Читать книгу Cold Death - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 3

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DOC SAVAGE knew a hand had touched his pocket. There was a swift, wraith-like movement of fingers. Then the hand was gone.

The touch was fleeting enough, but Doc Savage knew it had not been for the purpose of robbery. The fingers had not been explorative. They had merely deposited something in Doc's pocket.

Doc Savage did not pause. Nor did he make any effort to apprehend the man who had touched him. It would have been simple to have laid hands upon him, corded bronze hands; to have trapped him.

Doc knew the man was not a thief. He was aware nothing had been removed. Doc pressed the back of a hand on the outside of the pocket and felt a square white card.

The man who had placed it there had slipped aside in the crowd. No doubt, he believed he had succeeded in delivering his message without being detected. If he had known Doc Savage better he would have known this to be an impossible feat.

It was Doc's principle to avoid public encounter unless the circumstance was compelling. He contented himself with a second's glimpse of the man who had touched him. He saw the back of a head.

The hair was scraggly, unshorn. This strung from under the frayed brim of a disreputable hat. The neck was scrawny. Little more than a bony upper spine with skin wrapped around it.

Doc Savage removed the card from his pocket. He did not slacken his speed. He had been moving through the Wall Street crowd with the easy movement of a jungle animal. Though there was a press on the sidewalk, it being five o'clock, it was amazing how this bronze-skinned man avoided contact with others.

Doc was careful to hold the card by its edges. The hands of the scraggly man had been bare. There should be fingerprints.

Doc cupped the card. His eyes flicked across it. Doc's eyes were like flaky gold with stirring whirlwinds in their depths. The whirlwinds seemed to move more rapidly now.

For a few seconds there was a haunting, trilling note. Those who might have been watching the smooth, bronze face of Doc would have detected no movement of his lips. There were many thus watching, for the man of bronze was a marked figure.

The trilling seemed to emanate from all of his huge, symmetrical body. It was a sound of which Doc himself was hardly conscious. It might presage danger, or that the man of bronze was upon the eve of a discovery.

The message on the card in his hand was brief, but explicit:

TO CLARK SAVAGE, JR:--IF YOU WOULD PREVENT DEATH, DANGER TO THOUSANDS, CALL UNION 0-1214 TO-NIGHT AT EIGHT.

The words had been printed with a leaky pen. There was no signature. But the back of a man's head was all the signature Doc would need. Intuitively, he knew he would see the man again. Perhaps many times.

DOC SAVAGE continued through the Wall Street crowd. Now he moved with greater speed, but still he touched no one.

The man of bronze had an errand in Wall Street. He completed his brief business before returning to his headquarters. But his mind was busy with the problem the card in his pocket might represent.

Because of his amazing adventures, his world-wide assistance to those in trouble and his punishment of crooks, Doc Savage was always besieged with appeals. A few merited his attention.

And he was likewise a target for many who feared him. Even this small card in his pocket might be the bait for a trap.

When he had returned to his laboratory, Doc set about reading what he considered vastly more important than the mere printed words on the white card. This laboratory, on the eighty-sixth floor of Manhattan's most impressive skyscraper, was most amazing in its equipment.

Not even the latest equipment of the police or the Federal department of justice equalled the means here for scientific investigation. In addition, as the man of bronze had entered, the doors of smooth, chrome steel closed him in. No locks appeared on these doors. But their electroscopic fastenings made them possible of opening only to Doc and his five companions in adventure.

Doc first dusted the card bearing the mysterious message. The distinct imprints of a thumb and forefinger appeared. The card was a trifle grimy. The hand delivering it had been that of a man who worked. The soiled spots had a brownish tinge.

The bronze man dropped a colorless liquid upon these spots. The reagent brought out a definite greenish color.

For the time, Doc made no further tests. He had arrived at one conclusion which was significant. The hands placing the card in his pocket had been those of a working chemist.

THE bronze man placed the card carefully in a glass case. The voice of a man was speaking from the library adjoining the laboratory. It was fretful and complaining.

"You danged shyster! I waited where you said, but you didn't show up! Dag-gonit, you won't get the chance to stand me up again!"

The speaker was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. His voice was shrill and childlike. But his appearance was that of an ungainly ape covered with reddish-brown hair. Because of this, he was known as "Monk." He was one of the world's leading industrial chemists.

Monk had been speaking into the telephone. The man he had called a shyster was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, otherwise known as "Ham." He was the legal luminary of Doc Savage's group.

Hearing Monk's voice, Doc Savage removed the card from the glass case. He came into the library and laid the card on the table before Monk.

"I received this about three hours ago," Doc stated. "Those greenish spots were brown."

Monk touched the edge of the card.

"The No. 7 reagent brought out the green."

Then he named a little-known chemical which had an acid reaction.

"That is correct, Monk," the bronze man approved. "The card was placed in my pocket."

A huge man with a melancholy face peered at the card and frowned solemnly. He was Colonel John Renwick, the engineer of the group. The hand "Renny" extended toward the card lacked little being the size of a ham. He read the words gloomily.

"Union Exchange, huh?"

The third man in the library said, "That's over in Jersey. And every time we have business with Jersey there is trouble."

This man had an unhealthy pallor. He was small, compared to the others. But many larger men had been sharply surprised by his strength and fighting ability.

He was Major Thomas J. Roberts, electrical wizard. His appearance had given him the name of "Long Tom."

AS Long Tom finished speaking, a clock started chiming with musical notes.

Doc Savage crossed to the desk and picked up the telephone. The clock chimes touched the final stroke of eight o'clock with a harmonious lingering.

"Union 0-1214," said Doc, when he had the New Jersey connection.

A voice started to speak from the other end.

Without preliminaries, the voice said. "You're Doc Sav--"

Then it seemed as if the receiver had exploded. The voice was sliced off. No reverberation followed. There was no lingering roll of sound, such as could have been expected if the instrument had remained even for a few seconds in service.

"That was a powerful blast," Doc said. "The phone was torn out. The man who tried to talk was an old man."

Doc didn't explain further. He didn't waste more time in speech. He had thumbed the receiver bar. Two minutes later, he was given a trace-back on the Jersey call.

"Blind number," he said to the others. "It's off the Newark-Trenton highway in a marshy strip."

Doc moved ahead through the outer door. His three companions paused only to make a swift collection of a few special devices they might need. The bronze man did not seem hurried, but the others were compelled to move fast.

Doc's special elevator dropped with the speed of a rocket. It slowed with a cushiony rebound, when it reached the bronze man's private garage in the basement. Doc's long low car, with its extra-powerful motor under the long hood and its windows of bulletproof glass set in armor steel, glided toward the Holland Tunnel.