Читать книгу The Munitions Master: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 7

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In the office of Carloff Traniv, the broad-shouldered man smiled thinly.

“This Doc Savage is smart, very smart,” he conceded. “But I, Carloff Traniv, am smarter.”

Traniv released a key he had been holding, lifted headphones from his ears.

Across the desk from him sat a second man, a man now white-faced, with lips trembling.

“W-was that necessary?” he gasped.

Traniv looked at him almost contemptuously. “Of course,” he sneered.

“You killed him—killed him from here?” The other’s voice held awe.

“Certainly,” Traniv said. “A simple little trick, but one that will remain my secret.”

The other shrugged. He was a man of medium height, with a prematurely streak of gray in otherwise perfectly black hair. His face appeared that of an indolent ladies’ man, but his eyes hinted a shrewd brain.

“What now?” he asked.

Traniv reached for a telephone, gave a number. When the connection was made, he spoke swiftly in French.

“La Sûreté? Bon! Good! I am afraid to identify myself, but my word is accurate. Doc Savage is hiding in a building at Rue Jacob. Go there swiftly.”

He slammed the receiver down. His companion’s face was even blanker. “But what——Why I thought——”

Traniv lifted the telephone receiver again. When there was an answer, he barked a command.

His companion’s face cleared. “Oh, I think I see.”

Carloff Traniv preened. “I want Doc Savage,” he said. “So far, Allbellin, my men have failed. This time there will be no slip-up. I’ll get him myself.”

“Pecos” Allbellin’s face resumed its vacant look. “You know he will escape the gendarmes then?” he commented.

Allbellin’s eyelids dropped. Those who knew him in Paris believed him only a rich exile from South America. He appeared a fop, always well supplied with money, but with apparently little interest—except in pretty faces. Few realized there was a shrewd, unscrupulous brain behind his dull exterior.

“Are you being just exactly wise?” he asked slowly. “Arraigning Doc Savage against us is not to be dismissed lightly.”

A faint sneer split Carloff Traniv’s features.

“We have been branching out, as you know, Pecos. To continue in our ambition, it is necessary to branch out more. Such was the reason for the display today.

“But it was also necessary to have someone to take the blame, a fall guy. I picked Doc Savage for that. No one else has reputation enough, has been such a master of strange inventions. He is the only one that we could blame, and get it believed.”

Pecos Allbellin nodded.

“If you understood all the devices I have perfected,” Traniv went on, and now a note of pride entered his voice, “you would realize there is no possibility of failure.”

“Oh, I believe that.” Allbellin’s head turned slightly; his lips were set in a thin grin. “I realize that I am merely the financier, and could not be expected to understand all you have done. But did you really mean the warning you gave about a battleship?”

Traniv rubbed his hands avidly; his eyes glowed fanatically. “At just four o’clock, Pecos, you will learn just how much I did mean it.”

Doc Savage did not need to ask if that warning had been meant. He had dealt with fanatics before.

The Latin quarter is only a short distance from the office of the French Sûreté. Scores of armed men reached the scene within minutes after Traniv’s message.

The raiders were trained man-hunters. They moved casually, but purposefully. The average citizen would have mistaken them for curious visitors.

The bronze man spotted them at once. He descended the ladder which Mary Standish and John Marsh had used when they had fled. A small, dark tunnel was at the bottom. It led a winding course. Doc followed it swiftly.

When officers rushed the building, they found only the bodies of five men. Four of these were unconscious. The fifth had been cut in two.

The men took only one look. Then they added another crime to those already charged against Doc Savage.

The bronze man emerged on the street more than a block away, well outside the police lines.

A hundred yards in front of him a man glanced at him, then turned and started walking away. He appeared interested only in his own affairs.

Doc’s eyes flashed. The man no longer wore a gendarme’s uniform, but he was one of the two who had seized Doc when the soldiers had been stricken. Now he wore a blue shirt, blue beret and tattered trousers.

The man reached the next corner, stopped and glanced in a window. A startled expression crossed his face. He whirled. The street behind him was empty. He darted into a store, ran to a telephone.

In a few moments the man returned to the street. He set off at a rapid pace. He did not look behind again.

On the roof above the store, Doc was returning a small mike, connected by a wire, to the pouch about his body. There was a plug at the other end of the wire.

The apparatus was a small, compact replica of a device often used by secret service and other investigators. It had enabled Doc to listen to the telephone conversation without hooking onto a wire. All that was necessary was to place the sensitive mike near the telephone, and the plug in his ear.

“This is By-2,” the fake cop had said. “He started to trail me, then vanished.”

A chuckle had come from the other end of the wire. “Naturally he would not let you see that he was trailing you. If he realized you knew it, he would become suspicious and not come here.”

“But what am I to do?”

“Return to the street. Come here as directly as you can. Do not look back and do not worry. Neither Doc Savage nor anyone else can escape what I have in store for him.”

Doc’s flake gold eyes were thoughtful. Then he set off swiftly over the rooftops.

It was three-thirty o’clock.

At an airdrome, not far from Paris, two cars arrived. From the first of these Monk and Ham were removed. Chemistry, roped until he looked like a hairy cocoon, came from the second.

Two planes were on the field. A huge transport ship and a small, swift scouting plane.

Monk and Ham were lugged to the transport. They were bound securely, and weapons concealed on them were confiscated.

Small, animal-like sounds of delight came from Chemistry as he saw the bound figures of his friends. When he was placed near them, he rolled over and over until he could wash Monk’s face with his tongue.

The hairy chemist groaned and opened his eyes. The effect of the gas passed swiftly in the open air. Then Monk took a look at Chemistry, groaned again and closed his eyes.

“Something like looking in a mirror?” Ham mocked weakly.

“A mug like that is enough to frighten even strong men,” Monk bleated.

“Pipe down, you two!” a voice ordered harshly.

With difficulty, Ham rolled until he could see the speaker. His gasp brought Monk’s eyes open again, caused the hairy chemist to squirm until he could look also.

Monk’s jaw dropped. “It ain’t so,” he protested feebly.

“I-it, it couldn’t be,” Ham agreed. “No one could be more homely than you; yet this guy——”

The man roared angrily. He was a short man, with a long, thin neck. But his face was what held attention. His head was big and almost square, his features almost as flat as if he had been run over by a steam roller. His nose was tiny and he appeared to have no lips at all, while the entire surface of the skin was as rough as sandpaper.

Ham controlled himself with an effort. “You know,” he said softly, “Doc Savage is skilled in remolding faces. If you’re real nice, I’ll ask him to make that one of yours at least so you can look at it in the dark.”

The man swore. He kicked the dapper lawyer hard in the ribs. “Doc Savage ain’t goin’ to do nothing,” he sneered. “The boss is taking care of him.”

A tall man, dressed in blue shirt, blue beret and tattered trousers did not seem quite so sure.

The man had reached the building where Carloff Traniv had his offices. Bodies of the stricken and dead soldiers had been removed, but crowds still milled around.

The man glanced over his shoulders occasionally, but if he was being followed there was nothing to indicate it.

Then he ducked into an entrance way, slipped up several flights of stairs. And once inside the building, he no longer appeared doubtful.

On the third floor he stopped, walked swiftly down a hall until he came to the office that said, “Carloff Traniv, Avocat.”

He did not reach for the knob. Instead, he spoke softly:

“By-2, reporting.”

For a moment nothing happened. Then the door opened silently. The man entered, taking three quick steps forward. The door closed behind him. Again he stopped, eyes front, one hand raised in salute. His second hand was partly concealed behind him. It contained a small, queer-shaped object.

He was standing in a room apparently vacant. Three heavy doors led from it, but there were no windows. The room had the appearance of being airtight.

Across the ceiling ran a series of small pipes, some with queer-shaped openings.

“You were followed?”

The question came seemingly out of the air. There was no sign of the speaker, but the man shook his head as if he were being watched.

“I am afraid not. I could not detect it if it were so.”

A faint humming noise filled the room.

“What’s that?” The question came out of the air, sharp, startled.

The man with the blue shirt and blue beret did not answer. He moved suddenly, instead, darting toward the center door.

There was a terrific blast of air. Not air into the room, but as if it were all being sucked out by some terrific force.

The man was in mid-stride. He remained that way. He appeared clothed instantly in white. Even his features and hands were sheathed.

Then he fell to the floor. He landed with a solid thud and did not stir.

He resembled a cake of ice.

A minute passed. Air hissed slowly back into the room. Then the center door opened. Carloff Traniv moved in cautiously. Behind him was Pecos Allbellin.

Allbellin’s eyes were wide and staring. The figure on the floor before him appeared petrified.

“But what——” Allbellin gasped.

Traniv was breathing heavily. “You are right, Pecos,” he gasped, “Doc Savage is not to be underrated!”

Allbellin’s jaw dropped. “But this—this is not Doc Savage!”

Traniv moved forward, turned the rigid form over until he could look into the other’s face. Wide, flake gold eyes looked at him.

“He used some electrical device to neutralize the television set through which I was watching him,” Traniv said. “If I had not acted when the television image faded, he would have been upon us.”

Traniv shook his head, and his face became stern. “Somehow, he overpowered the man sent to lure him here, learned from him how to reach this room. How that could have been done, without my knowing it, I do not see.”

Pecos Allbellin swallowed hard. “B—but, what happened to Doc Savage?”

Traniv smiled slowly. “He fell into my trap. What I did was to create a vacuum of sudden, terribly intense coldness in this room.

“The moisture that was in the room froze instantly. So did Doc Savage. You might literally say he is ‘on ice’ until I want him.”

It was ten minutes of four.