The Lost Oasis Read online

  If the stain was blood, it seemed incredible that any human murderer could have operated from the cable.

  Doc glided down the deck. Leaping, he grasped the hawser and mounted. The wet stain was human blood, beyond question! Clinging to the cable with one hand, Doc played his light along it.

  The Yankee Beauty was an oil burner, and the hawser bore a layer of sticky soot which had been deposited by the oil smoke. Had any one climbed the cable recently, the soot would have been rubbed off. But it was not disturbed!

  The stain on the line was inexplicable—unless some gory, aërial thing had brushed against it!

  Doc doused his light. Men were running down the deck. Stewards. They carried storm lanterns. They passed below Doc, never realizing he was clinging to the cable over their heads.

  “Hey—look!” gulped one of the sailors, catching sight of the horribly contorted body.

  It required only two or three minutes for a crowd to gather.

  “What’s this stuff on deck?” demanded a man, indicating Doc’s strange powder. “It shines whenever you disturb it.”

  “What killed this man?” pondered another.

  “Pipe his throat! That’s what got ’im!”

  “Yeah! Looks like the work of a vampire!”

  “There ain’t no such thing.”

  “Who is he?” asked a fellow in the oily garments of an engineer.

  “Name is Jules Fourmalier,” replied a steward. “He had cabin No. 12. A passenger.”

  Doc Savage had been awaiting information such as this. He ran, hand over hand, up the cable. He made no perceptible sound. The waterproof bag was swinging upon his back.

  Reaching a mast, he located a rigging line which led to the opposite side of the ship. He descended swiftly. A very few minutes later, he was before the door of Stateroom No. 12.

  The door was locked. Doc’s bag disgorged a tiny kit of locksmith’s tools. The cabin door soon opened under his practiced manipulation. He switched on the light.

  The place was a wreck! The rug was torn up; the mattress on the berth was literally shredded. The washstand had been taken apart. A life preserver had been ripped open and the cork stuffing whittled to pieces. The search had missed nothing.

  Doc hardly moved from where he stood just within the door. His gaze missed nothing, however.

  Offhand, it might have seemed impossible to gain from the condition of the room the slightest inkling of what the searcher had sought. But to Doc’s sharp eyes, several things had a meaning.

  The fact that the backs of three or four books had not been ripped off told him the hunt had not been for anything in the nature of a paper. Otherwise, the search would have extended to the book covers.

  A bottle of colored shaving lotion had been emptied so that the container might be inspected. The quick-drying liquid was still quite wet. The search had been conducted only a few minutes ago!

  Doc decided to try for the prowler’s footprints. He got his chemical from the bag, decided the nap of the corridor rug would be the most effective spot for its use, and stepped outside.

  He noted casually that the lock on the door was a spring type. Whoever had ransacked the stateroom had no doubt merely slammed the door in departing.

  The powder blazed resplendently as Doc scattered it. Then, after it had settled, the luster slowly faded, except for patches where feet had recently depressed the rug pile.

  Ruler in hand, Doc bent to measure prints immediately before the door.

  Down the corridor some distance, a hand appeared from around a cross passage. It held an automatic. The gun leveled at Doc. It crashed noisily!

  * * *

  The powder flash flushed redly on the corridor walls. The report thumped like thunder, piling echoes into the corridors, the lounge and deep into the steamer’s vitals! The bullet screamed down the passage and hit—nothing but wall paneling!

  Doc had vanished as though by magic. Literally disappeared from before the bullet! As a matter of fact, Doc had whipped from sight into Jules’s cabin even before the shot was fired.

  The bushwhacker down the corridor had slipped off the safety on his automatic a moment before shooting. This had made a faint click, a sound Doc had heard. A single glance had shown him his danger. His reaction was instantaneous.

  Another shot thundered, proving the gunman to be somewhat excited!

  In the stateroom, Doc was delving into his bag. He brought out an object about the size of a small condensed milk can. He twisted a key on this, then hurled it down the passage toward the marksman.

  The object began spewing a dense black smoke. This swiftly filled the corridor.

  More shots slammed. Doc counted them. When the automatic had emptied a clip, he flung into the corridor. He sped the opposite direction of the gunman. Once clear of the pall from the smoke bomb, he found a short passage and a door which gave out on deck.

  Behind him, he heard a great hissing and splashing of water. Spray and an occasional splatter of water even reached to where he stood.

  The bushwhacker had turned the fire hose down the passage to blot out his fiery footprints, so they could not be measured!

  Doc stepped out on deck. There was nothing in his manner to show he had just engaged in a grim joust with death. It was not his first peril. Nor was it likely to be his last. Hazards were his heritage.

  From forward, a chorus of excited yells was sounding! The shots had interrupted the palaver over the body of Jules. But not one of the sailors seemed willing to do more toward investigating than bellow encouragement at his fellows.

  Doc glided along the deck. He found the cross passage from which the shot had been fired and dashed his flashlight in, knowing from long experience that he could duck back before an accurate bullet could be driven at him.

  The passage was empty. Doc tossed his flash beam up and down the deck. No one was in sight. He sprinkled a quantity of his powder on deck. The fiery imprints which appeared were somewhat shapeless. Nevertheless, they told him the gunman had been hopping on one foot, around which he had wrapped a padding—probably cloth.

  A few spots showed where the unmuffled foot had been employed as a prop. But there was certainly nothing which offered identifying measurements.

  Doc bent closer to the deck, golden eyes searching intently. A moment later, his bronze hand descended. It lifted, with a yarn of gray wool gripped between thumb and forefinger. The yarn had been caught under a deck splinter, and it showed the cloth, muffling the man’s shoe, was coarse, gray.

  * * *

  Doc now evidenced a desire to go forward, glancing several times in that direction. But the sailors still dilly-dallied about investigating the shots. They were not inclined to risk becoming targets.

  “Fire!” somebody howled suddenly. “All hands fall to! Fire! Fire!”

  Doc evinced no alarm, knowing the cries meant the smoke bomb smudge had been discovered. But not so the seamen around Jules’s body. They charged, aft, filled with visions of the ship’s burning, with the consequent loss of their jobs.

  Not a man remained to guard Jules’s lifeless form.

  Doc Savage hurried forward. Twice, he stepped behind lifeboats to escape the notice of running men. Reaching the murdered man, he began a swift search of pockets, something there had been no time to do earlier. The proximity of death did not bother him—his training as a surgeon had inured him to such things.

  The contents of the pockets were meager. There were a number of coins. Dashing the flashlight on them, Doc saw they were silver piastres, coins of various denomination, together with some United States money. He examined the Arabic characters on the piastres.

  “Egypt!” he said softly, voicing the source of the coins.

  An inside coat pocket held the most surprising find of all. This was a small bundle of magazine clippings, snapped around with a rubber band. Doc examined the clippings curiously.

  Each item had to do with Zeppelin-type airships. Evidently they had been snipped from shipboar
d copies of general science magazines, since they covered the newer developments in lighter-than-air craft.

  Doc played his light on the clippings, many of which bore pictures. Some of these held penciled notations, usually reproductions of the new developments depicted, as if the dead man had sought to familiarize himself with them.

  Included in Doc’s almost universal knowledge was a nice fund of information on the history of airship construction. He riffled through the sheaf of clippings, putting his learning to use.

  He made a discovery. The scientific attainments which had come in for the unfortunate Jules’s attention, as denoted by the penciled sketches, had all been made within the past dozen or so years. It was as if Jules had been unable to secure information on airship development for that period, and had been catching up.

  In one place, the lifting capacity of a gas compartment was accurately calculated, showing Jules had been an expert on lighter-than-air craft, even though a little out of date.

  On a picture portraying an entire Zeppelin, Doc made the most interesting discovery of all. Near the bows of the craft, as if absent-mindedly penciled there, were the identification letters ZX 03.

  The dead man had placed the caption there, it might safely be believed. The title of a Zeppelin! It must have played a vital part in the fellow’s past or he would hardly have penciled its designation upon the picture.

  Doc made a mental note to look up the airship ZX 03.

  Recalling the ransacked condition of Jules’s stateroom, Doc continued his search. Some one had wanted something Jules had.

  On the man’s legs, below the knees, he found several knotty protuberances. Five of them, to be exact. These proved to be objects the size of small walnuts held in place by crisscrossed strips of adhesive tape.

  Doc removed and investigated them.

  Each object was an uncut diamond of the first water. The stones were undoubtedly of enormous value.

  Doc appropriated the gems. They might be useful in his investigation, and he could later deliver them to the heirs of the dead man. Or to whoever was the rightful owner!

  He thought deeply. Diamonds—Egyptian money—a knowledge of air ships a dozen years behind the times! The clews did not lead to any sort of a direct explanation.

  From the stern, shouts drifted. The sailors had evidently discovered the source of the supposed fire. Officers were bellowing questions and contradictory orders which only added to the confusion.

  The murderer—be he human or some diabolic vampire thing—would have no trouble moving about unobserved in the turmoil.

  Stowing the diamonds in his bag, and slinging the container on his back, Doc moved forward in the gloom. He was going to confer with the captain of the Yankee Beauty, as well as the radio operator, to learn who had offered the million-dollar reward.

  * * *

  There came an interruption. Toward the stern, a shrill feminine cry pealed out! It was a voice saturated in horror! A door slammed noisily. The scream continued, coupled with noises of a struggle!

  A blurred flash of speed, Doc shot forward. He rounded the deck house. His flashlight beam licked down the deck.

  The luminance disclosed a ghostly sight—a vision calculated to bring a cold sweat! It was a scene which, had Doc not schooled himself through the years until he was proof against all emotion, the bronze hair would have crawled on the nape of his neck.

  A woman was writhing about on the deck before a closed door—evidently the door which had slammed. Her hands fought the air above her, striking mad blows! With each frenzied swing, the woman cried out in horror!

  Yet, there was no visible assailant near her! She was fighting thin air, as far as could be seen.

  She seemed to realize this as Doc’s flash lighted the spot brilliantly. Springing to her feet, she stared straight into the blinding eye of the flash.

  She was a remarkable beauty, brown of eye and hair, features thin and aristocratic. She was very tall.

  The fact that this was Lady Nelia, was something Doc had no way of knowing. Nor, blinded by the light, could she see him.

  Unable to distinguish Doc, Lady Nelia whirled and fled. She reached a door which gave into the lounge, wrenched it open and sprang through.

  Doc Savage slid forward in silent, swift pursuit. He was not certain what had provoked the woman’s spasmlike behavior upon the deck. She might have fled through the door from some unimaginable horror and slammed the panel upon it. So hideous, so frightsome must have been the attacking thing, that she had kept on fighting, not realizing in her hysteria that she had escaped.

  But there was another angle more important. The unknown who had shot at Doc a few moments ago had muffled one shoe in a gray coat of coarse weave.

  The fleeing woman was wearing a coat of such description.

  Suddenly the door through which the woman had gone whipped open again. A man sprang out. He was gaunt as a skeleton. Red hair was like a blaze on his head. He held a revolver.

  The young lady was at his back.

  “There!” she gasped, and pointed at Doc’s brilliant flashlight beam.

  The red-headed man flipped up his weapon, yelling, “Put up your hands, you!”

  They had—these two who were seeking Doc Savage—mistaken the bronze man for their enemy.

  Chapter 4

  TWINS OF EVIL

  Doc Savage did not feel the urge to surrender himself, not knowing what the intentions of the young woman and the brick-haired man might be.

  His flashlight beam seemed to collapse in mid-air as he switched it off. A noiseless leap to the right put him in the shelter of a lifeboat.

  An angry grunt came from the man with the carroty hair. He produced a flashlight of his own and spilled its brightness down the deck.

  “He jumped behind the lifeboat, Red!” snapped the young woman.

  “Get indoors, Lady Nelia!” Red directed her. “I’ll take care of this bird, whoever he is. Did you get a look at him?”

  “No. His light blinded me.” Lady Nelia made no move to seek safety inside the deck house, as she had been commanded. “I do not know who he could be. But he was acting suspiciously.”

  Red growled: “We’ll darn soon find out who he is!”

  Raising his voice, he addressed the lifeboat. “You—back of there! C’mon out! C’mon, or I’ll uncork a few bullets!”

  There was no reply from behind the lifeboat where Doc had taken shelter.

  Red repeated his command and threat to shoot. Getting no results, he advanced gingerly. His flashlight beam did a spooky dance, so shaky was the hand which held it. The revolver muzzle wavered, Red’s finger twitching.

  In his tottering, terror-haunted condition, Red was a most unreliable foe. He might at any moment begin shooting in an excess of nervous excitement.

  “Come from behind that boat!” he rasped, still hoping mere threats would get results.

  No response. Red sprang around the prow of the lifeboat. His flashlight fanned a glare; his revolver menaced. Then his jaw fell. There was no one behind the boat.

  Very few seconds had elapsed since the moment of Red’s appearance on deck. He was a little stunned at the idea of his quarry escaping from behind the lifeboat in such short order. There had been no splash to denote a leap over the rail.

  Red leaned far out and cast his light downward. The black steel plates of the hull were unbroken below and for many feet toward the bow and stern—unbroken except for portholes. And Red well knew the portholes were not large enough to admit a man.

  “Where could he have gone?” Lady Nelia gasped.

  “Search me,” Red muttered, striving to quell the nervous twitching of his muscles.

  Low voices became audible. The sound of them seemed to drift along the hull of the steamer.

  Red cast his flashlight beam in the direction of the voices. The funnel of luminance disclosed a small launch alongside the landing stage amidships.

  Two men in the launch were arguing heatedly with a sailor of
the Yankee Beauty crew.

  * * *

  The pair of wranglers in the small boat were the two newspaper reporters—the veteran scribe and his cub understudy—who had decided on this means of reaching the Yankee Beauty. They had heard the shots, the screams and the other excitement, and were wildly anxious to get aboard.

  The sailor who barred their way held a boat hook. He was promising to belabor the first man who set foot on the landing stage.

  Red addressed Lady Nelia in a low voice: “We’ve got to get off this boat. Sol Yuttal and Hadi-Mot are aboard. The death of poor Jules shows that.”

  “And the attack on me.” Lady Nelia shuddered violently and covered her face with her hands, as if to shut out a frightful vision. “I got out on deck and got the door slammed before the thing reached me. The horror of it must have made me hysterical, because I imagined the thing was still after me, even after I had shut the door upon it!”

  “It’s too dangerous to remain aboard,” Red muttered. “We are almost helpless against Yuttal and Hadi-Mot and their devilish way of doing murder!”

  He pointed at the launch holding the two newspaper reporters. “Let’s grab that boat and get away from here.”

  Lady Nelia nodded. “All right.”

  The two moved away, Red glancing over his shoulder as if still trying to fathom how the mysterious figure with the flashlight could have vanished from behind the lifeboat.

  “Keep a sharp lookout!” Red warned uneasily.

  “Right-o,” agreed Lady Nelia. “And let us make no more noise than necessary.”

  Sailors came galloping along the deck, intent on investigating the feminine screams.

  Lady Nelia and Red hastily entered the lounge to escape notice. They made their way to Lady Nelia’s cabin.

  Lady Nelia tugged the stateroom life belt out of its rack. Her slender fingers explored and made sure that certain small, hard objects were still embedded in the cork blocks, under the canvas covering.