Читать книгу The Czar of Fear: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 8

Table of Contents

As the women were leaving, the gorilla ambled upon the scene.

This personage had, to give him his due, some man-like qualities. His finger nails were manicured, even if the job had been done with a pocketknife. His little eyes glistened with keen intelligence in their pits of gristle. His face attained that rare quality of being so homely that it was pleasant to look upon.

His clothing was expensive, although it did look like it had been slept in. He would weigh every ounce of two hundred and sixty pounds, and his hairy arms were some inches longer than his bandy legs.

He ambled up and stopped in front of Slick.

“I saw you slip the money in that purse,” he said in a voice so mild that it might have been a child’s.

Then he hit Slick. Hit him on the nose!

Slick’s curly hair was varnished straight back on his head. The blow was so hard that it made the hair stand out suddenly in front, as if blown by a wind from behind.

Describing a parabola, Slick lit on his shoulders and skidded a score of feet. His nose had been spread over most of his weasel face.

Aunt Nora began to bounce up and down in ribald delight, and to shout: “Glory be! Just what I wanted to hand him!”

Entrancing Alice Cash bestowed a grateful smile on the fellow who looked like a furry gorilla.

The cop shouted: “You say this squirt planted that roll of bills?”

“He sure did,” said the hairy man.

Growling, the officer rushed for Slick.

Slick shoved up dizzily from the floor. He sprinted for the door. Glancing around, he saw the policeman was sure to overhaul him. He spaded his hands inside his coat, and brought out two revolvers. Each was fitted with a compact silencer.

The guns began to chung out deadly reports. The bullets missed the fast-traveling patrolman. But he veered for shelter, tugging at his own weapon.

Slick hurtled through the door. A taxi chanced to be cruising past. With a wild spring, the fleeing gunman got into it. He jammed the hot silencer of a revolver against the shivering driver’s neck.

The cab jumped down the street as if dynamite had exploded behind it.

The officer raced out, but did not shoot because of the traffic. He sped back into the skyscraper and put in a call to headquarters, advising them to spread a radio alarm for the taxi.

“The guy as good as got away!” he advised the huge, furry man and the two women, when he rejoined them. “Now—you two ladies! We’ve still got to settle about them guns you were carryin’!”

“The ladies tell me they were on their way to see Doc Savage,” the hairy fellow advised in his babylike voice.

The cop blinked. Then he grinned from ear to ear.

“That makes it different,” he chuckled. Then he walked away, acting as if he had never seen the two women.

Alice Cash looked prettily incredulous at the magic which mention of Doc Savage’s name had accomplished.

Aunt Nora gulped several times, then smiled. “Bless you, you homely monkey! How’d you get us out of that? I know they’re very strict about people packin’ guns here in New York.”

The human gorilla laughed. “The fact that you were goin’ to Doc Savage made it all right.”

“Doc Savage must have a big reputation in this town,” Aunt Nora said wonderingly. “You ain’t him, are you?”

“Who, me? Hell—I mean, oh, my—no! I’m just one of Doc Savage’s five helpers.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.”

Aunt Nora snorted. “I’ll bet you’re not called that much!”

“Not enough for me to know who’s bein’ wanted when I hear it!” the hairy fellow grinned. “Call me Monk.”

“Monk” might have added that he was a chemist whose name was mentioned with reverence in scientific circles of both America and Europe. But he was not addicted to blowing his own horn.

The speedy elevator lifted them to the eighty-sixth floor. When they were near the door of Doc Savage’s office, the murmur of a voice within was distinguishable.

Aunt Nora gave a start of angry surprise. “I’d know that voice anywhere!” she gasped. “It’s Judborn Tugg!”

Monk’s little eyes showed interest. “Who’s he?”

“A fat, conceited jaybird! He’s no friend of ours! Slick Cooley—the fellow you pasted downstairs—follows Judborn Tugg around like a Man Friday. They’re tarred with the same brush—both crooked!”

Monk considered this, then waved the women back. He opened the office door, and stood in the aperture. His big, hirsute hands moved nervously, as if he were embarrassed.

“Oh, excuse me! I didn’t know you had company.” He started to back out.

No one, other than Doc, had noticed that the apparently aimless movements of Monk’s hands had spelled out a message in the deaf-and-dumb sign language.

“Come out here without alarming your visitor,” Monk had signaled.

Doc arose, saying to Judborn Tugg: “If you will excuse me—I wish to speak with this man!” He strode rapidly to the door.

For all of his great weight and swiftness of stride, he made no appreciable sound. There was an uncanny silence about his movements, a natural lightness which indicated enormously developed leg muscles.

Fat Judborn Tugg, instead of suspecting anything, was rather glad to have Doc step outside for a moment. Tugg had not yet recovered from the shock of having Doc suggest that his services would call for a million-dollar donation. He welcomed the chance to regain his balance.

Doc closed the corridor door. Shortly later, he was in the presence of the two women.

Aunt Nora let her mouth hang open in unashamed astonishment at sight of the giant bronze man. Then she cocked her arms akimbo and smiled, wrinkles corrugating every inch of her motherly face.

“Glory be!” she chuckled. “You’re the answer to this old girl’s prayers!”

Alice Cash did not exactly let her jaw drop, but her lips parted slightly, and her blue eyes became round with amazement. Her next act was to glance down disgustedly at her muddy, disheveled raiment.

Doc Savage usually affected pretty young women like that—set them wondering about their appearance. Feminine eyes were inclined to be quick to note that Doc was unusually handsome, a fact which escaped men after they saw his amazing muscular development.

Monk performed the introductions.

“What has Judborn Tugg been tellin’ you?” Aunt Nora questioned anxiously.

“A great deal,” Doc replied quietly. “He is one of the most profuse liars I have ever encountered.”

This would have pained Judborn Tugg exceedingly, had he overheard it. It was his belief that he could tell a falsehood as smoothly as the truth. He would have been shocked to know that Doc Savage, by close attention to his voice tones, had spotted almost every lie.

Aunt Nora clenched her work-toughened hands, and gave Doc a look of genuine appeal.

“I need your help!” she said earnestly. “But I haven’t got a cent with which to pay you!”

Doc’s strange golden eyes studied Aunt Nora and attractive Alice Cash. His bronze features remained as expressionless as metal.

Without speaking, he turned. He entered his office.

“I do not think I am interested in your proposition,” he told Judborn Tugg.

Tugg picked the costly cigar from his pursy mouth, as if it had suddenly turned bitter.

“I can pay you plenty,” he pointed out. “I might even pay you that million, provided you can do the work that I want done.”

“No!”

Judborn Tugg purpled. To him, it was inconceivable that any man would dismiss a million so abruptly. He would probably have keeled over had he known that Doc intended to help Aunt Nora Boston, who had admitted she could not pay him a copper cent.

“If you change your mind, you’ll find me at the Hotel Triplex!” Tugg said in a loud, angry tone.

“There will be no change of mind,” Doc said, reaching out and grasping Tugg by the coat collar.

Before Tugg knew what had happened, he was hoisted off the floor. His coat tore in two or three places, but held.

Helpless as a worm on a stick, Tugg was carried into the corridor and deposited urgently in an elevator.

“If you want to retain your health, you had better not let me see you again!” Doc advised him in the tone of a physician prescribing for a patient with dangerous symptoms.

The elevator carried Tugg from view.

Monk, an innocent expression on his homely face, ambled up and asked: “Didn’t I hear that bird say he was staying at the Hotel Triplex?”

Doc nodded; then invited Aunt Nora and Alice Cash into his office.

Grinning, Monk ambled to a public telephone in the corridor. He got the number of the Hotel Triplex from the phone book, then called the hostelry. He asked the hotel operator for the night manager.

“You have a guest named Judborn Tugg,” Monk informed the hotel man. “Doc Savage just threw this fellow out of his office.”

“In that case, we’ll throw him out of the Hotel Triplex, too,” Monk was advised.

Hanging up, Monk fished an envelope out of his pocket and addressed it to the Unemployment Relief Fund.

From another pocket, he produced Slick Cooley’s fat roll of bills. Monk had managed to harvest this in the excitement downstairs. He sealed the money in the envelope, applied stamps, then put it in a mail box. The envelope was so bulky that he had to insert it in the lid marked for packages.

Whistling cheerfully, Monk tramped for Doc’s office.

When Judborn Tugg reached the Hotel Triplex, he found his bags waiting for him on the sidewalk. The night manager in person was watching over the valises.

“I am sorry,” the manager said coldly. “We do not want you here.”

Judborn Tugg, after nearly choking, yelled and cursed and waved his arms. He threatened to sue the Triplex for a million dollars.

“Get away from here, or I’ll have you arrested for disturbing the peace!” snapped the manager. Then he walked inside.

A moment later, a dark limousine rolled up to the curb. The rear was heavily curtained.

The driver leaned from behind the wheel and advised: “Get in!”

It was Slick Cooley, partially disguised by a raincoat and a low-pulled hat.

Judborn Tugg placed his bags in the front, then got in the back. At this point, his hair almost stood on end.

The rear seat held a figure incased from head to foot in a black sack of a garment. On the front of the raven gown was painted a big green bell.

The unholy apparition in black held two silenced revolvers in dark-gloved hands.

“Do not mind the guns,” said a hollow, inhuman voice from the murksome form. “I am the Green Bell, and the weapons are merely to remind you not to snatch at my hood in an effort to learn my identity.”

The limousine now rolled out into traffic.

“I was walkin’ down the street when he called to me from the back of this car,” Slick advised. “There wasn’t any driver——”

“I simply parked the car ahead of you, before donning my hood,” interposed the sepulchral tones of the Green Bell. “Incidentally, this machine is stolen. But I do not think the owner will miss it for some hours. Tugg—what happened to you?”

Judborn Tugg started. He had been cudgeling his brain in an effort to identify the Green Bell’s voice. But there was nothing the least familiar about the disguised tones.

Rapidly, Judborn Tugg explained the unhappy outcome of his visit to Doc Savage.

“You have served me very inefficiently!” Anger had come into the booming voice of the Green Bell. “This Doc Savage is not at all the type of man you thought him to be!”

Tugg, still smarting from his reception at the hotel, said angrily: “This is my first mistake!”

The Green Bell gazed levelly at him. The eye holes in the jet hood were backed by goggles which had deep-green lenses. The effect was that of a big, green-orbed cat.

“I do not care for your angry tone!” said the dark being. “You are fully aware, Tugg, that I can get along without those who do not coöperate fully with me. You are no exception! You are of service to me only as an agent, a figurehead through which I can work. You pretend to be Prosper City’s leading citizen, and I choose to let you. Your milling concern, Tugg & Co., was ready to fail when I came upon the scene, thanks to your bad management. You have retained control of the company only because I have furnished you money with which to pay the interest on your loans. You are but a cog in my great plan.”

Judborn Tugg collapsed like an automobile tire which had picked up a nail.

“I did not mean to offend you,” he mumbled. “I was excited because of the treatment Doc Savage gave me.”

“I am going to take care of Doc Savage!” the Green Bell said ominously.

Tugg shivered. “The man is dangerous—especially if he has the brains to match his unbelievable physical strength!”

“We do not want Savage against us,” replied the Green Bell. “I have already put a plan in operation which will keep Savage so busy that he will have no time to stick a finger in our pie.”

“I’d like to see him dead!” said Judborn Tugg savagely.

“You may get your wish!” tolled the Green Bell. “My little scheme will undoubtedly result in Doc Savage dying in the electric chair!”

Ordering Slick down a dark street, the Green Bell eased out of the car, and was swallowed by the drizzling darkness. A bit farther on, Judborn Tugg and Slick Cooley abandoned the stolen limousine.

Walking away from the car, they could see in the distance what appeared to be a tower of gray freckles in the wet gloom. This was the skyscraper which housed Doc Savage’s aerie.