Читать книгу Murder Mirage - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 5

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THE skin of Inspector Carnahan's face resembled a blown-up toy balloon, inflated to the bursting point.

"O'Malley! Connors!" he barked. "You keep guard on that crazy window while I get some more men! An' I'm puttin' out the alarm for Whitey Jano! I thought that mug had dropped this strong-arm stuff an' got himself into the upper tiers!"

Inspector Carnahan meant by that it was his belief "Whitey" Jano had become a crook of a little higher order. His record showed he had been brought in twice, charged with forms of extortion that savored of a shrewd confidence game. And Whitey Jano had moved from a hangout on the lower East Side to a luxurious penthouse in the vicinity of Central Park.

While Inspector Carnahan was concentrating his puzzled attention on the window of the murder shadow, Doc Savage had unobtrusively slipped into the small yellow coupé. He was careful not to disturb the cushions of the wide single seat.

From a small vial taken from an inner pocket, the bronze man sprinkled a grayish chemical powder. This covered the seat from side to side. Almost instantly, the plush of the cushions took on a curious yellow glow. This was the nap of the thick plush slowly coming back to place after having been compressed.

This informed Doc that two persons had occupied the small car. A small inside plate told him the coupé was a rented car. Checking on the owner, the man of bronze swung back to the street.

Crossing the street, Doc followed the curb to the corner by the "el." He returned slowly along the curb in front of the music store. Now he knew there had been two cars, besides the coupé, on the scene at the time of the woman's murder.

Monk and Ham were still giving their attention to the window of the shadow. Doc slipped between them.

"Stick here," he directed. "Don't let anything happen to that glass. The police are not likely to find anything except the bodies in the street. Stay here until the deputy medical examiner decides what to do about the picture."

DOC'S movement away from the small crowd now collected around the window was unobserved by Inspector Carnahan. The bronze man glided into the nearest alleyway. His immediate goal was the public phone booth from which the frantic voice of a woman had called. He knew the call must have been almost coincident with the shootings and the murder.

Just before he emerged into the adjoining street, Doc halted abruptly in the darkness of the alley. Directly across the street was the black mouth of the continuing alley. Across this gloomy space, some lighter shadows had suddenly passed.

There were several figures. They could have been ghosts, judging from the noiselessness of their movement and their color. The figures seemed to be clothed in white sheets. Doc glimpsed the red tail-light of a car farther in the alley.

From the vicinity of the car in the alley came the crash of splintering glass. Half a dozen of the sheet-clad figures had surrounded the automobile. A slender woman was pulled out and thrust against an alley wall. What might have been a knife of huge size, flashed in a glittering arc.

"You black devil!" shouted a heavy voice. "I'll burn you for--"

The huge knife gave off a sudden glinting light. The mouthing of the other man ended in a wild scream of pain. Then the man yelled, "Grab the black devil! Grab 'im, Curt! He's chopped off my hand!"

Doc traversed the short length of the alley with the speed and silence of a jungle cat. Four men had spilled from the car from which the woman had been pulled over to the wall. There was light enough to glint on their guns.

The man who had screamed now had slumped to the running board of the car. At his feet a machine gun had thumped to the bricks. The man was holding up the bleeding stump of his arm. His right hand had been neatly amputated above the wrist. Apparently, he had been trying to use the machine gun.

Before Doc could decide where he was most needed, or why, another man from the car gurgled and rolled to his back. This man's heels flapped on the ground. He acted as if he had been partly broken in two. Doc saw this was literally true.

A long knife had slitted across the man's stomach. The blade had been deeply buried and ripped the rest of the way across. The man with the huge swinging blade had aimed it at the neck of another man, who was desperately attempting to get an automatic into action.

Doc arrived with the effect of a silently bursting storm. One cabled bronze hand flashed out with the speed of light. The tall figure wielding the blade somersaulted over Doc's shoulder. His weapon clanged on the alley bricks.

The bronze man's head suddenly took the square impact of a blow. The crashing collision with the base of his skull temporarily paralyzed his active senses. He exerted his will to remain on his feet.

For perhaps a half minute, the man of bronze was what is commonly known as "out on his feet." By exercising his amazing force of will over nerves and muscles, he might have continued active. But the bloody fight apparently was over.

TWO white men, wearing all the marks of hoodlums, were pulling one dead man back into the car. The man with the amputated hand had wrapped his wound with a half of his own shirt. The dark-skinned "sheeted" men had slightly withdrawn. The tall figure Doc had hurled over his shoulder had retrieved his hefty, murderous blade.

This man apparently was the leader. He cried out in a gobbling foreign tongue.

"Thishahum, bism er rassoul!"

The language was the Arabic of the desert Bedouins. From tribe to tribe in the vast burning spaces of lower Asia the tongue varied but little. The extensive, all-embracing knowledge of Doc Savage included nearly all of the spoken language. He identified the speech instantly.

The tall man's cry had been, "Kill, in the name of the prophet!"

A sudden voice spoke more calmly. It was in Arabic, but Doc interpreted the meaning:

"It is enough!"

The quiet tone carried authority.

Doc remained immobile. All of this and all of his observations transpired within the flashing passage of perhaps thirty or forty seconds. But the man of bronze had trained himself to record and segregate the smallest details.

The tall leader of these dark-skinned men was not a true Bedouin. All of the white men's attackers wore the garb of the desert. Their flowing abbas were long cloaks of camel's hair, dyed. These dropped from their shoulders to their heels.

Their kafiehs were snowy-white headcloths that draped over their shoulders.

But the tall leader's abba was heavily embroidered with gold thread. Doc knew that in Syria this would have indicated the man to be the favorite slave of a sheik of sheiks. Such slaves were much more than ordinary. Sometimes they were warriors of fierce repute.

The great knife that had slashed off the white man's hand was a glittering, curved scimitar. A silver scabbard swung at the man's belt. The scimitar had a brightly jeweled handle.

Though the brief battle had resulted in one dead man and one seriously crippled, the engagement had been almost soundless. The total elapsed time from when Doc entered the alley until the automobile was moving away, was probably less than two minutes.

Now Doc Savage sought for the motive of the encounter. Clearly enough, the white men in the car had been of the hoodlum brand. It had been a strange, mysterious battle.

There was the woman. Doc remained motionless. The woman's white face was like a dim flower in the alley darkness. Another figure was standing beside her. The leader of the Bedouins growled a guttural command. The Bedouins moved swiftly, silently. Their long abbas gave them the effect of gliding along the alley. They faded away as soundlessly as a small company of ghosts.

The man of bronze permitted them to go. He might now have come off well enough in an encounter against even the Arabs with their knives. But another purpose had sprung up instantly. The woman had been left behind with that other shadowy figure.

Doc emerged from beside the wall.

"You are the one who summoned me by telephone," the bronze man stated. "Then you were seized and brought here. Some of this is mysterious. I would take it those Bedouins I have permitted to depart are your friends."

DOC'S generator flashlight flicked into his hand. Its ray was spread. The woman outlined in the brilliant white blaze was beautiful in statuesque fashion, only she was not tall of stature.

She had poised dignity. Her face was drained of blood, and it was pale almost to the point of seeming transparency. Her skin was of the texture of lovely velvet. Eyes of a deep golden hue, not unlike those of Doc Savage, widened upon him.

"You are Mr. Savage, the Doc Savage," she said as a statement and not an inquiry. "None could ever make a mistake, seeing you. Yes, I am the one who telephoned. You arrived just in time."

"You say you telephoned, then you were seized," the bronze man said. "So the Bedouins were your friends," he repeated.

"As to that, I cannot say," was the woman's surprising reply. "It is the first time I have ever seen a Bedouin or an Arab. I mean, of course, directly from the desert in native costume. I know as little about all this happening just now, as you. I was seized by the men in the car."

A man stood beside the woman. Thus far, he had said nothing. His face was long and incredibly thin. It looked unhealthy.

The man has suffered with tropical fevers, was Doc's instant judgment. He has lived in the jungles, or, perhaps, the desert.

"And you?" Doc pointed the two words at this man.

"Yes," said the sallow-faced man. "I happened along. I was following the Bedouins. I have been in Syria and the men were unusual in their native clothes in New York. Then I saw familiar faces."

"Now," suggested Doc, "neither of you has identified yourself."

"Oh, I'm sorry," came instantly from the golden-eyed woman. "I just took it for granted that you would know. I am Sathyra Fotheran, of course. You got my telegram?"

Doc Savage, for the moment, said nothing in reply to the woman's statement. His flaky gold eyes caught the keen gray orbs of the sallow-faced man. They impelled an answer to an unspoken question.

"And I am Carson Dernall," stated the man in his dry, crackling voice. "It is a remarkable coincidence that I should be here. I was an aide to Denton Cartheris, in Syria, before he died. This is only the second time I have met Lady Fotheran. The first time was when I bore the news of her brother's death. I had no idea what an amazing result would come of my following those Bedouins."

"It is a remarkable coincidence," stated Doc Savage, without display of emotion. "When I received the call from Lady Fotheran, I came immediately; but I did not come at once into the street from which she telephoned. There was a slight delay."

The man of bronze thumbed several small white cards into his hand. They bore a name in distinctive engraving. He spread them under the ray of the flashlight.

"Then these, I take it, would be your property, Lady Fotheran?" Doc said.

FOR the first time, the woman displayed visible emotion. Her golden eyes widened. The slender fingers with which she just touched the engraved cards were exquisitely kept.

"Why, yes, yes!" she breathed. "They are mine! Oh, then you've found Marian? She picked up my purse by mistake. We were trying to get to your headquarters, Mr. Savage. We discovered we were being followed."

"You separated when you left the yellow coupé?"

"Yes! Yes! That was it! We decided to try and reach you by separate ways! Marian is my secretary. She was taking the elevated train. Then she did reach your office? Where is she?"

"What happened when you left the coupé?" parried the man of bronze.

"Why--well, there was a strange, blinding light. For a little while, I could not see. Oh, Mr. Savage, I have much to tell you concerning that--something I have known and--"

"Later, Lady Fotheran," interrupted Doc. "What more happened by the coupé?"

"That is about all I can remember. There were two other cars near by, and some men walking just before the light came. There were four men I saw. They had dull, gray faces. Or maybe they were more the color of lead."

"They interfered with your secretary?"

"No! No! I could not see for the sudden blindness of the light! I think Marian ascended the steps of the elevated, but I could not be sure. So I ran, and I used the first telephone I could find!"

"We will go to my headquarters," announced Doc. "It will be best for us to go over into the other street and call a taxicab."

"Then Marian is there?"

"It is better we go there," Doc stated, gravely. "I fear your secretary will not come."

"Oh! You mean she has been made a prisoner? She was taken away?"

"She has been taken away," was all Doc vouchsafed.

Carson Dernall touched shoulders with Doc, as they moved into the adjoining street.

"I'm sure I know something of this and I can be of assistance perhaps," Dernall remarked in a low tone.

HOURS later, the police were in possession of a severed human hand. It had belonged to "Runt" Davis. The hand had been found in the alley.

Runt Davis was known as the first lieutenant to Whitey Jano, before Jano had apparently dropped his strong-arm activities to become a slick confidence man on his own.