A three-lung oil stove stood in the corner.
Across the table from Punchy Gus Martin sat a man only about half his size, yet he looked even uglier than the far from attractive giant. It seemed to Doc that he had seen him some place before, but he could not remember when.
Short-and-Ugly held a fat wad of bills in his hand. Obviously it was the pay-off. He counted out a neat pile and pushed it toward Punchy Gus. The big thug frowned down at the money and then at the little man before him.
“What’s the idea?” he demanded. “I was to get five hundred bucks for keepin’ my trap shut.”
“The boss is in a tight spot right now,” said Short-and-Ugly. “You’ll get it later, but right now you’ll have to take two hundred.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rage was visibly boiling into Punchy Gus’ frowning countenance. “I’m fed up with this cheap stuff. I just had my neck in the noose, see? I don’t go through that kind for nobody and then get done outa my dough. You’re tellin’ me who the boss is and then takin’ me to him. Don’t forget they’d still like to find out who ordered that flatfoot plugged.”
There was a disturbing hiss beside Doc’s foot. At first it sounded like a snake, but Doc knew that snakes weren’t to be found in these parts. He bent over to find out what it was. On the edge of a shallow pool of water were several thin layers of dry ice!
He had no chance to find out any more about the ice. Inside the shack there was a sudden and sharp explosion that shattered the stillness of the night. The impact jarred Doc off his feet.
Chapter VIII
Condor
Bracing himself, Miles Murdock looked through the window of the shack. The lamp had been upset and had caught fire to the dry wood floor. What he saw in its bright glow appalled him. The two men, who only a brief second ago had been wrangling about money, were now decapitated corpses, blown to pieces by a terrific explosion that must have occurred directly between them.
Doc knew it would take several moments before anyone could get here, so he dived to the door and burst inside the burning shack. An odd stench greeted his nostrils. He recognized it, but he had no time to identify it in the confusion of this awful moment.
The interior of the shack was almost completely demolished. The chairs and table were smashed, the provisions scattered everywhere. A huge section of the floor was fiercely burning.
Doc began beating out the flames. When he finally extinguished the fire, he shot the beam of his pencil flash at the smaller of the two men. Short-and-Ugly’s face was beyond recognition, his clothes hanging to his mangled form by threads. Punchy Gus Martin looked even more horrible.
Then it struck Doc how uncannily similar was this explosion to the murder of old Mrs. Small. The condition of the bodies was identical, and the mysterious source of the explosion. Both had also seemed isolated to small areas.
Careful not to get blood on his own clothing, Doc fished through Short-and-Ugly’s shredded garments. If anything had been inside the torn pockets of the coat, it had been entirely destroyed. But in the right trouser pocket was a handful of change, a combination jack-knife and bottle opener, a rabbit’s foot, a miniature horseshoe and a small, cheaply-made lead medallion.
Doc recognized the medallion by its crude inscription. Peter de Gaul sold them to his people as “protective medals.” He peddled them with the claim that whoever wore them would meet with no harm. It was just another medium of extorting pennies from the destitute, upon whom de Gaul preyed, for this one certainly hadn’t done Short-and-Ugly a lot of good, nor had his other good luck charms.
Doc wasn’t particularly concerned about the medallion, except that it answered one question. He remembered now where he had seen Short-and-Ugly. The thug had been a derelict who used to flop in the cellar of Peter de Gaul’s mission. That meant de Gaul would certainly know who he was, maybe even something about his affiliations. Doc turned off his flash, jumped erect and sprang to the door. Through the darkness outside, he could see dim figures approaching. Men and women from Squattersville, over on the river bank, had been drawn by the din of the explosion, which had rolled like thunder out across the wasteland. That meant he must get away from this place fast.
Through the door he went, racing in the direction of the bridge, his feet fairly flying over the sand. He covered the distance in a matter of a few minutes. The bridge was just ahead of him when suddenly the wailing of police sirens halted him in his tracks!
“Police from Akelton,” he muttered.
In those few moments someone must have summoned them, which meant Doc’s way across the bridge, the only exit from this island, was blocked! He couldn’t possibly leave without being found out and implicated. Red Point had suddenly turned into a trap!
Back off the road he ducked, out of the rays of the carlights sweeping over the bridge and roaring past toward the scene of destruction. Doc waited a moment to gather his senses. He couldn’t stay here long. Sooner or later that taxi driver would reveal that he had brought a mysterious passenger over from Akelton. And they’d beat the marshes until they found him.
There was the river, of course, and Doc was a powerful swimmer. But expert as he was, he wouldn’t even consider bucking that tide for that great distance.
Then an inspiration came to him.
Quickly he removed his disguise, the wax from his gums, the pallor from his face. He washed out the grease in his hair in a puddle of water.
He stayed hidden in the shadow of a cluster of reeds for about fifteen minutes, then ventured forth.
He hurried down the roadway and back to the shack where the explosion had occurred. Spotlights and headlights from the prowl cars illuminated the scene like a bizarre carnival. An ambulance and a big green emergency truck had also arrived. Police, reporters and island inhabitants were clustered about.
Someone saw Doc Murdock coming along the roadway and called him a stranger, whereupon two harness bulls pressed through the onlookers and nailed him.
“Who’re you?” one demanded.
“Where did you come from?” the other added.
“I’m Doctor Miles Murdock,” he answered quietly. “Just received an emergency call to hurry out here.”
One of the cops shot the beam of his light into the plastic surgeon’s face for a closer look. Recognition showed in his eyes.
“What screwball called you out here, Doc? You’d have to be more than a plastic surgeon to patch up the two birds inside. You’d have to be a magician.”
They took Doc into the house. The lamp had been set on the shattered table and relighted. There were two interns, a couple of reporters and a handful of cops in the shack, making it too crowded for comfort. The peculiar odor that had eluded Doc was gone now.
One of the men on the job was Lieutenant Riordon, a good friend of Dan Griffin’s. He knew Doc.
Miles told the lieutenant about the phantom call which he insisted brought him out here. Thanks to his irreproachable reputation, no one even questioned the veracity of his statement.
“Know who either of them might be?” Doc asked innocently.
“No,” Riordon replied with characteristic briskness. “Have to be a jigsaw puzzle expert to answer that one. Maybe the fingerprint gang’ll be able to find something when they get here.”
“Any idea how it happened?”
Riordon shrugged his wide shoulders.
“There’s dynamite in one of the shacks at the far end of the island. It’s used to sink the foundations for the boardwalk. Maybe these two were cookin’ up a job and sort of mosied up there and ‘borrowed’ a little.”