Doc Savage - The Freckled Shark Part 11

Henry Peace walked in and took a comfortable chair.

His voice changed when he spoke. It took on a completely different personality.

He said, "You must be doing well. You've put on a little weight since the Albergold kidnapers were stuffing you in a canvas sack and tying it to a weight."

The detective jumped. He eyed Henry Peace, and his eyes flew wide. His mouth also fell open.

"Bless me!" he yelled. "You're-"

"Henry Peace is the name now," Henry Peace said.

The detective seized Henry Peace's hand and pumped it. He was profoundly moved. In fact, something happened to him that had not occurred in years-his eyes became damp with grat.i.tude.

"Believe it or not," he said fervently, "I still get down on my knees and give thanks for your saving my life that time."

"Forget it."

"I wish I could forget the way those kidnapers tortured me before you appeared."

Henry Peace said, "Know anything about a man named Jep Dee?"

The detective nodded. "That's the fellow that a college boy found on an island. Jep Dee had been tortured. He refused to tell any kind of a story. For a while, he had a mania for keeping a piece of old rope tied around his neck. But one night he took the rope off; and that same night, Jep Dee had a fight in the post office with a cop because he thought the cop was trying to get a letter that Jep Dee had just mailed. We found out that the letter was addressed to someone named Rhoda Haven, in New York City. They took Jep Dee back to the hospital. He's blind, but the doctors seem to think he'll be all right eventually. The sun burned his eyes, or something, and he has nerve shock."Having listened to this long speech in silence, Henry Peace was satisfied that he had the whole story briefly.

"Then Jep Dee is something of a mystery," he said.

"Very much so."

"What hospital?"

The detective told Henry Peace the hospital where he could find Jep Dee.

THE hospital must be busy, because there were many lighted windows, although this was a late night hour. On the seaward side was a pleasant shelf of a veranda, and internes and doctors came and stood on this frequently and smoked cigarettes or gossiped.

The Gulf Stream, that current of incredibly blue water fifty miles wide and a mile deep flowing past the tip of Florida, was quiet tonight. There were almost no waves-only swells-and these came in like fat, slow-moving blue elephants that turned to a yellow color as the water shoaled, and broke on the beach, each time sounding as if someone had stepped into a wastebasket full of paper.

A trailer stood on the beach. There was nothing unusual about that, parked trailers being found almost anywhere in Florida. This one was above high-water level, and had been there some days. Palm-tree shade made it rather dark.

It could have been a coincidence that the trailer stood in the spot from which the hospital could be watched most thoroughly.

Henry Peace appeared in the darkness beside the trailer. He had made absolutely no sound.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

The trailer tenant gave a violent jump. He had been sprawled in a canvas chair just inside the trailer door, where he could watch the hospital.

"What the h.e.l.l!" he exploded.

He also reached into the pocket of his beach robe, where there was a gun.

Henry Peace said, "I came on ahead of Horst."

Which was more truthful than some of the statements he had made.

"Who're you? I ain't seen you before."

"Lots of things you ain't seen, maybe," Henry Peace said. "At least, I think I'm ahead of Horst. He in town yet?"

The trailer tenant was a small, dark, useless-looking fellow. He considered for a while before he answered.

"Horst's plane should be somewhere between here and Jacksonville," he said, "judging from the telephone call I got when they refueled in Jacksonville."

"You're watching Jep Dee?" hazarded Henry Peace.

"Sure. We're going to take him out of the hospital when Horst gets here."

"What room is he in?"

The man pointed, "Second floor, third from left. Room with storm shutters over the window."

Henry Peace did not comment. He was silent, thinking. There had been some excitement and action since he first contacted the Havens, and the mystery of Jep Dee. But he had not learned much, really. The mystery of Jep Dee was still just that-mystery.

Henry Peace a.s.sumed his most convincing tone. "I'm a new man, just getting into this," he said. "You are supposed to give me the low-down.""What low-down?"

"Everything. Explain it."

The other snorted. "Listen, bud, there's more millions of dollars involved in this than you can shake a stick at."

"Yeah, I heard the rumor-"

"And almost forty people have got to die. They won't, if things go wrong. In which case, our names will be mud."

"I heard that rumor, too, but-"

"But-nothing!" snarled the trailer tenant. "I ain't telling you a thing. The h.e.l.l with you, partner! I don't even know you."

The man's manner was determined enough to show that he had made up his mind to talk no more.

Henry Peace held his fist in front of the man's nose.

"You see what's in this?" Henry Peace asked.

The man did the natural thing-peered at the fist.

"h.e.l.l, no, I don't see-"

Possibly he then saw stars. Or maybe it was just blackness. He lay down backward on the floor, hard enough to shake the whole trailer. Henry Peace blew on the right fist, with which he had hit the man.

"Carrying this Henry Peace character too far," he muttered. "Fool around and break my knuckles if not careful."

He tied his victim with the trailer clothesline, also gagged him. Then he consulted his watch.

"Better get Jep Dee before anything else," he decided.

Two policemen had been a.s.signed to watch Jep Dee, on the possibility that he might try to leave the hospital again, also on the chance he might decide to talk. The two cops split each day in twelve-hour watches. It was considered a soft job.

Jep Dee had not been giving any trouble. In fact, he frequently seemed glad to have the officers around.

Furthermore, the hurricane shutter had been put up at Jep Dee's window. The shutter was constructed of steel, could be fastened from the outside. It made the room a jail, literally.

The hospital wall below the window-Jep Dee's room was on the second floor-was not considered climbable.

Henry Peace looked the wall over, then took off his shoes and socks. He had remarkably long toes, and they seemed to be trained, flexible, and incredibly strong.

He climbed the wall that was not considered climbable. Unfastening the hurricane shutter was merely a matter of sliding a bar.

He got into the room. Jep Dee slept. Henry Peace grabbed Jep Dee's mouth with one hand, the man's nose with the other, and lay on Jep Dee so he could not make a commotion.

"I'm helping the Havens!" Henry Peace said.

He said that several times.

Jep Dee was silent, except to take in a great rattling gulp of air, when he was released.

"Horst is coming to get you," Henry Peace said.

Jep Dee said several words about Horst's character that should have made the air smell of brimstone.

"I've got to move you," Henry Peace explained.Jep Dee said, "I'm willing."

Henry Peace scooped Jep Dee off the bed, went to the window, and in a moment stood poised on the ledge with his burden. The slick, silver bole of a palm tree slanted past a few feet from the window. Henry Peace jumped, clamped himself and his burden to the palm, and slid, not fast enough to friction-burn his long powerful legs, to the ground.

A few minutes later, he lowered Jep Dee in the shadow of the palms along the beach-but some distance from the trailer.

"Eyes improved any?" he asked.

"Not much," said Jep Dee. "Who the d.i.c.kens are you, anyhow?"

Henry Peace now began talking. His tone was persuasive, and no one would have guessed from his words that he was anything but a lifelong acquaintance of old Tex Haven. Very casually, he mentioned anecdotes concerning Tex Haven's soldier-of-fortuning in China, Korea, Manchuria, Spain and South America.

"OF course," said Henry Peace, "I don't know much about what Tex has been doing in South America. He just took on my help unexpectedly."

"That must explain," muttered Jep Dee, "why I haven't heard Tex mention you."

"As a matter of fact," said Henry Peace, "Tex didn't have time to give me a full account of this present proposition. He said you'd do that."

"What shall I begin with?"

"Start off with that piece of shark skin. What does the thing mean?"

"You saw it?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't need to explain. It explained itself."

Henry Peace said, "I'm darned if it did."

The man lying on the sand put both hands to his eyes. He made an enraged snarling noise.

"If I could just see!" he gritted. "Boy, did they give me the works before I got away! And to think I put in weeks finding that island, while the Havens waited in New York!"

Henry Peace, suddenly alert, prompted, "Oh, yes, you looked for the island while the Havens waited in New York. Just what did you find on the island? Old Tex wants to know that."

"I think the place can be entered," Jep Dee muttered. "I imagine the pay-off would be over ten millions."

"Ten millions," said Henry Peace, "is a lot of money."

"My guess is that there are forty people in the dungeons. Some of them have been killed already. Most of the others undergo daily torture. Some of the dungeons are rigged up with the d.a.m.nedest torture devices you ever saw. Did you know that rats will eat a man alive?"

"I don't believe," said Henry Peace, "that any rat would have nerve enough to eat a live man."

"Well, you're as wrong as a war. I saw 'em. They let me watch. They pulled off my fingernails and pulled out my eyelashes, then they took me down to watch the rats eat a man. They were letting them eat a little of the man each night."

Henry Peace was silent a moment. "That is too horrible. I don't believe it."

"Suit yourself.""Suppose," said Henry Peace, "that we get the whole thing clear in my mind."

"How do you mean?"

Henry Peace suggested, "You go back to the first and explain the whole thing. Start at the beginning."

Jep Dee lay very quiet for a while.

"h.e.l.l with you!" he said.

"But-"

"I'm wise to you now!" Jep Dee snapped. "You don't know the first thing about this mystery. You've been stringing me along. So the devil with you! I don't tell you anything more."

Henry Peace made a gesture of disgust "That makes two of you," he said.

"Two?"

"The other one," Henry Peace explained, "is in a trailer."