Part 16 (1/2)
”Anything to report on my call to Antof.a.gasta, Chile?” he questioned.
”Nothing yet, Mr. Savage,” was the reply.
Monk and Long Tom scurried about, finis.h.i.+ng their packing.
”We just about got it all ready to go, Doc,” Monk reported.
The phone rang once more. This time it was a man who said in an expressionless voice: ”This is to advise you that the ambulances have picked up their load.”
”Very well,” Doc told him. ”Follow the usual procedure.”
Monk, overhearing this, grinned widely. He knew what it meant. The gang who had been in the touring car were en route to Doc's criminal-curing inst.i.tution up-state.
Doc now began to show some impatience. He again got in touch with the long-distance operator.
”We are very sorry, Mr. Savage,” the telephone employee reported after a time. ”We are unable to locate Dido Galligan in Antof.a.gasta, Chile. He seems to have left town by airplane, our office there advises.”
”Thank you,” Doc said, and hung up.
Monk made a hand-flippering gesture of a bird flying away. ”There went our chances of learning what Dido Galligan started to tell you about John Acre when the phone wires were cut.”
Doc nodded. He began gathering equipment.
”We aren't, by chance, going to a warm climate?” Monk hazarded hopefully. ”It might be a good idea, as well as a comfortable one. Sounds like they're takin' the girl toward Chile.”
”It is a good idea,” Doc agreed.
”Then we're lightin' out after 'em?”
Doc nodded. ”We're rolling south, brothers.”
Chapter XII. DEATH UNMIXED.
COLON, Isthmus of Panama, is something near two thousand miles airline from New York.
Doc Savage, with no stops for gasoline, averaged a little under two hundred miles an hour over the route.
His low-wing plane, from floats to exhaust stacks, was ultra-streamlined. It had wheels; these cranked up.
It was past midnight when Doc dropped the plane on Colon Bay. The floats pushed up sheets of spray.
Phosph.o.r.escent wake stretched behind like a sparky skyrocket trail.
”Whew!” Monk mopped his forehead. ”The plane on fire or somethin'?””Never satisfied!” Ham sneered. ”New York was too cold. Now it's too hot!”
The pig, Habeas Corpus, grunted under Monk's chair, and staggered out. Habeas was airsick.
Renny folded his maps; he had been navigating, a.s.sisted by Long Tom's radio bearings.
Johnny, the bony geologist, was still trying to figure how a quake could occur in quake proof country.
Doc Savage, at the controls, ruddered insh.o.r.e.
”Look-coming ahead of us!” Ham pointed with his sword cane. A shabby motor launch was crawling out. In it were scores of metal drums.
A thin brown man guided the craft. Trousers and a voluminous white turban comprised his garb.
”A Hindu!” Monk grunted.
The Hindu sheered his launch in close.
”Gasoline!” he called. ”Good, high-test gasoline for sale, sahibs!”
The guy must be a mind reader,” Monk muttered. Then, loudly: ”How'd you know we had stopped for gas?”
”I did not know, sahib. Affoff! Alas! In Colon one has to work day and night to live. I meet all planes.
Sometimes make a sale. Sometimes, no.”
”It'll save time to let him fill us,” Renny said.
Kya dam?” asked Doc. ”What price?”
The moonlight was brilliant. Surprise was discernible on the boatman's face as he heard Doc speak Hindustani with liquid perfection.
”Sixty cents the gallon, sahib.”
Robber!” Monk grunted.
”See if his gas is O.K., Monk,” Doc directed.
With a monkeylike agility, the homely chemist sprang to the launch, filled a bottle with gasoline, came back, and entered the plane. For a few moments he a.n.a.lyzed.
”It's good gas,” he declared at last.
”O. K. We'll load up.”
The Hindu boatman had a large-capacity hand pump on his launch.