Читать книгу Dust of Death: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 8

Table of Contents

In the quiet pre-evening activity of New York, rather peculiar sounds could be heard. They were on the eighty-sixth floor of a building which was probably the most pretentious skyscraper in the city.

“Oink!” The sound came with distinct regularity. “Oink! Oink!”

Two men sat in the eighty-sixth floor office from which the sounds came. One of them looked angry. He was a rather slender man, especially thin at the waist. But the thing about him that stood out was his garments. They were sartorial perfection. A typical sample of what was gaining for the wearer a reputation as perhaps the nation’s best dresser.

“Oink!” came the sound. “Oink!”

The second man in the room kept his face straight with some difficulty. This man looked rather pleasantly like an ape in unkempt civilized clothing. He would undoubtedly weigh in excess of two hundred and fifty pounds.

The apish man was making the sound, doing it systematically and with painstaking care.

“Oink!” he tried again. “Oink! Oink!”

The dapper man blew up. He gesticulated with a slender black cane which he had been holding across his knee.

“Monk,” he gritted, “just one more of those noises and I’m going to trim your toenails off right next to your ears.”

“Now, Ham,” the apish Monk murmured, “you should control that temper.”

Ham got up and did something with his cane so that it became evident that harbored therein was a blade of fine steel which looked razor sharp.

“You’ve been making those hog noises to devil me,” he said grimly. “You are hunting trouble and you are certainly going to get accommodated.”

Neither of these men looked quite what he was. The man with sartorially perfect raiment, “Ham,” was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, pride of the Harvard Law School alumni. The simian one, “Monk,” was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, admittedly one of the greatest industrial chemists.

These two—like Long Tom of the South American happenings—were members of Doc Savage’s group of five aides. The spot where they conducted their quarrel was the ante-room of Doc Savage’s headquarters.

Monk squared off belligerently and picked up a chair as a defense against the sword cane, but before anything happened, a voice spoke from the doorway.

“Something seems to have happened to Long Tom in South America,” the voice said.

That voice was remarkable, not that it was loud or that it seemed to strive to be particularly emphatic. But it had a suppressed quality that induced thoughts of a mighty machine, murmuring under low throttle.

Monk and Ham both whirled to stare at Doc Savage as he came into the room.

Doc Savage held a cablegram in one hand. The hand was distinctive for two things. The tendons on the back were amazing. The hand had an unusual bronze color. The size of the hand was mentionable also, but was not especially striking because the rest of the man’s size was in proportion.

An individual whose appearance was in keeping with his fabulous reputation was this man, Doc Savage. He would stand out in a multitude. There was more to it than his appearance. His eyes for instance—they were like pools of flake gold, stirred always by tiny winds. And there was also his hair, the hue a slightly darker bronze than his skin and straight, rather remarkably like a metallic skullcap.

Doc Savage offered the cablegram. Monk and Ham read it.

DOC SAVAGE

NEW YORK

IN ALCALA SANTA AMOZA VISITING FRIEND ACE JACKSON STOP MAY SPEND SOME TIME HERE STOP EVERYTHING QUIET

LONG TOM

The cablegram had come from Alcala, Santa Amoza.

Monk, the homely chemist, squinted and scratched his bullet head.

“I don’t see anything in that to make anybody think Long Tom is in trouble,” he said.

“For once I agree with the ape here,” Ham murmured. “I don’t either.”

Doc Savage’s metallic features did not change expression. This was one of his characteristics. He rarely showed emotion.

“Have you overlooked the five-letter code?” he asked.

Monk started, and a ludicrous expression crossed his homely face.

“Sure,” he grunted, “every sentence should start with a five-letter word. That’s the touch to make sure members of our gang really send the messages.”

Dapper Ham seized the cablegram which Doc had brought and examined it again.

“Every sentence doesn’t start with a five-letter word in this,” he snapped. “That means Long Tom did not send it.”

Monk scratched in the bristles along his nape. “What do you reckon’s behind this?”

“We will see what we can learn by cabling,” Doc told him.

On the street there was not much traffic and not many parked cars. Hence, there was plenty of room along the curbing. A small sedan wheeled into one of these open spaces.

Four men alighted. The fifth, who was behind the wheel, drove the car away. Those who had gotten out strolled over and ostensibly looked into a show-window. Above them towered the stone and steel monolith that housed Doc Savage’s eighty-sixth floor aerie.

“Your instructions are clearly understood?” asked one of the men.

The others nodded.

The leader paced the way into the skyscraper. He was a rather striking fellow, principally because of his size and shape. His lines were somewhat remindful of a box on stiff legs. He looked as hard as railroad ties.

Under one arm this man carried a bulky object, carefully wrapped in thick brown paper.

Once in the building lobby, the men separated. Two turned toward the elevator that would lead them to an observation tower above Doc Savage’s headquarters, almost a hundred stories above the street level.

The other two members of the group strolled carelessly down the spacious lobby, stopping close to the entrance that led to the express elevator which carried passengers to floors eighty to ninety. They lighted cigarettes and leaned idly against the wall, conversing softly as if awaiting the appearance of friends.

Over in the observation tower elevator, the box of a man—he had the unmistakable look of a professional wrestler—and his companion were silent. The operator glanced at them with only slight curiosity, for dwellers in Manhattan become accustomed to strange types of humanity.

When the elevator stopped at the observation floor, the two passengers acquired admission tickets, walked out on the railed platform and gawked about. A few other persons were there, these obviously being tourists. The burly wrestler still carried his package as he mingled with the crowd. There was system in the mingling, however, for the pair worked around the tower and soon stood before a small door. They tried this and found it locked.

They waited until they were alone on that side of the tower. Then the wrestler brought out a bunch of keys—an assortment of skeleton keys. There was a faint click and the door opened.

The pair slipped through and closed the door behind them. Without hesitation they raced down a small set of steps into a room where the whirr and the click of machinery sounded continuously.

It was the room which held the mechanism that operated the elevators.

A mechanic rose quickly from his chair just inside the room with the machinery. But he was too slow. He did not even see the newcomers. The wrestler swung a great block of a fist, and the mechanic was senseless.

“You know what we do next?” the big box of a man asked.

He was looking about, plainly more than a little bewildered by the maze of wheels and cables that confronted him.

His companion nodded, a confident grin on his wizened face.

“I can handle the rest of it,” he said. “I used to install these things.”

With sure steps he threaded his way through the cables, pointed to one drum which appeared full of slender steel thread.

“This is the cable that holds up Doc Savage’s private elevator,” he said. “Unlimber that thing you’re carryin’.”

The big man grunted and unwrapped the parcel which had been under his arm. The other took it, stripped off the wrapping and revealed a compact metal-cutting torch of a type popular with safe robbers.

Eye-hurting flame from the torch began to play against the cable drum.

Down in the street level lobby, the two men who were leaning against the wall near the express elevator were beginning to consult their watches nervously.

“We got another minute,” one said.

They were silent throughout the minute.

“Now,” the first said. And the other nodded.

They walked to the endmost of the bank of express elevators and entered the cage.

The operator spoke to them quietly, saying, “This elevator goes only to Doc Savage’s floor.”

“That’s where we’re headed,” one of the passengers responded.

Then the operator jumped suddenly and looked down. A gun had been jammed into his ribs.

“Get going,” the hard-faced holder of the gun ordered.

The operator closed the door and started up. For an instant, the two passengers were speechless, their eyes intent on the operator. The latter moved his lever to the stop position. The button of the apparatus that would automatically level the cage at the eighty-sixth floor door was already pushed in.

A fist struck the elevator man callously under the jaw. He sagged, and one of the two passengers caught him under the arms. Holding him helpless, they hit him again and again, until his senses were thoroughly beaten out.

They lowered him to the floor as the cage stopped on the eighty-sixth floor.

The two passengers opened the door, made sure the corridor was empty, then propped the elevator door open with the use of small wooden wedges, which they had previously prepared. They moved silently down the corridor to the stairway. One of them turned and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Help!” he screamed. “Help!”

Then the pair scuttled silently down the stairway.

The door of Doc Savage’s quarters burst open. The giant bronze man was first through, Monk and Ham close on his heels.

“Somebody yelled!” Monk exploded. “Where was it?”

The open elevator door caught their attention. They ripped toward it, glanced inside.

Unexpectedly a small weird sound filled the corridor and the elevator cage wherein the beaten unconscious operator lay. The sound was tiny, exotic, a thing difficult of description. It was a trilling, in a sense, a minute, fantastic note that might have been the product of the wind through the spires of an arctic ice field.

Monk and Ham looked at Doc Savage, knowing the bronze man was making the sound. They had heard it often. It was a small thing which the bronze man did unconsciously in moments of stress.

Doc Savage stepped into the elevator. Monk and Ham followed.

High above, in the room which housed the lifting machinery, the two sinister men had been staring downward. The elevator cage had a grilled top and the interior was brightly lighted so that they saw Doc Savage and his two aides enter.

“Quick!” gulped the wrestler.

The other manipulated the cutting torch. He already used it sufficiently to nearly sever the cables. The finish of the job required only a moment. With the sound of a snapping fiddle string, the cable parted.

The cage fell away from the open door before Doc Savage and his aides could possibly get out. It gathered momentum. Doc worked the elevator control lever rapidly. It had no effect. Their speed increased.

Homely Monk jammed a thumb violently against the button which was labeled emergency stop. Nothing happened. His apish visage began to look as if whitewash were being pumped under the skin.

Floors went past in a grisly blur.

“Cable cut,” Doc Savage said briefly. “Automatic stopping device jammed.”

Ham, the dapper lawyer, said nothing, but brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate clothing as if he wanted to look his best when his crushed body was found after the elevator crashed to the bottom of the shaft, eighty-six floors below.

Doc Savage’s bronze features had not lightened. The paleness of fear, which might have been expected, was entirely absent. His features were almost weirdly composed. Nor did he speak.

Air was roaring about the cage as they plummeted. The senseless operator stirred a little on the floor, but he would never revive in time to realize what was happening.

The wild cage flashed past the ground floor. And a startled yell came from the starter outside as he realized what was occurring.

Things happened. A giant hand seemed to reach out and grab the elevator, gently at first, then with more violence. Air, passing the sides of the cage, made an ear-splitting scream. The occupants of the elevator went down as if mashed by a giant invisible hand.

And the cage was unexpectedly still, although it seemed, due to the freakishness of the human organism, that it was now flying upward.

Monk lay very still. Ham had fallen half across him.

They both eyed Doc Savage. Their expressions showed what they wanted—explanations.

“The bottoms of these shafts are of special construction,” Doc Savage said. “They are completely enclosed and fit tightly to the sides of the cage. The compression of the air formed a natural shock absorber.”

Monk started to say something, then looked down at his clothing, surprised. He had become soaking wet with nervous perspiration.

Escape from the cage did not prove to be a simple matter. First, the top grille was bolted in place solidly and, being stout, it yielded but slowly. Springing upward, Doc Savage managed to seize an ornamental projection in the cage top. An observer would have sworn it offered no hand grip whatever. Yet, the bronze giant clung there and struck and wrenched repeatedly at the grating until it came loose. The metal was a stout alloy. He bent it back amid a squeaking and rending.

By this time, they had the shaft door open and faces were shoved through, shouting excitedly that an emergency truck had been summoned.

The sides of the shaft were of brick, and rough. Doc Savage mounted, the strength in his amazing hands making ample security out of microscopic handholds.

Even with his efforts, however, several minutes had elapsed before he reached the lobby. A crowd milled. More persons came in from the street, excitement drawn.

Doc Savage lost no time in getting the doors closed so that no one might enter or leave. There was a bare chance the culprits might be inside.

They were not. They had lost no time in leaving the skyscraper, had entered their little sedan and were driving fast when they got a glimpse of the bronze man.

The big wrestler and his consorts were not bad actors. They managed not to show enough excitement to attract attention.

“We’ve laid an egg,” one muttered.

The wrestler began to curse, calling his own father and mother and immediate ancestors numerous unpleasant names.

“Count Hoffe in South America ain’t gonna like this,” another of them groaned.

The wrestler stopped abusing his ancestors.

“We sure gave the job a botching,” he agreed. “Now Doc Savage will stem straight for South America.”

“And the Inca in Gray will begin to lay eggs of his own,” another man agreed.

“Don’t worry,” snorted the wrestler. “Any eggs the Inca in Gray lays will hatch out plenty of hell.”

The little sedan took them out of sight.

An hour later, Doc Savage knew that those who attempted to murder them had escaped. The bronze man went to his laboratory. He began assembling mechanical devices—the gadgets which he employed and which, on more than one occasion, had saved his life.

Monk, the homely chemist, stopped in the reception room to read a newspaper. Doc Savage interrupted Monk’s perusal of the newspaper.

“You might get your portable laboratory together, Monk,” he suggested.

The homely chemist squinted at the bronze giant. “Then we’re going places?”

“We are,” Doc agreed.

Monk frowned. “Do you think that fake cable with Long Tom’s name signed to it, and that attempt to kill us had a connection?”

Whatever reply Doc Savage intended to make was interrupted by the appearance of a messenger, wearing the uniform of a cable company. He presented a blue envelope, which Doc opened, read, then passed to Monk and Ham. The missive was cryptic, expressive.

DOC SAVAGE

NEW YORK

LONG TOM ROBERTS HAS DISAPPEARED

ACE JACKSON

The message was from Alcala, Santa Amoza.

Monk looked up from the missive and demanded: “This means we charge right down there, don’t it?”

“It does,” Doc agreed.

Ham asked, “Do we go by plane?”

“We will try the new stratosphere dirigible,” Doc told him. “On a flight as long as this, it will probably be faster than our big plane.”