Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (43 page)

“Exactly. Spill.”

“You see,” stammered Braggs, “I was circling around in order to—”

“You turned tail. Why?”

Harvell Braggs swallowed several times. “I fear—that is, I am afraid that all that talk of machine guns and proficiency with them was just that—talk. I am ashamed to admit that I am, in total, a terrible coward.”

Spook Davis came out of his bush wearing the expression of a man about to swat a dining mosquito.

“I ain’t a fighting man.” Spook began rolling up his sleeves. “But—” He glared at Harvell Braggs.

Braggs gulped, “Ah—”

“You’re in cahoots with Cass!” Spook gritted.

Braggs said, “Now—”

“You’re the guy who kayoed me after I flopped to the ground—” Spook said. “You hit me when I wasn’t looking, and carried me off into the bushes. You must have thought I was dead. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take you apart!”

Braggs gasped, “Why—awful lies—”

Gulliver put in, “No, Braggs. You’re with Cass in this. Way back, you go way back with him.”

Spook danced about, pointed at the quaking cone of flesh that was Harvell Braggs, and howled, “Come on and fight like a man!”

Gulliver took a step forward and threw his words. “When Doc Savage flung that fountain pen, you showed your true colors. You knew it was a grenade.”

Braggs bellowed, “That’s not true!” But his wild tone and his desperate expression showed it was true. “Yes, we were allies at one time. But Cass turned against me, making me his captive, as you witnessed with your own eyes.”

Gulliver said, “You can’t talk your way out of it. I just remembered that Saint Pete told me that your story of Columbus stealing your collection couldn’t be true, because he hadn’t been anywhere near your Caribbean island in years.”

“You have me there,” Braggs admitted grudgingly. “The truth is Columbus wanted to wrest back from me a blunderbuss belonging to him. And I wished to add the illustrious Columbus himself to my collection. For that is what the man is—the one true discoverer of the New World.”

“You’re crazy!” Gull exploded. “Why would you tell everyone you met that a guy looking like Columbus stole your collection? It doesn’t make sense.”

Braggs emitted a windy sigh. “How best to locate Columbus, who was at large in the world, was a conundrum. Yes, it was. But every schoolboy has seen his portrait, and would know him by sight. Especially with the new holiday in the news. By telling all I met that my quarry resembled the great admiral, I did not expect to be believed. Indeed, I did not wish to be taken literally. But who would believe that Christopher Columbus was still living, having not aged a day since the year 1503? No one. Therefore, I was safe in broadcasting his description. It was my misfortune to fall in with Ivan Cass and his disreputable crew, whom I believed were working on my behalf, but who turned against me so viciously and, well, you know what the evidence of your senses tell you—”

Spook yelled, “I’m going to kick your ribs in, you windy whale—”

Spook sprang forward.

Harvell Braggs lifted his Winchester rifle, jammed it against Spook’s chest. Spook apparently hadn’t noticed the rifle in his mad excitement. He turned paper white in an incredible instant.

Braggs pulled the rifle trigger. The rifle hammer made some noise as it fell, but there was no other result.

Spook reacted in unexpected fashion when the weapon missed fire. He knocked the weapon aside, grabbed it, jerked it out of Braggs’ hands, reversed it, and did his best to shoot Braggs. He jacked the lever and snapped the hammer several times before he realized the weapon was empty. Then he clubbed it and struck Braggs a glancing blow. Braggs rolled back among Cass’ men, upsetting several. Thus disturbed, Cass’ group tried to renew the fight. There was a mad scramble for the darkroom and its confiscated weapons.

Cass himself came at Gulliver feet first, and Gull got aside, hit him, tripped another man, used his fists on the third. Then he himself got knocked down. Dazed, he realized a man was trying to wrench the gun out of his fingers. They rolled over and over. Another man joined the fight for the gun. It was Harvell Braggs.

Seconds later, a supermachine pistol hooted briefly.

Monk Mayfair howled, “Get clear! Make room so I can use this gobbler on ’em!”

Nobody paid him heed. Gull pulled hair out of a head, got a firmer grip, knocked the head against a rock. He did that with his left hand. His right held the revolver. Then it didn’t hold the revolver. The weapon had been taken from him. Braggs had gotten it. He jumped clear, as the fat man tried to draw a hasty bead.

Monk’s machine pistol rattled. A peppering of tiny holes appeared along the front of Harvell Braggs’ well-tailored coat. His eyes got strange. He sagged like a deflating balloon, and promptly went to sleep on his broad back. His pursy pink mouth made the same shapes as does a fish when it breathes.

Gulliver got up and looked around. All over.

RENNY RENWICK hove into view, appearing disappointed at missing out on the action. Ham Brooks and Johnny Littlejohn soon appeared, fists squared.

Last to arrive was Long Tom Roberts, looking tigerish.

He marched up to Monk Mayfair and began making accusations.

“A fine thing!” he raged. “I bust you loose and the minute my back is turned, untying the others, you up and make off with my superfirer!”

“I was spoilin’ for a fight from being tied up so long,” Monk countered.

Long Tom rolled up one shirt sleeve and then did the same to the other.

“Now I am the one spoiling for a fight,” he gritted fiercely.

Monk Mayfair outweighed the puny electrical expert by well over a hundred pounds. Moreover, the hairy chemist had been known to bend horseshoes in his bare hands and fold silver dollars between fingers and thumb.

Yet Monk actually turned pale when he saw how Long Tom had his dander up. For it was rumored that Long Tom could lick his own weight in wildcats. So when his ire was openly displayed, even Monk Mayfair was a little bit afraid of him.

Erecting white-knuckled fists, Long Tom squared off, began circling the apish chemist, oversized sleeves flapping. Reluctantly, Monk put up his hairy fists, blocked them. Fisticuffs impended.

Ham whispered to Renny. “My money’s on Monk.”

“Long Tom will whip him in two shakes of a monkey’s tail,” the big-fisted engineer scoffed.

“I will wager that Monk is about to learn a great lesson,” confided Johnny.

What would next have transpired was never known.

Up from the beach came Petella van Astor, otherwise Saint Pete, looking rather dejected. She was very pale in her otherwise becoming burlap frock.

For walking behind her was an unexpected figure of a man.

It was the midget who had been calling himself Monzingo Baldwin—otherwise Cadwiller Olden.

He had a revolver. It looked ludicrously big in his small fingers. But it was trained on the girl’s back, which took away some of the ridiculousness of the way he gripped it in both hands.

“Don’t think I have any scruples about shooting a frail, because I don’t,” croaked the tiny man in his comical hound-dog voice.

Chapter XLIV

RAT ISLAND RIOT

IVAN CASS took immediate charge. He seized a Winchester and cocked the lever unnecessarily. An unfired shell popped out. Casually, he reached down to recover it and fed the cartridge back into the receiver.

Weapons were hastily recovered from the blocked darkroom. Soon, Cass’ agents were bristling with rifles and revolvers. Their expressions portended violence.

Cass’ voice became as if a frozen Satan were speaking. “Now,” he growled, “where did we leave off?”

No one answered. The reinstated prisoners were forced to drop their captured weapons. Thinking fast, Monk Mayfair manipulated his empty supermachine pistol, and tossed it away, where it was promptly reduced to smoking slag.

The prisoners were collected—all but Doc Savage and Christopher Columbus, who had not been seen since the mad scramble to avoid the fountain-pen bomb which had failed to detonate. Harvell Braggs lay snoring in the brush, out cold as a result of the potent dose of mercy bullets Monk had inflicted upon him.

Cass counted noses, then looked around angrily.

“Find Doc Savage! Get Columbus, too. We’re gonna stage a kill party. We’ll just have to forget about those fancy pistols.”

There was a commotion in the brush and all eyes shifted in that direction.

The sun was climbing toward the noon hour, so sunlight splintered down in shafts of strangely chill brilliance.

One of those shafts showed the metallic top of Doc Savage’s head. The bronze man appeared to be lying in wait behind a very large bush. The bush was wonderfully still and unmoving.

Ivan Cass himself took a bead on that unmistakable target. He made careful aim.

Monk, Renny and Long Tom all attempted to rush him. They were clubbed to their knees with lavish viciousness.

Cass called out, “Savage, surrender!”

No response was forthcoming. So Ivan Cass unleashed a bullet and the shimmering skullcap gave a jump.

Gulliver Greene gave out a groan when he saw it. Saint Pete moaned. Doc Savage’s men turned their heads from the awful sight.

To all appearances, it looked as if the top of Doc Savage’s head had been shot off!

A realistic sprinkling of scarlet accompanied the gory display. Droplets made a red rain in the vicinity, falling with a soft but grisly pattering.

“Let there be no doubt,” intoned Ivan Cass grimly, “that Doc Savage is now dead.”

There seemed to be no argument on that score. Not even a moan of mortal pain emerged from the bush that was now spattered with what appeared to be the bronze giant’s life fluid.

Cass turned to the little runt that had been his second in command.

“We were about to execute the prisoners. Care to join us in the festivities?”

“Swell,” said Monzingo Baldwin. “But what about Columbus?”

“Later!” Cass rapped. He turned to a confederate. “You with the new rifle. Give it to the little numbskull here.”

“Sure. But it’s only charged with rat-shot, on account the rodents have been getting brave lately.”

Cass’ crow-black eyes suddenly narrowed. “On second thought, anybody got a knife?”

A man produced one of the three-cornered blades that had been the midget’s favorite tool for murder. He tossed it, saying, “This do?”

“Swell,” said Cadwiller Olden, catching the dagger by its bone handle. “Keep the rifle.”

The assembled Cass men faced their helpless captives.

One of them—one who had evidently picked up a colorful way of assembling his words during his stint as a Silent Saint—remarked in a hollow and piously eloquent tone, “A thorny path is the lot of the transgressor, and his just lot, too. So let it be said that no mortal man should stand forth to say it shall not be.”

A trifle obscure, but enlightenment was not delayed. Another fellow in tattered burlap spoke up.

“As just men of peace,” he intoned, “it is our bounden duty to leave you in fit circumstances such that the rodents partake of your bones.”

No clarity lacking in that, certainly.

Then matters took a very strange turn.

“Stand them up against the darkroom ledge,” ordered Ivan Cass. “It will make a swell bullet stop for the firing squad.”

Doc Savage’s stunned men were kicked to their feet, made to join the others. The prisoners were prodded in the high ledge’s direction.

Cadwiller Olden assisted by poking Gulliver Greene with his triangular blade.

“I ain’t forgot that you winged me back in Missouri,” he grated. “I think I will use you for target practice. I’m pretty handy at knife throwing.”

“Hey, runt,” asked Cass suddenly.

“Yeah? What is it, stone-face?”

“One of the machine pistols we took off Savage’s men back in Missouri went missing. Know anything about that?”

Olden grinned. “Sure, I filched it for myself. Ain’t I entitled to my rightful share?”

“Thought so. Where is it now?”

“Savage snatched it back,” the midget admitted.

“In other words,” Cass said darkly, “you lost a piece of armament worth maybe fifty thousand bucks.”

The little man’s eyebrows shot up. “That much?”

Cass nodded stonily. “That much. Why don’t you join the rest of the rodent bait at the ledge?”

The runt looked injured. His miniature eyes popped in horror. A tiny viper-like tongue emerged to lick drying lips.

“You’re funning me, right?” Olden croaked.

Cass laughed. It sounded as if his throat was full of blood lust.

“Snappy now! Don’t want to keep the hungry rats waiting, little morsel.”

Cadwiller Olden found himself looking at a dozen dark eyes that were gun barrels suddenly directed his way. He swallowed twice, wordless for once, continued trudging.

They were nearly to the makeshift execution wall now.

Raising his voice, Ivan Cass all but yelled, “Once we shoot dead these Doc Savage assistants, we’ll go looking for any stragglers.”

If Cass thought that shout would bring Christopher Columbus out of hiding, he was very much disappointed.

The only sound was a vague one—a songbird seemed to call out in a melodious voice.

“That don’t sound like no seagull,” a man muttered.

“Never mind!” Cass snarled. “Firing squad assemble.”

Saint Pete looked desperate, began pleading—she was trying to kill time, hoping for something to turn up.

She cried, “But my adopted father—what about him? What about Columbus—”

“Shut up!” Cass snarled.

The girl stepped back, shrugging. It was very convincing acting, for she got behind a Cass man who held a rifle. She pushed him.

Gulliver Greene was ready and grabbed the rifle as the man fell toward him.

The fellow fell on Gulliver, trying to keep a grip on his rifle. They wrestled; Gull’s finger found the trigger and made the rifle blast. Cass, dodging, was not where Gull hoped he would be when the bullet arrived.

Gull got the rifle, jacked the lever, fired. A miss. It started Cass’ men dodging, though. Gulliver dived behind the big boulder. He really ran after he had this shelter.