Читать книгу He Could Stop the World: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lawrence Donovan - Страница 4

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Before Johnny could turn or reply, he was enveloped in the shrouding folds of a black cloth. No doubt, the mild Professor Randolph knew something of the geologist’s prowess.

Johnny’s bony, elongated figure doubled and straightened. Both his knuckled fists found instant marks. Though he could not see, the geologist sensed the presence of half a dozen misguided persons who possibly had imagined he would be easily overpowered.

Somehow, he got a neck-and-leg hold on the nearest man. His bony arms tightened. The man howled. Tubes, condensers and other parts of the intricate radio splintered and crashed. The man Johnny had thrown from him swore in a most unscientific manner. He was picking bits of glass and wire out of his ears.

“It is to be regretted,” came the still cool voice of Randolph, “but we must use other means, Professor Littlejohn.”

The other means used was a blackjack. It hit the bony Johnny on the head. Johnny shuddered and sank down.

When Johnny recovered, he was free of the shrouding cloth. His head buzzed abominably. His first thought was it had resulted from the stiff blow on the skull. His brain seemed to be aching from that.

But the buzzing was something else. Johnny noticed he was now in a compartment of the Silver Cylinder into which he had not before been admitted. Also, he found he was seated in a chair not greatly different from the execution spot in some States.

Close to Johnny’s head two shining, coppery discs gave off a whirring buzz. They were whirling at incredible speed. Johnny made out several others of his companions in similar chairs. He noted they were those who had not been directly in Randolph’s group of aids.

Randolph was standing close by. He was glancing at his watch and observing Johnny. Johnny passed up his long words this time.

“Perhaps before the electrocution, you will inform the prisoner what it is all about?” said Johnny sarcastically.

Randolph’s mild, blue eyes smiled at him. He glanced again at his watch.

“The venture I was speaking about, Professor Littlejohn?” he said interrogatively. “Do you not now believe it would meet with amazing results?”

“Certainly,” replied Johnny promptly. “I am in thorough agreement with your infinitely astounding promulgation. You can count on me for thorough coöperation. The possibilities are unlimited. When do we embark upon this enterprise?”

Apparently, the abrupt reversal of his attitude was no ruse on the part of Johnny. Nor did Professor Randolph indicate he suspected it might be such.

Randolph walked along, speaking with others who had opposed his announced experiment. All must have given the same agreement as Johnny. They were being released from the weird chairs.

The coppery discs beside each chair ceased to whirr.

“All along,” stated Johnny, “I have believed in a universal and supreme ebullition of power.”

No one replied. None was listening at the moment. Professor Randolph was snapping out orders. The explosive force of the Silver Cylinder was being turned on.

Within a few minutes, the stratosphere ship was again in the air. Its course was on an upward angle, which would carry it back from the Arizona desert toward the Texas sky from which it had detoured.

As the silver airship rose rapidly into the sky, Professor Randolph looked around him.

“This time,” he announced solemnly, “we shall remain on top of the world.”

Professor Randolph must have been mistaken. He and his companions failed to “stay on top of the world.”

In the weeks which had elapsed since the disappearance of William Harper Littlejohn in the stratosphere ship of Professor Randolph, Doc Savage’s companions had been somewhat scattered.

Colonel John Renwick, known as “Renny,” the big-fisted engineer, was in Japan on a project that was to make him a wealthy man, although in his own right Renny was a millionaire.

Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the Beau Brummell of the group, but known as “Ham,” was absent from Manhattan. When it came to lawyers, it was doubtful if any were smarter than Ham, and certainly none were better dressed.

With Ham was the ugliest and most likeable personage perhaps of all. He was Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, but because of his resemblance to the apes in the jungle, he was known as “Monk.” As for Monk, industrial chemistry owed him many great debts, he being one of the best chemists in the land.

At the present time, Ham and Monk were together in the same city. Ham was attending a convention of the American Bar Association of Lawyers. Monk was at another conference named The World Society of Chemists. Both conferences were in Salt Lake City.

Long Tom was the only one who was with Doc at the present time. He was busy working at Doc’s complicated radio system. On his face was a look of gloom. Something like permanent sorrow had come upon Doc and his companions since the apparent fate of Johnny.

Long Tom suddenly stepped back from the complicated system of knobs and dials on Doc’s special shortwave radio set. Long Tom’s hands jerked loose.

“Great Scott, Doc!” he exploded. “I got something then I wasn’t expecting! Now how in thunderation could the juice leak through like that?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t the electricity,” commented Doc. “I have been noticing the vibration needles for some time. If you will take a look at the television plate, you will observe some shadowy substance.”

Doc’s televisor was one of his first radio triumphs. He was possibly the first man in the world to make it possible to see the broadcaster of a message. However, this was limited to the special shortwave band employed by his own men and himself.

At this time, a shadow appeared to be moving across the slate-colored glass. For a time it looked as if it were the replica of a man’s hand. Then it took on what might have been a human face.

“Throw the switch over to the amateur shortwave band,” Doc suddenly directed Long Tom. “Perhaps some enthusiast has come close to our own set-up.”

As Long Tom threw the switch over, bringing in what might have been any amateur on his allotted and limited broadcasting wave, a blurred voice mumbled.

“Blub-blub-blub——” it went.

At the same time, the shadow in the televisor became more like a human face. The features, however, were indistinct. They appeared somewhat like a futuristic painting.

“Great Scott!” came from Long Tom, who did not often grow excited. “I thought I heard it say, ‘Doc Savage!’ ”

“You are correct, Long Tom. Perhaps I can clear it up.”

The voice cleared only enough for thickly mumbled words to become intelligible. The bronze giant had the world’s keenest auditory sense. For years, his ears had been trained by a special scale-sounding instrument of his own devising.

At this time, he could make out words where Long Tom heard only the confused mumbling.

“Doc Savage—Union Square—eight o’clock to-night—affects millions—you will hear later—reception will be clearer—Doc—I—will tell——”

Whatever the voice out of the mysterious distance would tell was lost in strident static. But throughout the laboratory trilled the sound of surprise, of danger, of concentration. Only when something greatly stirred Doc’s emotions was this rare, indefinable trilling to be heard.

“What is it, Doc?” said Long Tom. “I couldn’t make head or tail of the voice.”

“Long Tom, no radio voice ever came from occult forces, so far as science has ever determined,” Doc stated quietly. “But only just now I came to believe Johnny is not dead. He did not perish on Professor Randolph’s ship.”

Long Tom gulped.

“We shall go to Union Square this evening at eight o’clock,” said Doc. “This could be some amateur broadcaster attempting his crude idea of a joke, but I believe it is serious.”

It is said that “anything can happen, and usually does” in Manhattan’s Union Square.

Over in one corner of the Square a group with banners held a place. A youth was on a box. His words and the banners indicated this group were backers of one of several forms of social security.

The Square was unusually crowded. More than the customary number of citizens seemed to have been drawn here to-night. Doc’s keen ears caught the remark of a woman in a group close by.

“I was on the amateur shortwave, an’ I heard a funny message to Doc Savage,” she was saying. “I hope I do get to see that man. I’ve heard so much about him.”

From the increasing number of people, it seemed that every radio fan on the amateur shortwave band had hurried to Union Square for a possible glimpse of the noted bronze adventurer.

Doc Savage searched the crowd with his flake-gold eyes. In all this milling Manhattan throng he was seeking something which even Long Tom did not suspect.

The banners of the group advocating its form of social security jutted above the heads of a score of persons. More than a hundred others were surrounding this box.

Near Doc and Long Tom a tall, pale-faced old man had taken up his stand. Before him a huge, long telescope was set upon a brass-legged tripod. The telescope pointed directly at one of the brightest stars.

Doc noted this was Jupiter, then in its ascendancy. The night was unusually clear. Jupiter glowed plainly.

Doc was watching, listening to the human movement and muttering of voices throughout the Square. His eyes turned back often to the thin, tall old man with his pointed telescope.

Business either was poor, or the telescope man was making no great effort to gain patronage. The man seemed more interested in the social security meeting.

A young woman was replacing the youth who had been speaking.

Doc Savage said nothing to Long Tom. He remained motionless. Only a score or more persons nearest him looked up and around quickly. Perhaps they imagined some rare, tropical bird had escaped and flown to Union Square.

From Doc was coming the note of sudden concentration, or of possible impending danger. His eyes whipped from the young woman to the old man beside the telescope.

Doc stood motionless, waiting. He was not sure what he was waiting for, but the very good-looking young woman now smiling from the speaker’s box a few yards away was well known to him.

And she was Ann Garvin, herself a professor of sociology. This simple fact would not thus have riveted the bronze man to attention. What held him was knowing that Ann Garvin had been betrothed to Professor Homer Randolph up to the time his stratosphere ship had blown itself to bits.

“Be prepared for some quick action,” Doc advised Long Tom, in a low tone. “I am not sure just what is about to happen, but I still believe it may have a great deal to do with Johnny.”

Ann Garvin commenced speaking. Her voice was liquidly pleasing. It rang with the sincerity of her belief.

“Not all of us were created for work!” she asserted. “I believe there should be provision made by society for support of all its creative artists——”

The pretty young woman’s idea of a workless era—presumably for the class now surrounding her—elicited ringing cheers. The flamboyant banners were jostled and shaken in encouragement.

“The old man with the telescope apparently is not greatly interested in earning dimes,” said Doc to Long Tom.

“Looks more like some photographer trying to get a slant on the woman speaker,” commented Long Tom. “Perhaps he has a camera hidden in the telescope.”

The tall man beside the telescope had pushed away a woman who had just held out a dime. He was slowly bringing the lense of the telescope lower. The instrument now seemed to point directly at the attractive Ann Garvin.

Doc touched Long Tom’s arm and started to glide slowly toward the speaker’s box. He accomplished this with the movement of a jungle cat. Though there was a crowd, none touched him and he touched no one.

The old telescope man appeared to have a sudden interest in all the social security group. He was applying one eye to the telescope, as if bringing the speaker and her cheering supporters closer.

For an instant, Ann Garvin hesitated in her speech. She stood perfectly motionless. She was a tall and striking blonde. If she could have held that pose, a sculptor would have been delighted.

But abruptly Ann Garvin threw out her hands.

“It’s all silly, ridiculous nonsense!” she cried out. “We cannot hope to accomplish anything in life without working for it! Suppose some are artistic, creative? If they cannot earn their own recognition, they do not deserve it——”

Doc Savage had halted. He stood, with Long Tom beside him, close to the pointed telescope.

Long Tom, who usually had little humor, drawled laughingly, “I would say the speaker has sure taken a woman’s privilege to change her mind. Doc, that is very odd. The crowd’s taking to her new line.”

It was extremely odd.

“That’s what we all want!” voices were shouting. “If we hope to get anywhere, we’ve got to work for it! Hey! Throw down the banners! We’ll face things like they are!”

A big Irish policeman who had been listening looked as if he were about to lose his lower jaw. His big mouth gaped open. The brawny copper had seen many human vagaries demonstrated in Union Square. None had ever been more disconcerting than this.

“Shure, an’ it’s some kind of a trick!” he grumbled.

He shouldered toward the speaker’s box. All the crowd had sensed something new—something beyond their understanding. Banners which had demanded workless security for a definite class were being trampled underfoot.

Doc Savage halted abruptly, waiting. His hand touched Long Tom’s arm. His eyes were upon the old man with the telescope. The bronze giant apparently had an inner warning of something even more startling to take place.

Police were attempting to form a ring about Ann Garvin and her group. They were not sure what had happened, but they had seen mob violence break often from slighter origins than this.

Clearly, above the muttering of the crowd, the shuffling of many feet, a Voice spoke calmly. It might have been transmitted through the old man’s telescope. Or it might have come from some other spot.

“Ann Garvin! You have become the first of a new and changing order! You do not understand, but you will be a leader in controlling a movement of vast benefit to society!”

Ann Garvin’s lips still moved, but they made no sound. Standing on the box, yellow hair blowing a little, she was a queenly figure. One hand fluttered to her throat. A little scream of unbelieving bewilderment came from her.

“Homer! Homer! It can’t be—it isn’t you?”

“It is I, Ann!” announced the Voice quite clearly in the sudden hush over the crowd.

“Alive! Homer—Professor Randolph is alive!” cried Ann Garvin, springing from the box. “Where are you, Homer?”

Doc Savage at this instant caught Long Tom’s shoulders in his strong hands. He lifted the lighter man, hurling him far to one side.

Doc himself moved with the gliding speed of a jungle animal avoiding the blow of an enemy. Nearly all the crowd had surged toward Ann Garvin and her group.

Three persons, two men and a woman were standing close to the old man and his telescope. The space about them was temporarily clear. It was away from the telescope Doc had so swiftly removed himself and Long Tom.

Doubtless none had felt the tingling which had suddenly flashed over Doc’s highly sensitized body. This could have been the emanation of something like an electrical current. But it was different.

Voices shouted hoarsely now. There was no explosion. Not so much as a flash of light appeared. The persons around Ann Garvin were still centering their attention upon what might be happening to the striking young woman.

“What the hell an’ all?” roared the big Irish policeman. “Hey, there, you! Get back!”

The copper’s mouth dropped open again. He may have imagined he was yelling at the man with the telescope. But he had been addressing nothing but a small cloud of vaporish blue which had arisen around this man and the three persons nearest him.

“What happened, Doc?” jerked out Long Tom, pulling himself to his feet. “Great Scott! Look at that!”

Long Tom could now understand Doc’s action. They had been the closest in the crowd to the others standing near the huge, old telescope.

Now there was no telescope. The blue vapor drifted quickly upward and was dispelled. The swearing Irish policeman had his service revolver in one hand. Perhaps he imagined some one had set off a gas bomb.

But no odor came from the vanishing little cloud of blue vapor. The light breeze tore it quickly to wisps that hung a few seconds and vanished.

“The old man is gone,” breathed Long Tom. “Doc, there were some others there!”

The revolver in the Irish copper’s hand was shaking up and down. The policeman was momentarily transfixed. Then he got hold of himself with a yell of authority.

“Alla yuh stay back! Keep movin’ now!”

This command was hardly needed. Horrified cries broke out. Screams and oaths mingled. These came from those nearest where the telescope had stood on its tripod.

On the pavement were four small heaps of blowing gray ashes. The breeze caught these. The ash was rising. Those nearest cried out in fear and pushed their weight against others to escape the touch of these ashes.

One small heap of ash was where the old man had operated his telescope. The other three marked the spots where two men and a woman had stood. The bluish cloud had enveloped these four.

Doc Savage, Long Tom and the policeman were the three who had been watching. They knew better than the others that none of the four had come out of that cloud.

The policeman looked at the gray ashes. He started blowing his whistle. Fellow coppers elbowed toward him.

Even the ashes were drifting away. Not even a metal object remained. It would be a long time before the Bureau of Missing Persons would confirm the identity of the three citizens who had stood beside the man with the telescope.