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!”