[Doc Savage 181] Return From Comoral

Author:Lester Dent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-05-17T04:47:36+00:00

IN his room, Doc Savage tried to raise Monk or Ham on the radio. Then he fell back on the long-distance telephone, making half a dozen calls, the last one to the New York police department. Total result: Anxiety. What had happened to Monk and Ham? He did not as a usual thing have trouble sleeping, but during the rest of the night, he had plenty. He was unable to recall actually sleeping; what he was able to remember, when the sun burst through the window into his eyes, was an endless recalling of the weaknesses of Monk and Ham that might have caused a foot to slip. Their weaknesses were, except in the wrong places, strengths. Monk, in particular, was a direct fellow who would drop caution and wade in, given part of an excuse. That, in summary, was the thing that worried him. He imagined it was what had happened. They had made a smashing move when a wary one would have been wiser. That something drastic had befallen Monk and Ham, he was sure, or they would have set up a contact.

He rose, drew the blind against the sun, then lay on the bed for a while, drawing back mentally and examining the affair as a whole. He saw it as something like this: Macbeth Williams, who preferred being a mediocre scientist to managing his late father’s holdings—Doc was inclined to feel Macbeth’s attitude about the estate was sensible—had been signed up by a vague outfit named the Kendall Foundation, through the offices of his friend Ulm. The Kendall setup, Doc felt, should be known to him if it amounted to anything. It wasn’t. The six-month isolation on Cormoral Island wasn’t too sensible; there were ways open to any organization to get a group of stranded scientists back to civilization. So that the stranding was odd. That made two oddities, the vagueness of the Kendall Foundation, and the pointlessness of the marooning.

Suddenly hot with an idea, Doc Savage dressed and went to the waterfront. The steamer Meg Finnegan lay tied in rust-eaten ignominy to a wharf south of the bridge, and Doc saw no one until he had hammered on the grimy door of what obviously was the master’s cabin. Then he was confronted by a tired, ugly face, bloodshot eyes, and a scowl.

“Skipper?” Doc asked.

“Yeah, I’m the master,” replied the man. “What about it?”

Doc looked at the man as if he were fitting him to a description, then shrugged and displayed his billfold. “I’m here to pay off,” he said.

The captain scowled and the thin tip of his tongue made a quick trip across his lips, as if fly-catching. “What the hell! The owners canning me?”

“What gave you that idea? No, this is for handling the little job.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s not be coy,” Doc suggested. “You got them off the island, making it look as if you just accidentally found them while paying the island a visit to see if there was guano. That was the deal, wasn’t it?” He fanned through the banknotes.

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