely long enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It is not for you to know, Patches Cordovan. But now that you are the leader of the Grogan gang, you will take orders, like the late Duke.”

The second speaker laughed roughly. “You mean the Cordovan gang.”

“Call it whatever you wish, but the arrangement with your outfit will continue unchanged.”

“Just don’t forget to hold up your end of the bargain. Starting with that backstabbing rat, Joe Shine.”

“Leave Joe Shine to me. His demise has already been ordained.”

Sounds of banging, cutting and scraping continued, followed by what sounded like clinkers of coal being dropped into scuttles or pails.

Doc Savage eased closer. He had hung back in order to catch every word, but now he advanced with the eerie silence that marked his often ghostly comings and goings.

Turning the corner in the workings, Doc came to a zone where flashlights played. There, kerosene lanterns were also giving off a weak yellow glow.

Those combined lights threw towering shadows along a great ballroom of a space.

Most of the shadows were ordinary, although they loomed gigantic. One, however, was not.

The bronze man perceived the enormous shadow before he saw the being who cast it.

The silhouette was intensely black, and manlike, except for the head. The head was hideous. It was a mass of tentacles, which writhed and waved with ophidian life.

Seeing this, Doc hesitated. Although a brave man, he did not plunge blindly into the unknown. Ordinary gangsters did not frighten him. The bronze giant had disposed of many of their ilk thus far in his career.

But the gigantic shadowy head with its squirming serpents of hair was like nothing he ever before beheld.

Carefully, Doc directed the ghostly beam of his infra-red lantern toward the form that cast the unnerving shadow.

Viewed from the back, it soared seven feet in height or more, and was attired in a tattered gray garment rather like an old-fashioned nightshirt. It was impossible to tell the sex of the owner. But the head was a wonder.

Even seen from the rear, it fascinated. The knot of serpents writhed. They were predominantly green, but a few stood out scarlet. No two seemed of the same species. Some were lividly banded, a few speckled; others striped. Some fat and others lean. Pale light gleamed along the glossy skin surfaces of each individual viper.

It was impossible—an astounding sight! Doc Savage watched with flake-gold eyes flickering weirdly.

Movement of the clumped vipers was limited, for they were packed close together, but there was no mistaking the semblance of life as they writhed about the crown of the weird figure dominating the great chamber of rock.

Perhaps it was the uncanny apparition, perhaps it was simply the difficult conditions. Doc Savage was considerably hampered by his steel armor and enveloping poncho of parachute silk, a portion of which clutched in a mailed fist so he could reach his vest.

Doc Savage was attempting with his free hand to remove the flat case containing his anesthetic grenades when one metal-shod foot shifted, creating a clatter of loose stones.

This did not go unnoticed.

With a violent hissing, the snake-haired monster turned, revealing its face.

This countenance was bizarre beyond any expectation of imagination. The thick features were as white as marble, expression frozen in a fixed rage. The eyes glared horribly, for they were slit like those of a lizard and as green as the twitching serpents surrounding it.

Rubbery lips were pulled back against grotesque fangs, and a hand as yellow as snakeskin pointed an accusing finger in the bronze man’s direction.

“What is that?”

The group of gangsters broke off their work, dropping their pick axes, hands flashing to armpit holsters. Guns came out.