He heard Dale scream faintly, and then scuffling sounds indicated that the girl was being dragged along after him. Their captors were mad, angrily cursing Murdock and each other. This, however, didn’t prevent them from re-tying their prisoners.
Murdock groaned bitterly to himself. He knew perfectly well what was to become of the girl and himself. They were destined to become fish food.
The thought of dying wasn’t easy to take, but that, he supposed philosophically, was part of this dangerous game he had chosen to play. Though he could steel himself to meet his own death calmly enough, he could not resign himself to the fact that Dale was to die with him. She had no part in this game. He cursed himself mentally for letting her get mixed up in it in the first place.
Out along the narrow, rickety pier which jutted far out over the inky water the men carried the girl and the doctor. The footsteps of the four men beat with a hollow eerieness over the loose planking, like muffled drums. Every muscle in the Scar’s big body tensed as they arrived at the end of the pier and the two thugs holding him halted. Once, twice, they swung him and then let him go.
Far out over into the ebony-colored water he flew. He sucked a deep breath of air into his lungs just before he struck with a splash that almost burst his eardrums.
A coal-black waste engulfed him. He quickly collected his wits and struck out underwater with his tied feet.
During those last few steps along the pier, he had seen out of the corner of his eyes the hulk of a small craft moored to a floating buoy not more than a dozen yards off the end of the pier. That was where he headed now. If he could make it before the pressure of water fought its way into his lungs, there was a chance for Dale and himself.
He wriggled through the water inches below the surface like some strange fish, slashing his feet as though they were a tail. Battling with grim fury, he tried to close that distance before the precious air in his lungs gave out. Once the air went, the Purple Scar’s short career of fighting crime would be abruptly punctuated by death. Even worse, lovely Dale would never smile and laugh again.
His shoulder-blades brushed against something hard and unyielding. The boat!
He glided underneath and came up on the other side, where the thugs on the pier could not see him. He choked out water and drew in welcome air.
There was a sudden, loud splash. His heart sprang to his throat. It was Dale! They had thrown her into the river. She would surely drown if he did not get to her.
To the stern of the boat he writhed, dived and reached the knifelike blades of the propeller. Desperately he sawed the bonds on his wrists against the propeller’s edge. Just before his lungs gave out, he felt them part.
He didn’t bother to unlash his legs, but cut through the choppy black water to the spot where Dale had gone down. The thugs spied him as he rose to the surface for a fresh supply of air. Their guns began flaming and barking in the tarry silence, but the lead that spat made harmless little dull plops in the water.
Miles had dived again. Straight down to the bottom of the black river he went. He groped frantically with both hands through the ink, trying to find her. His lungs felt as if they would surely burst. His head pounded with the pressure of the water.
And then his fingers touched her!
He did not stop to untie her. Together they floated to the surface. And then, still underwater, he swam her to safety behind the boat.
He saw there was no sense in trying to speak to her. She was unconscious, tossing helplessly in his arm on the water. He listened and chanced a glimpse at the pier. The thugs were not there. He wondered why.
The answer screamed out of the night at him. A siren! The police had been attracted by the gunfire.
Somehow the Scar managed to reach up and grip the boat’s low railing. With his ebbing strength he pulled himself and the girl over the bulwark onto the deck.
A glance at the dull, livid color of her face gave him a terrible fright. He feared he had reached her too late, that she was already dead.
Hastily he untied her hands and feet, turned her over on her face and fought desperately to bring her back to life with artificial respiration.
A voice from a long, long distance hammered at Dale’s consciousness.
“Dale! Dale! Snap out of it, darling!”
Her eyes flickered and opened. The first thing that came into sharp relief was Doc Murdock’s wet, drawn face.
She reached up her arms to him weakly. He took hold of her and held her tightly, tenderly. She wasn’t quite sure whether she was alive or dead, nor did she care much, just so long as he held her like this, always.
He got her to shore and they had to walk a half a dozen blocks before they found a taxi. Even then the driver wasn’t enthusiastic about their getting into his cab and dripping all over it. But the magic of a five-dollar bill soon changed his mind.
Chapter XI
Death Walk
Unseen they returned to Doc’s house through the concealed alley at the rear. They changed into dry clothes and had hot drinks. Dale was so badly shaken up by her underwater ordeal that she willingly agreed to stay here and let Doc go on alone.
The river hadn’t left much of the Purple Scar’s disguise intact. Being human, for all his great strength and shrewdness, he had to learn by his mistakes. This experience had taught him the value of a disguise that could be removed only by himself.
“I’ll have to use the purple mask as a basic disguise,” he told Dale. “When its psychological effect is needed, it must be instantly available. Slipping it on and off is clumsy and undramatic. I’ll have to work out some other method.”
“Have you an idea?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, turning to his make-up materials. “I’ll show you soon.”
Working swiftly with clay, he fashioned a face that would not linger in any spectator’s memory. After hardening the clay with his special drier, he made a plaster of paris cast, prepared a solution of melted gum elastic and poured it into the mold.
While he was waiting for it to set, he took his purple mask out of the secret pocket in his coat. The men who had tried to drown him had not discovered it, though they had relieved him of his gun. He had to get another from the wall safe.
He put on the ghastly mask, removed the second one from its mold and slipped it over the corpse face.
“Why, it’s perfect!” Dale exclaimed. “You look like a — a salesman. I can’t see even a trace of the purple mask through it.”
“You can’t?” he asked solemnly. “I’ll have to remedy that.”
He suddenly snatched off the upper mask, revealing the face beneath in all its scarred horror. Dale had been expecting it, yet she gasped and recoiled.
When Doc left the studio, he felt he had accomplished something. He now had two suspects, Wisply and Condor, and one motive on which to work. But he still had not visited the man who probably held the key to this entire riddle — the lawyer, Chris Korpuli.
Korpuli was the connecting link between short and ugly Jerry Farrar and the man who paid to have John Murdock killed, for it was apparent now that Punchy Gus Martin had been merely a pawn in this game of death.
As Doc had reasoned back there in the courtroom, Martin did the actual killing, but the job came to him through Jerry Farrar, who in turn got it from someone else. Martin obviously never even knew why or for whom he was murdering, but Korpuli must know. It was up to the Purple Scar to make him tell whether he was working for Condor or Wisply.