Читать книгу Mad Eyes: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lawrence Donovan - Страница 6

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As Monk headed his car reluctantly toward the Spargrove Laboratories, another small car was reaching the locked doors of the tomblike structure. From this small vehicle climbed an odd figure.

The man was short of stature. He wore a shabby, hairy overcoat. The fuzzy hair of this coat seemed to continue where it touched his neck. The hair on the man’s head was thick and bushy.

The man wore what once was known as a mutton-chop beard. This stuck out belligerently on both sides of his face. It made his face look smaller and runnier than it would have been. It was small and funny, anyway.

The man’s little eyes jumped around under bushy brows. He came to the group around the small locked door of the Spargrove Laboratories.

“What’s this? What’s this?” he sputtered. “Who called the police to interfere with my work? Where’s Jane? If you wanted in, why didn’t you get hold of John Corbin?”

“Well! Well! Well!” gabbled Inspector Higgins. “Wasn’t you told this John Corbin went bugs an’ tried to bump an express train offa the track? An’ this infernal trap of yours murdered one of the railroad bulls, an’ you can’t be runnin’ any place that won’t open its doors when duly constituted authority wants to get in!”

“John Corbin’s been killed?” said the hairy man. “I’m Professor Spargrove, of course. Well, why didn’t you have the young woman or Doc Savage let you in? They’re both inside.”

“Yeah?” rasped Inspector Higgins, hopping around. “An’ what other crooked contraptions you got in there? Unlock this door before we get a few sticks of dynamite an’ blast hell out of it!”

Despite the news about John Corbin’s sudden and untimely end, Professor Lanidus Spargrove had a will of his own.

“I want to see John Corbin’s body,” he announced. “Then perhaps I will open the door, if Doc Savage consents.”

“You’ll perhaps?” yelled Inspector Higgins. “If Doc Savage consents? I’m representin’ the law in this end of the county!”

“Let me see John Corbin’s body,” said Professor Spargrove mildly. “I will then take up the matter of opening the door. I don’t believe I’d try dynamite if I were you, inspector. It is possible there are some elements in the building which might cause you inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?” shouted Inspector Higgins. “Two bumpoffs already, an’ this crooked dump all locked up, an’ you talk about inconvenience! What inconvenience, Professor Spargrove, if that’s your right name an’ not some alias?”

Professor Spargrove was nervous and excited, but he still spoke calmly.

“In other words, an attempt to blow those doors probably would set off an explosive that would make TNT seem like a penny firecracker,” he stated.

A few of the railroad men were beginning to ease away from the spot. The mild deputy coroner spoke.

“Whether it would blast this place or not, inspector, I don’t believe I’d try crossing up any property belonging to Doc Savage.”

Inspector Higgins’s Adam’s apple jumped. Inspector Higgins hopped.

The body of John Corbin had been covered with canvas. Professor Spargrove swept back the protective cloth with quick but gentle hands. The eyes under his bushy brows missing no detail of his dead watchman’s corpse.

One hand rubbed across John Corbin’s cold forehead. Into the eyes of Professor Spargrove came a speculative gleam.

“He was like this when the express hit him?” questioned Professor Spargrove.

“Well, he was jumping around and fighting pink elephants or something,” volunteered a railroad brakeman.

“Yes?” said Professor Spargrove slowly. “Coroner, have you removed anything from the body?”

The mild deputy coroner bristled.

“It is not my custom to disturb a corpse more than necessary!” he said.

“Curious, most curious,” murmured Professor Spargrove. “So John Corbin was running away from something?”

“That’s it! That’s it!” piped up Inspector Higgins. “An’ my men are bringin’ up half a case of powder! In about one minute I’m going into that crazy plant of yours!”

Rain slashed across Professor Spargrove’s hairy face. The deputy coroner remarked that Doc Savage himself had examined the body of the watchman.

“Then I think Doc Savage went away down the road in a blue sedan,” said the deputy coroner. “If there’s explosive inside, that Higgins will play the devil. He’s a stubborn guy.”

Sticks of the yellow-wrapped dynamite were being piled in front of the small, chromium steel door. Inspector Higgins yapped at his men.

“You’re being detained, Professor Spargrove!” he rapped out. “Just in case you’ve really got explosives contrary to duly constituted authority inside this joint!”

Inspector Higgins had slashed one end of a stick of powder. In this he had stuffed an explosive cap.

“You’re right, inspector,” stated Professor Spargrove. “We would be detained. Too much detained, in fact. So now——”

The hands of the professor fumbled under his hairy coat. He was looking at the chromium steel door. The door swung silently open. A low passage appeared. It was lighted by a row of small incandescent bulbs.

“My gosh!” grunted a railroad man. “The hairy guy just looked at it! An’ them cops have been buttin’ it with a railroad tie!”

But something else was taking place. Professor Spargrove seemed to have lost his mind. He seemed to be talking into his own mutton-chop whiskers.

“Spargrove speaking. Is it all right, Doc, to permit the police to enter?”

Out of the rainy air came a voice. It might have been an emanation from the hairs of Professor Spargrove’s beard. It was a compact radio set attached to his body.

“Let the authorities investigate in your own judgment.”

“Come in, Inspector Higgins, and you other gentlemen,” invited Professor Spargrove. “I will find my assistant. Undoubtedly she is informed of what has taken place. You will do well to remain in this main room. I will not be responsible for trouble if any one enters other compartments.”

The interior of the Spargrove Laboratories appeared to be of cellular construction. One central room seemed to be the assembling compartment for several types of ponderous machinery.

Professor Spargrove directed the body of John Corbin be brought into the main room. He spoke to Inspector Higgins.

“You say my watchman is reported to have seen various strange things which caused those who observed him to believe him suffering from liquor or hallucinations?”

“Well! Well! Well!” grunted Inspector Higgins. “There ain’t any doubt but what he had the D. T.’s or somethin’! He was seein’ things that wasn’t there!”

At this moment Professor Spargrove himself looked a bit off.

“John Corbin really saw those things,” he said quietly. “Only I didn’t know my assistant knew of the secret. I shall have to inquire into this. You will please wait here.”

Professor Spargrove whisked himself through a small inner door. Like those outside, this seemed to open as he looked at it. In less than ten seconds, Professor Spargrove leaped back into view. For the first time, he appeared greatly excited.

He opened another door and shouted. “Jane Jane! Where are you? Come here at once!”

Professor Spargrove was running from one small room to another. He dashed back into the central chamber. This time, all his calmness had departed.

“My whole life’s work—all gone!” he yelled. “I tell you, it’s impossible! All of it’s gone! Jane! Jane! Why didn’t Doc Savage stop them?”

Inspector Higgins imposed a hard hand on one of the excited professor’s shoulders. This copper was not so dumb. He knew the time to break a case was when he had the other fellow somewhat out of his head.

“All right! All right!” snapped Inspector Higgins. “So your whole life’s work is gone, is it? What’s gone?”

Professor Spargrove led the way through a small door. Here was another large room. Along one side was a loading platform. Switch tracks penetrated all of the vaultlike building.

“Jane Davidson, my assistant, has been kidnaped!” yelled Professor Spargrove. “She preceded me here to attend a meeting with Doc Savage and some of his men! Now they’re gone—gone—and the two copper globes weighed more than three tons apiece!”

Professor Spargrove was pointing with a trembling hand at huge concrete blocks. These bore the fresh imprint of other objects. They seemed to have been the foundation for heavy machinery. Two blocks looked as if they had been fitted to the base of immense globes.

“They were both made of copper!” shouted Professor Spargrove. “They weighed more than three tons apiece! There were four big generators on those other bases! The whole thing would be more than ten tons! And they were all here less than three hours ago when I left! Who opened the doors?”

Inspector Higgins scratched his nubbin of a head. Anyway, he was sure none of his coppers had opened the doors. The railroad men on duty all night all immediately stated the plant doors had not been opened at any time, except when John Corbin had emerged.

Professor Spargrove was walking around and around the concrete foundations. The other men could see plainly enough that heavy machinery had been removed only recently. The marks of the copper globes were bright. These would have tarnished in a few hours.

“Well! Well! Well!” rapped Inspector Higgins. “So somebody walked in an’ picked up ten tons of copper an’ iron and walked out with it? Maybe that crazy watchman was carrying it in his pockets when he butted into that train!”

Professor Spargrove appeared to be looking at the big sliding doors through which the tracks had their exit. The big doors went up silently. The professor whipped outside. Inspector Higgins was close beside him.

“Look here!” yelled Professor Spargrove. “These are truck tracks! It was a big truck! Who saw that truck leave here?”

At the edge of the motor highway back of the laboratories was a muddy shoulder. Immense doughnutlike tires of a big truck had cut deep into the soft earth. The tracks were fresh.

“Holy Moses!” growled the yardmaster. “We can’t keep track of all the trucks that go by here!”

“All gone!” wailed Professor Spargrove. “Wait until Doc Savage discovers this! I’m ruined!”

“Doc Savage?” barked Inspector Higgins. “He knows plenty about it! We’ve got to find that guy—and quick, too!”

Inspector Higgins was jotting down many notes. What these meant, he probably did not know himself. The snatching of ten tons of machinery under the eyes of a railroad yard full of men was adding a little too much to this assignment.

Now Professor Spargrove seemed to have forgotten about the reputed missing globes. He had led the way into another long room. This looked as if it might have been an aquarium.

Long rows of glass tanks were ranged around the sides. Only these tanks appeared not to have been filled with fish. Scummy green water showed against the glass. The air was rank with the odor of decaying vegetation.

Professor Spargrove was walking up and down.

“It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be!” he kept repeating. “You are sure John Corbin screamed he was seeing things?”

One of the railroad men affirmed this. Professor Spargrove darted into a side room. When he came out, he was staring strangely. He seemed hardly to see the others in the room.

“It’s incredible! Incredible!” the professor cried out. “The globes are gone! Yet I see—I see—— It can’t be possible!”

“Well! Well! Well!” snapped Inspector Higgins. “An’ what do you see?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” the professor said quietly, “but I see the same things John Corbin saw. Only I know what they are, and poor John Corbin did not. Some of them have a hundred heads and some have a thousand mouths. They are reaching for me with long tentacles.”

“Holy mackerel!” grunted a railroad man. “Me! I’m pullin’ my freight right now!”

Inspector Higgins slipped a hand into a side pocket. His Adam’s apple was clearly out of control.

“I guess maybe, professor, you’d better come along with us,” he suggested. “Probably the strain’s been too much for you.”

But Professor Spargrove leaped and struck at something in the air. Unfortunately for Inspector Higgins, his bony nose was in the path of the professor’s fist. Scarlet fluid spattered over the inspector’s chin.

“We’ve got to get them back!” screamed Professor Spargrove. “My life’s work! I tell you not even Doc Savage can rob me of what I’ve slaved years to produce!”

“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere!” growled Inspector Higgins. “I bet that bronze guy knows all about this! Make a close check-up on all freight that’s been moved! Ten tons of machinery can’t walk out of the middle of a railroad yard without being seen!”

“That’s the complete check-up,” announced the yardmaster half an hour later. “Nothing has been moved on this side of the yards to-night. It would also have been impossible for any one to have transferred ten tons, or even one ton, of equipment from that building to a truck on the highway without being seen.”

“That puts this whole thing right back on this Doc Savage,” declared Inspector Higgins. “He was here. He saw what had happened, an’ then he beat it away in a blue sedan. It all checks up.”

Inside his plant, Professor Spargrove was wandering from room to room. Inspector Higgins had two county policemen keeping him under surveillance. They could hear the professor talking to himself.

Occasionally, Professor Spargrove came in and stared at the tanks of green water. Each time, he resumed his crazed muttering. He did not seem to observe the policemen. The coppers kept more than a respectful distance.

Also, the policemen kept a close eye out for anything that might have a hundred heads and a thousand mouths. They wouldn’t have been surprised to really find long tentacles reaching for them.

Outside, Inspector Higgins still had no trace of the missing machinery.

He repeated a telephone order to have Doc Savage picked up as soon as he could be located.