Chapter XIII

75

STRANGE FISH

Wildness had come into Johnny's voice. A frenzy.

“You remember that knife of yours had a sheath? The knife that was used to kill Porter, I mean.”

“Yes. It's missing—”

“Sure it's missing. I've got it. I'll plant it on Bill Hazel's body. Give me some more of your stuff, moccasins or something. I'll plant them on Hazel. You can say Hazel framed you.”

“That might not work. They may not believe it.”

“With Hazel's police record? When they find out Hazel was a traitor to the Nazis? Listen, they'll believe anything against him.”

Johnny Toms said, “All right.” He moved around. “The tank is here. I'll get it.”

At this point, Doc Savage did one of the hardest things he had ever done. His eyes weren't doing him any good in the darkness anyway. His ears would be more help. He put an eye to the slit in the curtain—his hand had been keeping the spot covered so that the bit of light wouldn't show from it. The light inside Johnny Toms' cabin was very pale anyway. From a reading lamp over which Toms had tossed a folded sheet, Doc discovered.

Toms was on his knees on the floor. He had a short iron rod with a complicated arrangement of iron on one end—a branding iron—and was prying up the floor. The boards were evidently loose, because they came up readily.

He brought up a fish shipping tank. Not the one he had shown Doc. This one was larger, more elaborate. And foreign−made.

Toms handed the case to the fat man. “This is it.”

The fat man scowled at the case for a moment. Then he began to rip and pry at it.

“It's got to be in the base,” he said. He kept twisting, rending. “Yes. Look.”

He had torn open the solid−looking base. He brought out a reel of film. Eight millimeter stuff. Home movie size. It was a four−hundred foot reel, and four hundred feet of 8−mm. home movie was quite a lot of picture.

The fat man held the end of the film to the light. “This is it,” he said.

“You sure?” Johnny Toms asked.

“Positive.”

“Then I better tell you something,” Johnny Toms said.

“Eh?”

“Earlier tonight, I brought Doc Savage out here. I told him how I got hold of the fish and the tank. I showed him the other tank, the one I bought in Tulsa, and told him it was the real one. That was where I made my mistake, showing Savage the fake tank.”