Dale put her slim fingers on his forearm. There was a slight catch in her voice as she said:
“Please be careful.”
He put his hands on her slender shoulders and looked deep into her lovely eyes. Forcing off the impulse to kiss those tremulous red, inviting lips was almost beyond his strength, but he knew that was not for him now. Until he had avenged his brother’s ghastly death and smashed the wave of crime that threatened to engulf the city in a river of blood, he could not dare to fall in love. That must wait until the end of his mission.
Resolutely he turned and went through the rear door, which led into an alley that ended a block away. The builders of this house, a famous family that preferred privacy to the publicity that constantly overwhelmed them, had constructed the alley as an escape from hounding reporters. In the past, Miles had also used it for the same purpose, when insistent visitors refused to stop annoying him. But now it would enable him to come and go in secret, giving the enemy no chance to identify Doc Murdock and the Purple Scar as the same man.
It was seven P.M. and dark. Tommy Pedlar, huddled in a dark, vacant doorway only a few blocks from the tenement in which he lived, saw a man walking slowly up the street. He paid no heed. People had gone past him all afternoon and evening. But this one ducked into the darkness in which Tommy was hiding and asked abruptly:
“Do you have a match, Mr. Pedlar?”
For an instant Tommy was frightened. Then, when he realized, he blurted in amazement:
“Doc, it can’t be you! How the devil did you do it — with mirrors?”
“Only one mirror,” the Scar corrected. “What happened?”
Tommy indicated the rooming house directly across the way.
“Martin’s still camped in there. I’ve been on his tail ever since he left the courtroom, just like you told me to, in case the jury brought in the wrong verdict. He came straight home. I don’t know whether he got any calls or not, but he ain’t left the house since he went in.”
“Thanks, Tommy. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me. By the way, you’re not going to tend furnaces any longer. You’ll be working for me. And Janie’ll get away from these slums for good.”
Tommy grinned sheepishly.
“Forget it, Doc. You done more for me and Janie than we’ll ever be able to pay back.”
“We won’t argue now. I’ll take over. If I’m here all night, be back first thing in the morning. Sooner or later he’s coming out. When he does, he’s going to march to the party or parties who hired him and we’re going to be right behind him. At least one of us is.”
“Okay, Doc,” Tommy agreed.
Pulling the brim of his hat down almost to his eyes, he slipped from the shadowy doorway and sauntered away.
For almost two solid hours, Doc hid in the narrow doorway, waiting for Punchy Gus Martin to show. A cop came along and it was only through a bit of super-salesmanship that he convinced the bluecoat he was waiting for his wife.
By nine-thirty, it looked as if this vigil were to be in vain. Punchy Gus Martin seemed determined to stay in the house for the remainder of the night.
Doc would have relished going in and trying to beat the right answers out of the slap-happy one. After watching him in the courtroom, though, Doc had more than a halfway hunch that Martin wouldn’t talk, no matter how much drubbing he took. The burly ape was probably not courageous, but simply immune to punishment.
Suddenly the downstairs door of the house across the way opened. Instantly Doc pressed back against the side of the black doorway. He watched around the corner of the building, the breath stopped in his throat, hoping.
A man came out, a big man with powerfully broad shoulders and dangling arms. It was Punchy Gus Martin. Looking cautiously up and down the dark street, as if forewarned that he might be followed, the burly thug turned up his coat collar, tugged down his hat and hurried up the street.
Doc slipped from the doorway. He, too, glanced around to make sure this wasn’t just a trap. Then he followed at a safe distance.
Punchy Gus walked three blocks to the bus line. After waiting a couple of minutes, he boarded the first bus that came along, marked “Red Point.”
Doc didn’t follow Punchy Gus Martin into the bus. Instead he hailed a cruising cab.
“Keep behind that bus,” he instructed the driver. “Stop when it stops.”
The cabbie didn’t ask questions. He touched the peak of his cap, slapped down the flag on the meter and flew in pursuit of the big yellow-and-orange bus.
The bus made several stops, but Punchy Gus Martin did not get off. Through the rear window of the bus, Doc could see Martin’s big head bobbing back and forth like a huge, black float.
Doc started in surprise as the bus headed across the bridge which led to Red Point. Red Point was an island just across the river from Akelton. It was part of the city, but Akelton had previously been ashamed of that fact.
On the east shore, Red Point faced the ocean. For years it had been a desolate, uninviting marshland. Recently, however, the State had decided to convert it into a public beach. There would be a ten-million-dollar boardwalk erected, facing the ocean. Even though ground had been broken on the site, it was still a deserted place after dark.
Doc couldn’t for the life of him imagine why Gus Martin could be going there. He was still trying to find the answer as they roared over the bridge. A bus whizzed past them. The windows were too high and the bus was going too fast to be able to see how many people were in it. That was all the traffic they met all the way over.
The last stop the bus made was about an eighth of a mile from the bridge. It wasn’t really a terminal, just a shack to protect passengers from the elements while waiting for the bus.
Doc told the taxi driver to pull up a distance from the shack. He paid him off and sent the vehicle rolling on its way back to the city.
Doc walked the rest of the way to where the bus had discharged its few passengers, squatters and workmen who lived in a squalid little settlement to the south, alongside the river.
Gus Martin didn’t go that way. He kept following the twisting dirt road due east, toward the ocean side, where they had already started to drain water off the marshlands. Off in the darkness, Doc could make out the tall dredges and cranes, standing out against the night like grim, silent giants.
It was a good half-mile walk across to the other side of the island. Doc could feel the difference in the air blowing in from the ocean. It was tangy, crisp, salty.
Gus Martin continued sloughing through the heavy, wet sand. Doc’s curiosity was mounting with leaps and bounds. Where was Gus Martin heading? Who or what could possibly be out in this abandoned wilderness? There was not a house, not a light, only makeshift, deserted shacks jutting up here and there out of the marshy sand.
All at once a thin pencil of light cut through the blackness. Doc could see Punchy Gus Martin let out reefs in his stride. Doc quickened his pace, too. The light came from the window of one of the shacks.
Punchy Gus Martin headed straight for the door. He banged heavily with his big fist. The door opened quickly and the burly criminal vanished inside.
Doc advanced stealthily. His feet made eerie, gushy sounds in the cuppy suction of the wet sand. In various spots the light from the window slanted off shallow puddles of water, making them patches of yellow in the dimness.
Doc finally reached the window. The shade was drawn, but he could see under it, between the bottom of it and the sill.
The room was lighted by an oil lamp that stood on a rough wood table. There were a cot and a couple of chairs. Provisions lined the cupboard shelves.