Читать книгу Mad Eyes - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 5

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THE young woman was plumply rounded out. She did not seem quite the type to have a fiery temper. But sparks were snapping in her black eyes. Her voice was edged with anger.

"Hurry up, funny face, and pry me loose from these thorns!" the girl demanded of Monk. "It's a wonder I'm alive! Oh! You're one of Doc Savage's men! Well, I'm not a bit surprised!"

Monk's long arms lifted a hundred and fifty pounds of fairly good-looking woman from the bushes. He set her on her feet between the rails of one of the tracks.

"You don't mean to tell me you were in that wrecked car?" said Ham. "You don't look as if you were hurt much."

"That car?" exclaimed the young woman. "You think I was in that? I couldn't have been, the way it looks. But I must have come here some way! After Doc Savage started looking at me, I knew something was wrong!"

The girl's black eyes flashed at Ham. She had smooth, black hair and a white forehead. Her mouth was round and small and very red.

"I knew it!" exploded Monk. "I told you, Ham! Doc's in trouble! Where'd you come from, miss, and how--"

"Don't try to kid me!" snapped the young woman. "Both of you belong to Doc Savage, so you must have been with him! Sure, that's it! You were there when he held up the laboratories and put me in a trance with his whirlwind eyes!"

"Hold everything just a minute," suggested Ham. "Let's begin at the beginning. You're saying Doc Savage hypnotized you or something like that? I presume then you came from the Spargrove Laboratories. You claim you didn't know you were in that wrecked car?"

"You heard me telling you I don't remember anything after Doc Savage looked at me in that funny way he has," declared the young woman. "Anyway, I'm Jane Davidson, and I've been helping Professor Spargrove at his laboratory."

"I don't care who you are!" howled Monk. "I want to know if Doc was in that smashed car!"

"How many times do I have to say I don't know?" rapped Jane Davidson. "I may have been in the car! Probably I was! But I don't remember anything after Doc Savage looked at me! Besides that, I was called to the laboratories to help Professor Spargrove with some kind of meeting for Doc Savage and--"

"I believe you, Miss Davidson," interrupted Ham. "You've got Doc all wrong, but I guess you think you're telling the truth. Monk, put Miss Davidson in our car. I'm having a look around. She couldn't have come here alone."

"I won't go with you in any car!" snapped Jane Davidson.

Sheets of rain whipped down on gusts of wind. The track inspector grinned a little.

"Maybe I could give you a lift, miss," he suggested.

"On that thing?" said the girl, looking at the rain-swept gasoline engine. "I should say not!"

JANE DAVIDSON appeared to be an extremely contrary young woman. She suddenly changed her mind. And from the loose folds of her coat she produced a stubby-looking automatic.

"All right!" she stated. "I'll go with you in the car!"

She walked along the tracks toward the highway crossing. Monk ambled beside her. Though the ugly chemist was worried about what might have happened to Doc, he was wearing a crooked grin.

Monk liked young women with spirit.

"Daggonit!" he said plaintively. "You don't have to wave that pistol! We were on our way to meet Doc! We'll take good care of you!"

"You certainly will!" announced Jane Davidson grimly. "And if something's gone wrong at the laboratories, I'm sure Doc Savage knows about it!"

The track inspector's one-lunged gasoline car chugged away. The railroad man was going to the nearest point where he could report the crossing smash. He acted as if he were glad to get away from the place and the company.

Ham, meanwhile, climbed the steep bank above the railroad. He used his flashlight around the place where the girl had been tangled in the thorny bushes. The only evidence of her having been there was a scrap of her dress hanging on a branch.

"It's confounded crazy," murmured Ham. "There are her tracks in the mud after Monk lifted her out, but there are none coming up. So she must have been thrown out of that car."

Ham saw Jane Davidson and Monk walk into the headlight beams of their own car still standing on the highway. At that instant, the lawyer became conscious of a peculiar note on the wind.

The sound was like the wind had suddenly blown across taut, melodious strings. It was eerie, something like a tune, yet having no clear melody. It seemed to proceed from a point back of some near-by rocks.

"Doc!" exclaimed Ham. "That sounds like him, and yet it isn't exactly the same!"

In moments of stress, danger or concentration, Doc Savage nearly always emitted a weird trilling. The sound was a part of the bronze giant.

But something warned Ham to proceed with caution. The lawyer whipped a few yards toward the rocks in the darkness. As he moved, the smooth, black cane he carried separated. In his right hand played a gleaming, pointed sword blade.

The sword cane was Ham's favorite weapon. The point of the blade was covered with an anaesthetic drug. The lawyer needed only to touch an enemy to render him instantly unconscious.

Ham slipped between two large rocks. The trilling sound had not been repeated. Rain slapped into the lawyer's eyes. He could see only a few feet ahead. But by concentrating on one point, he was sure he had seen a shadow move.

"Doc!" Ham called out softly. "You in there?"

A husky, whispering laugh came from close behind Ham. Something like a human foot crunched on the rocks. The lawyer whipped around, bringing the sword blade into play.

Ham was aware he had been tricked. He was surrounded by what seemed only swiftly moving shadows in the drenching rain. He thrust at one of these with his sword. To his astonishment, the keen-pointed blade passed directly through one of the shadows.

The bright steel jammed into a rock. The blade snapped. Something made a hissing noise in the rain. Ham was forced to drop both his cane and the broken blade. A soft, hairy noose of some kind had dropped over his head and tightened around his throat.

The noose cut off Ham's breath. He attempted to let out a yell. Somehow, he got his fingers under the cord. But he could not free enough breath to utter a warning.

Again there came a hoarse, whispering laugh. This was more like the wind than a human voice. A coarse, sacklike affair descended over Ham's head. Kicking and threshing around, the lawyer was pulled to the ground.

The inside of the sack had a sweetish smell. In a few seconds, Ham lay still.

MONK looked up at the hill above the railroad. He could not see where Ham had disappeared. He called out several times.

"Now I've got to go an' find that daggoned dumb shyster," growled Monk. "You get in the car an' keep dry."

Jane Davidson started to climb into the car. She still held her stubby automatic. An unearthly squeal came from the car's rear seat. It was followed by a coughing grunt of rage.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Jane Davidson. "I might have known there was some trick!"

She backed hastily into Monk's arms. The ferocious, small eyes of Chemistry, the tailless baboon, were shining at her, as well as those of Habeas Corpus.

"They won't hurt you," assured Monk. "That's Habeas Corpus, my pig, and Chemistry, Ham's pet baboon."

For the first time, Jane Davidson seemed shaken.

"I--I guess I'll wait out here," she said. "I've been in enough trouble to-night without mixing up with a menagerie."

Monk quieted Habeas Corpus. He dragged the pig out by one ear.

"Now you'll be all right," he promised. "Come on, Chemistry, we've gotta find Ham."

Jane Davidson got into the car out of the rain. She kept a tight hold on the stubby pistol. Monk loped across the railroad toward the hill. Habeas Corpus did not seem to mind being toted by one long ear.

The tailless baboon grumbled and grunted. But he followed. His ambling movement was not much different from that of Monk. The baboon had sense. He hunched ahead of Monk.

In the rocks above the tracks, the baboon halted. He pounded his hairy breast and whined much like a human baby. Monk called Ham's name, but got no reply.

The tailless baboon had picked up some object. He was hitting a rock with it. There was a metallic sound. Monk used the powerful generator flashlight.

Chemistry was whipping the hilted half of Ham's broken sword blade against a rock. Monk found the remainder of the sword and the cane sheath.

The big chemist whipped out the superfiring pistol which looked like a small drum with a tube sticking out of one side. He called and moved with infinite caution among the rocks.

The stones showed no footprints. Monk attempted to use chemical tracing powder, but the rain had washed out possible marks.

The chemist produced a small, flat box. When he moved a switch, nothing apparently happened. But in the invisible ray of black light emanating from this box some queer marks appeared on the hard ground.

These looked like the prints of a man's heels. They showed where Ham had come up the hill. Where he had stood between the rocks, the marks were all mixed up. They glowed with blue light.

This was simply a substance contained in the spongy rubber heels of Ham's shoes. It was one of several chemicals which fluoresced under the black light.

"Howlin' calamities!" squealed Monk. "Ham didn't walk away from here!"

This was apparent. The imprints of Ham's heels ceased abruptly in the confusion of marks where the broken sword had been picked up.

Monk loped back and forth among the rocks. The tailless baboon was even more excited. But from that one point in the rocks, Monk could find no trail.

Perhaps Monk would have remained, searching all night. But from the highway below came the strident whine of a radio. The whine became two words.

"Ham--Monk! Ham--Monk!"

With a last, fruitless look around, Monk ran back down the hill. The baboon followed, pounding his breast and chattering.

JANE DAVIDSON was huddled miserably in the seat of the car when Monk returned.

"The radio's been calling you," she said. "It couldn't be possible, but I'm sure it's Doc Savage's voice."

The radio speaker under the dashboard of the car still whined out the call for Ham and Monk. It sounded like the voice of Doc Savage.

Monk immediately tuned in with a reply.

"Ham--Monk!" came the order. "You will proceed at once to the Spargrove Laboratories. Renny and Johnny will join us there."

Monk gave an O. K. to the summons. But his homely face was twisted like a crossword puzzle.

"That couldn't have been anybody but Doc," he stated. "But you think Doc was with you in that smashed car. And now Ham has been grabbed!"

"Ham has been seized?" said Jane Davidson. "I don't believe it! And if that was Doc Savage on the radio, then he had some one else bring me out here and try to kill me on that crossing! I'll bet Ham went away with whoever brought me out here!"

Monk glared at the girl. The big chemist liked most pretty women. But Jane Davidson was plainly rubbing his fur the wrong way.

"Doc!" said Monk over the radio. "Ham's been grabbed out here! One of your cars--"

Doc's voice cut in on the other end of the broadcast.

"I know all about the car. Ham will be all right. You will do as directed. Bring with you the young woman who was in the wreck at the crossing!"

Monk let out a gasp. Jane Davidson spoke with a sneer.

"So, your wonderful Doc Savage didn't have anything to do with trying to kill me?" she jeered. "You'd better do as you're told, and if you make one wrong move, I'll be driving this car back alone!"

Jane Davidson jabbed the stubby automatic emphatically into Monk's ribs. Monk was too puzzled to even grunt.