Читать книгу Murder Mirage - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 4

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CORDED bronze hands moved deftly among a variety of gleaming instruments affixed to a panel of black marble. The tiny lights set in the panel were reflected in flaky, golden eyes. The specks of light moved in the bronze man's orbs as if they had been caught in small whirlwinds.

Doc Savage's bronze skin over his corded neck merged with the smooth mask of similarly tinged hair. He was so motionless in concentration that his head gave the effect of being that of a carved statue.

"There is no doubt but what the snowstorm of itself is isolated and purely local in the New York area," stated the bronze man. "But there are indications possibly of other distant spots similarly affected. She said there might be sudden weather changes."

The bronze man's words were more musing tone, rather than a statement to the three companions then with him. For nearly an hour, he had been studying the freakish July snowstorm. With the radio and other instruments, he had been checking many widely separated areas of the world.

The scientific equipment in the eighty-sixth floor headquarters of the noted adventurer was advanced in its design. With but a touch, Doc Savage could contact almost any latitude.

"Johnny," who never used a short word where a longer one would serve, was busy with the radio.

"This barometric phenomenon is indubitably a solaric manifestation beyond the scope of casual elucidation," observed the scholarly geologist and archeologist of Doc Savage's adventurous group.

"That would be sun spots to you, Monk, if even such simple words come within range of simian understanding," grinned "Ham," flicking some dust from the sleeve of a suit that was the latest in summer fashions.

"Monk's" broad body nearly filled one opened window. His figure was almost as wide as it was long. He turned and his small eyes snapped with fire under his grizzled brows. Hair the color of rust stuck out like clipped wires around his ears and on his neck. His hands were covered with it. It looked like shaggy fur.

Monk's body shook with indignation. One furry hand scooped snow from the window ledge.

"In less than a minute, one crackpot shyster will be in the market for a new suit of dude clothes!" he squealed.

For Ham--Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks--one of the most astute lawyers ever graduated from Harvard, and Monk--Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, famous chemist--considered any day misspent without the exchange of caustic insult.

Johnny continued his observations on the weather. The keen, scholarly geologist was tall and bony to the point of emaciation. As William Harper Littlejohn, he had occupied one of the highest chairs of learning in a leading university. He spoke in one-syllable words only when he was excited or the going got rough.

"She said there would be sudden weather changes," Doc Savage repeated, glancing at the barometric reading on the black marble board.

Though the repeated statement was cryptic, none of his three companions questioned its meaning. The bronze man would explain in due time.

Just now, the blizzard, or snowy tempest, was at its height. Snow swirled around Monk in the opened window. The impressive skyscraper, with its tower thrusting into the sky, seemed to sway and rock in gusty blasts.

THE telephone buzzed. Doc Savage swung over to the instrument. Johnny instantly made contact with an extension. It was a device of Dr. Savage's which would allow an instantaneous check-back on the number calling.

But this was Renny calling from the office of the government weather bureau. He had been sent with Long Tom by the bronze man to keep an added check on the freakish storm. Doc Savage did not usually concern himself with such matters as weather, but, before the beginning of the snowstorm, he had been given reason to overlook no detail that might be of value.

"There will be a violent electrical disturbance," announced Doc, ending his conversation with Renny. "It is Long Tom's prediction. The weather officials dispute it, but it coincides with my own observations."

The bronze man took two yellow slips from the table. They were telegraph messages. Doc studied them intently, as if he were reading something written between the lines.

One telegram had been filed in Los Angeles. This read:

DEATH THREATENS MANY PERSONS STOP DISASTER MAY MENACE WHOLE WORLD STOP WILL YOU HELP US STOP ON MY WAY TO SEE YOU

SATHYRA FOTHERAN

The other message had been filed in Chicago only ten hours later. This stated:

HAVE LEARNED YOU ARE IN GRAVE DANGER STOP BEWARE VISITORS WITH DARK SKINS STOP MUST GO TO SYRIA IN THE DESERT STOP BE ON GUARD UNTIL I REACH YOU STOP WATCH CHANGE IN WEATHER CLOSELY

SATHYRA FOTHERAN

"Sathyra Fotheran," said Doc aloud. "That would be Lady Sathyra Fotheran, the sister of Denton Cartheris."

Johnny eyed the telegrams intently. A quick gleam of interest showed in his keen eyes.

"Lady Fotheran?" he said. "She could be no other, with that peculiar cognomen. She is the sister of the revelationist of pre-dynastic mortuary disembodiment of the ultra-civilization of the vanished Hittites." Then he added in crude, concise English, "How I envied that guy, Denton Cartheris. Wasn't there some question about his death, Doc, or whether he had really died?"

"Denton Cartheris disappeared during a new trip of exploration after his discoveries in the ancient Hittite capital," stated Doc. "But information received by his friends indicated he believed he was going to die and had made preparations for his demise."

Lightning suddenly stabbed across the open window. Its vividness was that of a gigantic, slashing sword. Thunder cracked instantly with an explosion that shook the skyscraper tower.

"And she said to watch for a change in the weather," mused Doc. "Recent reports show unprecedented storms in upper Syria. The River Euphrates has been twenty-three feet above all previous high-water records."

"Blast it!" exploded Monk. "How could that be possible? We're to believe this dame knew in Chicago this afternoon the weather was due to go on a bust here tonight?"

"That's how it would seem," stated Doc. "At any moment, we may be hearing more directly from Lady Fotheran."

The bronze man was not evincing occult insight. He was merely estimating the flying time between Chicago and New York. The phone buzzed again. Johnny swung to the extension. A woman's strained, tense voice greeted Doc Savage.

"Mr. Savage? I'm trying to reach you--"

The woman was spilling words, as if she might have only a few left to use.

"I'm being followed--can't tell you more--I'm--"

"Where are you?" demanded Doc Savage.

"Thirty-third Street, near the--"

The words ran into a choked gurgle. The instrument bubbled with the woman's strangled pain. Two slapping blows came like the breaking of dry sticks. In the bronze man's ear was only the low hum of an open wire. The receiver at the other end had not been replaced. Doc was convinced the cord had been suddenly ripped loose.

"Have you got the trace-back?" said Doc quickly.

"Public booth," announced Johnny, giving an address only a few blocks away.

"Stay here, Johnny," directed Doc. "Be prepared, for you may have a visitor. Watch out for any one with an Asiatic complexion. Monk and Ham will come with me."

DOC SAVAGE was passing through the outer door before he had finished speaking. He did not pause to arm himself, because he never carried a gun. His men were equipped with the superfirers of his invention, which were in reality, convenient automatic machine guns loaded with mercy bullets.

Doc's special high-speed elevator dropped with the force of a leaden plummet nearly all of the eighty-six floors.

From the elevator the three men whipped into Doc's concealed basement garage. The roadster in which they emerged on the street within less than a minute after the woman had been snatched from the telephone, looked like any ordinary car.

But bullets would only drum upon its armor metal or flatten on the bulletproof glass.

With Monk at the wheel, Doc instructed, "Take no chances. This may be something much bigger than we can guess."

Monk was a skillful driver. The car, with its powerful supermotor, grazed the steel of the elevated railway columns. Monk seemed able to estimate to the fraction of an inch how much room he could allow. The steel brushed the bronze man's clothes at times.

Monk turned off the avenue along which ran the elevated. He was swinging around the block to reach the address of the public phone booth traced by Johnny. This street was almost empty. There was only a small yellow coupé standing by one pavement. Its nose was bogged down, as if it had been wrecked.

Apparently, the woman's call had been made at about the time Patrolman Brennan had died in the snow. The bodies had remained undiscovered.

Monk braked the roadster down. "Howlin' calamities!" he squealed. "Them humps of snow are bodies!"

BUT Doc Savage was off the running board before the car came to a stop. His quick hands brushed the snow from the uniform of Patrolman Brennan. The policeman lay as he had been crawling, toward the companions of the men who had shot him.

The bronze man saw the position of the other two dead men. He observed the automatics still gripped in their hands.

"A brave copper," murmured Doc. "And--a couple of Whitey Jano's rats."

Monk and Ham had followed him.

"These two men are Creeper Hogan and Slim Decarro," announced Doc. "They are two of Whitey Jano's killers. I didn't know Whitey Jano used gunmen for ordinary jobs."

"The cop got 'em," said Monk. "Walked right into it."

"Yes," said the bronze man, "and after they shot him."

He did not explain how he knew this. He was already on his way toward the yellow coupé. For perhaps two seconds, he remained looking at the little car.

Apparently from nowhere came a low trilling sound. It might have been the throaty whistle of some tropical bird. A wind through wires could have made somewhat the same sound. Doc's lips were unmoving but the vibrant emanation came from him. It was his sign of unusual concentration.

Monk and Ham were beside him. Doc moved slowly along the sidewalk in the direction of the elevated railway stairs.

"This snow," he said, moving a foot in the thin film, "has been here only a few minutes. The first snow is gone, yet there is no heated basement under this pavement."

The wide area in front of a music store had been blackened. The seared section of the street showed plainly through the later snow.

Now thunder cracked and rolled. Lightning played with lurid lashing over the tops of cloud-scraping buildings. Between these flashes, the building fronts took on a greenish glow.

Doc halted in front of one window of the music store. Brushing aside the new fall of snow, he picked up a woman's chain-mesh purse. His fingers touched the cold metal of a small automatic pistol.

He held the purse and the pistol in his hands.

"The initials are S. F.," he stated, pointing to the silvered lettering on the side of the purse. He flicked one of several cards from a case inside the purse.

"Lady Sathyra Fotheran," he read aloud.

"Blast it!" howled Monk. "Y' mean them alley buzzards got the lady? Lookit, Doc!"

Doc Savage already had seen what now brought a long gasp from Monk. Monk was scooping up a pair of earrings and a costly wrist watch.

"Must have stripped the woman of her jewelry and then dropped it when the cop started pluggin' at them," observed Ham. "Here's one of her rings."

He had discovered the diamond ring glittering in the snow near the curb.

"I think not," stated the Man of Bronze. "Notice the peculiar light. It's in the snow. It's stronger in the diamond than anywhere else."

The fluorescent glow still lingered over the street. The scene was almost like that of a brilliantly painted stage. It was as if a strong phosphorescent substance, perhaps a special sulphide of zinc, had been spread over everything.

Again the trilling sound filled the space around them. Only in a moment of greatest stress did this emanate from Doc. And the man of bronze was standing motionless. His eyes had followed the focusing point of the strange glow in the street.

"Howlin' calamities!" squawked Monk. "Danged if I believe what I'm seem'! Ham, do you see it? There in the window?"

"You are seeing it, Monk," stated Doc. "Rather you are seeing her."

AN "el" train had rumbled to a stop. Several persons came down the stairway. Police sirens wailed from two directions. The first squad car hooted into the block and the driver picked out Doc's group in front of the music store as a point to stop.

Detective Inspector Carnahan was red-faced and choleric. Followed by four men, he sprang out in the snow. A minute later, he was bellowing orders.

"Ring in the block! It's Slim Decarro and Creeper Hogan of that cursed Jano gang! They got one of the boys! There's been a mob rubout here! Hiya--so you're here, Savage? What brought you into this, or is this just one of them funny accidents?"

The red-faced inspector confronted the Man of Bronze.

"It wasn't any accident," said Doc, calmly.

"Then what do you know about this?" demanded Carnahan. "Who was them Jano killers out to get? An' how did it happen they left them rats in the street? I thought we had this rubout stuff about cleaned up."

"It wasn't a mob feud, inspector," said the bronze man quietly. "It was the murder of a woman."

"A woman! What woman?" barked Carnahan. "Where is she?"

"Right there," pointed Doc. "In the glass of that window."

"In the glass--a murdered woman--sa-ay! You must've been eatin' nuts this time for sure!" howled the inspector, the blood boiling his face to the color of a beet. "Whadda you think--well, for Pete's sake! O'Malley, Connors, come here!"

Detectives O'Malley and Connors made dry, clucking noises in their throats. Their eyes bugged and they edged closer.

"By all the saints!" gasped one. "It's nothin' but a picture!"

It might indeed have been only a picture. If so, it was most extraordinary shadowgraphing. In the thick plate glass, a woman appeared to be walking. The form was more of a silhouette, black in color. It lacked the highlights of a photograph.

But it was life-size, as if the woman's body had been flattened and merged with the glass. One slim arm was extended upward, in the position of warding off a blow or some threatened danger.

Inspector Carnahan rubbed his hand dubiously over the glass. The surface was smooth, unmarred.

"Get that door open!" he rapped out. "Bust the lock or smash the window, but get in! We'll see about this nutty stuff! Savage, you stick around! I'll wanta talk to you!"

Carnahan seemed to be one of New York's few detective inspectors with lack of wholesome respect for Doc Savage's reputation. It happened this was the choleric Mr. Carnahan's first contact with the man of bronze.

When the lock was pried loose and Carnahan himself had crawled into the display window, the inspector discovered he had not progressed in the least. The inside of the plate glass was as smooth as the outside.

"But sure, an' there's a woman there, an' she ain't never been in that window before," asserted Detective O'Malley. "I was in the shop only yesterday afternoon, buyin' my boy a mouth harp. An' the glass was as clean as a hound's tooth!"

Inspector Carnahan was far from pacified. He again confronted Doc Savage.

"That loony picture in the window don't mean a thing, Savage. Now why do you think a woman was bumped off? Where is this woman? Where is the corpus delicti?"

"You'll never need to seek farther than this window, inspector," the man of bronze declared, solemnly. "In that glass, as plain as you'll ever see, is your corpus delicti."