Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 146 - Cargo Unknown

VIP免费
2024-12-23 0 0 367.82KB 73 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
CARGO UNKNOWN
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 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
? Chapter XIII
? Chapter XIV
? Chapter XV
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I
RENNY RENWICK had felt uneasy all day. He had narrowed it down in his own mind to one of two
possible causes. The first was the London fog. He disliked fogs unreasonably. Today's was a stinker; it
made you feel as if eels were crawling all over you.
The second probability, which Renny Renwick thought was more likely, was that he was being followed.
However, he hadn't been able to prove this to himself. He hadn't caught anybody hanging around on his
trail—exactly.
He was worrying about it, wondering if it was possible that he was merely a nervous old fuddyduddy,
when he got a telephone call.
“This is Commander Giesen,” said the caller. “Could I see you immediately?”
“What about?”
“I'd rather not say over the telephone.”
“Come on over,” Renny said. He was mystified.
But a little thought while he was waiting for the man's arrival convinced him that he had heard of
Commander Giesen. The Commander was someone important attached to, or in charge of, the staff of
one of the liaison departments set up to smooth the working-together of English and Americans. This was
all Renny knew about him. It was just a fragment of fact that stuck in Renny's mind. It might not even be
the same Commander Giesen.
Only it was. He identified himself.
“Can we talk here?” Commander Giesen asked.
“Sure,” Renny said.
The Commander was a tall middle-aged man with a rather stony presence and no little dignity. He was
not a man you would like as a boon companion, not a fellow you would invite out for a drink with the
expectation of having a roistering evening. But he was a man you would instinctively trust.
“This may strike you as unnecessary,” the Commander told Renny. Then he went to the door, and spoke
to three men who were outside.
The three men proceeded to go over Renny's hotel room as if hunting diamonds. They gave particular
attention to the windows, pictures, openings, but omitted nothing.
“No microphones or eavesdroppers, sir,” one of them reported. And the three left.
Renny wondered if he looked as startled as he actually was.
The Commander said, “What I have to say needs a preliminary speech which will go something like this:
You are Colonel John Renwick, an engineer by profession, and you are also associated with Doc
Savage. You have been in England as a consultant on industrial conversion back to peace production.
Your work is finished. You have been complimented by the government office, banqueted by the factory
men, decorated by the queen, and now you're ready to go back to New York.”
Renny waited. He wondered what was coming.
The Commander leaned forward. “I am not flattering you, but instead am pointing out that you are a man
of considerable ability and consequence, and that we are fully aware of it.”
“I'm not such a big shot,” Renny said modestly.
“Big enough to awe us somewhat,” said the Commander. “And additionally you have a reputation of
being quite frequently interested in the unusual, the mysterious.”
Renny frowned. “Mysterious and unusual—what do you mean?”
“You are,” said the Commander, “supposed to be a man who likes adventure.”
“It sounds rather corny when you put it that way,” Renny said. “But it's probably true. Anyway, I've
heard other people say that about me. I guess it applies to all five of us. There are five of us associated
with Doc Savage, you know.”
“I know,” agreed Commander Giesen, nodding. “Your prestige as a Doc Savage associate influenced us
quite a lot in deciding to ask you to do this rather unusual job.”
Renny examined the other. “You came here to ask me to do something?”
“Righto.”
“What is it?”
“I understand you have some submarine experience,” said Commander Giesen.
“That's right.”
“What sort of experience, may I ask?”
“I've designed them,” Renny said. “I've built them and I've test-dived them. I've done every kind of
creative engineering job there is to do around a submarine.”
Commander Giesen looked relieved. “This isn't an engineering job.”
“Well, what kind of a job is it?”
“We want you to go back to America aboard a submarine,” the Commander said.
“Ride back to the United States on a sub? That what you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Look, I'm not so hot about the idea,” Renny said immediately. “I've been over here quite a while,
working my tail off, and now I'm done and I want to get back to God's country. I've got passage
wangled on a plane. I can be in New York in twenty-four hours or so. A submarine trip would be fast if
it took less than two weeks. And submarines aren't built for comfort. No, thanks.”
“What if I insisted?” asked Commander Giesen.
“You'd have to insist pretty loud.”
“You don't want to go?”
“You bet I don't.”
“Then I won't insist.”
“That's fine,” Renny said. “I won't have to hurt anybody's feelings by refusing.”
Commander Giesen smiled thinly. “Will you give me five minutes of your time?”
“What for?”
“To convince you that you really want to go to America on this submarine,” said the Commander.
Renny hesitated. “Five minutes,” he grumbled. “Go ahead.”
Commander Giesen gestured at the door. “You saw those three men come in here and search the place
before I began talking to you?”
Renny showed sharp interest.
“That's right,” he said. “What was the idea?”
“A precaution,” said the Commander, “against our being overheard.”
“Overheard by whom?”
“I wish I knew!”
“Don't you?”
“No.” Commander Giesen leaned forward earnestly. “There is the damnedest mystery connected with
this submarine trip.”
“Eh?”
“What we want you to do,” said the Commander, “is go aboard the Pilotfish. The Pilotfish is the name
of the submarine. After you get aboard, and immediately after sailing, you will be handed a sealed
envelope containing an explanation of the mystery, or as much of it as we know the answer to.”
Renny frowned. “You want me to sail on this sub without knowing a damned thing about why?”
“The sealed documents will tell you why.”
“After I sail?”
“Yes.”
“Why not now?”
“You mean, why can't we tell you what we know of the mystery now?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Because,” said the Commander, “it is too risky. There is a chance that you might be forced, much
against your will, to divulge the information.”
Renny's frown changed to a grin.
“You're quite a psychologist, Commander,” Renny said.
“I had no intention—”
Renny interrupted with a snort. “How much more can you tell me about this thing?”
“Nothing more,” said Commander Giesen. “Except the name of the submarine commander, the location
of the craft, and the time of sailing.”
“That,” said Renny, “is what I meant by psychology.” And he began laughing.
Commander Giesen was disturbed by Renny's mirth. “I am not trying to be funny, I assure you,” he said
stiffly.
Renny hammered his knee delightedly.
“I'm laughing at myself, not at you,” Renny explained. “You have heard of the fire-horse who snorts and
prances when he hears the firebell? Well, that's the way your talk about mystery and danger affects me.
It's as funny as anything.”
Commander Giesen looked confused.
“You couldn't keep me from sailing on that submarine now if you wanted to,” Renny told him. “I'm like
the old fire-horse. You've told me just enough to fascinate me. Just enough for me to smell smoke and
hear the firebell.”
“That pleases me very much,” said Commander Giesen.
“It doesn't please me!” Renny rumbled. “A man of my age shouldn't let a smell of excitement stampede
his common sense. It makes me wonder when I'm going to grow up.”
“I WON'T go,” Renny said, “unless Doc Savage okays it.”
Commander Giesen showed anxiety. “But how long will it take to find out about that?”
“Not long. We'll try the trans-Atlantic phone.”
Renny fretted as he waited. He was not certain that Doc Savage was in New York, and if so, whether he
could be located at once. Doc had a great many interests, aside from his avocation of chasing excitement,
so it was possible Doc wouldn't be around their headquarters hangout on the top floor of a midtown
New York skyscraper. Doc might not even be in the States. Now that the war was winding up, Doc was
giving most of his attention to getting his industrial holdings back into peace-time production, and Renny
knew it was proving to be a headache of proportions.
Renny asked Commander Giesen, “How much of what you've told me can I tell over the telephone?”
“All of it,” said the Commander. “However, I wish you could code it somehow.”
A moment later, the operator reported Doc Savage on the wire in New York.
Renny said, “Doc? . . . Renny . . . How are things going? . . . Yes, I've finished and I'm ready to come
back. It's about that I want to talk to you. I'm going to say it in Mayan, so listen.”
Mayan was one of several languages Renny spoke, the particular one which he figured was least likely to
be understood by an eavesdropper. The lingo, which had a preponderance of grunts and cluckings, was
one which Renny and Doc and the others of their group had picked up a long time ago on a hair-raising
venture they had taken into Central America. As far as Renny knew, he and Doc and the other four of
their group were the only ones in so-called civilization who spoke it. There might be others, but they
weren't likely to be hanging around London or New York telephone offices.
“Did you understand all that, Doc? I'm pretty rusty with the language,” Renny said when he had finished
explaining about the mysterious submarine trip to New York which he was being asked to take.
Doc said he had gotten it.
“Any objections to my going?” Renny asked.
Doc said he hadn't any. His only objection was that he wasn't there, so he couldn't go along. He sounded
intrigued by the thing. “Go ahead, and good luck,” he said.
“By the way,” Doc said, “did you know Monk and Ham are in London?”
“Holy cow! I didn't know that!”
Monk and Ham were two other members of their group.
Doc explained, “They are at the Strand Palace. I just got a cable from them giving their address, and
saying they were on the way home.”
Renny was delighted. “Hey, I'm going to call them and see if they'd care to make this sub trip with me.”
“That's up to you,” Doc said. “You're sure you gave me all the dope you have about this matter?”
“All I know.”
“It sounds extremely queer,” Doc said.
“As queer as a goose riding a bicycle,” Renny admitted.
“Good luck.”
COMMANDER GIESEN clapped his cap on his head and extended his hand. “The Pilotfish is waiting
for you at Pier B, Southampton. Her skipper is Commander Tomkins Wickart. Goodbye and good
luck.”
Renny said, “Wait a minute. I'm taking along two friends, Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks, if they'll go.”
“So I gathered.”
“Is it okay?”
“Better than okay. Goodbye.”
“Hey, when do I get that envelope with the sealed orders?”
“Not sealed orders, old chap. Information. That is, information to the best of our knowledge.”
“What's your rush?” Renny asked.
The Commander smiled. “No rush at all, really. I can stay all afternoon, if you wish. But there is nothing
more to be said. I supposed you wouldn't want me around bothering you. I can't tell you another thing.”
“One thing before you go,” Renny said thoughtfully.
“Yes?”
“At different times today,” Renny said, “I've had a feeling someone was following me.” He stared at
Commander Giesen intently. “Hey, what's the matter?”
The look on Commander Giesen's face startled Renny. It was a sick expression. The man moistened his
lips uneasily.
“Could you,” he asked, “be mistaken?”
“I might.”
“Did you actually see anyone?”
“No. That's why I'm admitting I could have been having an attack of imagination.
“I hope,” said Commander Giesen grimly, “that you were. Because if you were actually being followed,
you may be in for something.”
“What do you figure I would be in for?”
Commander Giesen didn't sound cheerful when he answered.
“Hell,” he said.
“Oh, come now.”
“Hell!” said Commander Giesen. “Purgatory, I mean. A very purgatory of excitement and terror. I do
hope you're wrong about being trailed. I do hope you are.”
Chapter II
MONK and Ham were glad to see Renny Renwick. They called Renny a big-fisted bum and wrestled
him down on to the floor, all in delight.
Monk's full title was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. He was a chemist. The peculiar thing
was that he was an actual genius of a chemist.
Monk was a short, wide, hairy, homely, apish fellow with approximately an inch of forehead and a
squeaky tin can voice. He looked like a fellow who would have barely enough gumption to dress himself.
His manners were as direct and tactless as a St. Bernard puppy's. He had an endless supply of practical
jokes and wise-cracks with which he haunted his pal, Ham Brooks, and innocent bystanders, alike.
Ham Brooks also had a large title and reputation. But Ham at least looked the part.
Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks. He was a lawyer. He was a wide-shouldered,
flat-bellied man with the large voice of an orator. He always dressed, or overdressed, to dandified
extremes, and affected a Harvard accent so thick you wanted to scrape it off him. He was a good guy.
The clothes and accent were affected largely because they irritated Monk.
Renny asked, “Have you two got anything special on your mind?”
They said they had no plans. Except that they were returning to New York, of course. They had been in
France on some kind of a commission, one of the Allied special advisory committees which were
currently flitting all over the world telling nations how to run their business.
Renny was pleased.
“You're going back to New York by submarine with me,” he said.
No hats were thrown into the air.
“Not me, brother,” Monk said firmly. “I've been on a submarine. And I made a little discovery to the
effect that a submarine is one thing that scares hell out of me. I don't like 'em.”
Ham also had his opinions.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I'll just crawl in a barrel, pour cylinder oil over myself, and practice hitting myself
on the head with a gaspipe. Same thing, exactly.”
Renny hid a grin. He'd had about the same reaction himself. He wondered how Monk and Ham would
respond when they heard the rest.
“That's too bad,” Renny said. “There is something very mysterious about the sub trip. On top of that, I
think someone has been trailing me around all day. I was hoping you fellows would come along for the
ride, and I've been assured it may be a hair-raising ride. However, if you're not interested—”
Monk grinned at him. “Baiting us, eh?”
Ham demanded. “What's this about a mystery?”
Renny told them all he knew about it. Before he was halfway through the story, he saw that he had them
hooked.
He could only keep a straight face until Monk and Ham had said they guessed they'd better go along.
Then he burst out laughing.
Monk asked, “What are you cackling at, anyhow?”
“I'm just beginning to realize,” Renny told him, “how much alike we are.”
THEY caught the three-ten train which put them in Southampton before dark. They boarded the train
separately, and Monk and Ham snooped and prowled, trying to find out whether anyone was really
trailing Renny. They had no luck, and tried to blame Renny for the absence of excitement.
“Listen, you two,” Renny snarled at them. “I don't know that anything at all is going to happen. Get that
through your heads.”
They found one of the scarce cabs at Southampton, and rode it to the pier, where they found the
Pilotfish was not lying at dock, but had her hook down in the bay. The sub's launch took them out after
they identified themselves.
They stepped out on the low deck and climbed over the rail.
A square, amiable looking man came on deck. Obviously he had dashed below to put on his black
necktie and uniform blouse.
“I'm Commander Tomkins Wickart,” he said.
The skipper of the Pilotfish did not look at all excited, Renny noticed. Wickart was either unaware of
any mystery, or else he was an excellent actor.
Renny said, “You may think this is a bit unusual, Commander. We haven't any orders in writing.
However, we were told to sail with you.”
“That's been straightened out,” Commander Wickart told him. “You'd better show me some personal
identification, though.”
He checked over their personal papers and was quickly satisfied.
“You won't find the ship the most comfortable in the world, but we'll do our best to take care of you,” he
said. He called a mess boy to show them below.
The utter placidity of the man moved Monk to speak. There was supposed to be something cooking, but
the skipper was giving no sign of it. Monk was puzzled.
“What's going on, Commander?” Monk asked.
Wickart placidly stuffed tobacco into his pipe. “Why, nothing much. I'm afraid you're in for a dull trip,” he
said. “However, you should be able to get enough routine color.”
“Color?” Monk exploded. “Who wants color?”
“You do, don't you?” Wickart asked idly. “You three are war correspondents, aren't you? At least I was
told you were.”
Monk opened his mouth, but caught Renny's eye and didn't say what he was planning to say. Instead, he
remarked, “So you're not figuring on any excitement?”
“Very little chance of anything, I'm afraid,” Wickart told him.
“When do we sail?”
“Midnight.”
They were guided below. They found they were to bunk separately, Monk and Ham in the forward
torpedo room and Renny doubling with the skipper.
“I don't get this,” Monk told Renny. “You suppose the skipper doesn't know anything about what's going
on? Or is the guy stringing us?”
They discussed it and decided they couldn't tell. Ham joined them and complained, “War
correspondents! Who told him we were war correspondents?”
“Maybe this sealed envelope I'm supposed to get will straighten it out,” Renny suggested.
THE messenger carrying the sealed envelope was at that time getting out of the plane which had brought
him from London. He had the envelope strapped to his left thigh with adhesive tape, and he carried a
leather satchel handcuffed to his wrist as a dummy. There was another envelope in the satchel, the
contents a meaningless gibberish that anyone not in the know would think was a code.
The operations officer at the field explained, “There's a jeep waiting to take you wherever you're going.”
The jeep contained a corporal and a private, and they had what appeared to be the proper documents.
The messenger made certain about the documents before he rode with them. The two in the jeep
explained that they didn't know where they were to take him.
The messenger told them the waterfront.
The sun was now down. It was fairly dark. The private at the wheel of the jeep drove rather recklessly,
and on a lonely stretch of street, he hit the curbing. It was a glancing blow, but the jeep rolled to a stop.
“What the hell's wrong?” demanded the corporal.
“It won't go,” the private explained. “The motor runs, but nothing happens.”
“Get out and see what's wrong, dammit,” the corporal shouted.
The private alighted and walked around to the back of the jeep. He had a wrench in his hand.
The messenger must have been somewhat suspicious, because he turned alertly, endeavoring to watch
the private, and at the same time keep an eye on the corporal. He failed. It was the corporal who brained
him.
The messenger made a gurgling sound after he was hit. He sprawled back with his head hanging down,
his nostrils, mouth and split skull leaking blood.
“Damn you, you sure made a mess of him,” the private said sickly.
“Push him back in. You better hold him. Let's get where we're going,” the corporal said.
They drove only a few blocks, then turned into a small garage, the doors of which opened to take them
inside.
There were several men waiting there.
It was quite dark, and the corporal peered around blindy, then demanded, “Clark here?”
“Yes.”
“Here he is,” the corporal said.
“Close the doors. Then let's have a light,” Clark ordered.
As soon as the doors were closed and the lights on, the corporal and the private went to the back of the
garage. They began exchanging their army uniforms for sailor outfits with the insignia of the submarine
service.
CLARK was a thin man with the single quarter-inch stripe of a warrant officer, and the sparks of a radio
electrician. He had soft, brown calf-like eyes, and they were completely tender and gentle as he
examined the dead messenger.
“Too bad he bled like that. We can't use his uniform,” Clark said quietly. “But get that bag loose from
him, empty his pockets, and strip him.”
Nobody moved, and Clark looked at them. He cursed them mildly.
“What the hell's wrong with you?” he asked them. “Get busy.”
He sounded completely mild and harmless, which had the effect of sickening and startling his men. But
the men went to work on the body efficiently enough.
The lock on the satchel balked them. Clark said, “Cut it open. We'll find another bag that will serve.”
They swore at the unreadable contents of the envelope after they got it out of the bag. Then they found
the other envelope, the genuine one, which was taped to the deceased messenger's leg.
Clark read the contents. He began reading with a pale face and the expression of a cowboy who is
suddenly wondering if a rattlesnake has crawled into bed with him during the night. He looked more
satisfied with himself after he finished.
It apparently occurred to him, as he folded the document, that he had forgotten to control the expression
of his face, because he frowned slightly, and then was looking gentle and mild again.
摘要：

CARGOUNKNOWNADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIV?ChapterXVScannedandProofedbyTomStephensChapte...

展开>> 收起<<
Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 146 - Cargo Unknown.pdf

共73页,预览15页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：73 页 大小：367.82KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 73
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注