Читать книгу Merchants of Disaster: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 4
ОглавлениеA CALL FOR HELP
The story told by Quinan’s secretary had no significance to the police. Even when the girl told them her notebook was gone, detectives could see no connection between the jumbled letters Quinan had dictated and his murder.
Since the girl did not know where Quinan had gotten those letters, or what they meant, the detectives could not be blamed overly much.
They never did connect the murder with what happened at the army proving ground that afternoon.
The proving ground was the center of more than ordinary interest.
The site was used for testing new inventions, new explosives and other developments in warfare. Theoretically, it was so located that it could not be spied upon by civilians.
Actually, it was possible to see the grounds, although from quite a distance, if high-powered binoculars were used.
The two men, well hidden, who were watching the activity on the proving ground had high-powered binoculars. And they appeared just as well pleased that they were considerable distance away.
They were the two who had offices across from that of the late Les Quinan.
Conversation lagged between them. They already knew what was going to occur. They were interested merely in seeing that everything went as expected. But even their features became more tense as drama unfolded before them.
At least two hundred soldiers and officers were on the field. They stood at ease, waiting for the test to begin.
They were not sure just what the test was to be, but rumor had it that they were to try out a new type of smoke screen. All had gas masks ready to don.
The gas masks really were not needed, the officers had reported, except that the glass in the goggles had been treated with a special preparation which it was hoped would make it fairly easy to see while passing through the smoke screen.
What the officers did not add was that intelligence reports were to the effect that a certain power had developed a combination smoke screen and poison gas, and it was hoped the preparation on the goggles would enable American troops to combat such an attack should it ever prove necessary.
That the tests were considered important was shown by the number of high army officers present. These high officials, however, made themselves as inconspicuous as possible. They had withdrawn to a nearby hill, and also expected to watch the test through field glasses.
Only a slight breeze was blowing. Everything was considered perfect for the business in hand.
The airplane that drifted overhead attracted no attention whatsoever. It was up so high, for one thing, and its motors could scarcely be heard. For another, thin banks of clouds made it impossible to see from the ground.
Then the smoke screen tests began.
Smoke was released suddenly from a dozen points. It was caught in the slight breeze, gradually covered the big parade ground.
The smoke was dense. It was impossible to see through it with the naked eye. The troops had been drawn up at one side of the field. Gas masks were adjusted.
Clouds of the thick smoke drifted toward the soldiers, billowed high into the air. Officers gave arm signals. The troops advanced.
The first passage through the smoke screen was made successfully. The watching high command noticed that it took the soldiers just fifteen minutes to make the trip.
And the troops came through in perfect skirmish line. Evidently the preparation used on the goggles had been highly successful.
Then officers signaled briskly. The troops pivoted, re-entered the smoke screen.
That was when the unexpected happened.
The first impression the watchers got was that of a receding picture. Smoke screen, proving ground and all appeared to move backward, rapidly.
The effect was that of watching a movie fadeout, where the camera is drawn back suddenly, changing from a close-up to a distant view.
Some of the high military officers yanked their field glasses from their eyes. Still the scene seemed to be dropping backward.
Then gasps came from the officers. A pyrotechnic display of great intensity appeared before them. It started some fifty feet in the air and continued all the way to the ground.
There was a maze of tiny blue and red sparks. The air was so full of them the smoke screen could hardly be seen—but the men beneath that smoke screen remained invisible.
The scene might have been one of awe-inspiring beauty had it not been so unexpected and unexplainable.
A cold chill of dread gripped the watching high command. Hands clenched, faces became tense.
Something was wrong, radically wrong.
The strange sparks laced through the smoke screen as if they had been darts of lightning—but lightning gone mad. The sparks made circles, then seemed to condense into an almost solid sheet of tiny points of fire. Again they appeared like darting light-signals.
A general shouted a command. The watchers darted for automobiles, racing downward toward the proving ground.
Minutes went by before they arrived. But the troops remained hidden in the smoke screen.
Soldiers who had been operating the smoke generators leaped into action as the officers arrived. Huge fans, prepared for the purpose, roared into action.
A strong surge of air swept the field, drove the smoke screen away.
Then the soldiers beneath that screen could be seen. They no longer were marching. They were sprawled in grotesque positions. Some had snatched the gas masks from their heads. Others apparently had been clawing at their throats when they went down.
Sharp commands rang out. Ambulances raced to the field. Bewildered doctors started to work. Each used a different method in trying to revive the more than two hundred victims.
Several of the stricken were revived. But there were not more than half a dozen of these.
The others were dead beyond all hope of saving.
There were no marks on any of the bodies. And despite the display of “fireworks” which the watchers had seen, not a body was burned or showed any sign of having been near flames.
The survivors could offer little assistance in solving the mystery.
“I just found myself gettin’ faint,” one of them reported. “It seemed like I couldn’t breathe all at once. Then I went down. That’s all I know.”
And that was all the medical and laboratory workers had learned late that night.
A thorough test had been made of the type of smoke used in the tests. It was found to be perfectly harmless, even without a gas mask. And the masks used were tested with every kind of known gas and found to be good.
Newspapers were making a terrific clamor. The first reports were sensational in the extreme. Some hinted at a surprise attack by some jealous rival nation.
The army felt it knew better than that. Autopsies showed clearly the cause of death. That was what made it all so unbelievable.
Stern-faced men met that night in the war department. Lights burned late.
They knew nothing of the deaths either of Hobo Joe or of Les Quinan. Nor did they have an inkling that Quinan had made a horrible discovery.
But they did reach the same conclusion that the patent attorney had reached.
They decided to call Doc Savage.
“Our own intelligence services will go to work at once, naturally,” one declared. “But we should use every precaution, make available the services of everyone who might possibly be able to help us.”
“It still might have been an accident,” a second mused. “Remember, there have been instances in France where scores have been overcome mysteriously, some dying, in circumstances almost similar.”
A bemedaled general snorted. “Nothing mysterious about those events. Fog merely forced poisonous fumes from factories close to the ground. The people breathed the fumes and collapsed. These men today were not poisoned.”
The war secretary nodded. “I agree. And we will get Doc Savage to aid us.”
He reached for a telephone, gave a number.
In New York, on the eighty-sixth floor of a giant skyscraper, a man answered that call.
At first sight, that man did not seem so tall or so unusual. But there was something about him that always drew a second glance, and that second look proved how erroneous the first impression had been.
He was tall, but so perfectly put together that his height was not noticeable. His skin was a distinctive bronze, while his hair, combed close to his scalp, was only a slightly darker hue.
But his eyes were his most impressive features. Those eyes were like pools of flake gold, impelling, magnetic, almost hypnotic.
“Doc Savage speaking,” he said. His voice was not loud, but it had a peculiar carrying timbre.
In Washington, the war secretary spoke swiftly. A strange trilling sound filled the office. It came apparently from no one particular place, but from everywhere. It was a sound Doc Savage always made when surprised.
Across the room a giant of a man, with huge, bony monstrosities of fists, stirred himself up in his chair and looked interested.
Colonel John Renwick, known as Renny to his friends, was the only one of Doc’s aids in the office with him at the time. Renny was a world-famous engineer, one who took pleasure in his work.
Even better than that work, however, he loved the adventures he encountered with Doc Savage. But he never showed that pleasure. Now, his features drew themselves into stiff, disapproving, puritanical lines.
Doc’s trilling sound had been enough to prove that something was up.
The bronze man spoke softly, returned the telephone to his desk.
“Give me just one guess,” Renny grumbled. “I’ll bet it’s about those soldiers who got killed today. We’re going to get into something.”
Doc nodded. “The army,” he said quietly, “has found how those men died.”
Renny showed a flicker of interest. The stern lines of his face relaxed a trifle. “And that was—”
“They all suffocated,” Doc explained gently. “But not from any gas or any other known cause. The army is sure it was no accident, but deliberate murder.”
