THE FRECKLED SHARK.
A Doc Savage Adventure.
by Kenneth Robeson.
Chapter I. THE TOUGH LUCK OF JEP DEE.
MATEc.u.mBE is one of the largest of the string of islands extending south from the tip of Florida and called the Florida Keys.
Jep Dee came to Matec.u.mbe. He stayed two weeks and nothing out of the ordinary happened, except that he did a lot of crawdadding-every day, once in the morning and once in the evening, Jep Dee went hunting crawfish.
That is, he pretended to go for crawfish.
The Caribbean lobster-called crawfish-really looks much like a crawdad from a Missouri creek, although it is served in restaurants and cafeterias and called "Florida lobster"; and there are recorded instances where these tropical lobsters have weighed fifteen pounds, which is fully as large as the regular Northern lobster. But it is always called by the natives, crawfish. Properly cooked, the tropical lobster, or crawfish, makes a very savory, succulent and appetizing viand.
True, Jep Dee never ate any of the crawfish he caught.
As a matter of fact-but that was a secret-he never caught any crawfish. He bought them from an old cracker who lived on a nearby island. The old cracker made a living, such as it was, by crawfishing for the market Jep Dee never made any effort to catch a crawfish.He did tell a lot of lies about how he caught them. He would tell how he reached into coral holes and under ledges in the daytime and pulled the big ones out.
He told how he sculled his boat over the reefs at night with a gasoline lantern burning in the bow, until the eyes of the crawfish gleamed like the eyes of cats in automobile headlights along a road at night, after which he gigged them with a little three-tined spear. He was a liar. All he ever gigged was his leg, by accident, one night.
Jep Dee had a nose and fists that looked as if they"d had accidents in the past. He had a mouth that never said much; it had thin lips. Suns had burned him. Sea brine had turned his hide to leather. He was about a foot shorter than an average man, also a foot wider.
One night Jep Dee got drunk and said he could whip his weight in wild cats. There were no wild cats available, but he did very well with four tough crackers and three big yacht sailors who got tired of his chest-beating and tied into him.
They still talk about that fight on Matec.u.mbe; it"s the main topic of conversation. The main topic used to be the big hurricane of 1934.
Jep Dee paid fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents for the boat-twelve feet long, cypress-planked, rusty iron centerboard, two oars, a ragged, dirty sail-in which he went "crawfishing."
He came to Matec.u.mbe, and every day for two weeks he went out and came back and said he had been crawdadding, until finally he found what he was looking for.
Jep Dee went out on one of his usual nightly crawdad hunts, and found what he sought, and never came back.
A COLLEGE boy in a yawl was the next person to see Jep Dee. This was weeks later.
At first, the college boy thought he was seeing a wad of drifted seaweed lying on a beach, and his second opinion was that it must be a log. Fortunately, he put the yawl tiller over and went in to look.
The college boy was sailing down to Dry Tortugas to see the flock of flamingos, birds that are getting about as scarce as buffaloes. He was on vacation. He was just pa.s.sing a tiny coral island about sixty miles from Key West, Florida.
The island had no vegetation-it was almost as naked as Jep Dee.
Jep Dee could not talk enough to give his name. So he became, in the newspapers, "an unidentified man."
The only thing Jep Dee wore was a rope about four feet long and an inch thick. It was tied to his neck. Not with a hangman"s knot, however. From head to foot he was a ma.s.s of blisters and sores, the result of exposure to terrific tropical sun and salt water, and the fact that the crabs had not waited until he was dead before starting to eat him.
He had no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no finger nails. These items had been plucked off.
Also, Jep Dee seemed to be insane.
He had just enough strength to kick the college boy in the face; and while the astonished young alumnus sprawled on his back, Jep Dee got up and ran. His sense of direction was bad, and he dashed into the sea, where he floundered until the college boy caught him.
They had quite a fight. Jep Dee had no strength, but he knew all the evil tricks of brawl fighters, many of which didn"t require much power.
Jep Dee did much yelling during the struggle. Most of it was incoherent, but now and then a phrase was understandable. Once he screeched: "d.a.m.n you, Horst! You go back to the island and tell Senor Steel-"
Just what he wanted a man named Horst to tell one named Senor Steel was unintelligible. The fight went on, in water about waist-deep. Once more, Jep Dee spoke understandable words.
"I"ve seen men being tortured to death before," he screamed, "but the way these-"
He did not finish that sentence, either.
The college boy got him overpowered, rolled him into the dinghy and rowed out to the yawl and spread him under thec.o.c.kpit awning. Jep Dee lay limp and sucked in breath, making weak whistling sounds. It seemed remarkable that he should be alive.
"Hey, fellow," the college boy said, "you have had some tough luck, haven"t you? How are your eyes? Can you see me?"
As the doctor explained, later, Jep Dee couldn"t see anything. He was temporarily blinded.
"Who is this Horst?" the college boy asked. "And who is Senor Steel?"
No answer.
"What about men being tortured to death?" inquired the young man. "What did you mean by that?"
Jep Dee went on breathing with whistles.
"You"re pretty far gone, old boy," the college boy said kindly. "I"ll untie that rope from your neck, and you"ll feel better."
The college boy took hold of the rope, and Jep Dee began to fight again. He fought with a whimpering desperation, wildly and unceasingly, as long as the other made any attempt to get the rope loose.
Jep Dee wanted to keep that rope around his neck more than he wanted to keep alive.
THE yawl sailed into Key West, and they put Jep Dee in a hospital that stood in a nice part of town in a grove of palm trees.
"Exposure," the doctors said. But this was before they looked more closely at Jep Dee. After a better examination, they stared at each other in bewilderment.
"Hair, eyebrows and eyelashes have been-pulled out," one doctor said.
"And fingernails plucked off," another stated.
"Take the rope off him," said the head doctor.
So Jep Dee began to fight again. He struck at them, and although his eyes were swollen shut, so that he couldn"t see, his hands managed to find a tray of medicines; and he threw bottles at the spots where he imagined doctors would be until he grew so weak that his most furious heaves barely got the bottles over the edge of the hospital bed.
"Mental trouble," the head doctor said. "Thinks he has to keep that rope around his neck."
"What"ll we do about it?"
"Humor him. Let him keep it for a while. The man is in very bad shape, and there"s no need of exciting him by taking away his rope. I doubt if he lives."
But Jep Dee did live. He lay on the cot on his back, and during the hours when he was awake, he stared fixedly at things in the room, as if he were trying to see only them, and not something that his mind kept trying to resurrect.
For days, he did not sleep. Sleep-producing drugs seemed to have no effect. And when, finally, he did sleep, a nightmare seemed to come upon him at once and he kept making mewing sounds of horror.
He got better.
"Now," the head doctor said, "we can untie that silly rope from his neck."
Three doctors and a nurse got messed up in this attempt before it came to an end with Jep Dee still in possession of the rope, which he kept tied around his neck. It was a thick rope, and when he slept he kept it coiled neatly on his chest, like a snake.
They had not yet identified Jep Dee.Off a drinking gla.s.s they took his fingerprints, distorted prints, because his fingertips had swollen and festered as a result of the plucked-off nails. They sent these to the Key West police, also to the headquarters of the State police at Tallaha.s.see, and to the department of justice in Washington, and from the latter place they got a telegraphic answer that read: OUR RECORDS SHOW MAN"S NAME JEP DEE. RECENTLY SENTENCED TO BE SHOT IN CENTRAL AMERICAN.
REPUBLIC OF BLANCA GRANDE. SAVED BY INTERVENTION OF AMERICAN CONSUL. UNDERSTAND.
PRESIDENT-DICTATOR OF BLANCA GRANDE HAS STANDING OFFER OF.
TWENTY-FIVE-THOUSAND-DOLLAR REWARD FOR DEATH OF JEP DEE. IF REWARD OFFER IN ANY WAY.
RESPONSIBLE FOR PRESENT CONDITION OF JEP DEE, AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO BE.
INTERESTED BECAUSE IT IS ALREADY NOT ON GOOD TERMS WITH PRESIDENT-DICTATOR OF BLANCA.
GRANDE.
After this telegram came from the department of justice, they questioned Jep Dee. He could now talk. That is, he had been asking for food and swearing at the doctors.
"Go to h.e.l.l!" he said.
"If the president-dictator of some South American country ordered you tortured," the doctor said, "they want to know about it in Washington."
"You heard me!" Jep Dee snarled.
"But you should tell-"
"It"s none of your d.a.m.n business," Jep Dee said.
"But-"
"G"wan away!"
"You might at least let us remove that rope-"
"Scram! Vamoose!"
IN the dark and quiet hours of that night, Jep Dee reached under his pillow and got a pair of scissors-small scissors which a nurse had used to snip off his innumerable bandages when dressings were changed and which Jep Dee had stolen and hidden. With the scissors, Jep Dee carefully cut the rope loose from his neck.
He did not cut the knot in the rope. He untied it. With infinite care-and pain too, because of his missing fingernails.
The untying took almost an hour. Just before he finished untying it, he listened intently and looked all around, taking great precautions not to be observed.
Twisted between the rope strands, in that part of rope which had been tied in the knot, where it could be discovered only when the rope was untied and untwisted, was a piece of dried shark skin.
The shark skin was freckled.
Whether the shark which was original owner of the skin had been freckled, or whether the freckled aspect of the shark skin came from some other cause, was impossible to ascertain at a glance.
Jep Dee was still quite blind. He fingered the piece of shark skin carefully and caressingly, as if he enjoyed feeling of it.
He did something which no one had heard him do before. He giggled. Not hysterical giggling, nor mad; just the elated chuckle of a man who had put something over.
He got out of the white bed. He was stronger than anyone had thought. He went to the window and dropped the scissors outside, listening carefully to see how far they fell, and by this, concluded that the window was on the first floor. He crawled out, dropped to the ground and felt his way through the grove of palms until he fell over a low hedge, beyond which was a sidewalk.
Jep Dee wore white hospital pajamas. He walked two blocks, feeling his way. Because Key West, Florida, was a winter resort, it was not unusual for people to be seen on the streets in beach pajamas, or suits of slacks that looked very likepajamas. The white hospital pajamas of Jep Dee attracted no attention.
He walked until he heard footsteps approaching, when he stopped and listened. Heavy footsteps. A man"s.
Jep Dee said, "I"m not walking in my sleep. I"m a blind man. Will you help me to the post office?"
"The post office is closed at this time of night," reminded the man Jep Dee had met.
"I know," Jep Dee said. "I want you to stop me at a drugstore and loan me a dime for an envelope, a sheet of paper and a stamp."
The man laughed pleasantly, said, "Sure, I"ll accommodate you," and took Jep Dee to a drugstore, where he got paper, envelope and stamp, then to the post office.
Jep Dee could write legibly without the aid of his eyes, but it must have been agony without his fingernails. On the paper he scrawled: SHARK SKIN TELLS EVERTHING.
He folded the piece of freckled shark skin inside the paper, inserted it in the envelope, and addressed the missive to: Miss Rhoda Haven Tower Apartments New York City While Jep Dee was licking the stamps and sticking them on the envelope and putting the envelope in the mail slot-the letter went air mail-the good Samaritan who had led him to the post office went out and called a policeman, because he could see that Jep Dee was the next thing to a dead man, and had no business up and running around. The cop came.
Jep Dee got the idea the cop intended to retrieve the letter which he had mailed, so there was a rousing fight there in the Key West post office, before they got Jep Dee back to the hospital.
News of the melee got to the papers, and a reporter came and took a picture of Jep Dee.
Chapter II. THE WAMPUS-CAT.