Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray Page A

said, “Shut off the juice to the visitor’s lift!”
    “Will do, sir.”
    Then a bang came over the phone wire, followed by two more bangs, a shout, and curse in the electrician’s voice.
    “Hell’s bells!” the electrician snarled a moment later. “There’s a guy with a gun in there watching the switchboard. He’s masked. Wait a minute! He just lit out of here like his pants were on fire!”
    Hanging up, Monk called the lobby and absorbed the unwelcome news that their courtly assailant had exited the building.
    He ran out to join Pat at the special lift, growling,“They had it all figgered out. And that makes two of them, at least.”
    “Your trick rug didn’t go so hot, huh?” Pat asked.
    “Maybe,” admitted Monk, rubbing his stomach gingerly. “But my bulletproof vest sure saved my bacon.”
    Halting, Monk stooped and picked up the cane which the Continental visitor had dropped. The examination he gave it was low and careful.
    The cane barrel—hollowed out—yielded an ingenious mechanism consisting of a cylinder of compressed air, a valve which could be turned on by twisting the head of the cane, so that compressed air would feed into a tiny sprayer chamber. Monk noted the presence of a bilious liquid in the chamber, where it could be shot from the cane end.
    “Sulfuric acid,” he said thoughtfully. “It would have done a swell job of blinding me. You, too.”
    “Then maybe I was wrong about the rug,” Pat admitted sheepishly. “It saved your eyesight, or Doc’s, had he been around.”
    Monk finally got his breathing organized. “Come on, Pat. Maybe we can still get a line on ’em!”
    Down at the switchboard, the girl described two men, one masked by a handkerchief tied around his lower face, the other was the would-be assassin.
    Both had fierce sunburns. The girl gave a good description of them. So did the doorman. A taxicab had taken them away. Oddly, Monk accepted this datum without disappointment.
    “What do lobster-red hands mean?” Monk asked Pat when he was back in the office. “Remember, it’s almost winter here. Sunburn ain’t likely.”
    Pat considered. “Dishwashing?” she ventured.
    “No good.”
    “Chemical burns?”
    Monk shook his head. “Naw. I’ve been plenty burned by chemicals. It wasn’t that.”
    “The tropics, then,” hazarded Pat.
    “That’s an idea,” muttered Monk. “It might mean they had enough dough to go south. Only a scorching sun would peel a man that way.”
    Within the hour, a desk phone buzzed. Monk scooped it up.
    “Yeah? Great! Thanks.” The apish chemist replaced the instrument. “We got a line on them.”
    “How?”
    “Doc has this guy working for him, one of the graduates of our ‘college.’ He’s usually stationed in the cab stand outside the building, for things like this. The two hired him and they went out to Long Island. The cabby just gave me the dang address.” 2
    “Swell! What are we waitin’ on?”
    Monk made simian faces. They were comical in the extreme.
    “I’ll ring Ham in on this,” he decided, reaching for the telephone.
    “The more the merrier,” Pat said brightly.
    “Nix! Doc’ll chew me out if I let you tag along,” protested Monk.
    Pat pouted prettily. “Doc doesn’t have to know.”
    “If you get injured, or worse, it’ll be my neck,” Monk pointed out.
    He had the telephone receiver in hand again and said, “Shyster, meet us here at headquarters.” Monk gave an address. Pat, being no slouch, made a mental note of it.
    “We can get there faster in my racing plane,” hinted Pat after the apish chemist hung up.
    Interest registered on Monk’s simian features. “How many does it seat?”
    “Two.”
    “Swell. Ham and I will borrow it.”
    “In that case,” Pat countered snippily, “forget it. I’ll meet you there, and may the best man win.”
    “Aww, Pat,” said Monk.
    But pretty Pat Savage was already out the door.

Chapter IX
    THE SOUTH AMERICA TREND
    PAT SAVAGE KEPT her racing plane