Читать книгу Death in Silver: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 4
ОглавлениеTHE ARCHER IN SILVER
The building housing Paine L. Winthrop’s shipping company, the Seven Seas, was not the most imposing in the Wall Street sector, but it narrowly missed that designation. Penthouses ornamented the tops of most of the skyscrapers in the district, and this one was no exception.
The penthouse on this building was a pretentious affair with numerous glass walls which afforded the occupant full sunlight. Most of the glass had been shattered by the blast below. In fact, it was a miracle that the whole structure had not gone down, with a resultant vast loss of life.
One of the penthouse rooms contained many work benches, and these supported racks holding innumerable test tubes, retorts, microscopes, mixing trays, pestles and bottled chemicals. That the benches had supported this array would be more correct, for most of the stuff was now on the floor. Several small chemical fires had started.
A remarkable-looking man was picking himself up from the mess of glass and liquids. He jumped up and down and emitted a roar, for he had been slightly burned by a vial of acid.
The roar and the way the fellow bounced about gave the impression of a great, angry ape. The man’s appearance did little to detract from the impression. He had practically no forehead; his thick, muscle-gnarled arms were longer than his legs, and his skin was leathery and covered with bristles which resembled rusty nails. His mouth was so unnaturally large that it looked as if there had been an accident in the assembling of his pleasantly ugly face.
“Habeas!” the apish man bellowed.
A pig came galloping into view, squealing excitedly—an almost incredibly grotesque specimen of the porker family, as homely in his way as was the man who had called him. The shote had long, doglike legs, a scrawny body, an inquisitive snout, and ears almost large enough to serve as wings.
“Dang it, Habeas,” the homely chemist grinned, “I was afraid that dude lawyer had thrown a grenade at you.”
Some one seemed to be trying to open a near-by door. Loud kicks sounded, wood crunched, and the door fell inward.
The man who came through was slender, waspish, and attired to the height of sartorial perfection. He had a high forehead, the mobile mouth of an orator. In one hand he gripped a thin black cane which was slightly separated at a joint near the handle, thus disclosing the object to be a sword cane with a razor-sharp blade.
The well-dressed man glared at the homely chemist, his expression that of a gentleman who had just found a toad on his breakfast table.
“Monk, I always did know you would blow us up with some of your idiotical chemical experiments,” he snapped.
This was nothing if not libel. The apish man, “Monk,” was Lieut. Col. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, and conceded by those who knew to be one of the greatest of living chemists. His head, which did not look as if it had room for a thimbleful of brains, harbored a fabulous amount of chemical and electro-chemical lore.
Monk glared at the dapper newcomer.
“The shyster lawyer heard from,” he growled.
That was another libel. The dressy gentleman was Brig. Gen. Theodore Marley Brooks, better known as “Ham,” one of the most astute lawyers ever to get his sheepskin from Harvard.
A strange pair, these two. They were always together, yet no one could remember either one having spoken a civil word to the other. Those who knew, however, could cite a number of instances when each had risked his life to save the other.
Men far-famed in their professions, both of them. Yet they were known to the corners of the earth for another reason—known as two members of a group of five who were assistants to a man who was probably the most famed adventurer of all time.
Monk and Ham were aides of Doc Savage, the man of bronze, the man of mystery, the being of fabulous accomplishments, who was almost a legend to the general public, but who was the synonym for terror and justice to those who preyed upon their fellow men.
Ham flourished his sword cane. “What was that—that quake?”
“Search me,” said Monk, whose voice, in repose, was remarkably small and querulously childlike.
Seizing a fire extinguisher, Monk went to work on the chemical blazes. He resented this damage to his laboratory, for it was one of the most complete in existence, exceeded only by those maintained by the man of bronze, Doc Savage, who was himself a greater chemist than Monk.
Habeas Corpus, Monk’s pet pig, backed away from the flames, saw he was getting near Ham, and hastily shied off. Habeas and Ham did not get along together. Ham had repeatedly threatened to make breakfast bacon out of Habeas.
The fires doused, Monk cast aside the extinguisher.
“Let’s find out what happened,” he said.
“A good idea coming from a strange source,” Ham stated unkindly, and they went out. The pig, Habeas, they left behind.
The elevators were not operating, probably due to the damage wrought by the blast, and they had to walk down. It did not take them long to reach the scene of the detonation.
They were efficient, these two—men accustomed to scenes of violence through their long association with Doc Savage. Doc seemed to exist always in the shadow of peril and destruction.
Without delay, they went to work to ascertain the cause of the explosion. And there, they ran up against a profound puzzle, as well as a gruesome scene.
Paine L. Winthrop was dead. No doubt of that, as it was necessary for the ambulance surgeons to assemble the scattered parts of his body on a stretcher before it could be carried away.
Several of the Seven Seas office employees had been injured. A broken arm, received by a stenographer as she was knocked over her desk, was the most serious. Others were only lacerated and bruised.
Monk and Ham put quick inquiries about the cause of the blast. No one could give a reply of value except Paine L. Winthrop’s head clerk, who was quite sure there had been no bomb, since she had left the private office only shortly before the arrival of her boss.
Before Monk and Ham could locate fragments of whatever had caused the detonation, a swarm of policemen and newspaper reporters arrived. The officers herded every one to an office one floor below, it having been decided that the skyscraper was in no danger of falling.
The office in which those who had been on the explosion scene were concentrated, was the headquarters of a firm dealing in imported antiques and art works. Adjoining the office were numerous stock rooms holding pictures, armor, pieces of ancient furniture, weapons, costumes and like articles. These were all antiques.
The newspaper reporters descended upon Monk and Ham. Both were high-pressure copy, for it was known that they were members of Doc Savage’s group of aides, and Doc was front-page news all seven days of the week.
“Is Doc working on this?” a journalist connected with a tabloid demanded.
“No,” said Monk, irked because the locust swarm of scribes were keeping Ham and himself from investigating. “Keep Doc out of it.”
The tabloid reporter ran to a telephone and informed his city editor, “Two of the famous Doc Savage’s men are on the spot and working on the mystery explosion. They deny that Doc himself is interested, but we don’t need to mention that Doc’s name in this will make it all the bigger.”
“Our pals,” Monk growled.
Modern newspapers function with breath-taking speed, and while the reporters were still harassing Monk and Ham, extra editions of their sheets arrived.
Monk snatched one of these and retired with Ham to a stock room, the walls of which were hung with the work of old masters, to see how much Doc had been brought into the affair.
They expected to see the blast story occupying a whole page of the tabloid, but to their surprise, it divided honors with another yarn.
“I say,” said Ham, who affected a pronounced Harvard accent whenever he thought of it. “Those Silver Death’s-Heads beggars have been acting again.”
They read the big black headlines and the news story below them. The thing was almost childishly dramatic, as written.
SILVER DEATH’S-HEADS STRIKE;
MYSTERY MEN ROB ARMORED CAR
———
Get a Quarter Million In Loot
Vanish As Usual
———
The terror in silver is with New York again! At three o’clock this afternoon, these frightful men of mystery shot down the drivers and guard of an armored truck in the streets of Manhattan and took $250,000.00 in cash.
Accounts of the number of robbers vary. Some spectators say there were twenty; others claim only five or six. The robbers escaped in a fast car and evaded police pursuit in the water-front section of the East River.
The thieves wore silver-colored suits and weird silver hoods which made their heads resemble skulls. This description tallies with the gang which has committed other robberies and murders and which is known to the police as the Silver Death’s-Heads.
The last crime committed by the Silver Death’s-Heads was the cold-blooded sinking of the liner Avallancia, pride of the Transatlantic Company, in New York harbor.
Bedford Burgess Gardner, president of the Transatlantic Company, has not been able to explain what motive could have been behind the sinking of the Avallancia.
“Wild stuff,” commented Monk.
“Typical newspaper sensationalism.” Ham clipped, agreeing with Monk because he still resented being questioned by the reporters. “Silver Death’s-Heads! Imagine that! What rot!”
“Too melodramatic to have much foundation in truth,” Monk added. “I doubt if there are really any men called the Silver Death’s-Heads. This particular tabloid colors its news to beat the band.”
The two men had been making no effort to pitch their voices low, and a number of the Seven Seas office employees huddled in the room of the antique dealer overheard what was being said. Among those who could not help but catch the words was Clarence Sparks.
Mention of the Silver Death’s-Heads caused Clarence to stiffen visibly, then look undecided. He hesitated, mustering up his nerve. As yet, he had not told any one of what he had overheard outside the door of Paine L. Winthrop’s private office, but hearing Monk state his belief that there were no such individuals as Silver Death’s-Heads apparently moved Clarence to speak. He sidled over to Monk and Ham.
“You—you gentlemen are mistaken,” he said hesitantly.
Monk squinted at the receding chin and the none-too-robust physique of Sparks.
“You know something?” he asked.
Clarence Sparks moistened his lips nervously. “I—I hope this won’t get me into trouble,” he muttered.
Monk and Ham were both intensely interested.
“Spill it,” Monk directed.
The Seven Seas billing clerk swelled his thin chest with a full breath of resolution.
“I was eavesdropping outside Paine L. Winthrop’s door,” he said in a voice which excitement made loud. “I heard him make the telephone call which was directly responsible for his death.”
“Blazes!” Monk exploded. “Then it was a murder, huh?”
Clarence Sparks clenched his fists and said, “It certainly was!”
“Who was Winthrop talkin’ to?” Monk demanded.
“To the secret mastermind of the Silver Death’s-Heads,” Clarence gulped.
“For the love of mud!” said Monk. “What was his name?”
Clarence Sparks almost yelled, “I heard Winthrop say over the telephone that it was——”
That was the last word Clarence Sparks spoke, although not the last sound he made, for his mouth suddenly flew open to its widest and let a terrific scream rip out. It was as if the scream had burst out, destroying his vocal cords; the yell rasped and was unnatural.
Clarence Sparks put his arms stiffly above his head in the manner of an aboriginal saluting the sun. Then he turned slowly, trembling and on tiptoe. When he had his back to Monk and Ham, they could see the feathered shaft of the arrow which protruded from his back.
Because Clarence Sparks was thin and poorly, his body made a clattering sound as it fell to the floor. After he fell the stiffness seemed to go out of his thin frame, his head rolled over slackly until his cheek pressed the floor, and with a bubbling rush, scarlet came from his mouth and nostrils.
But Monk and Ham were not watching the phenomena incidental to death. They were staring at the archer who had discharged the arrow, an archer in silver, a being so grotesque of appearance that they were held stunned.
