Читать книгу Murder Mirage - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 6

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DESPITE the freakish snow and the early morning hour, a crowd of loiterers had gathered in the block. The augmented police guard kept the crowd of the curious from the sidewalk. Six brawny policemen did sentry duty beside the "murder picture" itself.

Among the loiterers weaved a thin-shanked, narrow-faced youth. His eyes were beady and predatory. He moved with a shambling, furtive gait, pausing here and there to mop the back of a dirty hand over his twisted mouth.

The thunderstorm was beginning to break with greater fury. Lances of lightning stabbed at the gleaming faces of skyscrapers. The snow was changing to rain. The temperature of the crazy July night was rising.

The thin-shanked youth kept his cap pulled low over his ratty face. One hand was held thrust inside his flapping coat. He edged in among the loiterers directly in front of the "murder picture" window.

Aronson, proprietor of the music store, was arguing with Inspector Carnahan.

"You can't keep the cops on my store, when it comes time for business," complained the fat music man.

"I can keep cops on this joint until the moon turns as green as that nutty light on everything around here!" said Inspector Carnahan.

Following Doc's instructions, Monk and Ham remained at their posts. They had been told to watch that window. Rain started pattering down. Streams began trickling over Ham's summer sartorial elegance. The lawyer moved under a narrow awning. A pleased grin spread over Monk's homely face.

"If you'd take to wearin' clothes like a man, instead of one of them Fifth Avenue dudes, you wouldn't be mindin' a little wettin'," said Monk.

"An' if I had a suit of monkey fur and your mug to push around with it, I'd go back to the jungle and quit wearing any clothes," replied Ham, with a tone of elaborate insult. "Besides, I've thought--"

Ham's pleasing observation was never finished.

"Blast it!" squeaked Monk. "Look out!"

The apelike chemist heaved his squat body sidewise and upward. A heavy missile was flying through the air. It was a hammer with a blunt round head and weighing several pounds. The hammer was shooting straight toward the picture of the murdered woman in the plate glass.

Monk tried to catch the hammer. His effort failed. The weighty missile flew onward. Heavy glass splintered and shivered in razorlike strips to the pavement.

"C'mon!" Monk exploded. "Doc'll want to give that guy the once-over! We'll get him!"

THE furtive youth who had been holding his hand under his coat was getting away with the speed of a weasel.

The murder shadow of the woman had escaped destruction. While Monk had failed in his attempt to catch the thrown hammer, his hand had deflected its course. The weighty iron had smashed through the plate glass of the window next to that in which the woman was pictured.

The hammer-throwing weasel put on a burst of speed. Sticking to the alley, he crossed three streets. He entered the alley again in the fourth block away from the music store.

Alongside a wall of smooth brick in the mouth of the alley at the fourth street, stood a black, closed sedan. It had been parked well to one side. Apparently this had been the goal of the hammer hurler. He made straight for the parked sedan.

Ham and Monk rounded the wall after him, made for the car.

"Thishahum, bism er rassoul!" grated a voice.

Like Doc, his men knew many of the world's languages. Ham flashed around defensively, his back to the wall.

"The Bedouin cry of the raid," he muttered to Monk.

"'Kill, in the name of the prophet.'"

A huge, hawk-nosed figure was leaping upon them from the sedan. The man's giant form was cloaked in a gold-embroidered abba. A curved scimitar like a razor-edged crescent whipped in a circle over the man's head. Under the headcloth, his flowing kafieh, the attacker's face was of the smoothness and color of ebony. There was the flat, dilating nose of the Nubian.

Monk and Ham were given no time for observing details. Behind the Nubian leader came half a dozen figures with flowing abbas and kafiehs. But their faces were of the color of dull lead. In the gloom of the alley, these seemed to be real faces. The masks continued into tightly-fitting neck pieces that extended beneath the shootlike undergarments, their gumbaz.

Monk whipped away from the wall. From a concealed pocket, he produced two small glass capsules. He waded into the mass of figures, his huge feet crushing the tiny glass globules.

Ham had seen his intention. He did not breathe. He knew the effect of the capsules.

These contained a powerful anaesthetic gas, effective instantly. In a minute it would be cleared away; but in that minute, those who breathed it went to sleep.

The hawk-nosed Nubian suddenly waved his scimitar and its jeweled handle flashed. Then the massive weapon fell from his hands. The black face became vacuous. The ebony man's eyes closed and he lay down in the dirty snow. His gold-embroidered abba was sogged with the slush.

None of the masked figures seemed affected by the gas, however. Monk howled angrily. The big chemist flailed at the nearest men with his fists. Ham was at his side.

But the odds were too great; they were overpowered.

Securely held by the cloth wrappings, Monk and Ham were still conscious when they were carried to the sedan. Monk had only the lame satisfaction of seeing the giant Nubian also carried to the car. He had been the only one knocked out by the gas.