Читать книгу Cold Death - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 8

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MONK was confident Doc Savage would pick up his trail quickly. He would have been much more downcast had he known that Doc and Renny were at this moment rushing along a Long Island road.

The man of bronze was even now scrutinizing a lowering sky over Little Neck. This exclusive residence section just within the boundary line of New York City, was sleeping. Great elms spread protective arms over the homes of millionaires.

At the terminus of a scattered row of ornate dwellings, was set the colonial-style mansion of J. Afton Carberry. Unlike the others, the Carberry pile of architecture was ablaze with lights. When they were half a mile from the place, Doc and Renny could see this glaring illumination against the trees. The light was reflected with a dull glow upon the low-flying clouds.

"Holy cow!" grunted Renny. "You'd think a smart guy like this Carberry would have more brains than to light his house up like a Christmas tree! Suppose this Var fellow happened to be flying around upstairs? What a swell target that would make!"

"Good guess, Renny," approved Doc. "That's the way it may come this time. We'll see what we can do about it."

Police were thickly spotted in the Carberry grounds. The white gravel of the driveway showed like a winding serpent among the trees. It was perhaps two hundred yards from the entrance gate to the illuminated mansion.

Doc drove about fifty yards along the gravel. His own powerful motor was only a whispering song under the car's long hood. The humming drone that swiftly increased to a drumming throb among the scudding clouds, was distinctly audible.

"And there you are--" Renny began to say.

A NARROW band of blue-steel light shot from the murky sky. Like a long silvery knife, it stood out against the night. Its point touched the driveway only a few yards ahead of Doc's car. But it was moving swiftly, swinging directly toward the car itself.

Doc pulled the steering wheel around, swerving the car into the trees. With a swift movement, he pushed Renny to the outside.

Renny's big body was through the door. Doc slid from under the wheel. His heels crunched in the gravel. With gliding speed, he moved to one side. His direction was toward the house.

"The thing can't miss it!" Renny yelled. "All those lights would--"

It was one of the few times in his life that Doc Savage failed to hear distinctly. The drums of his ears suddenly thundered. It was as if a gigantic knife of ice had been thrust all the way through his body from his brain to his toes.

Doc's arms and legs were instantly numbed. His motor nerves refused to respond to the bidding of his brain. His keen sight was dimmed by a frost that seemed to rim his eyes. He felt himself falling forward.

"Cold Light," was Doc's instant thought. Like the illumination created by the inhabitants of The Land of Always-Night. Only their light was cold and harmless. This was deadly, more like a bath in liquid air.

Doc was temporarily paralyzed. He tried to warn Renny to keep away, but no words issued from his constricted throat. He felt consciousness fading. Then he was suffused with a vast warm wave. By comparison, it was like a fire that set his skin prickling and brought waves of jerking pain to his muscles.

Slowly, Doc got to his feet. Overhead, the airplane was flying low. It carried no riding lights, but the descending spike of cold light revealed it as a small dark object.

RENNY had whipped out his super-machine pistol and was shooting into the air. His fire was futile. The plane was beyond the reach of the mercy bullets. Renny was beside Doc again. Police surged toward the house.

"Get back, all of you!" warned Doc. He hadn't raised his voice. He never did. The peculiar quality of Doc's calmest words always carried to those listening.

The rare, mellow whistle filled the space around him. The sound may have come from his lips. But it seemed an aura of vibration that always thrilled its hearers with the imminence of deadly danger. Doc guessed what was coming.

The air sucked away. Renny and the nearest coppers felt as if they were standing in a vast vacuum. Their mouths opened and their chests heaved as they gulped for breath. The air seemed to have been snatched from the depths of their lungs.

Doc's eyes were fixed upon the Carberry mansion. He expected to see the million-dollar mass of architecture disintegrate. But the residence remained intact.

From the thicker woods well back in the wide estate came the roar as of a rushing wind. The sound was of cyclonic intensity. In the hurricane hiss of displaced air came the crackling report of great trees being snapped off.

The long spike of blue-steel flashed off. It was as if a switch had been thrown in the midst of chaos. The rolling reverberation of the long explosion abruptly died. Only the trembling ground, the hissing, sighing echoes across the countryside, the heavy bumping and plopping of falling trees and shorn branches remained as an aftermath of the blast.

POLICEMEN were climbing to their feet, dusting off their clothes. For a minute, no one moved, either toward or away from the scene of the bursting Cold Light. That is, none but Doc Savage.

Instead of heading for the spot where the blast had taken place, he was moving toward the Carberry mansion. Doc's stride was unhurried; but Renny, who immediately followed, was forced to shuffle into a trot to keep up with him.

The drumming of the plane was dying away. It was flying out over Long Island Sound. With the stoppage of the Cold Light, the pyramid of blue flame had suddenly disappeared. It had seemed to ascend for half a mile or more. Doc wondered if the Cold Light had remained on, would the flame have reached the plane.

Renny was at Doc's shoulder. They passed the policemen guarding the Carberry doors. Inside, Doc instantly identified the financier, though he had seen only his photographs in the news.

Carberry's face was the color of gray chalk. The area of color denoting his terror extended up his high, narrow forehead into the baldness between strangely thick tufts of graying hair.

The man was so tall, he was compelled to bend and droop his narrow shoulders to hold a shivering, sobbing woman in his arms. Doc, for the moment, believed this woman to be the financier's daughter. She appeared to be only about half the age of the retired capitalist.

The woman was wearing a lacy negligee. Her skin was smooth, velvety. Renny paused admiringly. The woman's face was white as polished ivory. All color had been drained from it. Apparently, she had just come into the room, aroused by the explosion.

"Darling! Oh, what is it? What is it?"

The hand of the financier on the woman's shoulder was blue-veined and thin. It trembled as he gently patted the woman's alluring, rounded arm.

"It's--it's nothing much--dear," the man quavered, hoarsely.

Doc walked toward them. Carberry stared at him an instant, then his lips parted in a half fearful smile.

"You're--Doc Savage," he said, controlling his voice with an effort. "The commissioner said he would call you. I've never met you, sir."

"And you are Mr. Carberry," Doc stated.

"Yes; and this is Mrs. Carberry, Doc Savage."

The woman gave him a tremulous smile. Her slight body shivered.

BEFORE Doc could acknowledge the introduction, another voice interrupted. At its first note, Carberry stiffened, and his arm fell away from his wife's shoulders. His slightly protruding eyes of a light-bluish shade roved quickly, desperately about the room. Doc was reminded of some scared animal in a trap.

"Holy cow!" ejaculated Renny. "It's coming from--"

The bulky figure of the engineer barged across the room in the direction of the wide chimney. Doc laid a hand on Renny's arm.

The voice had addressed itself to J. Afton Carberry. Now it spoke with a sibilant, ghostly cadence:

"Carberry--now you have seen a demonstration of my power! You have forty-eight hours! I shall communicate with you at the expiration of that time! I shall find you wherever you are! I need your millions! I know the police have appealed to Doc Savage! This time, he will fail. For I am--Var!"

Renny's keen instinct for direction had been correct. The voice was coming from the fireplace, from the chimney. A log blazed between the tiled sides.

Heedless of the blaze, Doc thrust his body into the chimney opening. Looking upward, he had the glimpse of a head silhouetted against the sky, a shadowy, shaggy head.

Showering ashes and fire as he emerged into the room, Doc was at the outside door in a flowing stride. The policeman at the door gaped after him. He had hardly seemed to move, but he was already at the corner of the house nearest the chimney.

From there, Doc seemed almost to float up the wall of the house. The residence, with its many slight projections, was like a smooth road to the bronze man.

Doc bounded onto the roof. As he came erect, lead pounded the overlapping slates at his feet. An automatic was spitting fire from the opposite end of the mansion center gable. But fast as the attacker had been, Doc was far to one side as the remaining slugs came higher in a searching stream.

Then Doc pivoted. The ground was thirty feet below. He poised only an instant, then sprang outward. He alighted with the cushioned ease of a body set on coiled springs.

Gliding toward the corner of the house, Doc encountered two city coppers in uniform. One was holding an automatic that still smoked. He was saying, "I think I got the guy! He fell off the roof!"

Doc halted the two men. "You just shot at a man on the roof?"

"Sure!" said the cop. "I al--good gosh! It's Doc Savage! Was that you up there?"

"I was on the roof," observed Doc. "Did you see another man come down, or running away?"

"I heard a noise up there," said the cop, "but it must have been you I shot at. I didn't see any other man."

RENNY was inside investigating the chimney. The log fire had been drowned. No marks appeared to show that anybody or anything had been in the chimney aperture.

Carberry was sitting on a couch. His wife still clung close to him.

"What would you advise us to do, Mr. Savage?" Carberry asked.

"I'd take Mrs. Carberry and go away as secretly as possible," Doc advised. "Make it a point not to inform even your servants of your destination. I hope within forty-eight hours we may have something more definite on this man who calls himself Var."

Doc and Renny departed from the house. Doc slipped under the wheel of his car. His intended destination was the nearest airport. He had little hope of tracing the Cold Light plane, but believed communication with some of the airports might give him a lead.

Renny exclaimed, "Look at this, Doc!"

The engineer had noticed the leather flap of the side pocket was open and lifted as if to attract attention. Renny held two square white cards. One was small, the other large. The larger card showed a printed message under the pencil ray of Doc's flashlight.

The small card bore words plainly written with bright blue ink. There was no attempt to disguise the hand of the man who had written it:

Admit bearer with password to inner circle. I am--Var.

"What do you make of it?" said Renny.

"Read this," replied Doc, passing over the larger card.

Go at once to Washington. Yellow house in 14th block on K Street. Third from corner. Do not delay. Var will be there at 4 a.m. this morning. He has tricked Ham into meeting you there. They will not kill Monk until he has talked with you. The password for the card is "Rav Rules." Var's name reversed.

The card was unsigned. Under the pencil ray it showed stains of a brownish tinge. Doc was sure the fingerprints would be the same he had encountered twice before. The man whose fingerprints were on the polished copper ball at the death house in the marsh, had escaped the explosion.