Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray Read Free Book Online

powerful roar of a machine outside.
    Jumping down, she went to investigate.
    If astonishment had ridden her pretty if hard features before, it roosted there for good now.
    For up the dusty road came a familiar subdued sedan. At the wheel was the homely face of Monk Mayfair. He was grinning from ear to ear. The grin looked a mile wide. Beside him, in the passenger seat, was a pig. It stood up on its hind legs, forepaws resting on the dashboard. It seemed almost as if the pig were grinning, too.
    The sedan pulled up and braked.
    Hornetta Hale simply exploded. “How the holy heck did you get loose!”
    The pig opened its mouth more widely. And seemed to speak.
    “A magician never reveals his tricks, honeybunch.”
    “A pig and his ventriloquist!” Hornetta retorted. “Where is the big bronze guy?”
    From behind, came the surprising answer. “You are not the first to attempt to capture us by that same artifice,” said a quietly confident voice that Hornetta recognized just before strong bronze fingers seized her neck and performed movements that caused the world to release its grip on her.
    Monk jumped out of the auto, beaming.
    “She never heard a thing, thanks to Habeas.”
    Doc Savage nodded. “The shoat’s chorus prevented Miss Hale from hearing the sedan slide out the van doors during that last climb.”
    “New shocks worked like a charm on landin’,” Monk agreed. “Easy enough to run so close behind her that she never knew we were on her trail until that last turn. Our silenced motor couldn’t be heard under the roar of that truck. The hard part was pickin’ the padlock on the door bar with the truck moving along at a good clip.”
    “Do not forget that while we were trailing her so closely, you had to clamber onto the hood in order to reclose the van doors, so she would not suspect a thing,” reminded Doc.
    “It was nothin’.” The hairy chemist eyed the troublesome Hornetta lying on the ground. “Guess we go to work on her, huh?”
    “Miss Hale,” said Doc Savage grimly, “has quite an awakening ahead of her.”

Chapter V
    TALL TALE
    HORNETTA HALE WOKE up in what she first thought was a zoo.
    She was in a cage. She realized that almost at once. The cage was of good size. It had to be, in order to contain both Hornetta and the monkey.
    Now Hornetta Hale had done her share of exploring. She had been chased by baboons, set upon by orangutans and once a howler monkey had run her up a tree. The monkey that squatted at the other side of the cage resembled no species of anthropoid she had ever seen or heard of.
    In some respects, it rather resembled a miniature version of Monk the chemist. It possessed the same gimlet eyes in a broad face. Even the color of its fur—a rusty red—brought to mind the apish chemist.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked thickly. Then her head began clearing. She changed the question.
    “What am I doing in here with you!” she exploded.
    Hornetta looked around. It was not dark exactly. There was some light. It seemed to be coming through a haze, or something.
    “Hello. Is anyone home?”
    Silence.
    The monkey approached. It wore a curious expression.
    Looking about for a weapon, Hornetta found nothing. So she took off her shoe and, grasping it by the toe, threatened to brain the monkey with the heel.
    “Stay away from me!” she warned.
    The monkey ambled closer.
    Hornetta threw the shoe. It bounced off the monkey’s skull. The monkey grabbed the top of his hairy head, emitted a sharp squeak of pain and then scrambled after the shoe.
    It is said that monkeys possess the fundamental trait of imitation. This one proved it. He grasped the shoe by its toe and promptly and expertly bounced it off Hornetta’s forehead.
    Hornetta retaliated by letting the monkey have it with her other shoe.
    The monkey snatched up the other shoe and, in retaliation, swiftly let fly.
    The two shoes bounced around the cage interior for more than five frenzied minutes until both