Dent Lester - Trouble On Parade

She eyed him. He decided there was a good deal of seriousness in her gaze. The realization hit him suddenly.

“There is,” she said, “a passenger airliner due in here from Boston at 6 o'clock. It stays here one hour while they refuel and check things. Then it goes back to Boston.”

He didn't comment.

“Anyone with half his marbles,” she said, “would catch that plane back to Boston.”

“Is that a warning?”

She nodded grimly.

“You bet it is!”

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

There was a comfortable chrome and red leather chair in the cockpit. And Doc Savage sank into this, feeling an abrupt need to relax and think for he was more confused than he had expected to be. He was also bothered by the conviction that this quarrelsome girl was quite worried about him. Or worried about something, at least. He decided to ask some questions that would straighten out a little of the surface confusion.

He said, “You answered to the name of 'Walden'.”

“And why not?” she asked curtly.

“Also to the name of Jane.”

“I'm Jane Walden. Say! You are light on mentality, aren't you?”

He pretended not to notice this insult and remarked, “I recently encountered a young lady who possessed certain characteristics of voice and disposition similar to yours. She gave her name as Mix Walden.”

“My kid sis,” said Jane.

“I see,” Doc Savage said, noticing a flash of emotion (which he took to be alarm) in Jane's eyes. “That would account for the similarity between you.”

“Don't,” said Jane, “fool yourself about that similarity.”

“Eh?”

“It's only on the surface. Under the skin, we're nothing alike.”

The distress in Jane's eyes — which she was trying to conceal — disturbed Doc Savage sufficiently that he moved his gaze to the shore a few yards distant where the thick cultivated shrubbery stood completely motionless in the abnormally bright and still air.

“I think you're worried about your sister,” he said.

“That's right,” Jane said bluntly.

“Why?”

“Because she's my sister. And because we're nothing alike if you can get the difference through your head. Mix likes trouble. I don't. Mix never worries. I do. Mix is always getting involved in something violent. I never do.”

“Is Mix involved in something violent now?”

“I'm afraid she is.”

“What is it?”

“I don't know.”

Doc Savage frowned at her and asked, “Is that the truth?”

She pounced on this as if she had been seeking something to get angry about and snapped, “That's enough out of you, you big bunch of muscles! I do you a favor and get called a 'liar'. Which is about the thanks I expected. But I don't like it. And I've decided I don't like you. And I'm not going to waste my time on you.

"Get off this boat! If you've got half-a-sense — which I doubt — you'll catch that Boston plane. Or stay if you want to and get into more trouble than you can handle. Suit yourself. Either way, I wash my hands of you. So go away! Beat it!”

“I would prefer,” Doc said, “to discuss matters farther.”

“You would, would you!” she exclaimed, her anger flaring. “I'll see about that.”

She drew back into the sumptuous cabin but reappeared almost immediately grasping a broom — which she flourished — saying, “Get off this boat or I'll whale you good!”

“You're not,” Doc said, “doing this very gracefully. I think you are so worried that it is making your style crude.”

She didn't say anything more. He immediately concluded she was going to swat him with the broom. So he stood up hastily, facing the shore with the idea of escape.

It was a move which possibly saved his life.

He discovered a man — a darkly sun-baked small-faced man who was a complete stranger — leaning partially through a shrub to aim carefully with a revolver. Doc flopped down in the cockpit.

The gun's voice was astonishingly loud! On his side, Doc saw frightened birds leave the trees. He didn't exactly distinguish the bullet sound from the gun roar. But he didn't ponder about that. He was convinced the shot was meant for him. He crawled into the boat cabin. Jane stood frozen with broom upraised, and he shoved her ahead of him sprawling into the cabin.

“Lie flat on the floor,” he advised. “I think the waterline will then be sufficiently above us to give protection. These express boats are heavy and sit rather deeply in the water.”

He thought — because of the extreme wordless horror she was registering — that she had not knowingly decoyed him for a bushwhacking.

There was a rich carpet on the cabin floor. Finely woven and with a deep pile. But not — as Doc Savage fervently wished were the case — possessing a nap 2 feet deep and made of bulletproof steel.

He wondered if he were wrong about the waterline being high enough outside to form a parapet. He got no pleasure from the thought. There was not much else on his mind for a moment-or-so since being shot at was an effective thought-suspender.

This was certainly not the first time in his life he had been shot at. But he was far from accustomed to it. He had heard soldiers say that it was possible to accept being shot at as a natural thing. Almost. If you were exposed to enough of it. But he strongly doubted this. He could hear a frightened seagull squalling.

“Aren't you,” Jane asked, “going to do anything?”

He glanced at her, for a moment thinking she was unconcerned. But he saw she wasn't. She looked as shocked as he felt.

“I'm doing it now,” he said. “Is there a bilge in this thing big enough to crawl into?”

She shook her head … then examined him with what seemed to be surprise.

“So you're the 'famous' Doc Savage I've been hearing about,” she remarked. “The notable Man of Bronze , the terror of crooks, righter of wrongs, punisher of evildoers.”

He was irked by her disapproval.

“I'm wary of many things. Several of them being bullets,” he informed her.

He didn't like the way she said “Obviously.”

“Was that fellow a pal of yours?” he demanded.

“I didn't see him.”

“He had a small face, brown hair, a very dark sunburn, and shoots left-handed.”

“I don't know him,” she said.

He was positive this was not true.

“Aren't you going to fight back?” she asked uneasily.

He shook his head.

“This boat presents a wonderful target. And the dock is even more conspicuous. A blind man with a paddle could hit anyone who tried to go from here to shore on the dock. No thanks.”

He imagined the sniper had already fled since the shot had made a conspicuous amount of noise in the hotel grounds. But he did not intend to thrust any part of his person outside to test his theory.

He began wondering what would be the best method of extracting the truth — of which he was convinced she had withheld a considerable amount — from Jane.

He had the same urge he'd had toward Mr. Flinch, the hotel manager. To grasp her firmly by the throat and see what violence would fetch out. But he was restrained by an aversion to beating a female, although she might deserve it.

No one in Yarmouth, he reflected, seemed to be telling him whole truths!

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Eventually there were voices on shore which he identified as belonging to hotel employees. He ventured out on deck whereupon the hotel people — a waiter and a clerk of some sort — approached and asked, “Did someone fire a shot?”