Read Online Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain by Will Murray Lester Dent Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A

had perished, no trace of him was uncovered, either.
     He could not be identified by description. The crew had gone to great lengths to count
     all passengers. This they did twice.
    The results were reported to Long Tom Roberts by the ship’s purser.
    “We are short only one passenger.”
    “Emile Zirn?” Long Tom had hazarded.
    “Precisely.”
    “Three missing passengers, but only one can’t be accounted for?”
    “Correction. Three reported missing, but only one actually so.”
    “Doesn’t make sense,” said Long Tom, scratching his head.
    The purser spread his hands helplessly. “But there you have it.”
    And so Long Tom had gotten off to shed his Walter Brunk disguise. He hoped that by
     doing so he might flush out his quarry.
    As the Transylvania plowed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Aegean Sea on its way to the Black Sea, Long
     Tom prowled the decks and found exactly nothing.
    In his frustration, he managed to slip into the cargo hold. There, with the titan
     throb of the ship’s brawny engines ringing in his ears, he prowled among items ranging
     from mountainous sacks of mail to a flashy red roadster being shipped abroad. The
     slender electrical wizard found the latter unlocked, methodically examined its interior
     and trunk, all of which proved to be untenanted.
    Long Tom summed up the results of his painstaking searching with a low growl of disappointment.
     “Ahr-r-r!”
    On the last night before landfall, he heard the haunting strains again. It was coming
     from a distance. It was almost as if it were drifting out from the midnight waves.
     But he tracked it to A Deck just in time to hear the eerie chords trail away like
     the keening of a dying banshee.
    Long Tom stood watch for over two hours, hoping that the music would repeat. Reluctantly,
     he returned to his cabin disappointed in that respect.
    MORNING found the liner pulling into Pristav, Tazan. From a distance, the city showed
     qualities of the medieval and the modern. As the rising sun burned off a morning mist,
     more and more it seemed solidly twentieth century in its skyline.
    Long Tom could spy a castle on a knob of a hill. Tazan was a principality, and still
     ruled by royalty. Black funeral flags chattered in the wind. All visible national
     flags flew at half mast. The nation was still in mourning for their ruler, the former
     playboy prince, who had perished in the Arctic during the grim affair orchestrated
     by John Sunlight, whom Long Tom Roberts fervently wished moldered among the dead of
     history.
    When the gangplank was lowered, Long Tom stationed himself on the port rail where
     he watched every passenger disembark. He counted them carefully, for he had a hunch.
    As hunches went, it paid off beautifully—at first.
    As the last group of passengers crowded the top of the gangplank, bundled up against
     a biting winter wind, Long Tom counted and recounted their number. On the third recount,
     he was certain of his findings.
    The number of passengers who had left New York—including those who had either disembarked
     or boarded at Southampton—was the same! In other words, there was no missing passenger—never
     mind three!
    Long Tom shoved forward, began searching the faces. Many men wore their hats with
     the brims pulled down and not a few wore their overcoats with lapels lifted against
     the coastal winds. Recognizing individual faces was not an easy thing.
    But Long Tom had excellent eyes and soon spotted his man.
    It was Emile Zirn! He was stepping onto the gangplank. Zirn wore a Borsalino hat,
     wide brim pulled low. The generous collar of his camel hair overcoat stood up, not
     quite concealing his close-shaven cheeks. He toted only one item of luggage. It resembled
     a portable typewriter case, but was far bulkier in heft.
    Pointing, Long Tom shouted, “Stop that man!”
    Instead, two stewards rushed up to arrest Long Tom.
    He got disentangled from them and produced a business card—his real one. This brought