Читать книгу He Could Stop the World - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 5

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DOC SAVAGE lingered only a matter of seconds near the gruesome gray ashes. He whirled, whipped into the crowd around Ann Garvin.

Long Tom followed the bronze man closely. The throng was closely packed. Doc did not seem to employ violence. His hands did not fall roughly on any person. But his massive, cabled arms became a smoothly moving wedge which opened the way to the blond young woman.

The greater part of the crowd had not witnessed the weird disappearance of the telescope and the dissolution of four persons. Most of the crowd could not understand why a few had suddenly become a small, fear-maddened mob seeking only escape from Union Square.

Police whistles shrilled. A number of hoodlums scattered here and there saw their opportunity. The sudden confusion gave them an opportunity for picking pockets. The police had their hands full.

Women screamed. Already, sirens were sounding in streets off the square. Emergency riot squads were arriving.

Two men appeared suddenly beside Ann Garvin. They were well dressed and had the appearance of dignified, intelligent citizens, One of these men caught the woman by an arm.

"Come with us quickly," he said, in a low voice. "Professor Randolph sent us to bring you."

"Homer sent you?" said Ann Garvin. "Then it's all right."

A taxicab had pulled up to the edge of the milling crowd. The two men had come from this vehicle. They started back toward the taxicab, with Ann Garvin walking willingly between them.

Doc Savage had changed the direction of his movements.

"Long Tom, move our sedan up to the nearest corner," he instructed. "Hold it there."

THE two men escorting Ann Garvin were smiling pleasantly.

"What is it all about?" said the young woman. "The world has believed Homer--Professor Randolph--died in his ship."

"We cannot explain here," said one of the men. "We are only obeying Professor Randolph's instructions. He is here in Manhattan. His voice came to you by radio transmission."

If Ann Garvin had known of the astounding annihilation of four persons and the strange telescope, she might have been more suspicious. She had been too closely surrounded to observe this horror.

The driver of the taxicab was sitting rigidly upright in his seat. The men did not seem to think it unusual that he did not move to open the door. One of the pair preceded Ann Garvin.

The young woman was permitted to enter the cab ahead of her companions. She seated herself suddenly. No outcry of warning came from her.

There was hardly time to have given the two men a hint that all was not well inside the taxicab. Each man must have felt as though a numbing fire had shot into his skull from the back of his neck.

These men were of excellent physique and of good size. But they were lifted into the taxicab as easily as if they had been small boys. Though their hands flailed a little at first, they did no damage.

Doc Savage deposited both men on the floor of the taxi. The nerve pressure he had employed would keep them asleep for perhaps a couple of hours.

"Do not cry out, Professor Garvin," said Doc quietly to the gasping young woman. "I believe you made only a natural mistake. I imagine you were informed by these men that they would take you to Professor Randolph."

"Doc Savage!" exclaimed Ann Garvin. "What are you doing here? Yes, they were taking me to Homer. I think you have made a great mistake."

"Mistakes are always possible, Professor Garvin. But in this case, the chance of error seemed to be worth taking. Four persons died in the crowd near you tonight."

"That's impossible!" declared Ann Garvin. "And if they did, how could that affect this strange revelation that came to me tonight?"

"I fear the two matters are very closely related," stated Doc. "If Professor Randolph is living--and I believe he may be--he did not send these men to you. You will come with me. I am expecting a message of great importance in a short time."

One of Doc's hands had been touching the back of the taxi driver's neck. The hackman shook his head a little, as if he had been sleeping. He looked greatly bewildered.

"Around the first corner into Fourteenth Street," commanded Doc. "You will then take your other passengers wherever they may want to go."

"O. K., boss," grunted the very hazy driver.

"I think it best to permit these men to go for the present," Doc said. "No doubt we shall hear from them again, and very quickly."

Long Tom had Doc's sedan in motion. The taxi driver did not know he had been put into a peculiar state of mind. He was an honest, law-abiding driver. If he had not been partly hypnotized by the man of bronze, he would not have started driving around town with two apparently dead men in his cab.

Doc was keeping a sharp lookout as Long Tom swung the sedan toward the brilliantly glittering tower in one of Manhattan's towering skyscrapers.

In another sedan, several men must have had the greatest respect for Doc's uncanny perceptions. They did not attempt to tail the bronze man's car closely. Instead, their car slipped into another block. The driver was also headed toward the skyscraper with its needlelike tower.

"What can it all mean?" said Ann Garvin to Doc. "I know now Homer must be alive. But that is not the queerest part of it. He always wanted me to give up my ideas for social security of creative artists. I could not see it his way. But tonight, as I was speaking, new words and new ideas came to me."

"Then you have not changed your belief?" questioned Doc.

"That's the strangest angle of it all, Doc Savage. I do not understand how I could ever have believed differently from Homer. He was absolutely right."

"Perhaps," said Doc reflectively. "But did you notice that all those to whom you were speaking had also changed their minds about what they were seeking?"

"It all happened so quickly," murmured Ann Garvin. "Do you believe I will hear from Homer again? I have never had any faith in spiritualism."

"The source of Professor Randolph's voice was not of the occult," Doc advised. "We will hear from him again, very shortly."

ANN GARVIN had never before been in Doc Savage's headquarters. The young woman professor was gasping over the forest of gleaming devices in Doc's laboratory. Doc had glided to a telephone in the reception room. He called a number uptown.

A woman's voice replied. As soon as Doc had spoken, the voice trilled with excitement.

"You want me to come right away? I'm all dressed to go out! Where are we going? I hope it's something terrible! When do we start?"

Doc smiled patiently as the voice ran on. It was useless for even Doc to attempt to bottle up this young woman's exuberance.

The young woman was in an ornate Park Avenue apartment. Near this, she conducted an exclusive beauty-and-physical-culture parlor. She would have given the business to the first person she met, if Doc Savage had consented to permit her to join his group of adventurers permanently.

The young woman was Patricia Savage, Doc's cousin. She was an attractive golden blonde, in many features resembling her famous cousin. She resembled him most in her ready wit and dauntless courage.

"You are not going anywhere, Pat," Doc assured her. "It happens that you know Professor Ann Garvin quite well, and she is here. She may be detained for some time, and you will be her companion. Something's going to happen pretty soon and--"

"I'll be along as quick as a taxi can get me there!" interrupted Pat Savage.

Doc smiled quietly. He was aware that even police lines could not have kept Pat from arriving at his headquarters.

"Do you think there is a possibility of contacting Homer?" asked Ann Garvin. "All this seems fantastic. His Silver Cylinder was destroyed. None of the others with him have come back. It was weeks ago!"

"Nothing could be more fantastic than your own mind," stated Doc. "You do not find yourself changing your beliefs again?"

"Indeed I do not!" said Ann Garvin emphatically. "I know Homer was right!"

DOC said nothing. His smooth, bronze hands with their cabled wrists were manipulating dials and switches of his amazing shortaide radio and televisor.

From the wall came a sudden, strident whining. This was part of the alarm system that informed Doc or his men when visitors from the outside were anywhere on the eighty-sixth floor.

Into what had appeared to be merely a wall panel sprang a beautiful face. It was framed by neatly aided golden hair.

"Patricia!" exclaimed Ann Garvin.

Doc caused the intervening doors to open without replying or changing his position before the radio dials. Someone was trying to come through with a message. Doc pulled the televisor switch.

Ann Garvin gasped as the face appeared in the slate-colored glass. Certainly it resembled nothing human. It was more as if some jungle gorilla had suddenly found a means of connecting with Doc's radio.

"It's Monk!" exclaimed Pat Savage, who had come in. "Tell him I'm glad to see his handsome features, Doc!"

Monk began to speak.

"Doc, Ham an' me are makin' a hop over to Seattle, an' we wanted to find out if there's been any word of Johnny?"

"Nothing definite, Monk," replied Doc. "But I hope to have some important news before long. Stay with the plane until I can again make contact."

"Come on, you missing link!" snapped a sharp, penetrating voice. "Let someone talk to Doc who knows how!"

"You Park Avenue dude! You shyster mouthpiece! You don't never do nothin' but talk, daggonit!"

Ann Garvin stared at the radio and back to Pat. Pat smiled appreciatively.

"You might judge they would murder each other, but they are as inseparable as the Siamese twins," said Pat.

A lean, ascetic face replaced Monk's in the slate-colored glass. The nose was slightly arched, and the eyes were keen. This was Ham.

"We are flying a few miles northwest of Reno, Doc," stated Ham. "Expect to make Seattle within a few hours. Mountains are foggy, but we are on the passenger plane radio beam from Reno to Portland. No, wait, Doc!"

The grumble of bickering between Ham and Monk came faintly. Ham returned.

"Have checked and find we are close to the peaks of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta in the High Sierras," advised Ham. "Visibility very poor. Fog seems to have no top or bottom. Will remain in contact and--"

"Howlin' blazes!" came Monk's voice, in a childlike squeal. "The snow on that mountain's burning! Tell Doc that--"

Something crackled like an explosion of electrical static. Ham's face disappeared from the televisor. The excited speech of Monk ceased abruptly.

Doc whirled the dials. All the tubes might have been blown out. Then a shrill static began to sound. This kept up for several seconds. It stopped, also.

Doc glided over to the standard radio set. He turned the knobs, but nothing happened. In half a minute, he had ascertained that none of the fuses had blown out. The power had not varied.

Nothing was mechanically wrong with the radio.

The modern aide contacts with the outside world had simply ceased to exist.

"WHAT could it be?" asked Ann Garvin. "Do you think this could have anything to do with Homer's message tonight?"

"I have no doubt but this interruption of the radio has much to do with tonight's peculiar circumstances," Doc stated. "I have ascertained that some irresistible power has taken the place of all the long and short aides on which radio communication depends."

"That would be a catastrophe of world importance," suggested Patricia Savage hopefully. "And we will get in on it."

Her cheerful tone implied, "Where do we go from here?"