Кеннет Робсон - Death in Silver

The light bobbed astern, moored in place by the line and weight.

Monk took another bearing, then said, "We're right over the place where the first star was marked on that blueprint."

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Doc Savage stood up as the boat slackened speed. He lifted an apparatus which might have been mistaken for an oversized fish bowl and put it over his head.

It was a diving hood of a transparent composition infinitely stronger than glass and had the advantage of permitting vision on all sides. The helmet was a product of Doc's inventive genius. Its composition was vaguely akin to the common cellophane.

Inside the helmet was a receiver and microphone, these being connected to a tiny radio transmitter that was attached to a stout tool jacket which Doc now donned. The radio transmitter aerial was in one sleeve of the jacket, the receiving aerial in the other.

The receiving aerial was a loop. By pointing the arm in various directions, the position of another diver using one of the transmitters could be ascertained.

Doc switched on the radio — which was waterproof — and twirled the wavelength knob. He got major broadcasting stations, amateurs, very shortwave stuff … then a sudden, earsplitting moan.

He waited tensely. The moancame again.

The sound was the radio compass station operated by the Government. Doc searched on down until he found a clear band, then gave Monk the wavelength figure.

Monk — who had lifted another radio transmitter-receiver combination from a box — tuned to the same wave.

Doc stepped overside. The heavy lead shoes pulled him down with a gurgling rapidity.

"Cruise above this spot," Doc directed Monk. "Better shut off your motor, douse all lights, and use the oars. You can hold your position with the oars alone."

"Sure," said Monk. "Keep me posted on what you find."

The two-way radio functioned perfectly, a fact that did not displease Doc because this was the first time he had been able to test it and the transparent helmet under actual diving conditions.

Inset in the helmet side — low down where it did not interfere with vision — was a watch-shaped depth gauge calibrated in feet. It was marked with luminous paint. Doc watched the hand crawl around.

The pressure did not greatly hamper his powerful body. The water at this point was not excessively deep. Patent "lungs" of conventional type kept breathable air in the helmet.

When he was near the bottom, Doc switched on a powerful waterproof searchlight.

He hit bottom and mud clouded up around him. By pointing the arm containing the receiver loop upward, he located Monk's transmitter. It was a bit upstream. Doc walked in that direction, sweeping the river bottom with his band searchlight.

He almost missed it.The thing was drifted over with mud. And only the clank of the lead diving shoes against the metal cover disclosed its presence. Doc picked it up, washed it off, and studied it.

He held in his arms a metal box something over a foot square. It had thickly soldered seams to render it waterproof.

"Lower a line," Doc directed Monk.

A moment later, a weighted line came snaking down. Doc grasped the end and was hauled upward.

"So you got it," Monk chuckled when they were both in the speedboat.

"Yes," Doc told him. "And I believe we have our hands on the whole secret."

The bronze man employed a screwdriver to thrust into one of the soldered seams. Prying, he gradually tore the metal box open. Inside was a soft black composition of the type used to fill automobile spark coils. Doc carefully dug into this.

He uncovered scattered wires, then a coil, and finally the rounded glass top of a vacuum tube.

Upstream, the light he had left afloat made a pale blur in the darkness. Doc worked low in the boat cockpit, his own light painstakingly sheltered. Down in the bay, two tugboats were hooting at each other. Their own boat was drifting.

"What do you make of it?" Monk asked anxiously.

"Well," Doc began. "It seems,, "

Monk had stood erect to look over Doc's shoulder. But now he flopped flat in the cockpit as a piercing whistle sounded overhead!

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There was a flash! It seemed to come from some distance down the river. Another, much brighter flash followed it — that one from up the river. Then came 2 ear-splitting roarswhich blended, intermingling until they became one whooping tumult!

A great geyser of water lifted where Doc had left the floating light. Bilious water pushed away from the spot in a wall that boiled down upon the speedboat.

The craft was caught broadside. It lifted and turned completely over.

Clutching lifelines, Doc and Monk remained with the boat. And the craft — because of its design — came upright again.

Everything loose — including the mysterious box on which Doc had been working — was gone from the cockpit. A full 6 inches of water sloshed in the bottom of the boat.

Doc lunged for the instrument panel, thumbed a button, and the big motors in their waterproof compartment moaned into life. A stroke of a lever set pumps to work emptying the shallow cockpit. No ordinary boat was this but one with such peculiar qualities of efficiency that the naval experts were considering its design for creating a fleet of light coastal defense speedsters.

"That was a shell!" Monk gulped. "Boy, I've heard too many of them things whistle to be mistaken."

Doc said grimly, "Fired from downstream, too. The sound from the gun reached us just before the shell detonated. It was aimed at that decoy light we left floating."

Doc had the speedboat controls now. The craft lifted its snout out of the water and knifed downstream.

Clambering forward, Monk wrenched at a hatch and a mechanical tripod lifted a gun into view. The weapon fired shells no more than an inch in diameter. But they were armor-piercing, high-explosive slugs which could sink a destroyer if carefully placed.

Monk hunkered behind the piece, waiting.

The homely chemist had no idea what manner of craft they might encounter. But any antagonist armed with a cannon was formidable! He wondered how it happened that they had not heard the motors of the enemy.

Monk found cause for fresh wonder when they passed over the spot from which the gun flash of the foe had come … and found nothing!

Doc curved the fast boat in a narrow circle. Still, there was nothing. He described a wider circuit with the same negative results. Twice more, he went around. Then he cut the motors, and both he and Monk listened.

The only sound was the noise of a loud motor upstream and a bit later a siren wail from the same source. This identified an approaching police boat.

Monk squinted in Doc's direction, moistened his lips, then growled, "Well, only one thing can explain it."

"Yes," Doc agreed. "That shell was fired from a submarine — fantastic as the idea seems."

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Rapid Pace and Hugh McCoy leaped to their feet when Doc Savage and Monk entered the Receptionroom of Doc's skyscraper Headquarters .

"Any word of Lorna? Miss Zane?" McCoy asked anxiously.

"Yes," Pace echoed. "Any word?"

"No," Doc said. "Is Ham back?"

Pace nodded at the Librarydoor.

"In there. He told us to stay out. Said he did not want to be bothered."