Читать книгу The Czar of Fear: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6

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The Triplex was New York’s newest, gaudiest, and most expensive hotel. It catered to its guests with every comfort and convenience.

Guests arriving by taxi, for instance, did not find it necessary to alight at the sidewalks and enter before the stares of hoi polloi. There was an inclosed private drive for the cabs.

This drive was a semicircular tunnel done in bright metals and dark stone, after the modernistic fashion. In it, a taxi was disgorging a passenger.

The newcomer was a tall snake of a man. The serpentine aspect was lent by the fact that his body was so flexible as to seem boneless. His hair was carefully curled, and had an enameled shine. His eyes were ratty; his mouth was a crack; his clothes were flashy enough to be in bad taste.

He paid the taxi with a bill peeled from a fat roll. Entering the lobby, trailed by a bell boy bearing two bags, he leaned elbows on the desk.

“I’m Mr. Cooley,” he said shortly. “I wired you for a reservation from Prosper City.”

The man was conducted to his room. The bell boy was hardly out of hearing when he picked up the telephone.

“Gimme Judborn Tugg’s room,” he requested. Then, when he had the connection: “That you, Tugg? ... This is Slick. What room you got? ... O. K. I’ll be right up.”

The man rode an elevator up six floors, made his sinuous way down a corridor, and knocked at a door. The panel opened, and he said familiarly: “Howzza boy, Tugg!”

Judborn Tugg looked somewhat as if he had found a wolf in front of his door—a wolf with which he must, of necessity, associate.

“Come in,” he said haughtily.

Tugg was a small, prosperous-appearing mountain. His dark pin-stripe suit, if a bit loud, was well tailored over his ample middle. His chins, big mouth and pale eyes rode on a cone of fat. A gold watch chain bridged his midriff, and formed a support for several lodge emblems.

“Slick” Cooley entered, closed the door, and said: “We don’t have to worry any more about Jim Cash.”

Judborn Tugg recoiled as if slapped. His head rotated on its foundation of fat as he glanced about nervously.

Slick quickly folded his arms, both hands inside his coat, where he carried automatic pistols. “What’s the matter? Somebody here?”

“Oh, my, no! It would be too bad if there was! You should be more careful!” Tugg whipped out a silk handkerchief, and blotted at his forehead. “It is just that I cannot get used to the cold way you fellows have of handling things.”

“What you mean is the Green Bell’s way of handling things.” Slick leered.

“Yes, yes; of course.” Judborn Tugg ground his handkerchief in uneasy hands. “The Green Bell will be glad to know young Cash is satisfactorily disposed of.”

Slick took his hands away from his armpits, and straightened his coat. “I didn’t get any time alone with Cash, so I couldn’t question him before he was tossed on that third rail.”

“Your orders were not to question him,” Judborn Tugg said smugly.

Slick sneered slightly. “You don’t need to pretend to be so damned holy with me, Tugg. We understand each other. We’d both like to know who the Green Bell is. Jim Cash knew. By questioning him, I might have gotten the low-down. But I didn’t dare. There was too many guys around.”

“Ahem!” Judborn Tugg cleared his throat and glanced about nervously.

“One of these days, we’re gonna find out who the Green Bell is!” Slick said grimly. “When that happens, we’ll rub him out, see! And, presto, we’ve got the gravy.”

Judborn Tugg shuddered violently.

“Oh, goodness, Slick!” he wailed. “Suppose the Green Bell—suppose some one should overhear us! Let us not talk about it!”

“O. K.,” Slick leered. “What’re me and you to do now?”

Judborn Tugg put his handkerchief away, and fiddled with the ornaments on his watch chain. “Have you ever heard of a gentleman by the name of Doc Savage?”

“Kinda seems like I have.” Slick smoothed his coat lapels. “New York is not my stompin’ ground, and this Savage bird hangs out here. I don’t know much about him. Kind of a trouble buster, ain’t he?”

“Exactly! I understand he is a very fierce and competent fighting man, who has a group of five aids.”

“A muscle man with a gang, eh?”

“In your vernacular, I believe that is how you express it. The Green Bell had me investigate Doc Savage. I did not learn a great deal about him, except that he is a man who fights other people’s battles.”

“Yeah? And what about this guy?”

“The Green Bell has ordered me to hire Doc Savage. I am to obtain the services of the man and his five aids for our organization.”

Slick swore wildly. He stamped around the room, fists hard, mean face twisted with rage.

“I won’t stand for it!” he gritted. “I was to have charge of the rough stuff in this business! I was to be third in command—takin’ orders only from the Green Bell and you! Now the Green Bell is fixin’ to bring this Doc Savage in!”

Judborn Tugg patted the air with both hands.

“My dear Slick, you misunderstand,” he soothed. “You are to retain your position. Doc Savage is to work under you! The Green Bell made that very clear.”

“He did, eh?” Slick scowled, but seemed mollified. “Well, that’s different. But that Doc Savage has gotta savvy that his orders come from me!”

“Of course. That will be made clear.”

Slick lighted an expensive cigarette. “Supposin’ Doc Savage considers himself a big shot, and don’t want to take my orders.”

“Any man will take commands, if the pay is sufficient,” Judborn Tugg said, with the certainty of a man who has money and knows its power.

But Slick was still uncertain. “What if Doc Savage ain’t the kind of a guy who hires out for our kind of work?”

“There, again, my statement about payment applies. Every man has his price. The Green Bell needs more men, needs them badly. He does not want ordinary gunmen. Therefore, I am to approach Doc Savage.”

“O. K. Where’ll we find ’im?”

Judborn Tugg shrugged. “I do not know. We shall see if the telephone information girl can tell us.”

He put in a call. The swiftness with which he was given Doc Savage’s address seemed to daze him. He blinked his pale eyes and hung up.

“Doc Savage must be rather well known!” he muttered. “The phone operator had his whereabouts on the tip of her tongue. Come, Slick. We shall go see this man.”

The two quitted the hotel room.

The skyscraper before which Slick Cooley and Judborn Tugg eventually alighted was one of the most resplendent in the city. It towered nearly a hundred stories.

“What a joint!” Slick muttered in awe. “Doc Savage ain’t no cheap skate if he hangs out here!”

“These surroundings show Savage is good at his business,” Judborn Tugg replied stiffly. “That is the kind of a man we want. You, Slick, will wait in the lobby.”

“Why?” Slick demanded suspiciously. “How do I know but that you’ll pay this Savage more money than I’m gettin’?”

“Nothing of the sort, Slick. You will stay here in case Alice Cash and Aunt Nora should put in an appearance. They were coming here to hire this Savage to do their fighting. They cannot pay Savage as much as we can, but it would be better if they did not see him.”

“Yeah,” Slick agreed with bad grace. “I’ll stick below, then.”

An express elevator which ran noiselessly and with great speed, lifted Judborn Tugg to the eighty-sixth floor. He strutted pompously down a richly decorated corridor.

Sighting a mirror, Tugg halted and carefully surveyed his appearance. He wanted to overawe this Doc Savage. That was the way to handle these common thugs who hired themselves out for money.

Tugg lighted a dollar cigar. He had another just like it which he intended to offer Savage. The fine weeds would be the final touch. Doc Savage would be bowled over by the grandeur of Judborn Tugg.

Tugg did not know it, but he was headed for one of the big shocks of his career.

He knocked on a door, puffed out his chest, and cocked his cigar in the air.

The door opened.

Judborn Tugg’s chest collapsed, his cigar fell to the floor, and his eyes bulged out!

A mighty giant of bronze stood in the door. The effect of this metallic figure was amazing. Marvelously symmetrical proportions absorbed the true size of the man. Viewed from a distance, and away from anything to which his stature might have been compared, he would not have seemed as big.

The remarkably high forehead, the muscular and strong mouth, the lean and corded cheeks, denoted a rare power of character. His bronze hair was a shade darker than his bronze skin, and it lay straight and smooth as a skullcap of metal.

The thing which really took the wind out of Judborn Tugg, though, was the bronze man’s eyes. They were like pools of fine flake gold, alive with tiny glistenings. They possessed a strange, hypnotic quality. They made Judborn Tugg want to pull his coat over his head, so that the innermost secrets of his brain would not be searched out.

“Are—are—you Doc Savage?” stuttered Judborn Tugg.

The bronze giant nodded. The simple gesture caused great cables of muscle to writhe about his neck.

Tugg felt an impulse to shiver at the sight. This bronze man must possess incredible strength.

In a quiet, powerful voice, Doc Savage invited Tugg inside. Then he gave him a cigar, explaining quietly: “I hope you’ll excuse me, since I never smoke.”

That cigar was the final shock to Judborn Tugg. It was a long, fine custom weed in an individual vacuum container. Tugg happened to know that cigars such as this could not be obtained for less than ten dollars each.

Judborn Tugg was a pricked balloon. Instead of overawing Doc Savage, he was himself practically stunned.

Several moments were required before Judborn Tugg recovered sufficient aplomb to get down to business.

“I have heard you are an—er—a trouble buster,” he said, in a small voice, very unlike his usual overbearing tone.

“You might call it that,” Doc Savage agreed politely. “More properly, my five companions and myself have a purpose in life. That purpose is to go here and there, from one end of the world to the other, looking for excitement and adventure, striving to help those in need of help, and punishing those who deserve it.”

Judborn Tugg did not know that it was a very rare occasion when Doc Savage gave out even this much information about himself.

Tugg did not like the speech at all. He mulled it over, and reached a conclusion—the wrong one. He decided this was Doc Savage’s way of hinting that he and his men hired out their services. The man, of course, could not come right out and say he was a professional thug.

“My case is right in your line,” Tugg said, managing a faint smirk. “There are people who need help, and some others who need punishing.”

Doc Savage nodded politely. “Suppose you tell me the situation.”

“It’s this way,” said Tugg, lighting the costly cigar. “I am one of the leading business men in Prosper City. I own Tugg & Co., the largest cotton-milling concern in the town.”

Tugg folded his hands and looked pious. “Some months ago, because of terrible business conditions, we were forced to cut the wages of our employees. Much against our wishes, of course.”

“I thought business was picking up,” Doc remarked.

Tugg acquired the expression of a man who had been served a bad egg unexpectedly.

“Business is terrible!” he said emphatically. “It’s worse now, too, because all of my employees went out on a strike! And the workmen in the other factories and mines went on strikes. It’s awful! Conditions are frightful!”

Doc Savage asked gently: “Did the other concerns cut wages before or after you did?”

Judborn Tugg swallowed a few times. He was startled. With that one question, Doc Savage had grabbed the kernel of the whole situation in Prosper City.

The truth was that Tugg & Co. had cut wages first, and the other concerns had been forced to do the same in order to meet the low prices at which their competitor was offering goods for sale. Tugg & Co. had turned itself into a sweatshop, paying their employees starvation wages.

When this had happened, there had been no necessity for it. Business had indeed been picking up. The whole thing was part of a plot conceived by that mysterious, unknown being, the Green Bell.

Other concerns in Prosper City had been forced to cut wages, although not as much as Tugg & Co. But the cuts had been enough to give agitators hired by Tugg & Co. an argument with which to cause numerous strikes. The hired agitators had even been directed to urge the strike at Tugg & Co. who paid them.

For months now, the agitators, under the direction of Slick Cooley, had kept all business at a standstill. Any factory which tried to open up was bombed, burned, or its machinery ruined. Every workman who sought to take a job was threatened or beaten, or if that failed, the Green Bell had a final and most horrible form of death, which was in itself an object lesson to other stubborn ones.

The whole thing was part of the scheme of the unknown master mind, the Green Bell. No one knew what was behind it. Judborn Tugg, if he knew, was not telling anybody.

Tugg carefully avoided Doc Savage’s weird eyes, and decided to handle the bronze man warily.

“We were all forced to cut wages about the same time,” he lied uneasily. “But the salary whacks were not at the bottom of the trouble. It is all the fault of the agitators.”

When Tugg paused, Doc Savage said nothing. He had settled in a comfortable chair. Several of these were in the outer office. There was also an expensive inlaid table and a massive safe. A costly rug was underfoot.

Adjoining, was a library containing one of the most complete collections of scientific tomes in existence, and another room which held an experimental laboratory so advanced in its equipment that scientists had come from foreign countries, just to examine it. The presence of these rooms was masked by a closed door, however.

“Conditions in Prosper City are pitiful,” continued Judborn Tugg, secretly wondering if he might not be entirely mistaken about this bronze man. “People are starving. There have been bombings, beatings, killings. It is all the fault of these agitators.”

Doc Savage maintained a disquieting silence.

“Aunt Nora Boston is the leader of the agitators,” Tugg said, telling an enormous lie without blinking.

Doc might have been a figure done in the bronze which he resembled, for all the signs of interest he showed. But that did not mean he was missing anything. Doc rarely showed emotion.

Tugg sucked in a full breath and went on: “Aunt Nora Boston is aided by Jim Cash, his sister Alice, and a young man named Ole Slater, who is hanging around Prosper City, pretending to be a play writer gathering local color for a manufacturing-town drama. Those four are the ring leaders. They’re the head of a gang they call the Prosper City Benevolent Society. That organization is back of all the trouble. They’re just low-down trouble-makers. I’ll bet they’re paid by some foreign country.”

This was so much more falsehood.

Judborn Tugg had not intended for his talk to follow these lines. But he was afraid to broach the truth. It was those eyes of the bronze man’s. Tugg would have been glad to get up and walk out, but he feared the wrath of the Green Bell.

“I want to hire you to—er—punish Aunt Nora Boston and her gang,” he said bluntly. “I’ll pay you plenty!”

“My services are not for sale,” Doc Savage said quietly. “They never are.”

Judborn Tugg’s head seemed to sink in his fat cone of a neck. What manner of man was this?

Doc went on: “Usually, individuals who are assisted by my five men and myself are generous enough to contribute a gift to worthy causes which I name.”

Tugg stifled a smile. So this was the dodge the bronze man used to make it seem he was not a hired thug. Tugg thought he saw the light. This Doc Savage could be hired, all right!

“Just how big a gift would you want?” he asked cannily.

“In your case, and provided conditions are just as you have outlined,” Doc replied promptly, “the gift would be a million dollars.”

Judborn Tugg narrowly escaped heart failure.

Down in the skyscraper lobby, Slick Cooley was also experiencing a shock; but from a different cause.

Slick had caught sight of Alice Cash and Aunt Nora Boston.

The two women were mud-spattered, bedraggled, and sodden from the rain. They left wet tracks across the polished lobby tiling. Their faces were pale, frightened, and they seemed overawed by the magnificence of the giant building.

They trudged for the elevators, Aunt Nora in the lead, strong jaw thrust out.

Slick gave his brain a mental whipping. He had best do something! Should the two women get upstairs, they might complicate things. Aunt Nora would do that, at least. She was an old war horse when she got mad. A brilliant idea hit Slick. He dashed forward. Before the two women saw him, he grabbed them savagely and jerked.

Aunt Nora’s big purse sailed to the floor.

Slick pounced upon the bag. He had his roll of bills concealed in one hand. Furtively, he got the purse open. He slipped the money inside. In doing this, he saw the two revolvers.

He now seized the women. A violent tussle ensued.

“Robbers!” Slick bellowed. “These two dames held me up!”

Aunt Nora gave him a poke in the eye which made him bawl in real agony. Pretty Alice Cash administered a few blows of her own.

A policeman dived in from the street. In a moment, he had stopped the fight.

Slick jabbed a hand at the two women. “These women held me up to-night! I recognize ’em! Search ’em officer! I’ll bet they’ve got the rods they used, and my coin!”

The officer opened Aunt Nora’s bag, found the guns and the money. He counted the latter.

“How much did you lose?” he asked.

Slick gave him the exact amount of the roll.

“This is it!” the patrolman said grimly. He collared the two women.

Alice Cash shrieked angrily: “We did not rob him!”

“Evidence says you did!” rumbled the officer. “Even if you didn’t, you’re carryin’ guns, and that’s against the law in New York.”

“You scut!” Aunt Nora flared at the smirking Slick. “You framed us! You low-lifed, slippery-haired sneak! I’ll wring your snaky neck!”

She jumped for Slick, who back-pedaled hastily.

“None of that!” shouted the officer. “It’s into the jug for you!”

He propelled his prisoners for the door.