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  Title: The Submarine Mystery

  Date of first publication: 1938

  Author: Lester Dent (as Kenneth Robeson) (1904-1959)

  Date first posted: Feb. 7, 2020

  Date last updated: Feb. 7, 2020

  Faded Page eBook #20200214

  This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

  BLAST SINKS

  U.S. SUBMARINE NEAR BOSTON

  A mysterious explosion sank the U.S. navy submarine Swordfish four miles outside Boston harbor at 2 PM to-day.

  * * *

  A young woman survivor was picked up by a private yacht cruising in the neighborhood at the time. The survivor seemed dazed by the shock, and when the yacht brought her ashore in Boston, she broke away and escaped. She has not been found.

  * * *

  It is reported this girl leaped from the submarine some moments before the explosion.

  * * *

  There is also a rumor that the girl wore a portion of a suit of ancient armor, and that the few words she uttered were couched in accents of the Sixteenth-Century in England.

  * * *

  It is feared the submarine sank in water too deep for a rescue to be effected.

  * * *

  Naval officials are reluctant to discuss the matter.

  THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY

  Books by Kenneth Robeson

  THE MAN OF BRONZE DUST OF DEATH

  THE THOUSAND-HEADED MAN RESURRECTION DAY

  METEOR MENACE HEX

  THE POLAR TREASURE RED SNOW

  BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF WORLD’S FAIR GOBLIN

  THE LOST OASIS THE DAGGER IN THE SKY

  THE MONSTERS MERCHANTS OF DISASTER

  THE LAND OF TERROR THE GOLD OGRE

  THE MYSTIC MULLAH THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH

  THE PHANTOM CITY THE SEA MAGICIAN

  FEAR CAY THE MAN WHO SMILED NO MORE

  QUEST OF QUI THE MIDAS MAN

  LAND OF ALWAYS-NIGHT LAND OF LONG JUJU

  FANTASTIC ISLAND THE FEATHERED OCTOPUS

  MURDER MELODY THE SEA ANGEL

  THE SPOOK LEGION DEVIL ON THE MOON

  THE RED SKULL HAUNTED OCEAN

  THE SARGASSO OGRE THE VANISHER

  PIRATE OF THE PACIFIC THE MENTAL WIZARD

  THE SECRET IN THE SKY HE COULD STOP THE WORLD

  COLD DEATH THE GOLDEN PERIL

  THE CZAR OF FEAR THE GIGGLING GHOSTS

  FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE POISON ISLAND

  THE GREEN EAGLE THE MUNITIONS MASTER

  THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND THE YELLOW CLOUD

  DEATH IN SILVER THE MAJII

  THE MYSTERY UNDER THE SEA THE LIVING FIRE MENACE

  THE DEADLY DWARF THE PIRATE’S GHOST

  THE OTHER WORLD THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY

  THE FLAMING FALCONS THE MOTION MENACE

  THE ANNIHILIST THE GREEN DEATH

  THE SQUEAKING GOBLINS MAD MESA

  MAD EYES THE FRECKLED SHARK

  THE TERROR IN THE NAVY

  THE SUBMARINE

  MYSTERY

  A DOC SAVAGE ADVENTURE

  BY KENNETH ROBESON

  THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY

  Originally published in DOC SAVAGE Magazine June 1938

  Copyright © 1938 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter Page

  I THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY 1

  II TROUBLE BUMP 4

  III THE FISH AND THE BAIT 8

  IV PRINCE ALBERT 13

  V GIRL IN ARMOR 18

  VI LOST RACES 25

  VII MISSING DUCHESS 31

  VIII IRON SHARKS 39

  IX THE BREAKS 44

  X RAIDERS 54

  XI DANDRUFF 59

  XII RAIDER ISLAND 65

  XIII SLAVES 73

  XIV HENRY’S DILEMMA 78

  XV THE TERRIBLE ISLAND 85

  XVI THE FIGHT 93

  XVII UNLUCKY PLANE 100

  XVIII WAR ON AN ISLAND 109

  XIX PIRATE’S PATH 117

  Chapter I

  THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY

  The story made the front pages of most of the newspapers. A typical headline and bulletin was the one appearing in the Planet, a morning newspaper in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It read:

  BLAST SINKS U. S. SUBMARINE

  NEAR BOSTON

  A mysterious explosion sank the U. S. navy submarine Swordfish four miles outside Boston harbor at 2 P.M. to-day.

  A young woman survivor was picked up by a private yacht cruising in the neighborhood at the time. The survivor seemed dazed by the shock, and when the yacht brought her ashore in Boston, she broke away and escaped. She has not been found.

  It is reported this girl leaped from the submarine some moments before the explosion.

  There is also a rumor that the girl wore a portion of a suit of ancient armor, and that the few words she uttered were couched in accents of the Sixteenth-Century in England.

  It is feared the submarine sank in water too deep for a rescue to be affected.

  Naval officials are reluctant to discuss the matter.

  This was the story which appeared in the Tulsa newspaper. The only difference between this story and the others which were printed was a matter of wording and color. Some papers printed a dramatic eyewitness story by the yachtsmen, telling how the sub had been literally ripped from end to end by the blast.

  There were also fuller descriptions of the young woman who had been rescued. Her unusual attire—the portion of a suit of ancient armor—came in for comment. It was remarkable. It was unusual for a woman to be on a U-boat. And for the woman to be dressed in the fighting garb of another century was puzzling.

  The newspapers guessed at various explanations, the most prevalent one being that the young woman was a professional artist’s model dressed for some kind of publicity photograph.

  All the descriptions mentioned the look of terror which had been in the girl’s eyes.

  And all the newspaper stories mentioned the fact that naval officials were reluctant to discuss the affair.

  They were reluctant for a very good reason.

  A rear admiral at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was the first one to discover an incredible fact about the submarine disaster. He read a radiogram to the effect that the U. S. navy U-boat Swordfish had blown up.

  “Hell’s bells!” he bellowed.

  The U. S. navy had a submarine named Swordfish. But the Swordfish was lying at the Panama Canal. Or was it? The rear admiral sent a volley of radio messages. It was. The U. S. navy submarine Swordfish was at the Panama Canal. It was really there. Nothing had happened to it.

  “Must have been another one of our subs that sank,” the rear admiral muttered.

  He sent another batch of radio messages. The replies apprised him of an astounding fact: Every single U. S. navy submarine could be accounted for! Not a U-boat was missi
ng!

  The submarine which had sunk was obviously not a U. S. navy sub.

  “Darn yachtsmen must have made a mistake identifying it,” the rear admiral decided.

  He flew to Boston and personally questioned the yachtsmen who had observed the blast. He left that conference holding the back of his neck. The yachtsmen had positively seen U. S. S. Swordfish on the submersible. The U-boat had absolutely been flying American colors. The rescued girl had certainly worn part of a suit of ancient armor, and her few words had been spoken in Sixteenth-Century English.

  All of which was a headache.

  * * *

  The American people and the American newspapers are prone to credit their government, their army and their navy with little or no ability as diplomats. For some contrary reason, they like to insist that whenever a mess comes up, the Americans are sure to put their foot in it. At the drop of a hat, they will declare an American diplomat is no diplomat at all. It now developed that this was a slight mistake.

  The world at the moment was in one of those stages where it is called a powder keg. There was an undeclared war or two going on in Europe; the Japanese were swallowing another chunk of China, and various dictators were shaking hands with each other and making faces at the rest of the universe.

  Fully a dozen so-called civilized nations had teeth and claws all set to fly at each other. All they needed was something to give a little push.

  If somebody’s submarine had been blown up, that might be just the little push that would start world fireworks.

  There was a tense conference of U. S. government bigwigs. No one ever told exactly what was said there.

  But the U. S. navy submarine Swordfish lying in Panama suddenly had its name changed to Trigger Fish.

  The navy did not deny paternity of the submarine Swordfish which sank near Boston. True, the navy did not seem to coöperate in its usual hearty fashion with the newspapers. It did not, for instance, publish a list of names of those who had died in the disaster. As the rear admiral said privately, the U. S. navy had no way of communicating with the dead to get the information.

  At any rate, no European or Asiatic war started over the matter.

  If any of the newspapers smelled a rat, they did not manage to dig the rodent out of its hole.

  The U. S. Naval Intelligence, the Feds, and other government-sleuthing agencies did conduct an intensive hunt for the girl who had escaped—the girl with the armor and the look of horror. They made just one discovery:

  A girl wearing armor and a look of horror on her face had stolen a fast airplane from a flying field near Boston. The plane had contained enough gas to fly to South America, Ireland, Spain, Canada or other places.

  The armor-wearing girl took the plane off in the direction of the South Atlantic, which was no help. There was nothing she could fly to in that direction.

  New York was only one of the places where the government agencies kept a sharp watch for her.

  Chapter II

  TROUBLE BUMP

  Who said that great oaks grow from little acorns isn’t important. Who said it had no bearing on Clark Savage, Jr.

  What did have a bearing on Doc Savage was a piece of gray rock. No great oak grew from this gray rock, but what did grow was a great deal more interesting.

  Doc was driving along a Long Island road and saw the gray rock where it had no business to be, geologically. Among many other things, Doc was a geologist, experts admitting that he knew as much about rocks as almost any other man. That gray rock was as irregular as a polar bear walking around in Florida.

  Doc stared at the rock. So he did not see the two men in the passing truck. The men were blowing their noses in big bandanna handkerchiefs, a ruse to hide their faces. The truck whipped in front of Doc’s car and stopped.

  Doc stamped brakes and stopped.

  The truck was a huge van. The back end of this suddenly dropped. It became an inclined ramp.

  A car promptly crashed into Doc’s machine from the rear. Doc Savage’s automobile was knocked scooting up the ramp into the van.

  The back of the van closed up tightly.

  The truck lurched into motion.

  Doc Savage dived out of his car. He was much taller than an average man, but so balanced in development that the fact was not evident until he stood close to some object to which his size could be compared.

  Tropic suns had given his skin a pronounced bronze coloration, and his hair was straight, of a bronze color only slightly darker than his skin, and fitted remarkably like a metal skullcap.

  Doc’s eyes searched the van. His eyes were probably the bronze man’s most unusual feature. They were like pools of flake gold, never inactive, always stirring, and possessing a compelling power that was distinctly hypnotic.

  The van was sheathed—floor, walls and ceiling—with armor-plate steel. Getting out of a jail would be simple compared to getting out of this.

  Doc Savage made a small sound which was an unconscious thing he did in reaction to moments of intense mental effort, or puzzled surprise.

  The sound was a trilling; low, exotic, as fantastic as the night wind around the eaves of a haunted house. It was made somehow in the bronze man’s throat. Its strangest quality was the fact that it seemed to come from everywhere in the van.

  * * *

  Doc Savage sat down on the running board of his car to reflect. Also to eliminate possible explanations for what had just happened.

  In five minutes, he was mystified, and after ten minutes had passed, he was completely at a loss. He had no idea why he’d been kidnaped, or where his captors might be taking him.

  Doc Savage was not unaware that he had been for some time acquiring a world-wide reputation as a modern scientific Galahad who went about the globe righting wrongs and punishing evil-doers. He did not work for pay. He had a source of fabulous wealth, gained in one of his early adventures.

  Since he did not have to make a living out of his strange profession, he could select any crime that interested him, the result being that any criminal was likely to find the man of bronze on his trail.

  Doc had better than a sprinkling of potential enemies, and they had a habit of trying to dispose of him unexpectedly. Possibly a potential enemy was trying something now.

  The big van rolled along fast, exhaust throbbing, tires wailing on concrete pavement.

  Doc got a hammer out of his tool kit and began to beat on the front of the van. Sparks flew. Finally a tiny barred window opened in the front of the van.

  A hand displayed a small cylindrical metal object. The article was equipped with a spout similar to a perfume atomizer, but without the squeeze bulb.

  A voice said, “Know’st thou what this be?”

  Two things immediately interested the bronze man: The first was the manner in which the words were spoken. The speaker used the delivery and pronunciation of an actor doing a bit of Shakespeare.

  The second thing of interest was the device which the man was displaying. Doc recognized it as a type of tear-gas gun which was sold in novelty stores and could be bought by anybody with fifteen dollars to spend for such a thing. He did not care to have it start spouting.

  “The idea,” Doc said, “seems to be that you are in a position to make it disagreeable for me.”

  A second voice spoke from the driver’s seat.

  “You got it right, pal,” this man said. “Cut out the racket, or Henry will squirt tear gas in there with you.”

  Doc Savage decided there was certainly nothing Shakespearean about the speech of the second man. Doc stooped and looked through the aperture to determine how many men were in the driver’s compartment of the truck.

  There were only two men.

  * * *

  The man holding the tear-gas gun had been called Henry by the other man.

  Henry was a very long, lean article, chiefly notable for his ample ears and the expression of a fellow who has just taken a bite of apple which he suddenly suspects may contain a worm.
>
  This expression of finding life a bitter pill to taste was apparently a habitual one with Henry. Additionally, Henry had very red hair which looked as if it had no life, like the hair in a very old wig. Henry was about forty.

  “ ’Tis best thee be peaceable!” Henry said gloomily.

  Doc Savage then gave his attention to the second of his two captors.

  He saw a man who had a warped nose, snaggly teeth, black hair as curly as bedsprings, and a skin that would have been appropriate on a rhinoceros. In his necktie, this man wore a stick pin containing a pearl that was large, yellowish and obviously artificial. He had a very red face. His age might be thirty, but it was hard to tell about such a man. He was very wide for his height.

  “Have you got a name?” Doc asked him.

  “Pipe down and get your schnozzle out of that hole!” the wide man said.

  He had a deep and coarse voice; when he spoke, it was about equivalent to hearing a canary croak like a frog.

  “I do not understand this,” Doc said.

  The man said, “Curiosity is good for you!” Then he slammed the window shut, and the truck continued on its way.

  Doc Savage climbed into his car, apparently not greatly concerned. He felt under the dashboard until he located a hidden switch, which he turned on, and the result was a hum of a radio warming up. It was not a conventional car radio; this one was a short-wave transmitter and receiver.

  “Hello, Monk!” Doc said into the microphone.

  Almost at once, a voice replied, “Yes, Doc?”

  It was a very small voice; it might have belonged to a boy, or a midget.

  “Monk,” Doc Savage said, “an unusual thing has happened. I have just encountered two gentlemen, and one of them seems to insist on talking like Shakespeare.”