Part 6

The doctor didn’t leave anything out. He had been in the boat which put off to the seaplane from the _Gatoon_, and he’d seen about all there was to see.

He described how Red had thrown off his life belt and dived under the sinking plane. He told how helpless the boat’s crew felt, when they got there and found neither Red nor Don.

Two of the sailors had kicked off their shoes, ready to dive in after the missing officers, when suddenly the lieutenant’s red head broke surface. He was gasping for breath, and the commander was completely out when they were pulled aboard.

In the excitement, said the medical officer, the Scorpion pilot, floating unconscious in his life belt, was almost forgotten. Now, everybody aboard ship was saying that Lieutenant Pennington rated a gold medal, and....

“Red, you old porpoise!” broke in Don Winslow, sitting bolt upright. “Give me your flipper, and stop making faces like a seasick 'boot’! I’ll get square with you some day by saying _your_ life—don’t worry!”

Red met his commander’s handclasp with a crushing grip, his embarrassment suddenly gone. He knew that Don would never try to thank him outright, or praise him in words for an act of simple loyalty. Their friendship went too deep for that sort of thing.

“And now, Doc,” said Don, “I’m going to jump into a uniform and go out on deck. I see we’re under way again; and I want to talk with Captain Riggs about safeguarding the ship between here and Port-au-Prince. Probably there’ll be no second attack, but it’s better to be prepared.”

The medical officer protested. He said Don had suffered a slight concussion, along with a scalp wound. He warned that moving about could bring on a fever. But he might as well have talked to the ship’s mainmast.

Don was hurrying into his clothes even before the doctor had finished speaking. He was feeling better every minute, he declared, and he wasn’t going to stay below for a mere bump on the head!

As he spoke there came a knock on the door. It was Lieutenant Darnley with a queer piece of news. The prisoner Corba had been asking urgently for Commander Winslow and he refused to say why. Lieutenant Darnley thought that if the commander were well enough....

“I’ll be with you in two shakes, Lieutenant,” Don assured the _Gatoon’s_ executive officer. “That lad Corba knows a lot more than he has told us yet. If he’s ready to spill something interesting, I’ll be glad to listen.”

There were only two roomy cells in the _Gatoon’s_ brig. With the rescued crews of the Scorpion airplanes, they were crowded to capacity. Corba and Mink shared their cell with the pilot of the seaplane who had recovered consciousness.

Don, standing before the cell door with Red and the other two officers, noted the pilot’s makeshift head bandage.

“You’ll have to tend that man’s wound right away, Doctor!” the young commander said sharply. “He’s an enemy, in the service of a criminal chief, but he’s a human being all the same.... Master-at-arms! Bring that prisoner along with Corba, now!”

A moment later, both prisoners were led out, handcuffed. The doctor took the wounded man under guard to the sick bay while Don moved off out of earshot with the shifty-eyed Corba.

Red, glancing down the forecastle, caught the look of amazed interest on Don Winslow’s face.

“That guy Corba must be giving him some potent dope!” he remarked in an undertone. “I’d give a lot to know what he’s saying!”

“You’re right, Pennington,” Lieutenant Darnley agreed. “Commander Winslow isn’t excited easily, I’ve noticed, but he’s sure getting that way now. Looks as if Corba was shooting the works!”

Don Winslow’s air of mystery, as he returned with Corba, did nothing to allay Red’s curiosity. Even when the Scorpion agent had been returned to his cell, and Lieutenant Darnley had answered a call to the _Gatoon’s_ bridge, the young commander refused to answer questions.

“Come along to the sick bay,” he told the red-haired lieutenant. “We’ll see how sawbones is progressing with his latest patient.”

When the two officers entered that portion of the _Gatoon’s_ sick bay which served as an operating room, the handcuffed pilot was sitting in a chair under a strong electric light. A portion of his scalp had been shaved, and the medical officer was sterilizing the raw furrow left by a glancing bullet. One of the slugs which had pierced the seaplane’s cabin had nearly snuffed out the Scorpion flyer’s life.

It was the first chance either Don or Red had had to examine their captive’s features. Strangely enough, they were not those of a criminal. If it had not been for the man’s wildly staring eyes and look of pained bewilderment, they would have been almost handsome.

There was something hauntingly familiar, too, about the man’s face and build. Studying them, Red decided he had seen the fellow—or his double—somewhere, and not so long ago!

If Don Winslow had the same notion, he didn’t mention it. He waited until the doctor had finished work. Only when the armed boatswain’s mate stepped forward to take the prisoner back, Don stopped him.

“Leave the patient here, and give me the key to his handcuffs!” he told the surprised guard. “I’ll be responsible for him. You may return to your post outside the brig.”

With a puzzled “Aye-aye, sir!” the guard departed. Don closed the door and turned to the prisoner.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly, looking the man square in the eye.

“André, Count Borg,” the fellow replied mechanically. “I am a licensed pilot and a native of Listonia....”

“Snap out of it, man!” barked Don Winslow, stepping closer. “Do you know what you’ve got on your wrists? Take a good look!”

Dazedly Borg’s eyes dropped to the steel handcuffs, as if seeing them for the first time. With a harsh cry he leaped to his feet, his lips drawn back in a snarl of fury.

“What does this mean?” he shouted, wrenching at the clanking chain. “You dare to handcuff me like a common criminal? What right have you to confine me?”

“Sit down!” thundered Don Winslow, forcing the man back into his chair. “You are under arrest, Count Borg, in connection with a plot to destroy the United States Navy gunboat _Gatoon_. Following the orders of your criminal chief, the Scorpion, you picked up two men in life belts—”

“But, Don!” burst in Red Pennington. “The guy knows all that. Why not get down to brass tacks and make him tell something worth while—for instance, where the Scorpion has his headquarters?”

A wild laugh from the prisoner interrupted at this point. Pounding his manacled hands against his knees, the man who called himself Count Borg rocked back and forth in hysterical mirth.

“Mad! Mad!” he choked. “We are all mad and locked up in the crazyhouse! One talks about scorpions and life belts; another raves about brass tacks! But nobody tells me how I got here, and I—I cannot remember....”

With a groan the fellow raised his hands to his temples. Shifting from clear, unaccented English, he began muttering to himself in some harsh, foreign tongue.

The medical officer reached for a hypodermic needle, but Don Winslow seized his arm.

“Get him a glass of cold water, Doc,” the young commander advised. “This man isn’t crazy. He just thinks he’s nuts, because....”

Pulling the doctor over to the sink, Don whispered rapidly in the other’s ear. Their conference lasted two or three minutes, long enough to get the goat of Lieutenant Red Pennington, who was about fed up on being a mystified onlooker.

When the doctor returned with the water, his manner was briskly professional.

“Tell me, Count Borg,” he said, “just what is the last thing you remember doing, before you woke up in the brig half an hour ago? If there has been some mistake in your identity your answer will clear the matter up.”

The wild look on the prisoner’s face was now gone. In its place was a puzzled frown, and his whole manner had quieted.

“There certainly _has_ been a mistake, gentlemen,” he replied. “But to answer your question—the last thing I recall is walking up Cherry Street toward Brooklyn Bridge, about half past one last night. I remember hearing stealthy footsteps behind me, coming closer. After that, everything is a blank!”

There was a queer silence following Borg’s words. Finally, the medical officer broke it after meeting Don’s glance.

“And what,” he asked in a strained voice, “would you say the date was yesterday? I mean, the day of the month and the year?”

“Why—er,” responded the prisoner slowly, “April fourteenth, nineteen thirty-three. Am I right?”

“Wrong, by seven years, my friend!” Don returned, stooping to unlock the handcuffs. “Your memory has done another blackout, Count Borg! The first one was when a thug knocked you out on Cherry Street, New York, in nineteen thirty-three. The last one happened this morning when you were wounded in the head by a machine gun bullet. Since you’ve evidently forgotten your whole life between those dates, there’s no reason for treating you now as a dangerous criminal.”

XV

RED GETS A SHOCK

“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_!”

XVI

DANGER AND A WOMAN

“It was Corba who put me wise to that resemblance,” Don told the astonished group after Borg had left. “That radioman is a born traitor, and he’s figuring every possible way to cross up his old pals in hope of getting in right with us. He suggested that I might use my likeness to Count Borg as a means of spying on Scorpia’s activities. It certainly looks like a hot idea; but I’d want your opinion of it, Mr. Splendor, before going farther with any plans.”

“It will take a bit of study, I can see that,” replied the veteran Intelligence man. “But first of all, Commander, why ye think Count Borg is not planning a clever trap for ye? He’s too bright a man to be a common double-crosser like Corba. Mind ye, he has been one of the Scorpion’s most trusted agents. Considerin’ that, it strikes me he fell in with your impersonation scheme a bit too quickly. It’s not like him to play traitor to his chief.”

“Which is the very reason I believe he will be loyal to our cause now!” retorted Don, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You see, Mr. Splendor, our man has been a victim of _amnesia_. The bullet wound he received this morning restored his memory of everything that happened until the night of April fourteenth, nineteen thirty-three. At that time his skull was fractured by a thug’s blackjack. Of the seven years between then and now he has not the slightest recollection.”

“Amazin’, if true!” muttered the cripple, meeting Don’s level look. “Are ye sure, Commander, that this _is_ amnesia, and not another clever piece of actin’? Count Borg is no ordinary man, remember. He’d be quite capable of plannin’ a trick like that from the moment he found himself aboard ship!”

“He couldn’t fake amnesia well enough to fool an expert,” Don pointed out. “Our medical officer happens to have made a special study of brain disorders, and he says this is a genuine case. Doc thinks that Borg’s first injury changed his whole character. Recalling little except his name, the man became an obedient tool of Scorpia. He remembered no other friends, no other life; and his naturally keen brain was completely at the service of his criminal master. Now, of course, he is horrified at the idea of having been one of that crowd. He wants to make up in some way for the damage he has done as a Scorpion agent.”

“But what luck it would be, Don,” put in Mercedes, “if Count Borg _should_ start to remember his life as one of Scorpia’s aces! He might give us enough information to clean up the entire organization in one swoop. Of course that sort of luck is too good to be real!”

“I’m afraid it is, my dear,” said Splendor. “However, I think we have a chance of getting most, if not all, of the evidence we need, thanks to this resemblance between Don Winslow and his captive. Do ye recall the code message we discovered at the submarine base—the one which Corba later stole from your stateroom, Commander? Well, I had the master-at-arms search all five of our new prisoners before ye were on deck this mornin’. And every last one of them had the same code message tucked away in his clothing! Ye see what that means?”

“Hmmm! It looks as if the Scorpion were calling all his forces together at San Francisco for some big job, if you ask me,” Don answered soberly. “That would be the very thing to get in on—a general conference of Scorpia’s operatives. If I got out of it alive, we’d have enough evidence to hamstring the organization’s power for years to come!”

“That’s all very well, gentlemen,” growled Captain Riggs, picking up his hat, “but I believe you’re going to find some pretty big difficulties in the way. Unless Borg recovers his memory and gives you the Scorpia passwords, not to mention a lot of other information, I fear your disguise won’t get you very far, Commander. You’ll excuse me if I leave you now to take my watch on deck!”

With a brusque nod the _Gatoon’s_ master closed the cabin door behind him. Mercedes looked across at Don, her eyes dark with anxiety.

“I’m afraid Captain Riggs is right about that,” she said. “Oh, Don, I hope you’ll not attempt anything so risky as to pass yourself off for the count! There are a thousand details on which your ignorance would trip you!”

“There’s a way out of that difficulty, Skipper,” spoke up Red Pennington. “Suppose we give out a story that Borg has escaped. Actually of course, he’ll stay in plain sight dressed in your uniform. You’ll be the one who disappears and shows up in San Francisco as Count Borg. You’ll pretend that your memory is partly blacked out by your head wound and that will account for any slips you make, like forgetting people and passwords that Borg used to know.”

“Great stuff, sailor!” cried Don Winslow, leaping up to pound Red enthusiastically on the back. “That story will have enough truth in it to convince the most suspicious Scorpion operatives. What do you think of it, Mr. Splendor?”

The man in the wheel chair wagged his gray head.

“'Tis a clever plan—very clever indeed,” he admitted. “As a matter of fact, I can think of only one person in Scorpia’s ranks whom it would not fool. When I was stationed in San Francisco it was reported that a certain beautiful young girl was in love with Count Borg....”

“A woman!” cried Mercedes Colby. “That tears it, Don! Remember, I was the only one of us who knew that Count Borg was not you? A woman’s instinct will tell her the truth, in spite of the most perfect disguise. If you meet this girl, as you surely will, she’ll know you’re not her lover. By the way, what is her name, Mr. Splendor?”

“They call her the Lotus,” chuckled the gray-haired cripple. “Some say that she is part Chinese, others that she is of pure white blood, brought up by Chinese who kidnapped her in infancy. All agree that she is very lovely and _very_ clever having been trained by Cho-San himself.”

“Then she is all the more dangerous!” Mercedes protested. “Please, Don! Give up this wild notion of putting yourself into Scorpia’s power, for that is just what you would be doing! You might be able to disguise your identity from men, but never from a woman in love!”

“Maybe,” suggested Red Pennington, “this gal Lotus isn’t in love with Count Borg any more. A lot of things have happened since you were stationed in 'Frisco, Mr. Splendor. And a dame like that _could_ change her mind, you know.”

“Sure, 'tis entirely possible, Lieutenant,” the older man agreed. “I’ll think over the whole proposition between now and the time we drop anchor in Port-au-Prince. On the way to my villa in the mountains we can talk again, me friends. Will that suit you?”