The Exploding Lake: A Doc Savage Adventure Read online

  “Juan Russel?” he said.

  “I—yes.” Continued terror was making Juan’s tongue a little thick. He had trouble with words.

  The man in the blue shirt was plain, almost mouse-like; there was a tiny scar across his lower lip; his voice, like his eyes, was flat and emotionless.

  “I am Monk Mayfair,” the man said.

  “Monk—for God’s sake!” Juan gasped. “You—I—mother of mercy!” He suddenly seized the man’s hand. “Oh, what luck! Mother of all things—what wonderful luck!” He lapsed into Spanish in his excitement and babbled about how wonderful this was.

  “I am one of Doc Savage’s assistants,” the man said, and the tiny scar flickered faintly on his lip.

  “You—I recognize the name—Monk Mayfair!” Juan blurted. “That is why I am—oh, this is wonderful!”

  The man who had called himself Monk Mayfair nodded. The expression in his eyes did not change. He said, “I heard you are trying to telephone Doc Savage. They—at the telephone office—are a bunch of gossips.”

  “Sí, sí!” Juan gasped. “Mio dios! Magnifico!”

  Juan Russel had never met Monk Mayfair, but of course he had read of him. Monk was one of Doc Savage’s five aides, the one who was a chemist. Doc Savage’s men had a reputation for working in various parts of the world—they were consultants of high skill—so it did not seem strange that Monk Mayfair should be in Patagonia.

  “Maybe I can help you out,” the man in the blue shirt said.

  “Yes. Yes, you can.” Juan nodded vehemently. Relief was making him weak, almost incoherent. “I have much to tell you—a—a thing that is terrible, incredible. A lake—it disappeared—a lake—I mean—”

  “I heard about that,” the other said quietly.

  “You heard!”

  “Rumor travels fast in this country.”

  “Rumor?”

  “You talked—you were a little drunk, I understand—in the town where you stayed last night. News about you has preceded you.”

  “Oh!”

  “You wanted to keep this secret?”

  “I—yes. That is—well—terror! The terror of it! I did not think—”

  “Maybe,” the man in the blue shirt said, “we had better not talk here. Rather public.”

  “We—yes. Yes, not here. My hotel. We will go—”

  “Good enough.” The other arose.

  Juan’s spirits did not rise as they moved toward the hotel, but they at least became somewhat settled. It was dark—the hour was about ten—and they had to move slowly, since the pavement was none too good. Doc Savage, Juan thought, was going to be reached. Things were going to be—well, maybe not all right. But there would now be a chance. Doc Savage, Juan believed, was possibly the only man living who stood a chance of coping with this thing.

  “I think we’re being followed,” said the man in the blue shirt.

  “Dios—!”

  “In here.”

  They were opposite a small alleyway. The other man drew Juan into the blacker murk of the alley. He said quietly, “We will wait here and see—” and did not trouble to finish the sentence, because his knife had by that time gone into Juan’s back near the left shoulder-blade and descending at an angle, reached his heart.

  Blue-shirt used the knife half a dozen more times to make sure Juan was dead. He wiped the blade on Juan’s clothing casually, replaced the knife in its holster, and finished in the darkness until he found Juan’s billfold and took what folding money it contained. He sauntered out of the alley, went to the place where he had his car parked and before starting the motor, counted Juan’s money. It came to a little over a thousand pesos.

  “A fair bonus,” he remarked.

  He started the engine of his car and left town. Five miles or so out of town, he paused long enough to get a portable radio transmitter out of the car trunk, warm up the tubes, and whistle into the microphone several times. Presently he got an answering whistle in the receiver.

  “Juan is dead,” he reported, and put the transmitter back in the trunk and got going.

  II

  The Dias Escribe was not the leading Buenos Aires newspaper, but it was not under the government’s thumb as much as some of the others, and was a little sharper in going after news. Pedro Verde, the managing editor, a sour, skeptical little man, called his makeup editor to the desk and pointed at a story and demanded, “What is this piece of tripe? . . . Don’t you know we don’t print fairy stories?” He rapped the item with his fist and yelled, “A lake disappearing! For God’s sake!” The item was headed:

  * * *

  STRANGE NEW MYSTERY IN

  PATAGONIA

  ———

  A LAKE VANISHES

  The text of the story related how two men had been flying their plane over Patagonia when they had heard and felt a tremendous blast, a blast that almost took their plane from the sky. Frightened, they had gone to their home airport, but had returned two days later, and had taken a picture of the scene.

  The picture was reproduced, and showed a blackened area, and, nearby, a number of perfectly normal lakes.

  “It is a good story—”

  “It is so damned good that it is no account at all!” the managing editor yelled. “Listen, too many cockeyed stories about Patagonia have been floating around. They get on the wire services, get up north to the United States, and people up there think we are a bunch of screwballs, lovers of Nazis; and relations get worse. That sort of thing has got to stop. We’ve got enough trouble as it is with the kind of guys we’ve got in government office down here, without helping the stink along. That story is regular goofy sea-monster stuff.”

  “Yes, but even a sea-monster story makes good reading now and then. In the United States’ papers, every once in a while, you see—”

  “The hell with that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Find these two aviators. I want to know whether they are dependable.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The next day, the makeup man had to make an embarrassed report. The identity of the two men had been determined. Carlos Juarez and Rodrigo Unos. The reporter assigned to the story had sought the men to get more details, but they could not be found; they had apparently disappeared after giving the picture and the story to a correspondent to send in.

  “It’s a phony,” said the managing editor bitterly. “Print no more of it.”

  The Associated Press, though, had already picked up the story and put it on their wire-photo to New York. The A. P. man didn’t particularly believe the cockeyed thing, but it made a good story.

  The murder of Juan Russel got quite a play all over Argentina. The man’s family background was reviewed at length, and his scientific achievements got an extended accounting. The police, it was stated, were positive the slayer would be in custody within twenty-four hours.

  Presently reporters, on the trail of details about the man’s death, unearthed the fact that he had come out of the Patagonia wild-lands in a condition that was best described as highly erratic. The man seemed to be suffering from hallucinations, and under the delusion that the world—the universe, even—was menaced by something infernal and fantastic.

  They played down the fantastic and infernal menace, because it seemed to be evidence that the man was mentally unbalanced.

  In justice to the reporters on the story, there was really nothing told them that would connect Juan Russel with the business of the vanished lake. Juan, drunk as he had been that night when he talked, had been either too canny—or too terrified, which was more likely—to let out the connection with the lake. Anyway, it did not get in print. But the story of Juan’s death made all the newspapers, and was cabled to New York by the press associations, where it got some play—another murder in that trouble-making country down there, Argentina.

  There was obviously no political cast to the crime, though.

  III

  The steward of the Clipper for New York took a last deep breath of th
e fine Buenos Aires atmosphere, flipped his cigarette into the grass, and went into the terminal.

  “I suggest you get aboard, Señor,” he said. “Departure is shortly.”

  “Thank you,” said the man who had a small scar on his lower lip. He was of medium height, clad—he did not wear a blue shirt now—in white linen and Panama. His mouse-like features were as expressionless as they were when he had put the knife into Juan Russel.

  He had been reading the newspaper account of Juan Russel’s murder. He said—to himself—cheerfully, “Ah, so they expect an arrest in twenty-four hours.” He folded the newspaper, put it in his pocket. “They always do,” he remarked.

  “Sir?” said the steward.

  “Nothing,” said the man. “Nothing that will come to pass.”

  He showed his ticket and passport to the first officer, who said, “Paul Cort?”

  “Paul Cort. That’s right.”

  “Portuguese, I see.”

  “Yes, Lisbon. The visa is in order, I think.”

  “Yes, visaed by the U. S. Consul. Okay.” The first officer nodded. Paul Cort boarded the big seaplane, found a seat, and noticed that the ship was already filled, except for one seat. Paul Cort became uneasy, thereafter.

  Presently there was a commotion on the ramp. A big man, an enormously big man, had just arrived. Perspiration was streaming down his red face. He got through the formalities with the First Officer.

  “Name?”

  “Dartlic—Orlin Dartlic.”

  “Dutch, eh?”

  “Netherlands. The Hague,” the big man boomed. “To New York, is going.”

  He did not handle the English so well, and some of the passengers, overhearing, chuckled. Paul Cort did no chuckling, but he seemed considerably relieved about the one empty seat.

  A few moments later, the big man—enormously fat, he was—from the Netherlands lowered himself into the vacant seat, overflowing somewhat, and holding a briefcase clutched tightly on the balloons of flesh that served him for a lap.

  “I thought I be left yet,” he puffed. He had a loud voice, and a boisterously amiable way of using it.

  The seaplane engines began rumbling and vibrating, the ship taxied to the end of the take-off area. A launch finished making the safety-run over the take-off area to make sure there were no floating menaces, and sent a flat signal back to the seaplane. The pilot did his cockpit check, fed fuel to the carburetors, and the seaplane moved, presently began bouncing, got on step, then lifted. It was airborne.

  It was about this time that the fat Mr. Orlin Dartlic of the Netherlands saw the mouse-like Mr. Paul Cort, of Portugal, and the effect on the fat man was something to see. He turned quite white. He said something, or a number of things, in Dutch or some language similar. It was a little too inarticulate with terror to be understandable.

  The big man dashed back to the door. “Off I want!” he gasped. “Off! Off! Quick.”

  “Hey, we’re in the air,” the steward said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I—uh—something I forget. Something that very important is!” The big man was frantic. “This ship you land quick, no?”

  The steward was very sorry, but it was out of the question. No could do. Company regulations, and other things, including inconvenience to the other passengers. Very sorry.

  The steward was of the opinion that it was the fat man’s first flight—a plain case of air-scare. The steward talked smoothly, logically, and got the big man back in his seat, then administered a sedative, a calming drug of mild qualities. The fat man took that. He was glad to get it. He needed calming.

  Paul Cort continued to be quite expressionless.

  A couple of hours later, the fat man paid a visit to the men’s room, and Paul Cort joined him there. The two men gave not the slightest sign of knowing each other. The big man did swallow audibly, and his huge head turned until he was staring into the impassive face of the other.

  Paul Cort produced his newspaper with an offhand manner.

  “Too bad about this fellow Russel, Juan Russel,” Cort said. “Did you read about it?”

  “I—yes, I read.” The fat man swallowed again, a sound like a trout gulping a bug off the surface. “I—a friend of yours, no?”

  “No, not exactly. I never met him. A promising young man, I heard, though.”

  “A very bad thing, murder.”

  “Yes,” said Paul Cort. “It was the violence of it. The world, we of the world, have too much of violence in these times.” Paul Cort nodded somberly. His mouse-like features remained largely unchanged. “I feel lucky that my country has escaped. Portugal, you know.”

  The big man bowed with difficulty, said nothing.

  “Yes,” Cort continued. “We were lucky—we of Portugal— in a way. Of course”—he gave a slight lift of shoulders—“we did get to see a great many adventurers of the world. Lisbon was full of them. Spies from every nation, as you can imagine, and rascals. Rascals galore. Some very bad ones.” He shrugged again. “All of this, you understand, I hear from my people. Letters. From friends. You see, I am a businessman, and I was out of it. I was in Argentina, and missed the worst of it. You, too, are a businessman, I take it.”

  The big man hesitated.

  “Advisor of the government, I am,” he said finally. He made it sound pompous. “I am advisor on Patagonian affairs.”

  “That sounds important.”

  “It is.”

  “My name is Cort. Paul Cort. I am glad to meet you, Mr.—”

  “Dartlic—Orlin Dartlic.”

  They exchanged slight bows. They did not shake hands. The small man took a seat and leaned back, eyelids closed, and there was nothing to show that he was in the least interested further.

  “I believe,” he said presently, “that I read somewhere about you.” He aroused himself, turned the pages of his newspaper. “Ah, here it is,” he said.

  The headline said:

  U. S. SCIENTIST TO BE

  CONSULTED

  ———

  DARTLIC TO MEET

  CLARK SAVAGE, JR.

  The story did not elaborate much on the headlines, merely stating that Orlin Dartlic, official advisor on Patagonian affairs, was taking the Clipper to New York for a technical consultation with the New York scientist, Clark Savage, Jr.

  “That you, eh?” said Cort.

  “Is me,” the fat man said. He said this calmly enough, but in a moment he went into the bathroom and could be heard being sick.

  Cort’s mouse-like face was blank, and presently he arose and left the men’s lounge, resuming his seat.

  * * *

  Susan Lane boarded the plane at Rio de Janeiro. Susan—you knew her two minutes, and began calling her Susie—made up the third of the oddly assorted trio of Cort, Dartlic and Susie Lane.

  “Look at the blonde bombshell!” somebody said.

  “Yeah. For crying out loud! What’s that she’s got?”

  The object of amazement was a cub ocelot. Susie was, rather obviously, smuggling the animal aboard, and not making much of a pretense of keeping it under her coat.

  “Nothing doing!” said the Second Officer firmly. “No animals.”

  “What animal?” said Susie. “I don’t see any animal.” The ocelot wasn’t as big as a tiger under her coat, but it was as conspicuous as one.

  The Brazilian officials claimed they didn’t see any animal either. They had obviously been paid by Susie not to see one, and they thought it was very funny. They assured the Second Officer there was no animal. There was quite a row, which the Second Officer lost, and Susie tripped aboard with the cub.

  “I shot its mama, who was really a bloodthirsty cat,” she explained.

  The other passengers stirred uneasily. Tension spread around the vicinity of the cub ocelot, which looked capable of doing about as much damage as a wildcat in case it took a notion.

  “I’m a big game huntress,” Susie told her seat-mate, a gentleman who peddled bulldozers for an Ohio concern.
He was dubious. He highly favored Susie as a seat-mate, but the matter of the animal, which he took to be some kind of a spotted wildcat, was another matter.

  “Will the thing scratch?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Yes,” said Susie brightly. “But it’s so sweet, don’t you think?”

  “Ummmmmm,” said the drummer. “Are you really a big game huntress? I mean—do you go into jungles and such?”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  In the course of the next couple of hours, Susan Lane definitely established herself as a silly bit of fluff whose papa, Ben Holland Lane, had made more money than he knew what to do with in the oil business, and was spoiling an already flibber-jibbit daughter by letting her traipse around over the world, hunt lions in Africa, counts in London, ocelots in Brazil and wolves in New York. The drummer of bulldozers made what he thought was some headway.

  In Trinidad, there was a stop of about half an hour for refueling and maintenance check of the engines and plane, and the passengers stretched their legs.

  Paul Cort sent a cablegram to someone named Gaines at the Plaza Central hotel in New York. It read: MEET CLIPPER. I WILL POINT OUT MAN DISCUSSED IN TELEPHONE CONVERSATION. HAVE PLENTY OF MEN TO DO JOB. CORT.

  The fat Netherlander, Orlin Dartlic, sent a cablegram to Doc Savage, New York. It said: ARRIVING CLIPPER. IMPERATIVE MEET YOU DISCUSS AMAZING MATTER IN PATAGONIA. IMPORTANCE CANNOT BE UNDERRATED. He signed it with a flourish with full name and title: ORLIN DARTLIC, ADVISER TO THE ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT ON PATAGONIAN AFFAIRS.

  Susan Lane’s cablegram was to Washington, to an individual designated as BUCKLEY, Suite 244, Clagle Hotel, Washington, D. C. It read. MOUSE, RAT AND CAT. SUSIE IS SO INNOCENT. BIG DOINGS ALL RIGHT. AND HOW ARE YOU, YOU BUM. SUSIE.

  The cablegram despatching in all three cases was done with care that none of the other three principles involved noticed that a message was being sent.

  There was one other incident in Trinidad. The cub ocelot clawed the wolf ideas out of the drummer. It happened in the lunchroom, and the cub emitted a small, high-pitched sound, bounded from the table, landed on the drummer’s leg, and ruined his suit, his leg skin, and his amorous ideas about Susie.