“Listen, Skipper!” pleaded Lieutenant Pennington, seizing Don Winslow’s
arm. “Maybe this guy, Count Borg, isn’t nuts; but _I’m_ gonna be if you
keep on doin’ and sayin’ things that don’t make sense! First you get an
earful of hot dope from Corba, and start actin’ mysterious. Then you get
chummy with a dangerous enemy agent. He raves and hollers like a maniac;
so you decide he isn’t crazy but only thinks he is. Now you unlock his
handcuffs, and tell him what happened to him back in nineteen
thirty-three just as if you’d seen it. Have a heart, Skipper! My
anchor’s draggin’ and I’m goin’ aground fast. If you won’t tell me....”
“Belay, sailor!” laughed Don. “You’ll get the whole yarn in due time.
Right now, suppose you go hunt up Michael Splendor and Captain Riggs.
Say I’ll meet you all in the captain’s quarters about fifteen minutes
from now to talk over something of the highest importance. Tell Mercedes
to come along, too.”
Nodding glumly, Red Pennington moved to the door.
“I’ll tell ’em,” he replied. “But you’d better break it to them a lot
easier than you’ve done to me. I’m driftin’ onto an uncharted coast, and
my compass has gone sour on me!”
The moment Red had gone, Don Winslow turned to Count Borg.
“There’s no time now to explain everything, Count,” he said tersely.
“You must simply take my word for the moment, and believe that we mean
to help you out of your present strange predicament. The facts are
briefly these:
“In the past seven years you have been associated with a criminal
organization which threatens the peace of many countries. This morning,
you were piloting a plane which was captured with two others, during an
attempt to destroy a United States Navy gunboat. You are now aboard that
same gunboat under arrest for conspiracy.”
“But I remember nothing of that!” protested Count Borg, with a look of
keen distress. “If what you say is true, I must have lost my reason, as
well as my memory, during those years which are now a blank. I am not
naturally a criminal. You must believe that, Commander—er—”
“Winslow,” nodded Don. “I am inclined to believe you, Count, and to test
your good faith, I shall ask you to help, so far as you can, in tracking
down your former criminal associates. Are you willing to co-operate with
the Navy in this fight before your case comes to trial?”
“Of course, Commander Winslow!” exclaimed Borg, rising to grasp Don’s
hand. “I’ll be grateful for any chance to undo the damage of those
criminal years, when I was not myself! But, tell me, what on earth can I
do to help, without a memory?”
“First,” answered Don Winslow with an enigmatic smile, “you can shave
off your moustache!”
In the meantime a curious and impatient group awaited Don Winslow’s
appearance in Captain Riggs’ cabin. To while away the minutes, Mercedes
and Red discussed the recent air battle, and the disappointment of the
Navy fliers in arriving too late for the scrap.
“They did accomplish one thing, though,” put in Captain Riggs. “That big
bomber they call a flying fortress brought us a couple of new parts for
our anti-aircraft guns. The gunner and his mates are mounting them now,
so we’ll not be helpless against another attack between here and
Port-au-Prince. Not that the Scorpion is likely to strike again so
soon!”
“I quite agree with ye, Captain!” said Michael Splendor. “We’ll be in
port by nightfall, and from there 'tis but a short run by motorcar to my
villa in the hills. Our friends can rest safely there and enjoy
themselves, until orders come from Washington.... By the way, did you
say the pilot of that seaplane was called Count Borg?”
“That’s what the guy called himself, Mr. Splendor,” replied Red,
disgustedly. “Don seemed to believe him, but I’d think twice before
takin’ the word of a nut like that. He sure was raving!”
“Was he, now?” murmured the cripple with a sly wink. “Indeed,
Lieutenant, I should say a man with a bullet dent in his skull might be
excused for a bit of ravin’. However, if the man is Count Borg, I can
tell you something about him. He is one of the aces in Scorpia’s evil
organization—a man of great resource and daring and very useful to his
chief. I have never seen him, personally, but while I was a captive of
Cho-San and his fiendish master, I heard Borg’s name mentioned
frequently.”
“If he’s one of their 'key’ men,” put in Mercedes, “his capture is going
to put a crimp into the Scorpion’s style, isn’t it, Mr. Splendor?”
“We’ve already put quite a crimp into the Scorpion’s style, bad 'cess to
him!” snorted the man in the wheel chair. “In the last thirty-six hours,
we have seized some of his most valuable inventions, blown up his
submarine base, arrested three of his agents aboard this ship, foiled
his plans to destroy the _Gatoon_, shot down three of his fast bombing
planes, and captured five members of their crews alive. That does not
mean, however, that we have crippled his power for evil! Men and
machines can be replaced, for Scorpia’s wealth is immense. No, me
friends! We have struck no vital blow as yet; but I’m thinkin’, perhaps,
through this Count Borg.... Ah, Commander! I was wonderin’ when ye would
join us and tell us what ye’ve found out.”
Turning about, he motioned the newcomer to the empty chair beside that
of Captain Riggs. Red Pennington got up and closed the skylight.
Mercedes moved to the other end of the cabin locker beside Michael
Splendor.
“You’re pale, Don!” the girl said anxiously, as the tall young officer
took his seat. “Are you sure you feel able to be up, with your wounded
head? And your eyes are _queer_! As if you were looking at me for the
first time in your life!”
“I am!”
The voice which spoke those two words was Don’s; yet there was a strange
note in it, which shocked everyone in the cabin to attention.
“You see,” it continued hollowly, “I am not Don Winslow!”
“OH!”
Mercedes’ shriek cut the horrified silence like a knife. All at once she
was beside the young man, gazing fixedly into his eyes, as if to read
the brain behind them. While the others watched her, fascinated, she
stepped slowly back.
“No! No!” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “You are not
Don. Oh! What right have you....”
“Skipper!” pleaded Red Pennington, laying a hand on his friend’s
shoulder. “Come on back to your berth! I was afraid that would get you
feverish.... Captain Riggs, help me take him—”
“WAIT, GENTLEMEN!” cried the young officer rising suddenly to his feet.
“I am sorry to distress you, but I have been simply obeying orders.
Commander Winslow is standing there in the doorway!”
Instinctively all eyes followed his pointing finger, only to stare in
stark unbelief.
There _could not_ be two Don Winslows. Yet there in the doorway stood
the young officer’s double, complete in every detail. Even the paleness
and the white bandage about the temple were reproduced in each figure.
“It’s a trick!” cried Captain Riggs hoarsely. “The Scorpion has
hypnotized us—or tried to! But there’s one way to break any spell!”
Tugging a blunt nosed pistol from his pocket, the _Gatoon’s_ master
would have fired at the man in the doorway, had not Michael Splendor
driven his wheel chair between them.
“Stop it, Riggs!” bellowed the gray-haired cripple. “If ye value your
own life, not to mention Commander Winslow’s, lower that weapon, sir!
Miss Colby is right! The gentleman at the table is a stranger; but the
man here beside me is Don Winslow himself, may heaven preserve him!”
Impulsively, both Mercedes and Red had to feel of the real Don’s hands
and features to make sure he was not a dream figure, as Riggs still
seemed to think. After that, Red stepped across to the man by the table.
“I know you now, mister!” he grinned sheepishly. “You’re the one the
doctor was working on in the sick bay. The man who said he was a count!
You had a moustache on then.”
“Count Borg is my real title, Lieutenant,” smiled the other. “Commander
Winslow wished me to impersonate him, in order to test out our strange
likeness. It seems that even our voices are much the same in pitch and
timbre. You see, if I can impersonate _him_ so successfully as to fool
his closest friends, he should be able just as easily to trick those who
know _me_!”