by Jerry eBooks
Death, obviously, had come from strangulation. The tongue was protruding, already swollen. There were ugly bruises about the throat. But there was a thing even worse that held Roger Cass rigid in horror.
It was the sight of the detective’s chest. In the bloody gore that covered the white shirt front, something protruded.
A rib!
The man’s chest had been crushed by some mighty force, as though powerful arms had encircled Dougherty and squeezed until . . .
He shuddered, and for the first time looked at the others.
There was the ship’s skipper and some of the sailors and lanky Professor Owen. Behind them, in the doorway, the small man who acted as though he’d been stricken with palsy.
Danton Collins, Owen’s assistant.
It was Collins who pointed a trembling finger at Cass and cried, “He did it! That’s what you get for allowing him the freedom of the ship. Cass killed him!”
Roger swung around, his gray eyes like cold marble.
“Don’t be a complete fool, Collins!” he thundered. “Look at the man’s chest! If any human being could do that . . .”
Little, nervous Collins was backing warily out of the doorway. His spade beard waggled up and down as he talked swiftly, “Don’t you all see? That’s why he suggested making the search in small groups. He came down here alone, caught Dougherty unawares, and killed him!”
Cass looked at tall Owen. “Tell them where we were,” he ordered.
Professor Owen explained how they had heard the beating sound while in the cross passageway that led to an outside deck. He mentioned the man’s strangled cry.
“Cass couldn’t possibly have done it,” he admitted. “He was only away from us a moment.”
Captain Briggs gave a sigh of relief. He patted Roger’s shoulder.
“Everyone’s excited,” he said. “We know you didn’t do it. That damned gorilla . . .” The skipper’s weatherbeaten face showed worry.
“You found nothing?” Roger prodded.
The skipper shook his head. “Nothing. And besides, that guy who has charge of those damned animals . . . well, we can’t find him either!”
“Mark Irwin?”
The captain nodded silently.
Then he swung his attention to two of the sailors, gave brief instructions for the removal of the corpse. He stood back, mopping at his sweat-stained face with a handkerchief. He looked suddenly tired, weary.
ROGER CASS’S eyes were roaming the small room. He was staring oddly at a pile of luggage in a corner of the room, a heap of spilled clothes and books that were in absolute disorder. There was something . . .
But he had to stand aside while the sailors carried out the corpse. He went into the outside passageway, found Katherine pressed back against a bulkhead, trembling.
She moved against him as he came out of the cabin. Her hands were cold as they sought his own.
She murmured shakily, “What are we going to do? How are we going to keep from all being murdered, Roger?”
He was silent a moment, thinking of the pile of stuff he had seen in a jumbled heap within the room. He said, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you . . . later.” His hand pressed firmly over her own. “Perhaps you’d better go to your cabin. Lock the door. Wait for me.”
The girl nodded, her deep blue eyes worried.
“Be careful, Roger,” she begged.
He watched as she departed with her father and two of the crew members. One man preceded them; another followed. Each carried heavy clubs.
Like a frightened bantam rooster, nervous little Danton Collins scampered after them. He flung one suspicious look over his thin shoulder at Cass.
Roger stepped again into the room of death. He found himself alone with the ship’s skipper, Briggs.
Briggs looked thoughtfully at Cass, said with feeling, “There’s something behind all this that you haven’t told me. Something about yourself. I know you’re innocent of that crime at Lost Mountain. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
Cass said: “There’s something that I can’t tell anyone . . . yet. But sooner or later I’ll be able to clear myself of this murder charge. In New York, perhaps.”
Briggs shrugged. “I guess you know best.” He was abruptly following Roger Cass’s gaze. He said, “What is it?”
Cass moved across the cabin, avoided the bloodstained smear on the rug. He stooped over the heap of spilled luggage that was on the floor. Three handbags had been opened, their contents dumped on the floor. Quickly, Cass was fingering through the pile, as though seeking something.
He turned slightly, looked over his shoulder at the solidly built skipper.
“You know, there’s something damned queer about this,” he murmured.
The skipper jerked a thumb at the clothing and books and bundles of note papers strewn on the floor.
“About that, you mean?”
Cass nodded. “Yes, and more than this. That stuff is not Dougherty’s luggage. It’s mine!”
Briggs’ eyes widened. They were pale gray in the room light. “Someone was looking for something?” he asked. “They found something of yours?”
“They were searching,” admitted Cass, “but they didn’t find it.” He did not further explain the remark.
Briggs was puzzled. He stared at Cass as he said thoughtfully, “You know, I believe that gorilla was set free by someone aboard this ship. Someone who must have come here first, went through your stuff!”
Cass made no comment to that. Instead, he remarked, “It’s funny about Mark Irwin.”
“You figure that animal-hunter guy is dead too?”
“I don’t know. But we’d better locate Majo, that helper of his.”
THEY closed the cabin door behind them, locked it, moved through the silent passageways of the throbbing ship. Once on their way to the crew’s quarters, they passed a group of grimfaced seamen with lights and heavy clubs in their hands. They learned that no sight, as yet, had been seen of the gorilla. They were also informed that Majo, the big African, was on the forecastle deck now, tending the animal cages. They headed that way.
Majo was perhaps six feet four. He had a chest the size of a beer keg and arms that were massive. Naked from the waist up, his powerful body sweaty from the breathless heat, he presented an awesome appearance.
Roger Cass said, “You have seen Mr. Irwin?”
The big black fellow grunted. “No see. Sailor man say gorilla escape. I come see.”
Captain Briggs gave a slight shudder, said softly to Cass, “I wouldn’t like to meet this fellow in the dark, either!” Suddenly, his eyes clouded, and he drew Roger Cass to one side. “I just remembered something. Some of the crew were talking about it yesterday. It seems Mark Irwin and this black native had quite an argument about something. Do you think—”
Cass shook his head. “These natives are pretty faithful to anyone who has befriended them,” he explained. “Irwin was good to Majo.”
“But—”
Cass addressed the powerful African. “You’ve seen Goliath?” He indicated the broken cage. “You’ve seen him . . . the gorilla?”
Majo shook his head. “No see. He maybe hide.”
Roger Cass stared “Hide?”
The native nodded. “He afraid. Goliath good boy. Maybe so he hide on ship.”
Captain Briggs, listening, moved his shoulders in a nervous gesture. “Good boy, hell! That monster is loose somewhere on my ship. He’s already killed a man!”
The powerful African native stood there shaking his head slowly.
Cass took hold of the skipper’s arm, said warningly, “There’s no use angering Majo. He loves those animals. We’d better leave him alone.”
They started away, but Cass turned back a moment to call to the African, “Make certain the rest of those cages are secure.”
The big fellow nodded and swung toward the rows of animal cages.
Cass followed Captain Briggs toward the smaller deck above. They met no one. All th
e crew seemed to be below, still searching the ship. This deck was deserted.
Abruptly the skipper paused, sniffing at the air. He turned about, his gaze staring ahead into the black night.
“We’re coming into some rough weather,” he announced. “I’d better get up to the bridge.”
It was uncanny, Roger Cass thought, the way this man detected the presence of some distant storm. But now that it had been mentioned, he noted a slightly greater roll to the ship, and a pitch that he had not noticed a few moments ago. Some of the humidness had gone from the air, also, and a faint breeze touched his hot cheeks.
Briggs said, “We’ll be into it shortly. That’s the way these storms come up down here.”
Roger nodded. He started to move off, announcing, “I told Katherine I’d see her. I’ll be back.”
THEY separated in the night, the skipper climbing up to the bridge, Roger Cass moving off into the thick darkness. The ship was starkly silent, save for the monotonous throbbing of the engines, the whispering swish of the sea against her side plates.
He went below, located the corridor that led to Katherine’s cabin. The steady roll of the ship beneath his feet was increasing.
In his daily hour of exercise around the ship, as Dougherty’s captive, he had grown accustomed to the general layout. He had no trouble finding the girl’s stateroom. He knocked quietly on the door. Waited.
There was no reply.
But that would be natural, he thought. In her fear, she was perhaps afraid to answer.
And so he softly called her name.
Still no reply. He knocked again, louder this time. When nothing happened, he cried out her name desperately: “Katherine!”
There was only thick silence from within the stateroom. Cold fear took hold of Roger Cass. He suddenly knew that this lovely girl meant more to him than anything else in the world. He forgot his own predicament; he cared not what might happen to himself. He only knew that she should be there, within this room, and why hadn’t she answered him?
He grasped the knob and started to rattle the door.
It swung open, because it had not been locked.
Roger Cass dived into the room, drew up short, stared around. The lights were on; everything seemed to be in neat order. And yet she was not here.
He plunged through to an adjoining room, a small bedroom. Pajamas were laid out on the bed. A suitcase, its contents in orderly array, stood on a bench near the bed. But the second room was also deserted. Katherine was gone.
Behind Roger Cass, somewhere outside in the dimly lit corridor, someone—something moved. It was the barest whisper of sound. It passed on. And yet he had the impression that someone had paused outside the stateroom door, had briefly looked in upon him.
He leaped toward the passageway.
And Cass had the distinct impression that some form had just disappeared into the gloom far down the long corridor.
CHAPTER V
With Intent to Kill!
AT ANY other time, caution might have made Roger Cass move more slowly. He knew not what lay ahead, but the only thing he could think of was the girl. Where had she disappeared to? Could something awful have happened to her?
And so he leaped recklessly ahead. He was without a light. He recalled that he had left it back in Dougherty’s cabin. His gun, the automatic that the skipper had given him, was in his fist.
He reached the end of the corridor, drew up against a blank wall that was a bulkhead. He must have missed the side passage that led off from this one. Quickly he swung about and returned.
A half dozen feet back he found the narrow aisle that led toward deck. He sped that way. Something banged closed just ahead. The door that swung outward to the deck!
It occurred to Cass that there should be an overhead light turned on here. But it was out. Strange, that!
He found the door, swung it open, plunged out onto the deck.
And found that the rain and wind storm had now hit the ship with all its fury. The driving rain beat against the shutters that protected the cabin windows. It slewed off the deck in a steady stream.
With it was the wind, lashing Roger’s already wet clothes tight against his lean, hard body. The rain, though warm, felt cool after the terrific heat. It washed the salty perspiration from his bronzed features, made his brain acutely sharp.
Standing there a second, pressing against the rain and the wind, he peered up and down the deck. He could see nothing, hear no foreign sound. If there were only some light . . .
Far off, against the black horizon, there were faint streaks of lightning. But the ship was still a long ways from being in the real grip of the storm. Though the freighter rolled harder, she was holding a steady course.
Because the deck was slippery, because the wind tended to make him lose his balance on the rolling ship, he dropped the gun in his pocket and used Ms arms to keep his balance. As he moved down deck, from time to time he swayed against a stanchion, or else clutched at some object for support.
Twice he called the girl’s name. The words were ripped away swiftly on the wind and rain.
Aft, he reached a wide space near two of the large, covered hatches. Machinery and winches and derricks were tarpaulin-covered against the rusting effect of the sea. He stumbled into them, somehow managed to find his way around them. He knew not exactly why, but he was under the impression that his unseen quarry had stalked this way.
He came to the very stern of the ship. He stood there pressed into the wedge made by the joining wooden rails. His heart hammering against his side, he turned and stared back across the black-cloaked deck. Again he called the girl’s name. He screamed it into the night.
Against the rain and the wind, he might as well have shouted at the sky.
He started back across the deck that was a maze of equipment and machinery. He cursed the luck that had made him leave the flashlight behind, earlier. If they’d only get into the part of the storm where the lightning was, where there was some possibility of the unseen prowler being revealed!
Roger Cass went carefully forward, step by step, avoiding miraculously, the obstacles that were in his path. He ducked low beneath the arm of a cargo boom.
And that is when the concealed figure leaped down upon him.
HE WAS carried in a swaying crash backward to the slippery deck. But that wetness helped him, also. The one holding him temporarily lost a foothold, slipped, swayed away from Roger Cass for just the fraction of a moment.
And Cass struck out blindly with his fists. Smashing blows they were, containing all the wild, pent-up fury of his strong young body. There was no doubt now about what he was fighting. A man, he realized, a powerful fellow—but nevertheless something very much like himself. You could fight a thing like that. It was not a beast!
For awhile, he drove the other off. He only wished that the lightning would come, so that he could see, so that he would know who his attacker was.
But they fought in darkness. The big man closed in again, got his powerful arms around Roger’s body, lifted Mm off his feet and attempted to hurl him to the deck. Cass had a momentary vision of having his brains dashed out on the solid deck.
However, he managed to entwine a hard leg on the other man’s, locked himself against his opponent in a fierce grip. Together they went down—with the bigger man underneath. There came a grunt of surprise, an oath that was muttered in a tongue Roger Gass did not understand.
There was no chance to reach for the gun that hung in the pocket of Ms wet, flapping light coat. To do so might have entangled his hand for a moment in his pocket.
Struggling, the two men rolled and flopped across the rain-washed deck. Beside the darkness, there was the downpour of rain lashing into Roger’s eyes, blinding him. He could see nothing.
But his assailant was faced with the same problem. As though realizing that fact, he fought with intense frenzy, trying to put a finish to this attack that he must have figured an easy job.
Cass tried desperat
ely to keep a grip on the other man. He tried holding him with one hand, smashing out with his right fist at the unseen jaw.
But his left hand kept slipping. And for a good reason. The big fellow was naked from the waist up! Trying to hold onto his wet body was like attempting to grip an eel!
At first, Roger Cass thought of the barrel-chested African Majo. And then he knew this was not the person he fought. Majo had short, kinky hair. This man was bald!
The other was slow with his fists, but he had the strength of an ox. Slowly he got Cass flattened against the deck, and with one muscular forearm across Roger’s chest, kept smashing at him with his other arm.
With each pitch of the storm-swept ship, they slid a little. Cass knew not in what direction. But abruptly his legs, his feet touched something and he tried to identify what the obstacle was by feel.
And as abruptly his foot slipped, went through some sort of opening and out into—space.
INSTANTLY his assailant’s heavy leg whipped out, drove his other sliding foot through the opening. Horror gripped Roger Cass. He had an idea now what that opening was. One of the big openings beneath the rail, through which rope was passed when the ship was tied up in port! Plenty of room for a man’s body to slip through—into the raging sea below.
Frantically, Roger’s arms got a head-lock on his attacker’s neck. Exerting every ounce of his strength, he applied pressure until he knew the fellow’s brain must be reeling with dizziness. The struggle to force him through the rail opening lessened. The big man gasped for breath.
Immediately Roger whipped free, gained his feet, was pitched to the deck again as the ship rolled. But he was clear, and he tried to roll farther as his right fist shot toward his coat pocket. Fingers got tangled in the sodden, loose cloth of his coat. If he could only get that damned . . .
His attacker was upon him again in the darkness, driving him flat to the wet deck. They slid, in the opposite direction this time. They brought up with a thud against some sort of coping. Roger had to use both hands to break the crash of his body against the projection. His fingers clutched something about eight inches high and closed tightly there.