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

undamaged.” She touched her chest. “Cross my crafty heart.”
    “Not a chance.”
    “Why not?”
    “I told you. We are not for hire. Especially to prevaricators.”
    “To—what?” Hornetta sputtered.
    Doc Savage walked away.
    “Wait!” Hornetta implored. “You said you’d let me out of this monkey cage.”
    Doc turned, eyes metallic. “On the condition that you tell the truth. Who were the two men who came looking for you after your visit here last week?”
    “What two men?”
    Doc Savage described the two quickly and effectively.
    Hornetta Hale made a rather grim mouth. “That was a close shave,” she murmured after recovering her powers of speech.
    “Who were they?”
    “Devils. Crooks. Treasure hounds. If I don’t get out of here and start down to the Caribbean, it will be too late. It’s less than a week until—” She stopped, cut off her words.
    “Until when?” asked Doc Savage.
    “Nothing. I just figured they won’t let any mosses sprout on their ambitions, that’s all.”
    Doc Savage stepped up and unlocked the cage.
    “That means you believe me?”
    “No,” said Doc, not mincing words.
    Carefully but firmly, he guided Hornetta Hale into the library where Monk and Ham were exchanging insults.
    “You frog-faced ape!” Ham howled.
    “You should talk, you unsaddled clothes horse!” countered Monk.
    Hornetta inserted one of her own.
    “I just met your baby brother,” she told Monk snappily.
    Ham Brooks grabbed his midriff and roared out his laughter.
    “I threw a shoe at him and he threw one back,” Hornetta added. “We had quite the battle. Too bad he lost.”
    Ham’s roaring laughter choked off. “Chemistry! What has happened to him?”
    “He is fine,” Doc reassured him. “Merely an exchange of spleen.”
    Ham dashed into the lab and came back with the tiny ape in his arms.
    “Don’t tell me he belongs to you,” Hornetta snapped.
    “My pet,” said Ham defensively.
    “My pain,” growled Monk, eyeing the tiny replica of himself with ill-disguised scorn. The ape stuck out its pink tongue at the hairy chemist. Monk lifted a chair threateningly, and the unclassified anthropoid executed a backflip and disappeared under a table.
    Doc addressed his aides. “Did you hear her story?”
    “Every syllable,” sniffed dapper Ham. “And I don’t believe a word of it.”
    “Ditto,” added Monk.
    Doc piloted Hornetta into an overstuffed chair. He simply laid one bronze hand on her peeling shoulder and urged her over and down. Hornetta sat as if she had no power of resistance.
    “You’re stronger than you look,” she grimaced, “and you look plenty strong.”
    “We will ask you to repeat your story,” said the bronze man.
    Hornetta did. This time the Hussy was owned by a Greek who needed to get his gold out of Ethiopia. There were other embellishments. None noteworthy.
    “You are not even trying to lie convincingly,” Doc told her.
    Hornetta made a face. “I’m a little shook up, if you don’t mind. It’s been an ordeal. Now am I under arrest, or can I be on my merry way?”
    “You are neither.”
    But when Hornetta stood up to go, Monk Mayfair gave her a casual shove and back she went into the cushions.
    Her snapping eyes shed blue sparks. “Now look here, I—”
    A red light began flashing on a wall. All heads turned toward it.
    “Trouble!” Ham howled.
    Monk grinned. “It’s about time.”
    “What do you mean—about time?” demanded Hornetta. “What are you—a glutton for punishment?”
    Doc Savage said, “When we drove you back here, we picked up shadowers.”
    “Yeah?”
    “They were the same two who were inquiring after you last week.”
    “Is that so?” Hornetta asked thinly. Her sunburned face seemed to pale half a shade. But it remained ruddy.
    “We thought if we let them get a good look at you being brought back to our headquarters, they would try something,” Doc explained. “Now they have.”
    “That’s quite a banana bunch of