Читать книгу Haunted Ocean - Lawrence Donovan - Страница 4

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While Doc Savage was examining the dead man and finding him so thoroughly equipped for violence, the ungainly Monk was encountering another form of violence. But this was very much alive. It was in the form of a slender girl.

The girl’s face would have been beautiful, under normal conditions. But when the young woman encountered the terrifying figure of Monk before her on the stairway, her countenance was a strained, desperate mask.

The girl was red-headed. The hair was naturally and vividly red. Her deep-brown eyes were sparkling with menace. Undoubtedly she was scared, but being red-headed, she intended doing something about it.

Monk had been unusually quiet about ascending the stairs. No person had recently descended by elevator. The arrival of Professor Callus had apparently been the only movement of a passenger to the eighty-sixth floor.

The red-headed girl must have seen Monk first. The apelike figure of the chemist moved around an upward turn in the stairs. The cold steel of an automatic’s snout jammed right into his hairy throat.

“Don’t move!” said a low, tense voice. “You’re him, and I’ll shoot!”

Monk did not know who he was supposed to be. But it seemed plainly evident the girl would shoot. The automatic’s snout quivered against Monk’s tough hide.

“Howlin’ calamities!” he squealed in his childlike voice. “Where’d you come from? You musta killed that guy upstairs!”

“I said, don’t move!” repeated the girl. “So you know about the murder? You were trying to get away, and you heard Barton! Barton! Come on up here!”

The young man called Barton must have been a floor or two below where Monk had started to ascend the stairs. His feet pounded quickly upward. He was a thick-browed, black-haired young fellow. When he saw the position of the young woman, his face become very pale.

“Lora!” exclaimed the young man. “Who is he? Wait! Give me the gun!”

The red-headed girl shook her head determinedly.

“You walk behind me, Barton,” she directed. “Here, take this. If he makes a break, you’ll have to shoot!”

Monk’s small eyes bulged. The red-headed girl produced another automatic pistol. She pushed it into the young man’s hands.

“But lady, dag-gone it!” yelped Monk “Whatcha think you’re doin’? What’s the——”

“Shut up!” snapped the red-headed girl, emphatically. “Now you just march ahead of us up these stairs! Barton, be sure about the safety catch! Perhaps Mr. Savage will like to see this hoodlum!”

There was a metallic click. Monk knew the sound of a safety catch on an automatic when he heard it. The weapon had been shifted around to the back of his neck. It was no more reassuring there than it had been against his throat.

Monk’s short legs jerked. Step by step, he mounted toward the eighty-sixth floor. At the first corridor above, which happened to be the eighty-fourth, the red-headed girl said, “Wait a minute!”

The automatic continued to bore into his neck. The girl said, “Barton, put this in your pocket!”

The object, Monk saw, was a hypodermic syringe. Monk’s quick-working olfactory sense detected an odor. He could detect any known chemical almost instantly by smell. His awkward body shivered.

For he had caught what might have been the odor of burned almonds. That hypo must contain hydrocyanic acid.

The door of Doc Savage’s headquarters was of plain metal. No lock or knob appeared in view. It might have been only an indentation in the wall. The red-headed girl halted, still prodding Monk’s neck.

“Barton!” she said. “There must be a buzzer button——”

She ceased speaking. The door was silently opening. At some other time, Monk would have enjoyed this immensely. The electroscope mechanism in the door had been operated by radio control.

The red-headed girl breathed quickly, but recovered herself.

“Go on in!” she directed. “All right, Barton! You can put away your gun! I can handle him!”

Doc Savage was standing in the door of the library. Neither his features nor his eyes expressed any surprise. But behind him loomed the sharp features of Ham, the lawyer. Ham let out a delighted yell.

“Now isn’t that somethin’!” he said, sarcastically. “Lady, where did you catch it?”

“Doc!” squawked Monk. “Willya tell this redhead to take that gun outta my neck! She’s likely to pull the trigger!”

“Lady,” drawled Ham, maliciously, “go on and pull it. You’ll be doing the world a great service. I’ve always said some one would get the ape, if he was permitted to run loose much longer.”

“Dag-gone you, Ham!” howled Monk. “You quit runnin’ off at the mouth!”

“Holy cow!” boomed big Renny. “An’ Monk brought her up, he says!”

The red-headed girl seemed to have a disposition like flash powder. The various remarks clearly had her puzzled. Also they struck an angry spark.

“What’s so funny about all of this?” she demanded. “You’re Mr. Savage?”—she addressed Doc. “Well, I ran onto this ugly baboon sneaking around on the stairway. I was coming up to see you and——”

“Don’t believe anything the redhead tells you!” interrupted Monk. “I caught her and this other pasty-faced animal trying to get away, Doc! She’s carryin’ two guns an’ she’s got a hypo loaded with enough poison to kill a hundred men! She gave it to this guy with her!”

The young woman slowly removed the automatic from Monk’s neck.

“Then he is one of your men, Mr. Savage?” she said with disbelief. “I guess I’ll have to say I’m sorry; I made a mistake. I’ve heard about the one called Monk, but I didn’t think any human being could look like that.”

This elicited another howl from Ham.

“Neither did any one else,” grinned the lawyer. “You’ve got good judgment, lady, even if he can’t help it.”

“Listen, you danged shyster!” squealed Monk. “I’ll make you eat them words, or they’ll pack you outta here in pieces!”

Doc Savage disregarded the apparent deadly hate of the chemist and the lawyer.

“There seems to have been some misunderstanding,” stated the man of bronze. “Undoubtedly you can explain your presence here? What is this about a hypo filled with poison?”

The red-headed young woman looked from one to the other of the men. Professor Callus was observing her closely.

“A hypo of poison?” he said. “Then perhaps my colleague has not been dead as long as it appears, or——”

“If you mean the man who was lying out in the corridor,” interrupted the young woman, “I know nothing about that. I was coming to see Mr. Savage, with my brother. But when we saw the man—the dead man—we thought perhaps it would not be a good time to enter. We have a hypodermic. I found it stuck into the wall of the stairway between this floor and the one next below.” Doc did not say whether he believed or disbelieved the young woman.

“You had some definite purpose in coming to me?” he said.

“Yes, oh, yes!” exclaimed the red-headed girl. “You see Mr. Savage, I am Lora Krants. This is my brother, Barton. We were informed you were seeking the cause of some unusual oceanic upheaval.”

“That is correct,” stated Doc Savage.

Behind him, Ham murmured to Renny, “And I thought this thing was somewhat of a government secret.”

“Then you are the daughter of Cyrus Krants,” said Doc, instantly. “We are indebted to your father for many discoveries of importance. His new form of bathosphere has penetrated to unusual depths of the ocean.”

“Oh, I’m glad you do know about him!” said the girl. “We have been told you are informed on nearly all subjects. So perhaps you can give us some information that will help.”

The young woman had spoken the truth. There were few subjects on which Doc Savage was not fully informed.

“If you will tell me in what way I can be of assistance,” Doc suggested.

The red-headed girl spoke more softly and with deep feeling.

“It’s about my father,” she said. “He has been missing now for more than a week. The last word we had was a radio message from his yacht in the vicinity of the lower Florida Keys.”

“Yes?” said Doc. “We will go into that in just a moment, Miss Krants. Long Tom, you and Renny had better continue checking at once on the radio short waves. If you can fix the latitude and longitude of the broadcasting blind spot, I’m sure we will be getting close to something.”

Doc then spoke again to the red-headed girl.

“And if you’ll permit Monk here to examine that hypodermic, we then may know the character of the poison which probably has been employed for murder.”

“You’ll have to trust the big ape,” suggested Ham, dryly. “He is good for one thing, Miss Krants, and that’s why we keep him around.”

Monk glared speechlessly. Now that her first fear and her anger had subsided, Lora Krants was undeniably a very pretty young woman. Monk was extremely susceptible.

“That is strange about your father,” said Professor Callus. “I am quite well acquainted with him, Miss Krants. But I never had the pleasure of meeting his daughter, or his son.”

“Tell us more about this radio message,” suggested Doc.

“There isn’t much more to tell,” said Lora Krants. “More than a week ago, we had a radio message. It seems the boat engines were disabled then for no reason the engineer could discover. And another message said that while the trouble was being traced, the motors suddenly resumed functioning.”

“And you have not heard from the yacht since then?” questioned Doc. “No radio or other messages?”

“None, Mr. Savage. The yacht seems to have vanished. We have wired all possible ports.”

“I imagine he may be all right,” said the man of bronze. “How did you know of the work we are doing?”

“I have a friend employed in the Coast and Geodetic Survey,” said the red-headed girl.

Monk appeared in the door of the laboratory.

“It’s hydrocyanic, and plenty of it!” he said. “And the needle has traces of human blood. It has been used recently.”

Doc Savage’s short, trilling note suddenly startled the girl and her brother. Barton Krants had taken no part in the conversation. His dark eyes had glowered at every one.

The young man seemed to have a suspicion his sister might not get fair treatment. Only when he looked at Doc Savage was there any hint of friendliness in his features. And his face remained too white and pasty to be natural.

Professor Callus apparently had taken a deep interest in the young woman. He moved to her side and engaged her in conversation.

Long Tom came to the door of the library.

“Doc, I believe we’ve got it,” he announced. “We’ve eliminated everything but the blind spot in the short wave radio contacts. It fixes an approximate latitude and longitude.”