Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 180 - Return From Cormoral

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RETURN FROM CORMORAL
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I
? Chapter II
? Chapter III
? Chapter IV
? Chapter V
? Chapter VI
? Chapter VII
? Chapter VIII
? Chapter IX
? Chapter X
? Chapter XI
? Chapter XII
Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine Spring 1949
Chapter I
THE docking was scheduled for two o'clock, but at that hour there was no sign of the tramp steamer
Meg Finnegan, and aboard the tug that had come out to tow the steamer into the harbor they shut off
the engines. The tugboat crew lolled about, enjoying the unscheduled leisure, and a couple of the men
dropped baited fishhooks over the rail. In the pilot house the tug skipper fretted and called the
despatcher by two-way radio to ask if there had been an error in timing.
Mr. Bradley, the tug's mate, watched the skipper's agitation with some amusement. Bradley, a dark,
intense young man, had little patience with the Old Man, or with his own job as second in command of a
greasy tug.
“Somebody make a mistake, Sam?” Bradley asked.
“Somebody better not have!” said the skipper, squatting to peer at the little red-green control lights on
the two-way radio, which he had always distrusted.
“You wouldn't be put in a tizzy by half a billion bucks, more or less?”
The skipper ignored this. He finished talking into the radio, cradled the handset and went to the rail and
peered into the haze that blanketed the sea. Presently, he complained, “How the devil do I know what
kind of a screwball this Macbeth Williams is? How do I know he won't blame me because this old cake
of rust he's riding doesn't make port on time?”
Bradley laughed. “How do you know he's a screwball?”
“I've never heard any argument to the contrary,” the skipper said. “And what would you say?”
“I've never met the guy.”
“Neither have I.” The skipper got out a stench-box of a pipe and went through his ceremony of getting it
under way. “But I'm looking forward to it. You take a guy with half a billion waiting any time he wants to
lay a hand on it, and he never lays a hand on it— That kind of cuckoo I want to see.”
Bradley asked seriously, “Is that a fact?”
“Is what a fact?” the skipper snapped.
“That Macbeth Williams could have that many shekels by reaching for them and won't?”
“Hell, yes.”
“I see what you mean by cuckoo,” Bradley said.
TWO hours later a rust-marred old slattern of the seas hove out of the haze to seaward. Having taken a
long time to get from where she had been, the vessel Meg Finnegan approached Miami ship channel at
a plodding four knots.
As far as anyone aboard would have admitted knowing, the steamer was merely putting into Miami
because she was bringing back to civilization four bedraggled scientists who were the victims of a
colossal flop entitled the “Cormoral Island Expedition of the Kendall Foundation of St. Louis, Missouri.”
Cormoral Island was a scrawny out-jutting of lava in the remote South Atlantic. It was avoided even by
goony birds. It was a sure bet to be avoided hereafter by the four scientists of the defunct Kendall
Foundation.
The four Kendall men had been stranded on Cormoral Island for some six months. Their parent
organization, Kendall Foundation of St. Louis, had gone stony broke shortly after depositing them on the
island to do hydrographic and geological research. There'd been no funds to send a boat to take them off
and they'd been left to their fate.
At the present moment, having dragged a ship's mattress to the shady side of the deckhouse, the four
academicians were engaged in a mild poker game.
All four annotators wore the usual startling explorers' beards, deep sunburns, dirty trousers, and with one
exception, that of Professor Macbeth Williams, no shirts.
Dr. Austin Ulm, the expedition's stratigraphist, was dealing from a grimy deck. He endeavored not to
toss the cards on the litter of kitchen matches being used for currency.
Professor Williams, smirking, remarked, “I foresee three aces and a couple of jacks in this hand.”
Crikeland, the ornithologist, snorted. “Wanna bet?”
“Watch out, Crike,” said Swanberg, the archaeologist. “Haven't you learned you're a sucker to bet the
prof on one of his predictions?”
“Stop kidding,” said Crikeland.
“I'm not kidding,” Swanberg replied seriously.
Crikeland picked up his cards. He groaned. “I would like to express an unbiased and fully thoughtout
opinion of the hands you deal, Ulm,” he told the stratigraphist. “My blind Aunt Louise, who has a
larcenous and lecherous nature, is far more accommodating.”
“Anybody got openers?” Swanberg demanded.
Professor Macbeth Williams, the hydrographer, picked up his hand and examined it. His sandy eyebrows
nearly became exclamation points when he saw three aces and two jacks, a full house. First he looked
astonished. Then he looked as if he had been struck a dirty blow.
“What's the matter? You pick up something pretty hot?” demanded Crikeland suspiciously.
The professor made an inarticulate sound and sprang to his feet. Without expressing more than the noise,
he lunged away.
“Hey! What the devil!” gasped Ulm.
“Come back here with them cards, dammit!” yelled Crikeland testily. “We only have the one deck, and
it's no good with a hand missing.”
Professor Williams wheeled and came back. His face was pale. “I'm sorry, gentlemen!” he said stiffly,
and endeavored to thrust his cards back into the stock part of the deck. But Crikeland, reminding him the
deck was still in play, took the cards from Williams' hand and tossed them on the mattress, where
everyone saw the three aces and two jacks.
“What do you know, he called the hand before it was dealt!” Crikeland gasped.
“And why not?” Swanberg asked dryly.
MACBETH WILLIAMS moved apart and stood at the ship's rail, where he stared unseeingly and
without interest at a small tug standing toward them out of the haze that covered the sea. It did not occur
to him that the presence of the small boat meant land nearby; he was too preoccupied. He saw that his
hands were trembling, and placed them on the rail where he could watch them misbehave.
Macbeth was an unnecessarily long young man who had the only beard in the collection that was curly
and blond. He had a naturally serious manner and the air of being a rather likable young man. The parts
of his face not hidden by foliage promised to be modestly handsome.
Macbeth jumped like a Mexican bean when stratigraphist Ulm leaned on the rail at his elbow.
“You out of the game, Williams?” Ulm asked.
“Yes, I think I shall drop out, if you gentlemen don't mind,” Macbeth replied uncomfortably.
“How come?”
Macbeth Williams' discomfort increased, and he mumbled, “I suppose I merely don't feel like playing any
more.”
“You threw down,” said Ulm, “some nice cards.”
“Uh-huh,” Macbeth muttered.
“Three aces and two rascals.”
“Uh-huh.”
“An earthquake,” Ulm continued, “wouldn't make me lay down a hand like that.”
“Earthquake,” mumbled Macbeth, “is exactly what it was.”
“So the light dawned,” said Ulm. He was a stocky man, with a hawk nose and dark eyes nesting rather
fiercely in his thicket of whiskers.
Macbeth nodded, shuddering. “Blindingly,” he agreed.
“About time,” said Ulm.
“I'm frightened stiff,” Williams confessed.
“Of what?”
“Of bats in belfrys, of a little canvas jacket with sleeves that buckle in the back,” groaned Macbeth
Williams. “In short, I'm sure this must be a hallucination.”
Ulm grinned. “Hallucinations,” he remarked, “are one-man dogs.”
“I don't understand that either,” Macbeth confessed. “You and Crikeland seemed convinced that I can
foresee the immediate future. Even Swanberg is becoming convinced.”
“Four of us,” Ulm stated, “can hardly be crazy.”
Macbeth looked at the other man wryly. “They build insane asylums to hold more than one person.”
“Wantta bet you're nuts?” asked Ulm.
“I certainly intend to consult a psychiatrist and find out,” said Macbeth Williams. “And at the very first
opportunity, too.”
The poker game suddenly broke up behind them. Crikeland and Swanberg rushed to the rail. They
peered into the haze. “I believe I see land,” Crikeland blurted. “My God, I hope it isn't Cormoral Island
again!”
WHEN Macbeth Williams walked into his Miami hotel room late that evening, the place seemed
incredibly depressing, and he sank into a chair without removing his hat. Even the garish and carnival-like
view of the resort city through the window offered no cheer. Macbeth hardly glanced up when Ulm
entered. The stratigraphist looked at the younger man in alarm.
“Oh, brother!” said Ulm. “You had us worried. Where the devil have you been?”
Macbeth gazed unhappily at the floor. “You gentlemen shouldn't have worried about me, you really
shouldn't.”
“I don't see,” said Ulm, “how a lad with access to half a billion bucks can look as gloomy as you.
Incidentally, that was quite a surprise.”
“I don't believe I understand what you mean by surprise—”
“The news that you could have half a billion if you wished.”
“Oh,” said Macbeth Williams.
“That was quite a bombshell,” Ulm went on.
“Uh, was it?”
Ulm grinned. “A little like finding that the old brass bedstead was made of solid gold.”
Macbeth Williams held up a distressed hand. “I assure you, Austin, that I'm not made of gold. The whole
thing is a great misunderstanding. You see, I don't have a thing to do with the estate. I'm entirely aloof
from it.”
“That's a lot of dough to be aloof from,” Ulm told him.
“True enough,” Macbeth muttered. He returned his prominent jaw to cupped hands. “It has, I assure
you, bothered me on occasion. Holding aloof, I mean. Frankly, it's not very profitable to be aloof.”
Ulm peered at him in amazement. “You mean you don't get an income?”
“A hundred dollars a month.”
“Good God! Not even peanuts.”
“Oh, I manage to get along,” said Macbeth Williams. “I'm careful, you see, not to let anyone know that
I'm the only son of the late Roderick Williams, tycoon extraordinary. That makes it simpler to live
cheaply.”
Ulm examined his fellow scientist thoughtfully. “So that's why none of us knew about it until the skipper of
that tug passed the news. How come the tug skipper knew?”
Macbeth shrugged. “The estate management was concerned about my welfare, I suppose. They're very
thoughtful that way. If I should die, the estate goes to several charitable institutions, and they might lose
their good jobs.”
“They've got a point there.”
“Possibly. They're fine men, though.”
“How did this all come about?” Ulm asked.
“My father left a will,” Macbeth Williams explained. Then he added hastily, “It was perfectly agreeable,
though. Actually, we talked it over. The will carried out my own suggestions.”
“The hell it did,” said Ulm. “Who does that make a screwball?”
Macbeth Williams winced. “Almost exactly the words of the psychiatrist,” he said.
“What psycho was that?”
“The one I've been consulting this afternoon.”
“Oh, oh,” said Ulm. “You didn't lose any time.”
Macbeth Williams jumped up, went to the window and stood looking out. “I'm afraid the chap didn't help
my peace of mind,” he went on uneasily.
“What'd the psycho say?” Ulm demanded.
Macbeth hesitated, then decided to make a full confession. “I'm naturally a reticent sort,” he explained,
“and I find it a little difficult to talk about myself. No man likes to take his own machinery out and display
its flaws, even to a psycho-analyst. I understand fully, of course, that an analyst must pry the stuff out,
and this one did a good job. He put me on a couch.”
“So them guys really use a couch,” Ulm remarked. “What'd he do next? Start you to remembering back
when you wore diapers?”
Macbeth nodded. “I got the standard routine, I imagine. Yes, he delved into my childhood. I don't think
he found it very rewarding. I had a very drab youth, you know. Somewhat on the lonely side. Lots of
books and tutors, but not too many playmates. You see, my father was very busy being a tycoon. Quite
a remarkable man, though.”
Macbeth hesitated, apparently gave something a thorough mental chewing-over, then gave a gesture of
resignation. “My father was a man of remarkable foresight. He was a good guesser. All of his guesses
proved to be right. The psychiatrist made a good deal of that point, apparently.”
“You mean,” said Ulm, “that this gift you've got of knowing what is going to happen in the near future is
something you inherited from the old man? You know, that could be.”
“No, no!” Macbeth held up a hand. “That wasn't the psycho's idea, I'm afraid.”
“No?”
“I think he felt my psychosis about the matter is a result of having that kind of a father.”
“Psychosis?”
“Neurosis was the word.”
“Psychosis, neurosis, little rabbits,” said Ulm. “The guy is wrong. You should have proved to him that he
was wrong.”
Macbeth grinned sheepishly. “I'm afraid I did endeavor to do so.”
“Yeah? What'd you predict?”
“That the analyst would have a visitor promptly at three fifteen o'clock,” Macbeth explained.
“And did he?”
“Yes.”
Ulm chuckled. “Fine. I'll bet that jolted him.”
“I believe it did,” Macbeth agreed. “But it was an act of a charlatan on my part. You see, I happened to
glimpse his appointment book, and there was an appointment down for three fifteen.”
“You faked it?” Ulm asked disapprovingly.
“I couldn't resist doing so. The fellow was so smugly convinced I was having neurotic imaginings.”
Ulm came over and seriously placed a hand on Macbeth's shoulder. “You mustn't do things like that, old
boy,” he said solemnly. “This thing you've got is genuine. Don't hoke it. Treat it naturally. When it doesn't
want to come don't force it.”
“You're being silly!” Macbeth Williams declared. “I haven't any gift. I couldn't have. There isn't such a
thing.”
“It'll take a lot of unselling to convince me of that,” Ulm said earnestly. “I've watched this thing closely.
You can't Robinson Crusoe with a man without getting down to his basic mettle. Williams, we spent six
months together on that infernal island, and I know what I saw.”
“You probably saw a cuckoo,” Macbeth told him glumly.
Ulm, with a solemn frown and no hint of levity, said, “I don't think so, son. I wouldn't undersell this thing,
if I were you.”
Macbeth Williams was making distressed motions indicating there was probably nothing to the whole
thing, when the telephone rang. He went to the telephone, where, after a first astonished outcry—it
sounded quite alarmed, in a delighted sort of way—his conversation was too low-pitched for Ulm to
overhear, although the latter openly endeavored to eavesdrop.
When Macbeth turned, he wore the pain-and-ecstasy expression of a ticklish man being tickled.
“Carlie,” he said.
“Is that good?” Ulm asked.
“I'm engaged to her,” Macbeth Williams explained.
“That could be good,” Ulm said. “Is she pretty?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, indeed,” Macbeth Williams replied. “But she's also practical.”
“Practical? Is that good?”
Macbeth Williams grinned wryly at Ulm. “What would you say?”
Chapter II
MISS CARLIE McGUIGGAN beamed at Professor Macbeth Williams. “Hello there, hydrographist,”
she said. She kissed Macbeth, not sparingly, on the lips, thereby causing the hydrographist's eyes to
bulge. Carlie McGuiggan was a tall, straw blonde, lovely to look at, but possibly a trifle overdeveloped
as to common sense, Macbeth sometimes felt. “Well, what have you to say for yourself?” she asked
smilingly.
“I've been away,” Macbeth Williams murmured, endeavoring to recover a little composure.
“I believe I noticed,” Carlie remarked. “How did it happen?”
Macbeth told her seriously that some months ago he had joined an outfit known as the Kendall
Foundation of St. Louis in the capacity of hydrographist, and gone on an expedition to a place called
Cormoral Island, a very devil of a spot, where he and his three scientific comrades had been isolated
nearly six months when the foundation went bust. They had been rescued only because a tramp steamer
had happened to investigate the island for guano. At this point, Macbeth recovered himself and blushed
furiously.
“Great Scott, that's no way to talk to a fellow's best girl!” he blurted. “Darling! You look gorgeous!
Exquisite!” He flapped his hands to show how words were failing, and gasped, “I'm a darn fool, honey,
who doesn't know how to greet the loveliest creature ever!”
“You've got something there,” said Carlie. “But you were doing all right. I'm interested in your
adventures.”
“Oh there weren't any adventures,” disclaimed Macbeth. “It was very dull, in fact. The monotony was
terrific. It did something to us—me.”
“Buy me a cocktail,” Carlie suggested. “And explain just how you happened to connect with this
go-but-quick foundation or whatever it was.”
Macbeth guided her into the bar and ordered Carlie a martini and a lemon coke for himself. “That's about
what it was,” he said. “Well, I think it was through the well-meant efforts of Dr. Austin Ulm that I got
tangled with the Kendall Foundation.”
“Dr. Austin Ulm. Who dat?” Carlie asked.
“Friend of mine. Fine chap.”
Carlie was unconvinced. “Your friends are always fine chaps. All this one did was get you marooned on
a rock for six months.”
“He was marooned with me,” Macbeth pointed out.
“Which proves what? Except that you must be about equally foresighted?” Carlie said. “But you're back.
You look fine. Beard and all. What, incidentally, do you plan to do with that mattress?”
“I plan to cut it off, I suppose,” Macbeth replied, fingering the foliage. “My companions in misfortune,
Ulm, Crikeland and Swanberg, feel we should retain the beards as a mark of—well, something or other.”
“Not a bad idea,” Carlie replied. “I can't think why, though. Are you remotely interested in how I happen
to be in Miami?”
“Heavens, yes,” said Macbeth hastily. “I thought you were in Vermont.”
“Oh, you gave it a thought, then?”
Macbeth grinned. “I've got you there, baby. I sent a telegram to Vermont the minute I got ashore.”
Carlie patted his hand. “I'm down here on a vacation with Aunt Liz,” she said. “There's no adventure
about that, either.” She looked at Macbeth curiously. “I'll bet you had a heck of a time on that island.
You look different, somehow. I don't mean the whiskers, either. You seem different.”
Macbeth winced and said hurriedly, “Couldn't we go somewhere tonight? The dog races, perhaps?”
CARLIE'S maiden Aunt Liz was a long bony character with tortoise shell glasses and, Macbeth Williams
soon discovered, a terrific yen for gambling. The bright lights, noise and colored pageantry of one of
Miami's biggest dog tracks got under Macbeth's skin somewhat after six months on Cormoral Island and
three weeks on the tub Meg Finnegan, and he glowed. But he didn't glow enough to make any bets.
“It's not that I'm against gambling,” he explained uncomfortably. “It's rather that my judgment isn't worth
an investment.”
Carlie gave him a sharp glance. “Still that way, eh?”
“How is that?”
“Figure you're never right about the future, do you?”
Macbeth swallowed. “I . . . ah . . . suppose so.”
“That,” said Carlie, “makes me mad.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Being sorry,” said Carlie, “doesn't repair broken lives.”
“I . . . I don't believe I understand.”
“Never mind.”
There was an acute break in the pleasant flow of the evening. Macbeth, suddenly miserable, understood
why. The matter they had just mentioned—his confidence in his judgment—was the snag on which he
and Carlie had wrecked their romance. At least, that was the way Macbeth saw it. There had been
numerous occasions in the past when they had seemed to be progressing happily toward the normal
windup of a romance, namely wedding bells, and the matter of Macbeth's attitude toward his own
judgment had come up, and things hadn't been the same.
Carlie was a very practical and level-headed girl. The same qualities in a man appealed to her. She
considered them important.
They probably were good qualities, Macbeth reflected. The trouble was, he'd always been plagued with
a conviction he was a mighty poor man with a plan. He couldn't foresee. He didn't trust his judgment.
He didn't like this in himself, but he didn't see where he could do much about it. It was his psychic rabbit,
and he was chained to it.
Macbeth Williams found himself pointing at a lean and ugly looking greyhound in the pre-race parade.
“That one,” he announced.
“That one which?” said Carlie.
“The winner,” Macbeth said. “That one will be the winner.”
He heard an excited intake of breath behind him, and turned and saw Austin Ulm.
“Oh, brother!” said Austin Ulm. “Lemme at the fifty-dollar window! I'll be right back!”
Macbeth Williams gazed after Ulm blankly. He imagined Ulm had chanced to attend the races, had seen
him and approached in time to hear the remark about the dog. But that wasn't what gave Macbeth a
frightened feeling.
“Who was that fellow?” Carlie asked.
“What? Oh, Ulm? That was Austin Ulm, the stratigraphist of our late expedition,” Macbeth explained
vaguely, and added, “What if the damn dog should win!”
“Eh?” said Carlie. “What was that?”
Macbeth swallowed. “Nothing. Nothing of importance, darling.”
Several minutes later, the hound which Macbeth had indicated came whipping across the finish line an
easy winner.
“My God!” mumbled Macbeth.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” Carlie demanded.
“I do wish I knew!” said Macbeth fervently. “The thing frightens the wits out of me.”
“Eh?” Carlie eyed him in exasperation. “Just what are you suffering from?”
Macbeth took a deep breath, moistened his lips, and blurted, “I predicted that dog was going to win!”
“So what?” asked Carlie. “So did several hundred others, judging from the odds.” She glanced at the
odds board, which indicated the win ticket had paid nearly forty dollars on a two-dollar investment, and
added, “Well, maybe I had better amend that. But a few others picked the scroot, I'm sure.”
Macbeth was about to say that wasn't the point, and try to explain the whole thing, when Dr. Austin Ulm
arrived waving a fistful of greenbacks. He buttonholed Macbeth, asking excitedly, “What dog's gonna
win the next one? Come on. Quick. Let's have it.” He told Carlie, “This is the thing I've dreamed about!
Why, we can clean up! We'll need an armored truck to take home our winnings!”
“Shut up!” Macbeth told him angrily.
Crestfallen, Ulm demanded, “You're not going to predict another winner?”
“No.”
“Not just one more?”
“No.”
“That, my fellow exile, is the dirtiest trick ever perpetrated,” said Ulm bitterly. He looked at Macbeth
almost tearfully. “I'll split with you,” he offered.
“Oh, shut up!” said Macbeth. He introduced Ulm to Carlie and Aunt Liz, and when Ulm started telling
them that he, Macbeth Williams, had somehow picked up the uncanny power to foresee fragments of the
future, Macbeth lost his temper, seized Ulm by the whiskers and said, “Shut up! Or would you like to
have your block knocked off!”
That seemed to settle it. But only for a short time, because at Ulm's suggestion they visited a night club
following the last race. It turned out to have a gaming room.
Dr. Ulm did such a suave job of maneuvering Macbeth into the gambling establishment that Macbeth
failed to notice the plan at once. They gathered around the roulette table, and Aunt Liz asked idly, “What
do you think of the five red, Macbeth?”
“No, play the black nine,” Macbeth answered thoughtlessly.
With simultaneous gasps of excitement, Ulm and Aunt Liz stacked what seemed to be their entire capital
on the nine black.
摘要：

RETURNFROMCORMORALADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXIIOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMagazineSpring1949ChapterITHEdocki...

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