"How many men are down there?" Doc asked.
"You-you"re Savage!" the other gulped. "d.a.m.n us! I knew we shouldn"t have taken this job! But the blamed submarine hide-out ain"t been payin" a profit like we figured it would! Guys just seem to rather take a chance with the law than live down-"
"How many?" Doc repeated.
The bronze man"s tone made the prisoner gulp.
"Keepin" my trap shut won"t help us now," he said. ""there"s a dozen. But, listen, we ain"t nothin" but hired men! We took a job! It was to grab your man, or as many of "em as we could! The guys who hired us, all left!
They took a canoe off the houseboat, a folding canoe they could hide on sh.o.r.e, and-"
He broke off to emit squeaks of pain as Doc tied him. He stopped everything but nose sounds when the bronze man installed a gag in his mouth. When the prisoner could neither move nor talk, Doc went out on deck.
He donned his transparent hood again. The device was a good diving rig as well as a gas mask. He had flown only a short distance in the plane, then returned, entered the water furtively, and found the submarine.
Doc had not been sure it would be there, had acted on the theory that there must be some good reason for the houseboat having a permanent mooring in this out-of-the-way place. The muddy water had been a hint,too. It was not such a spot as a houseboat party would seek for pleasure.
The bronze man lowered himself down the mooring chain. A weighted belt about his waist evened his weight with the water he displaced. He worked outside the submarine until he reached the stern.
Ham, Renny, Long Tom and Johnny were waiting there. They had their feet dug into the muddy bottom to maintain their position. Mud on their hoods kept them from seeing much.
Doc went to each. By pressing with his fingers-long and short for dash and dot-he conveyed enough Morse Code words to apprise them of the situation.
"We will depend on a surprise attack," he finished.
Single file, they worked to the hole in the underside of the derelict sub"s bow.
DOC went in first. Two of the mob were standing inside, waiting the return of their comrade. Doc"s gla.s.slike helmet, rising out of the opening, must have given them a shock. They gaped just a moment too long. Doc got hold of them.
They evidently didn"t have guns. They tried to use their fists. That was a mistake. They only hurt their knuckles on the alloy mail.
Doc pushed one man violently in the face. The fellow went back readily with the blow, not realizing the steel wall was behind him. His head hit. He fell.
The other man twisted. Muddy water on Doc"s metallic hands made them slippery. The man got free, but fell down doing so. He scrambled up, saw a heavy wrench, and grabbed it. His best bet would have been to slug the bronze man in the midriff, or try to break a wrist or ankle.
Instead, he thought the helmet was gla.s.s, and tried to shatter it. The wrench only bounced off. And a bronze fist, hitting the man"s jaw, didn"t bounce.
Doc"s four men were inside by now. They yanked out small machine pistols, weapons which they always carried, and which were usually charged with a type of so-called "mercy bullet" producing unconsciousness, instead of fatal injury.
Men in the other part of the submarine heard the uproar. They came in a rush, yelling questions.
Renny"s machine pistol made a loud noise. It almost deafened them, even wearing the helmets. It was as if a t.i.tanic bullfiddle string had been sawed hard.
The effect on the enemy must have been stunning. No one fell immediately. It took a moment for the chemical in the slugs to function; then two men sank to the deck.
Monk was howling, frantic because there was a fight and he was tied up.
Doc worked through a bulkhead aperture, stepped over the two fallen foes, and sprang for a smaller bulkhead door. The moment he got his head through, a man shot at him. The bullet glanced off the helmet with a deafening impact. Doc lunged on through.
The man who had fired turned white and put up his hands. Maybe he was yellow. Possibly the unearthly apparition which Doc made in the helmet got the fellow"s goat. The bronze man did look like something from some sinister astral plane.
Altogether, they were not a brave crowd. Typical crooks. A few blasts from the machine pistols, a threat to use gas, and they threw down their guns.
Doc a.s.signed Ham the job of freeing Hill and Monk, only to discover, a bit later, that Ham had untied Hill, but was standing over Monk, sneering and reciting a choice history of what he contended had been Monk"s ancestors.It took Renny, Johnny and Long Tom to hold Monk off Ham when he was finally untied.
It was their quaint way of showing they were glad to see each other alive.
GETTING information out of reluctant subjects was a frequent need with Doc Savage. He had developed various methods. They began mildly and became more scientific.
The first treatment worked with their captives. It consisted of putting Monk in a room with them and shutting the door. Monk was not through explaining in detail what he was going to do to them when they started talking.
As the prisoners said, what was the profit in holding out? They had been caught. And they were only hired men. They did not belong to the Oklahoma mob, did not even know what the Oklahoma crowd was after.
They called their employers-whom they cursed heartily-the Oklahoma crowd.
Altogether, Doc got but one piece of information. "Who is the leader of the other mob?" he asked. "Enoch Andershott," they said. "That"s the name they used, anyhow."
"I ain"t surprised," old Reservoir Hill growled.
Chapter X. RED MYSTERY.
DOC SAVAGE left the prisoners at a Cleveland hospital. They were drugged, each in a stupor which would last until the bronze man got around to calling for them. Later, they would be consigned to a secret inst.i.tution which Doc maintained for curing criminals of crooked tendencies by a brain operation and a course of training.
Johnny did not arrive in Tulsa with them. He had dropped out of sight. The others did not know where. But they suspected Johnny had remained behind to keep an eye on the prisoners in the hospital. They were not sure about this. It was just a guess.
When old Reservoir Hill had suggested that Johnny had remained to watch the crooks who had tried to turn an old submarine into a profitable hideout at so much per guest, Doc neglected to deny it.
A newsboy was crying a paper at the Tulsa airport. It sounded as if it were big news. Monk bought a paper, glanced at the headlines, started, and handed it to the bronze man: OUTLAW TANT MEN FOUND.
TWO BODIES STRANGELY.
MANGLED.
The heads and shoulders of two men were found in Mohawk Park this morning. Police have tentatively identified the bodies as "Muck" Orst and Lee "Leaping" Ketchum, two bad actors belonging to the mysterious Tomahawk Tant outlaw mob. Identification was difficult.
Parts of the torsos, arms and legs of the victims were missing. There was a mysterious substance resembling common lubricating grease under the body fragments.
Police refuse to explain what the greasy material is .
Old Reservoir Hill whistled softly when Monk read this aloud over Doc"s shoulder.
Monk grunted, "Queer business, huh! I wonder just what is goin" on down here?"
Reservoir Hill made a snarling noise."Enoch Andershott can explain it, I bet!" he growled. "I"ll take you to where he lives."
Doc dropped big-fisted Renny off downtown, requesting, "Pick up what information you can on the general situation here. The newspapers would be a good bet."
ENOCH ANDERSHOTT and his partner, Alonzo Cugg, shared a home, it seemed. Both lived there when in Tulsa. It was a mansion. Old English style. And everything had been done to carry out the impression of the surroundings being a slice of old Suss.e.x countryside.
"They musta tore down a lotta old barns to get the wood for this thing." muttered Reservoir Hill.
"Old dill pickle!" Monk told him. "Ain"t there any of your fellow men that you love?"
"No," said Reservoir. "And I"d like you to show me anybody that Andershott and Cugg like!"
A metal gate across the automobile driveway was closed, but the footgate was open. Doc Savage and the others left their car and walked up the drive. They kept in a compact group without thinking.
"We"d be a swell target for a shot gun!" grunted Reservoir Hill Doc Savage tried the door.
"It is open," he said. Then the bronze man called, "Andershott! Cugg!"
The quiet of this exclusive residential district-exclusive unless one had the money-made the silence which came from within more impressive.
Inside, the house was gloomy. Pictures of oil wells, of drilling rigs, of refineries, of filling stations, of tank trucks, hung on the walls. Over the fireplace in the big library, instead of antlers or a mounted game head, there was an old-fashioned walking-beam.
The lights of the chandelier were suspended from the rim of an ancient, huge bullwheel. Strangely enough, even the air seemed to smell of oil, but this was due to the scent of crude oil carried across the Arkansas River from the mammoth refineries in West Tulsa.
Long Tom, walking into a room to one side, suddenly emitted a yell. Simultaneously, there was a loud snarling and snapping.
Long Tom came flying back, minus almost an entire trousers leg. The huge black dog of Enoch Andershott was in close pursuit. Seizing up a chair, Doc Savage got between the dog and Long Tom.
The giant canine, frothing and snarling, leaped at Doc, but the bronze man used the chair as a shield, after the manner of an animal trainer. The dog fell back, tried to get at Monk, then at Reservoir Hill.
Doc intercepted it each time. All the while, it showed its huge fangs and kept up a grisly chorus of snarling.
"That critter!" Monk gulped, "sure must like man meat!"
Long Tom, who had recovered his breath, gasped, "The dog was sniffing at a door! I think there"s something behind it!"
They went into the room out of which the dog had chased Long Tom. The dog snarled and slavered and kept its red, evil eyes fierce.
"That"s the door," said Long Tom, pointing. Instantly after he had spoken and pointed, he gave an imitation of a man doing his best to jump out of his skin.
"What"s that thing!"
he squawled. What excited him was a puddle of red, jellylike stuff that protruded under the bottom of the door.
LIGHT in the room was none too good, being discolored by tall, stained windows in a corner with about that same greenish tint which starts off putrefaction. The greenish, rough walls had been carefully decorated to give an impression of infinite age, and the result of that effort and the lighting was the feeling of an unreal, dreamland dungeon in which anything might be expected to happen.
Had the place possessed a real, an earthy feeling, it would have been easier for common sense to discount the possibility of anything eerie.
They stared, as rigid and breathless as so many solidly frozen figures, and they all could see that the red horror on the floor was in motion. It was flowing into the room, coming toward them!
"Run!" yelled Reservoir Hill. "It"ll gitcha!"
Doc Savage produced an object which he carried in his pocket-a powerful flashlight. Doc planted the beam, which was like a sliver of the sun itself, upon the monstrosity oozing under the door into the room.
The huge black dog began to snarl and drool and make sounds of terror.
The instant the light was upon the horror flowing under the door, the thing stopped. There was a brief pause.
Gradually, the semiliquid red ma.s.s began to retract itself under the door.
"It"s afraid of bright light!" Monk exploded.
"Quick!" Doc Savage rapped. "We"ll chop a piece of the thing off!"
The bronze giant hurled forward, and his speed was that of a jungle denizen leaping to the kill. Even while he was in the air, he got a knife out of his pocket, a knife with a spring-snap blade, which opened instantly.
His blinding speed was not enough. For the red ma.s.s was suddenly gone back under the door. Faster, almost, than the eye could perceive, it went.
Doc hit the door, and it was of big mahogany timbers, as solid in its wooden ponderosity as the door of a vault. It was locked.
"Blazes!" Monk yelled. "Didja see how quick that thing went! It"s fast as light!"
DOC leaped backward, seized a heavy table, and hurled it at the door. A panel broke out of the door. Doc threw the table again, causing the door to fly open, revealing a room which drawn shades made almost black.
They turned on the lights, and the room became so bright it ached their eyes. The big black dog kept behind them and always it snarled and made sounds deep in its chest that were like noises which might be made by some small thing dying.
The lighted room was big, with rich wooden panels along the walls, heavy furniture and a deep rug on the floor, and the rug looked as if thousands of fishing worms had crawled over it in battalions, leaving trails of slime.
No red, jellylike body could be seen.
It was Doc who looked up at the very tall ceiling. The others followed his gaze. Without exception, they started back in horror. The black dog emitted a yammering howl that came as near making their hair stand on end as anything could.
"A man-hanging from the chandelier!" Long Tom gulped.
Chapter XI. SEIZED.