Mystery Of The Sea Horse

by Lee Falk

  The Story of THE PHANTOM

  THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA HORSE

  PROLOGUE

  HOW IT ALL BEGAN

  Over four hundred years ago, a large British merchant ship was attacked hy Singg pirates off the remote shores of Bangalla. The captain of the trading vessel was a famous seafarer who, in his youth, had served as cabin boy to Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to discover the New World. With the captain was his son, Kit, a strong young man who idolized his father and hoped to follow him as a seafarer. But the pirate attack was disastrous. In a furious battle, the entire crew of the merchant ship was killed and it sank in flames. The sole survivor was young Kit, who as he fell off the burning ship, saw his father killed by a pirate. Kit was washed ashore, half-dead. Friendly pygmies found him and nursed him to health.

  One day walking on the beach, he found a dead pirate, dressed in his father's clothes. He realized this was the pirate who had killed his father. Grief-stricken, he waited until vultures had stripped the body clean. Then on the skull of his fathers murderer, he swore an oath by firelight as the friendly pygmies watched. "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, and my sons and their sons shall follow me."

  This was the Oath of the Skull that Kit and his 7

  descendants. would live by. In time, the pygmies led him to their home in the Deep Woods in the center of the jungle where he found a large cave with many rocky chambers. The mouth of the cave, a natural formation formed by the water and wind of centuries, was curiously like a skull. This became his home, the Skull Cave. He soon adopted a mask and a strange costume. He found that the mystery and fear this inspired helped him in his endless battle against world-wide piracy. For he and his sons who followed became known as the nemesis of pirates everywhere, a mysterious man whose face no one ever saw, whose name no one knew, who worked alone.

  As the years passed, he fought injustice wherever he found it. The first Phantom and the sons who followed found their wives in many places. One married a reigning queen, one a princess, one a beautiful red-haired barmaid. But whether queen or commoner, all followed their men back to the Deep Woods, to live the strange but happy life of the wife of the Phantom. And of all the world, only she, wife of the Phantom, and their children could see his face.

  Generation after generation was born, grew to manhood, assumed the tasks of the father before him. Each wore the mask and costume. Folk of the jungle and the city and sea began to whisper that there was a man who could not die, a Phantom, a Ghost Who Walks. For they thought the Phantom was always the same man. A boy who saw the Phantom would see him again fifty years after; and he seemed the same. And he would tell his son and his grandson; and his son and grandson would see the Phantom fifty years after that. And he would seem the same. So the legend grew. The

  Man Who Cannot Die. The Ghost Who Walks. The Phantom.

  The Phantom did not discourage this belief in his immortality. Always working alone against tremendous—sometimes almost impossible—odds, he found that the awe and fear the legend inspired was a great help in his endless battle against evil. Only his friends, the pygmies, knew the truth. To compensate for their tiny stature, the pygmies mixed deadly poisons for use on their weapons in hunting or defending themselves. It was rare that they were forced to defend themselves. Their deadly poisons were known through the jungle, and they and their home, the Deep Woods, were dreaded and avoided. Another reason to stay away from the Deep Woods—if soon became known that this was a home of the Phantom, and none wished to trespass.

  Through the ages, the Phantoms created several more homes or hideouts in various parts of the world. Near the Deep Woods was the Isle of Eden, where the Phantom taught all animals to live in peace. In the southwest desert of the New World, the Phantoms created an eyrie on a high sheer mesa that was thought by the Indians to be haunted by evil spirits and became known as "Walker's Table"—for The Ghost Who Walks. In Europe, deep in the crumbling cellars of the ruins of an ancient castle, the Phantom had another hideout from which to strike against evildoers.

  But the Skull Cave in the quiet of the Deep Woods remained the true home of the Phantom. Here, in a rocky chamber, he kept his chronicles, written records of all his adventures. Phantom after Phantom faithfully wrote their experiences in the large folio volumes. Another chamber contained the costumes of all the generations of Phantoms- Other chambers contained the vast treasures of the Phantom acquired over centuries, used only in the endless battle against evil.

  Thus twenty generations of Phantoms lived, fought, and died, usually violently, as they followed their oath. Jungle folk, sea folk, and city folk believed him the same man, the Man Who Cannot Die. Only the pygmies knew that always, a day would come when their great friend would lie dying. Then, alone, a strong young son would carry his father to the burial crypt of his ancestors where all Phantoms rested. As the pygmies waited outside, the young man would emerge from the cave, wearing the mask, the costume, and the skull ring of the Phantom; his carefree happy days as the Phantom's son were over. And the pygmies would chant their age-old chant, "The Phantom is dead. Long live the Phantom."

  This story of The Mystery of the Sea Horse is an adventure of the Phantom of our time—the twenty-first generation of his line. He has inherited the traditions and responsibilities created by four centuries of Phantom ancestors. One ancestor created the Jungle Patrol. Thus, today, our Phantom is the mysterious and unknown commander of this elite corps. In the jungle, he is known and loved as the Keeper of the Peace. On his right hand is the Skull Ring that leaves his mark—the Sign of the Skull—known and feared by evildoers everywhere. On his left hand—closer to the heart —is his "good mark" ring. Once given, the mark grants the lucky bearer protection by the Phantom, and it is equally known and respected. And to good people and criminals alike, in the jungle, on the seven seas, and in the cities of the world, he is

  The Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks, the Man Who Cannot Die.

  Lee Falk

  New York 1973

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was during her second day on the island that she began to suspect they might not let her leave.

  Standing on the black cliffs above the quiet blue Pacific, Diana Palmer saw that the two motor launches were gone from the private dock below. A slender, dark-haired girl, she shivered now in spite of the noonday warmth.

  "And why did I sleep so late?" Diana asked herself. "It's not like me."

  When she'd come down from her room a few minutes ago, the big house on the hill had seemed oddly silent, empty, and hollow.

  "Where have the other guests gone?"

  Something screeched directly above her.

  She stared, looking up. There was a gray gull circling overhead.

  Diana shivered once again.

  She had come to Southern California a week earlier. It was the end of summer and David Palmer, her uncle, and one of her favorite people, was house-sitting for some friends who were touring Europe. Uncle Dave had invited her out.

  The house was large, all stucco and grill work and red tile. It nestled in the Santa Barbara hills, in the midst of palm trees, feathery ferns, and tangling vines.

  Uncle Dave had greeted her out in the patio.

  .Behind him a large sea-blue swimming pool glistened. "You've got time for a swim," he said, grinning at her. He was in his sixties, gray-haired, and not quite ten pounds overweight. He still wore the businesslike rimless spectacles he'd worn when he had been a police commissioner back East.

  "Time before what?" Diana ran a slender hand through her dark hair. She shrugged some of the travel stiffness out of her shoulders.

  "Big house like this," said her uncle, "plus all this outdoors to go with
it. Seems like a perfect setting for a party."

  "You mean you're planning a party for this afternoon?"

  "Unless you're too tired." He watched her face, an expectant smile on his. "I invited a few people over to meet my best-looking niece."

  Diana laughed. "You never give up, do you, Uncle Dave."

  "Meaning what?" He took off his glasses and polished them on the tail of his bright multicolored sport shirt.

  I'll bet you've got at least two, if not more, eligible young men on your guest list."

  "Well, I've been here a couple of months," said Uncle Dave. "And you know me, I'm always meeting people wherever I go. Now maybe there are a couple of single fellows among those who'll be popping in today."

  Diana nodded her head. "I'd like to meet all your new friends, Uncle Dave. A party sounds fine. I think I'll skip the swim and settle for a quick shower and some unpacking."

  Her uncle put his hand on her shoulder. "It's still the Phantom, I suppose?"

  "Yes," she answered. "It always will be."

  "I guess you know what you're doing," the old man said. "I have a great deal of admiration for him. How can you not admire a man like the

  Phantom, who's devoted himself completely to fighting against—well, I guess you'd have to call it evil. Still, though, Di, he is a loner. He has to be and I hate to see you. .

  Diana gave him a sudden hug. "Point me toward my room, will you? And don't worry about me.

  Her uncle returned the hug before leading her into the big sprawling house.

  She heard Chris Danton before she saw him. Diana, in a party dress, was in the middle of a cluster of people. Two of them were among Uncle Dave's selection of eligibles. A burly young man with close-cropped blond hair and very plaid pants was trying to explain football to her. Diana wasn't exactly sure if the close-cropped young man played it himself, or only watched it on television. The other man was a few years older, lean and fond of cigarette-size cigars. He was trying to tell her how to invest her money.

  "No, I think you'd like Bangalla," a deep voice said somewhere behind her. "Of all the countries on the dark continent, it's my favorite."

  "Well, we are looking for someplace, you know, a little different this time," said a woman with a plump voice. "Hulbert keeps wanting to go to Switzerland again, but, between you and me, I've had it with Switzerland."

  "Bangalla is quite different from Switzerland." The deep voice laughed. "I can guarantee you that."

  Bangalla was where the Phantom lived, far from civilization in the stretch of jungle known as the Deep Woods. Diana was interested in anyone who'd been there. "Excuse me," she said to the man with the little cigar. "We'll talk again before you leave," she told the football buff.

  "Whom should we see about arranging our trip, anyone special you can suggest?" The woman with the plump voice had a body to match. She was wearing a red-and-yellow-flowered shift, a wide- brimmed straw hat, and wraparound dark glasses. She had a cocktail in each hand.

  "Any travel bureau," answered the deep-voiced man. "You might talk directly to Bangalla Airways. They have an office here in Santa Barbara, I believe, and they're pleasant to deal with." He was tall and handsome in a slightly dated 'late-show" way. He had straight black hair, touched with gray, and a dark outdoor tan. At first, he seemed to be about forty-five, but somehow Diana got the feeling he was somewhat older than that. Noticing her, he grinned. "You're probably coming over to criticize me for not speaking to you sooner, Miss Palmer. You are the guest of honor, after all, but when I arrived you were surrounded. It was like moths around a flame."

  "Or salesmen around a prospect," said the girl.

  The plump woman said, "We haven't met either, dear. I'm Mrs. Hulbert Ruskin. That's my husband over across the pool, looking restless and wondering why I haven't brought him his drink. This gentleman is . . . what was your name again?"

  "Chris Danton," he said.

  That was how Diana met him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The silver cigarette case sparkled in the glow of the soft restaurant lights. "Join me?" Chris Dan- ton asked Diana as he opened the case.

  "No, thanks," she answered.

  It was three days since she'd met him and they were having dinner in a huge Mexican-style restaurant, in a multileveled room with many arches and much decorative tile on the floors and walls. Diana wasn't exactly sure if she liked Danton. She found him interesting, but thought that wasn't quite the right word, either. At any rate, it pleased her uncle to know she was dining out, dancing, going to the theater. Maybe that was the main reason she was doing it. Diana wasn't quite certain.

  Danton selected a cigarette, snapped the case shut. There was a drawing of a sea horse on the lid, etched in black. He saw she'd noticed it. "My talisman," he said.

  "A sea horse, isn't it?"

  "Right, yes, a sea horse," replied Danton with a smile. "I love the things, don't ask me why. Very fond of putting them on everything I own, sort of a trademark you might say. Been using it since I was a boy. Wait until you see my yacht, you'll notice—"

  "Yacht?" Diana laughed. "You hadn't mentioned that."

  "Haven't I? I must be getting modest as I grow older." He lit his cigarette by leaning toward the table candle. "At one point in my career, I would have told you about the yacht first thing. My yacht is named, as you may have guessed by now, the Sea Horse."

  Diana said, "I'd like to see it."

  "At the moment, it is somewhere between here and Acapulco," said the dark and handsome Dan- ton. He seemed to keep all the cigarette smoke inside himself and not exhale any of it. "I loaned it, along with my trusted crew, to some friends of mine. It should be home again within a week or so."

  "You mentioned your career," she said. "What is it exactly?"

  "Something very dull, Diana. Having to do with the import and export trade. I inherited the family business."

  "Were they Santa Barbara people?"

  Chuckling, Danton answered, "No, most of them were ruthless and unscrupulous South Americans. I grew up down there myself, in Argentina and Brazil chiefly." He decided to snuff out his cigarette in the adobe ashtray. "When did you say you were in Bangalla last?"

  "It's been over two years."

  "You know the most fascinating thing about Bangalla," said Danton. "And we never got around to discussing it the other day or since. It's the legend of the Phantom. Did you hear about this mysterious fellow when you were out there?"

  Looking at her folded hands, which were resting on the table, Diana answered, "Yes, I've heard of the Phantom."

  "Do you think he actually exists?" Danton asked her. "I roamed around in some of the less- settled parts of the country and I heard about this Phantom almost everywhere. Yet I never ran into anyone who'd actually seen him. I'm wondering if he isn't simply a mythological figure, entirely dreamed up."

  "He's red," Diana told him.

  Diana knew the Phantom better than anyone now alive. She had first met him when they were both children. She had been a skinny little girl then, living in the quiet city of Clarksville, Missouri. He had been Eat Walker, sent to America by his father to be educated. She couldn't remember now when she'd first known she was in love with him. It was sometime later, when she had grown into a pretty college girl, that she became aware that Kit loved her, too. But even then, his destiny hung over them, though she didn't know it. Eventually, he had to go back to Bangalla, back to the Deep Woods. When his father died he would become the Phantom. Finally, it happened and he had gone away. But not forever, the way she had first thought. No, she . . .

  "I said what makes you so certain?" Danton was repeating.

  Diana shook her head, smiling. She leaned back in her chair. "Oh, I don't have any proof really," she said to the handsome man across from her. "It's only a feeling I have."

  "It would be comforting to know there was at least one such fellow as the Phantom in the world," said Danton. "One runs into so few dedicated people. And now, let me change the subject onc
e again."

  "Please do."

  "I'm having a few friends out to the island this

  weekend," Danton told her. "I'd like you to join

  »

  us.

  Though she hadn't heard about the yacht until tonight, Diana knew all about the island. Both

  Danton and her Uncle Dave had told her about it. Danton had a long-term lease on one of the Channel Islands. This string ran along the Southern California shore, a few miles off the coast. The best known of the islands is Catalina. Danton's island was named San Obito and he had built an enormous house there on a bluff looking seaward.

  "Yes, that sounds like it might be fun," the girl said to him. "Does your house have a name, by the way?"

  Danton laughed again. "Of course," he said. "I call it Sea Horse Villa."

  The house rose three stories high. On the morning Diana first saw it, the sharp slanting roofs were blurred by the prickly ocean mist that hung over Chris Danton's private island. There were towers at both ends of the L-shaped house and on each of these was bolted a large wrought-iron sea horse. Mournful gray gulls wheeled and screeched in the foggy air, circling in over the big gray stone house and then out over the chill ocean again. They disappeared and reappeared in the swirls of mist.

  Diana had come over to San Obito with Danton and two other weekend guests in one of her host's two motorlaunches. Each launch had a small sea horse painted on the bow.

  "Very nice, very nice," said one of the guests, a thin man of thirty-five, as they climbed up the winding steps which had been cut out of the black cliffside. "Quite a spread."

  "Looks pretty gothic to me, Chris," said the thin man's rather pretty wife. "I expect to see a windblown girl wandering around up there carrying a candelabrum."

  "Who knows what you're liable to see before the

  weekend's over," said her host, laughing. "I do want to assure you, however, that the weather today is very uncharacteristic. Usually it's sunny and bright here."

  "That's what our real-estate man used to tell us about the place he stuck us with," said the thin man.