Читать книгу The Living Fire Menace: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 7
ОглавлениеSTINGER STRIKES
Two men stood just outside the door of the office. One was Petrod Yardoff. He took a small, cup-shaped instrument away from the door, took headphones from his ears.
“We are just in time,” he whispered.
His companion shuddered slightly. He was also dressed in rubber clothes, but so well were those clothes made that few would have guessed their composition. Thin, flesh-colored gloves covered his hands; tennis shoes were on his feet.
“This will be all that is asked of me?” he quavered.
“This will be all, Meeker,” Yardoff said. His thin lips twisted sardonically. “After this, you will be—free.”
The other’s shoulders bunched; a shrewd gleam flashed for a moment in deep-set eyes.
“I am ready,” he said.
“Good.” One of Yardoff’s hands slipped unnoticed into a pocket. It came out holding a small vial. As he talked swiftly, his fingers loosened the cork. A white liquid poured out, seeped under the feet of his companion.
“Be sure you make the argument strong enough,” Yardoff concluded. “Tell just enough of the truth to arouse Doc Savage’s interest. That is all that is—”
His companion waited for no more. His lips came together firmly. He opened the door, walked into the bronze man’s office.
Ham spun; the end of his cane slipped off to reveal a long, deadly sword. Monk, leaning over the girl, whipped erect, jerked to his feet, long arms swinging.
“Watch the girl, Monk,” Doc said quietly.
The newcomer closed the door carefully behind him. His face was working with some strange emotion.
Then fear flashed over the rubber-clad man’s face; his features changed from a queer cherry-red to the color of chalk. He danced wildly from one foot to the other.
“Watch out, Doc!” he screamed. “I was sent here to try to lure you to California, to Sandrit. I was told I’d be free if I did that. I’ve been tricked! I’m going to die!”
Saliva trickled weirdly from the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t go to Sandrit! Stay far away from there. The menace of the living fire protects it, kills all—”
The words broke off in a scream.
There was a sudden flash of fire—fire that came from inside the man’s rubber suit. The man’s body jerked violently; his eyes almost popped from his head. The odor of burned rubber and burned flesh filled the room.
The man fell. He was quite dead.
A peculiar, trilling sound filled the room. It seemed to come from no particular place, yet from everywhere. It was the sound Doc Savage unconsciously made when he was surprised.
With Monk and Ham at his heels, he darted to the side of the fallen man.
Outside, Petrod Yardoff smiled thinly as once more he replaced his listening device in his pocket. He had expected his companion to try to double-cross him, to try and give a warning.
That had been just what he wanted. From what he had heard of Doc Savage, the bronze man now would leave no stone unturned until he had tried to solve the mystery.
“But what caused it?” Monk’s childlike voice was filled with wonderment.
“A bolt of lightning!” Ham snapped impatiently.
“The results are about the same at any rate,” Doc agreed quietly. “Do you notice that the rubber suit he is wearing is untouched on the outside? The fire that destroyed him came from within.”
“And he mentioned the menace of the living fire,” Monk breathed. “Say. That’s what that kid said Johnny and Long Tom was gonna have to face.”
The bronze man nodded soberly. “I am afraid they are in great danger,” he said slowly.
Monk jumped up, fairly danced about. “Then let’s get going! What are we waiting for?”
“Do you recognize this guy?” Ham asked suddenly.
Doc inclined his head. “He was Darren Meeker, once a very great scientist,” he said. “Meeker killed a man some years ago, and was committed to an asylum.”
“And escaped about four months ago, very mysteriously. It happened while you were away,” Ham added.
“Holy cow!”
The expression came in an awed tone of voice. Doc glanced up.
A huge man stood in the doorway—a man a good six feet four inches tall, who must have weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds. His face was severe, the mouth thin and grim. That mouth was set tightly now, the features puritanical. Bony monstrosities of fists hung at the end of enormous arms.
“You’re just in time, Renny!” Monk howled.
“But what—”
Swiftly, Ham sketched what had occurred. The puritanical look grew even more severe on the face of Colonel John Renwick. One huge fist smacked into an equally big palm, as if he were trying to batter down a door—one of his favorite pastimes.
“You say this fellow just walked in, bellowed a warning, then went up in fire?” he asked wonderingly.
“Right!” snapped Ham.
“Hmm.” The corners of “Renny’s” mouth drew down disapprovingly. “I wonder. Don’t seem likely. But I wonder if that girl I saw going down the stairway could have had anything to do with this. She sure was a beauty, but beauty doesn’t always—”
A howl came from Monk. His piglike eyes were staring with complete disillusionment at the sofa where the girl had been.
That sofa was empty now. The girl was gone.
Doc turned, looked at Monk. The hairy chemist’s eyes dropped.
“Yeah, I—I know,” he apologized weakly. “I was supposed to watch her. But I got excited—”
“The girl may not hold the key to this mystery, but I am sure she has information that we need,” the bronze man said slowly.
“And this ape let her get away,” Ham jeered.
Doc walked over to a small, square box on the desk. He opened the back, took out half a dozen slips of paper, handed one each to Monk, Ham and Renny.
“But—but these are pictures of the girl,” Renny said.
“Right.” Doc’s voice was matter of fact. “I tried out this new camera while she was here. Complete prints are made in the matter of seconds and dropped through a slot into the rear of the camera to dry.”
Renny’s mouth dropped open, but he said nothing. He had seen too many of Doc’s inventions to be greatly surprised.
“That girl was from the West. Her accent showed that,” the bronze man went on. “She must be stopping at some hotel. Check each one, find out where she is, and find out what she knows.”
As the door closed behind the three, Doc went to a bookcase near the far wall. That bookcase had been pulled out, disclosing a niche that held a machine.
The machine was a telephonic monitor, and recorded all telephone conversations. No disks were on the monitor now, however. The girl had found them. They were shattered on the floor.
The bronze man worked swiftly. Soon the disks had been put together again.
Doc played them over. He heard Z-2’s conversation with Johnny. He heard Johnny’s conversation with the filling-station attendant.
For a moment the bronze man’s flake gold eyes were half closed. He went to the telephone, placed a call. A few minutes later and he was talking to the youth at the Sandrit filling station. He asked only one question. His queer, trilling sound filled the room at the answer he received.
Soon afterward Doc left the building.
Doc Savage had friends in many places. Thus it was that he had no difficulty in gaining access to the morgue of the city’s largest newspaper.
A newspaper morgue contains clippings from scores of papers on everything that is printed.
The editor looked at the bronze man queerly when he heard the type of clippings Doc wanted to see, but he asked no questions. Soon several folders were laid on the editor’s desk.
Doc Savage ran through them swiftly. He was interested only in those dated during the last six months.
The small mountain of clippings gradually faded. At last only five remained of the many he had read.
These five the bronze man reread carefully. The stories they told came from widely separated points. One said:
San Quentin, Cal.—Ten prisoners escaped mysteriously from San Quentin penitentiary today. The men, all trustees, were tending flowers in the outer yard. In some manner they overcame and killed Herbert Yokes, thirty-two, the guard. His body, badly burned, was found shortly after the men must have escaped.
A strange feature of the case is the fact that the iron gate at the entrance to the yard seemed to have been melted as if an acetylene torch had been used, although prison officials say this was impossible.
Among those who escaped was Frederick Scone, a former university professor in chemistry, serving a life term for the murder of his wife. The others were—
Another clipping read:
Albuquerque, N.M.—A man, later identified as “Slug” Bremer, an escaped convict, was killed instantly here today when struck by a train. Bremer evidently had fallen from a freight train, on the main tracks only a mile from town, and was run over by the California Limited. His body was badly mangled. Strange burns that seemed to cover the entire body could not be explained by Coroner Smith.
Of the three other items, two told of more escapes, one from a prison, in which more than twenty trusties had gotten away at the same time. The second told of a break at a Missouri asylum. The third reported the mysterious death of another of those who had gained freedom.
The editor was studying Doc’s face curiously. “If there is anything more I can do,” he began hopefully, “or if I can get you any more information—”
“This is satisfactory, thank you,” Doc said.
The editor watched him leave with a long face.
In a telephone booth in the lobby, Doc called his office. The telephonic monitor had been put back in working order. At Doc’s voice, another mechanical robot put the record into operation. It repeated the last call received.
“Renny calling in to report,” came the recorded voice. “I have located the girl. She is staying at the Midtown Hotel, has just come in and gone to Room 1412. I’ll keep watch.”
Doc hung up, started for his car in front of the building.
There was a small, private alleyway only a hundred yards from the front of the newspaper building. In this alleyway, two men were crouching.
One rubbed his hands nervously on a handkerchief, flicked that handkerchief back into one sleeve.
He spoke out of one corner of his mouth. “You’re sure everything is fixed? There must be no slip-ups. I was told to get this bronze devil alive, but that’s too dangerous. I want him dead.”
His companion squirmed uneasily. He wore greasy overalls, and his face was smeared with dirt. He held an odd-shaped object in his hands.
“It’d take more than a miracle to save that mug,” he growled sourly, “even if he is—”
He broke off as Stinger’s hand came down on his arm.
Doc Savage had emerged from the building.
The bronze man glanced up and down the street rapidly.
The car at the curb was a big, inclosed job, similar to the one Long Tom and Johnny had used. The door was locked. Doc took out a key, reached toward the lock.
At the alleyway, Stinger drew a long sigh of relief. “I still wish we had the real thing to work on this guy,” he muttered, “but the plaything you’ve got rigged up should work.”
Doc inserted the key in the car door, started to open it.
Beside Stinger, his overalls-clad companion worked on the odd-shaped object he held in his hands. There was a faint, humming noise.
Doc’s big figure seemed to jerk erect. Fire danced about the car. Flames crackled and jumped. Women screamed. The editor stood frozen, face vacant.
For a moment the bronze man appeared absolutely rigid. A peculiar odor filled the air.
Stinger’s companion worked again on the odd-shaped object he held.
The bronze man’s fingers fell nervelessly from the car door. His big frame crumpled to the sidewalk.
Stinger laughed, lips drawn back from his teeth.
“Let’s go, punk!” he grated. “Things are goin’ to be even hotter than that around here as soon as they learn that bronze devil is really dead.”
