The Polar Treasure - Robeson Kenneth. Страница 21

For a long minute, silence fairly reeked. It was the kind of quiet, this dead apathy of the arctic, which you momentarily expected to explode.

Came a new sound! Doc had heard it before. That was what had surprised him into setting up his trilling note. Now Johnny, Long Tom, and Ham also heard it distinctly.

A clicking! A clicking as of dice rattled together in a palm!

The noise which had haunted Victor Vail down through the years! The noise which marked the presence of Ben O'Gard's man!

"That, brothers," Doc Savage said softly, "is one of the last things I expected to hear at this spot!"

WITH THE final word, Doc glided forward. The others raced after him. But they were left behind as though their feet were frozen in the ice pack.

Doc Savage was lost to their sight.

When they overhauled him, Doc was standing over a human figure that sprawled in a steaming lake of scarlet.

"Dynamite Smith!" Ham clipped. "The bird I shot." Doc and his three friends now exchanged understanding glances.

An uncontrollable palsy had seized Dynamite Smith's jaws. They rattled together — made the distinctive clicking.

Dynamite Smith was the one of Ben O'Gard's villains who had kept track of Victor Vail down through the years.

"I don't understand it!" Long Tom muttered. "When he bent over me that night in my bunk, his teeth clicked. But we have talked with him many times since then, aboard the submarine, and his teeth made no sound."

"I see the explanation of that — now," Doc replied. "Dynamite Smith has been using narcotics almost steadily throughout the submarine voyage."

"You mean — "

"That the dope quiets his jaws." Doc explained. "In other words, every addict gets the heebie-jeebies when deprived of his narcotic. When Dynamite Smith is without it, his jaws shake. When he has it, they don't."

The wounded man was conscious. He rolled his eyes.

Doc Savage now examined the man's wound. But Ham had made an accurate shot.

"You're doomed," Doc told Dynamite Smith without emotion.

The dying man's lips moved. Doc was forced to bend close before even his keen ears could decipher the fellow's gaspings.

"Ben O'Gard an' my mateys went off an' left me here, huh?" Dynamite Smith said.

Emotion rarely showed on Doc Savage's handsome bronze face. But it was in evidence now.

"Was Ben O'Gard on the Helldiver?" he demanded. Dynamite Smith did not answer the question. His glazing eyes rolled slowly until they focused upon Long Tom.

"I was huntin' the map when yer grabbed the black wig offn my head that night," he whispered feebly, "After I come near gettin' caught, Ben O'Gard hisself done the huntin'. It was him found the map an' swiped it from yer."

"Which one of the Helldiver crew is Ben O'Gard?" Doc demanded.

An evil, vicious sneer distorted the blue lips of the dying man. His whisper gurgled in his throat.

"We fooled the crew of ye plenty neat," he labored.

It seemed he would never get the next words past his stiffening throat muscles. The villainous sneer spread upon his lips.

"Ben O'Gard is Cap'n McCluskey!" he coughed.

ONE STARTLED glance Doc and his three friends exchanged. When they looked back at Dynamite Smith, the man was dead.

"Ben O'Gard and Captain McCluskey — the same person!" Ham muttered. "For cryin' out loud!"

Doc Savage's strong lips warped slightly.

"It seems, brothers, that we kindly financed the expedition of our enemies to get the treasure," he said dryly. "No doubt Ben O'Gard — we'll call him that from now on, instead of Captain McCluskey — no doubt Ben O'Gard did take some of the treasure from the Oceanic when he left the liner more than fifteen years ago. He used that money to fit up the Helldiver. But his funds were not sufficient. He advertised for a sucker to back him. Imagine his pleasure when we presented ourselves!"

Ham groaned loudly.

"It was me called your attention to that newspaper story about the under-the-ice submarine," he berated himself. "What a mess I got us into!"

Doc's low laughter danced merrily among the ice hummocks.

"Forget it, Ham. If the fault belongs anywhere, it's on my shoulders. Let us go back and open that bundle of mine."

They retraced their steps to the bundle. The sealskin thong was untied. The waterproof covering was removed.

"Hey!" barked Johnny in surprise. "This wrapper is a small silk tent!"

"It's more than a tent, also," Doc informed him. "With it in the package is a collapsible frame of alloy metal. Expanded, and with that silk tent stretched over it, the frame becomes a boat. There are web paddles which can be attached to our rifle barrels for propulsion."

They all now dived into the rest of the bundle. They were anxious to see what fresh wonders it held.

Long Tom released a howl of delight.

"A radio set!" he squawled. "Transmitter and receiver, complete!"

Swiftly, Long Tom drew aside with the wireless equipment. He proceeded to put it in operation. The apparatus was of Doc's own devising, marvelously compact. It had no bulky batteries which might be rendered useless by moisture or cold, or exhausted by use. Current was supplied by a generator operated by a powerful spring and clockwork. The set operated on very short wave lengths.

In fifteen minutes, Long Tom had it ready for a test. Eagerly, the electrical wizard cocked an ear at the tiny built-in loud speaker, and twirled the tuning dials.

Suddenly a voice purred out of the speaker.

The astonishment of Doc and his friends at hearing that voice was unbounded. It was as though they had tuned in on the other world.

They jumped up and down. They bellowed at each other in a near hysteria of delight They danced circles on the iceberg.

"I tell you' we're tuned in on hell!" Ham howled.

Ham was back in his old form.

For it was Monk's voice coming out of the loud-speaker!

Chapter 11

POLAR PERIL

ONE HOUR had passed. In the haze-soaked sky hung a dark spot. This spot emitted a loud droning. The droning increased in volume.

The spot became a seaplane.

It was a two-motored job, not the latest and speediest type of plane, and somewhat shabby. But an angel would not have looked better to the four men watching it from the iceberg.

The ship sloped down in the fog. It circled. It lowered. The floats scraped a long white chalk mark of foam on the open lead in the ice pack. Then they settled. The plane taxied in to the rim of the berg.

Monk and Renny stood on the floats. With acrobatic leaps, they bounded to the ice.

Probably no more hearty reunion ever occurred than took place there in the cold shadow of the north pole.

Unnoticed at first, a man clambered out and sat on the cabin of the plane.

Doc Savage was the first to glimpse him.

"Victor Vail!" he called in surprise.

The famous violinist smiled at Doc. He tried to speak, but could find no words to express the depth of his feeling.

Finally, Victor Vail pointed at his own eyes. It was a simple gesture. But its meaning was unbounded.

Victor Vail now had eyes which were entirely normal. So deep was his gratitude to this giant bronze man that he could not put his emotion into coherent sentences.

"I sure thought I was rid of the sight of your ugly mug," Ham told Monk happily. "What happened?"

"The dang submarine submerged while we were keeping watch on deck," Monk explained in his mild way. "We were washed off. We swam like polar bears. I'll bet we swam ten miles. Talk about cold We happened to have some of that chemical concoction I fixed up to keep a man warm, or we'd have frozen stiff. Anyway, we finally found an iceberg big enough to roost on."