Читать книгу The Secret in the Sky: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The matter of Willard Spanner was almost unbelievable. It was too preposterous. The newspapers publishing the story were certain a mistake had been made somewhere. True, this was the Twentieth Century, the age of marvels. But—then——

At exactly noon, the telephone buzzer whirred in Doc Savage’s New York skyscraper headquarters. Noon, straight up, Eastern Standard Time.

The buzzer whirred three times, with lengthy pauses between whirs, which allowed time for any one present to have answered. Then an automatic answering device, an ingenious arrangement of dictaphone voice recorder and phonographic speaker—a creation of Doc Savage’s scientific skill—was cut in automatically. The phonograph record turned under the needle and sent words over the telephone wire.

“This is a mechanical robot speaking from Doc Savage’s headquarters and advising you that Doc Savage is not present, but that any message you care to speak will be recorded on a dictaphone and will come to Doc Savage’s attention later,” spoke the mechanical contrivance. “You may proceed with whatever you wish to say, if anything.”

“Doc!” gasped a voice, which had that strange quality lent by long-distance telephonic amplifiers. “This is Willard Spanner! I am in San Francisco. I have just learned something too horrible for me to believe!”

Several violent grunts came over the wire. There were thumps. Glass seemed to break at the San Francisco end. Then came silence, followed by a click as the receiver was placed on the hook at the San Francisco terminus of the wire.

The mechanical device in Doc Savage’s New York office ran on for some moments, and a stamp clock automatically recorded the exact time of the message on a paper roll; then the apparatus stopped and set itself for another call, should one come.

The time recorded was two minutes past twelve, noon.

Thirty minutes later, approximately, the newspaper press association wires hummed with the story of the mysterious seizure of Willard Kipring Parker Spanner in San Francisco. Willard Kipring Parker Spanner was a nabob, a somebody, a big shot. Anything unusual that happened to him was big news.

The newspapers did not know the half of it. The biggest was yet to come.

Financially, Willard Kipring Parker Spanner did not amount to much. A post-mortem examination of his assets showed less than five thousand dollars, an insignificant sum for a man who was known over most of the world.

Willard Kipring Parker Spanner called himself simply, “a guy who likes to fiddle around with microscopes.” It was said that he knew as much about disease germs, and methods of combating them, as any living man. He had won one Nobel prize. He was less than thirty years old. Scientists and physicians who knew him considered him a genius.

When Willard Spanner was found dead, many a scientist and physician actually shed tears, realizing what the world had lost.

When Willard Spanner was found dead, the newspapers began to have fits. And with good reason.

For Willard Spanner’s body was found on a New York street—less than three hours after he had been seized in San Francisco! Seized in Frisco at noon, Eastern Standard Time. Dead in New York at ten minutes to three, Eastern Standard Time.

A newsboy with a freckled face was first to convey the news to Doc Savage. The newsboy was also cross-eyed. Neither the newsboy, nor his freckles, nor his crossed eyes had other connection with the affair, except that the lad’s reaction when he sighted Doc Savage was typical of the effect which the bronze man had on people.

The boy’s mouth went roundly open with a kind of amazement when he first saw the bronze giant; then, as he sold the paper, his demeanor was awed and very near worshipful.

“I know you, mister,” he said in a small voice. “You’re Doc Savage! I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers.”

Doc Savage studied the boy as he paid for the paper. He seemed particularly interested in the crossed eyes.

“Wear glasses?” he asked. He had a remarkable voice; it seemed filled with a great, controlled power.

“Sure,” said the newsboy, “They give me headaches.”

Doc Savage produced a small business card. The card was not white, but bronze, and the printing—his name only was on it—was in a slightly darker bronze.

“If I asked you to do something,” he queried, “would you do it?”

“Betcha boots!” replied the newsboy.

Doc Savage wrote a name and address on the card and said, “Go see that man,” then walked on, leaving the boy puzzled.

The name and address the bronze man had written was that of an eye specialist whose particular forte was afflictions such as the boy had.

More than one gaze followed Doc Savage along the street, for he was a giant of bronze with a face that was remarkable in its regularity of feature and a body that was a thing of incredible muscular development. His eyes attracted no little attention, too. They were like pools of flake-gold, stirred into continuous motion by some invisible force.

He read the newspaper headlines, the galleys of type beneath, but there was nothing on his features to show that he was perusing anything of importance.

The skyscraper which housed his headquarters was, in size and architecture, probably the most impressive in New York City. A private high-speed elevator lifted him to the eighty-sixth floor. He passed through a door that was plain, except for a name in small bronze letters:

CLARK SAVAGE, Jr.

The reception room inside had large windows, deep leather chairs, a strange and rich inlaid table of great size, and an impressive safe.

An automatic pistol lay on the floor. A pig, a shote with long legs and ears like boat sails, walked around and around the gun, grunting in a displeased way.

A man sat in a chair. He was a very short man and the chair was huge and high and faced away from the door, so that only red bristles which stuck up straight on top of the man’s head could be seen.

The man in the chair said in a small, childlike voice, “Shoot off that gun, Habeas, or I’ll tie knots in all your legs.”

With an uncanny intelligence, the pig sat down, inserted a hoof inside the trigger guard, and the gun went off with an ear-splitting report.

“Swell!” said the man in the chair. “Only you better stand, Habeas. Next time, the gun might be pointed at your posterior and there might not be a blank in it.”

Doc Savage said, “Monk.”

“Uh-huh,” said the man in the chair. “Sure, Doc, what is it?”

“Willard Spanner was a friend of mine.”

“Monk”—Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair—lifted out of the chair. He was not much over five feet tall. He was only slightly less broad than that, and he had a pair of arms which gave the grotesque impression of being nearly as long as he was tall. Red hairs, which looked coarse as match sticks, furred his leathery hide. His was the build of a gorilla.

“I read about it in them blasted newspapers,” he said, and his small voice was doubly ridiculous, contrasted with his physique. “Willard Spanner was seized in Frisco at noon. He was found dead here in New York at ten minutes to three. Screw loose somewhere.”

Monk wrinkled a fabulously homely face to show puzzlement. He looked amiable, stupid, when, in truth, he was one of the most clever industrial chemists alive.

“Maybe the newspapers got balled up on the difference in time between San Francisco and New York,” he added.

“All times given are New York time,” Doc Savage said.

“Then the guy seized in San Francisco wasn’t Willard Spanner, or the one dead here in New York isn’t Spanner,” Monk declared. “The bird didn’t go from Frisco to New York in a little over two hours. It just isn’t being done yet.”

Doc Savage asked, “Any messages?”

“Ham phoned, and said he was coming up,” replied the homely chemist. “I haven’t been here long. Dunno what was recorded before I got here.”

The bronze man went into the next room, which was a scientific laboratory, one of the most complete in existence, and crossed that to the vast, white-enameled room which held his laboratory of chemical, electrical and other devices. He lifted the cover on the telephone recorder robot, switched a loud-speaker and amplifier into circuit with the playback pickup, and started the mechanism.

Monk came in and listened, slackjawed, as the device reproduced the call from San Francisco, complete to its violent termination. The pig, Habeas—Habeas Corpus was the shote’s full appendage—trailed at the homely chemist’s heels.

Doc Savage examined the time stamped on the recording roll.

“Two minutes past twelve,” he said.

“Was that Willard Spanner’s voice, or would you know it?” Monk demanded.

“I would know his voice,” Doc replied. “And that was, unquestionably, Willard Spanner.”

“Speaking from San Francisco?” Monk grunted incredulously.

“We will see.” Doc Savage made a call, checking with the telephone people, then hung up and advised, “The call came from San Francisco, all right. Willard Spanner appears to have been seized while he was in the booth making the call.”

Monk picked the pig, Habeas, up by one oversize ear—a treatment the shote seemed not to mind.

“Then the dead man here in New York is not Willard Spanner,” declared the simian chemist. “Nobody goes from Frisco to New York in not much more than two hours.”

“We will see about that,” Doc told him.

“How?”

“By visiting the New York morgue where the dead man was taken.”

Monk nodded. “How about Ham?”

“We will leave him a note,” Doc said.

Apparently, it had not occurred to any one in authority on the New York civic scene that the surroundings of the dead were of æsthetic value, for the morgue building was a structure which nearly attained the ultimate in shoddiness.

Its brick walls gave the appearance of having not been washed in generations, being almost black with soot and city grime. The steps were grooved deep by treading feet, and the stone paving of the entry into which the dead wagons ran was rutted by tires. Rusting iron bars, very heavy, were over the windows; for just what reason, no one probably could have told.

“This joint gives me the creeps—and I don’t creep easy,” Monk imparted, as they got out of Doc Savage’s roadster before the morgue.

The roadster was deceptively long. Its color was somber. The fact that its body was of armor plate, its windows—specially built in the roadster doors—of bulletproof glass, was not readily apparent.

Monk carried Habeas Corpus by an ear and grumbled, “I wonder why anybody should kill Willard Spanner? Or grab him, either? Spanner was an all-right guy. He didn’t have any enemies.”

Doc listened at the entrance. There was silence, and no attendant was behind the reception desk where one should have been. They stepped inside.

“Hello, somebody!” Monk called.

Silence answered.

There was an odor in the air, a rather peculiar tang. Monk sniffed.

“Say, I knew they used formaldehyde around these places,” he muttered. “But there’s something besides——”

Doc Savage moved with such suddenness that he seemed to explode. But it was a silent explosion, and he was little more than a noiseless bronze blur as he crossed to the nearest door. He did not try to pass through the door, but flattened beside it.

Monk, bewildered, began, “Say, what the blazes? First I smell——”

A man came through the door, holding a big single-action six-gun. He said, “Start your settin’-up exercises, boys!” Then his eyes bulged, for he had apparently expected to see two men—and Doc Savage, beside the door, escaped his notice.

The man with the six-shooter was bony and looked as if he had been under bright suns much of his life. He wore a new suit, but his shirt was a coarse blue work garment, faded from washing. The tie was blue and looked as if it had been put on and taken off many times, without untying the knot. The knot was a very long one.

Doc Savage struck silently and with blinding speed. The gun wielder saw him, but could not move in time, and the bronze man’s fist took him on the temple. The six-gun evidently had a hair trigger. It went off. The bullet made a hole, round and neat, in the wall behind Monk.

Monk began howling and charged for the door.

“Now ain’t this somethin’!” he bellowed.

Doc Savage had gone on with a continuation of the dive which he had made at the six-gun wielder, and was already through the door. The room beyond was an office with four desks and four swivel chairs.

Five persons were arrayed on the floor. The morgue attendants, obviously. They were neither bound nor gagged, but they lay very still. The odor of chloroform was heavy in the air.

Two men were on their feet. One was tall, the other short, and the short one wore overall pants and his legs were bowed. Both were weather-beaten.

The tall one held in one hand a blue revolver and in the other a bandanna handkerchief, which gave off chloroform stench. The short man had an automatic rifle from which barrel and stock had been bobbed off short.

A bundle of clothing lay in the middle of the floor.

The automatic rifle smacked loudly as Doc came through the door. But the marksman did not lead his target quite enough. He shot again. The cartridge stuck in the ejector.

“Damn it!” the rifleman bawled.

“Throw it away!” gritted the tall man. “I told you that gun wouldn’t work if you bobtailed it!”

The tall man danced back as he spoke, seeming in no hurry to shoot. He waved his blue revolver, that Doc Savage might be sure to see it.

“Don’t be a sucker!” the man suggested. “Behave yourself.”

Doc Savage held his hands out even with his shoulders and came to a stop, but not until momentum had carried him to the center of the room.

Monk lumbered through the door. He stopped, looked closely at the blue gun as if it were some strange animal, then put up his stub-fingered hands.

“That’s bein’ sensible,” said the tall man. “I can bust poker chips in the air with this here hogleg. Stunted, there, is a good shot, too, only he thought he knew more about that auto rifle than the gent who made her.”

“Stunted,” the short man, was peering into the innards of his doctored rifle.

“Aw-w,” he mumbled. “I took too much tension off the spring.”

Monk grunted, “What’s the idea, you guys?”

“We like to look at dead people,” the tall man said dryly. “We’re strange that way.”

Doc Savage was standing with his toes almost against the bundle of clothing. The bundle was snug, being strapped around tightly with a belt.

Doc hooked a toe under the bundle and kicked with great force.

The human nervous system is capable of registering impressions only so fast. The tall man undoubtedly knew the missile was coming, but could do nothing. When it hit him, he recoiled instinctively.

The next instant, he was flat on his face, held there by one foot which Doc Savage jammed down on his neck.

Monk whooped loudly, rushed Stunted. Monk’s fights were always noisy.

Stunted clung like a zealot to his bobtailed auto rifle, trying to get it in operation. He failed. He tried to club with the gun. Monk jerked it out of his hands as if he were taking a lollypop from a child, then dropped it.

Monk picked the short man up bodily, turned him over and dropped him on his head. He accomplished the motion with such speed that the short man was helpless. Stunted did not move after he fell on his head.

Monk blinked small eyes at his victim.

“Gosh,” he said. “I wonder if that hurt him?”

The tall man on the floor snarled, “What in blue blazes kind of a circus is this, anyhow?”

Monk felt of Stunted’s head, found it intact, then twisted one of the short man’s rather oversize ears, but got no response. The homely chemist turned on the tall man.

“So it’s a circus, huh?” he grunted. “I wondered.”

“Aw, hell!” gritted the other.

Monk came over and sat on the lean prisoner. Doc Savage removed his foot from the man’s neck. Monk grabbed the fellow’s ears and pulled them. He seemed fascinated by the rubbery manner in which they stretched out from the man’s head.

“They’d make swell souvenirs,” Monk grunted.

“Cut it out!” the tall man howled. “What’re you gonna do with me?”

“I’m gonna ask you questions,” Monk told him. “And I’m gonna be awful mad if you don’t answer ’em.”

“Nuts!” said the captive.

“Has this raid, or whatever it was, got anything to do with Willard Spanner?” Monk asked.

“What do you think?” the other snapped.

Monk pulled the ears. Tears came to the man’s eyes. He cursed, and his voice was a shrill whine of agony.

“I’ll kill you for that!” he promised. “Damn me, if I don’t!”

Monk shuddered elaborately, grinned and said, “If I had on boots, I’d shake in ’em. What did you come here for?”

A new voice said, “You gentlemen seem to be humorists.”

Monk started violently and twisted his head toward the door. He gulped, “Blazes!” and got hastily to his feet.

The man in the door was solid, athletic-looking, and he held a revolver with familiar ease. He was in his socks. That probably explained how he had come in from the outside so silently: that, and the faint mumble of city traffic, which was always present.

“Get up!” he told the tall man. “Wipe your eyes. Then grab that bunch of clothes. This is sure something to write home about!”

“I’ll kill this ape!” bawled the tall man.

“Some other time,” the rescuer suggested. “Get the clothes. Say, just who is this big bronze guy and the monkey, anyhow?”

“How would I know?” snarled the man whom Monk had been badgering. He picked up the bundle of clothing and started for the door.

“You wouldn’t leave Stunted, would you?” asked the first.

Without a word, the tall man picked up the short fellow and made his way, not without difficulty, out through the door.

The gun wielder looked on benignly. He had one stark peculiarity. His eyes were blue. And something was wrong with them. They crossed at intervals, pupils turning in toward the nose. Then they straightened out. The owner seemed to do the straightening with visible effort.

Monk demanded, “Who did them clothes belong to?”

The man said, “They’ll answer a lot of questions where you’re going.”

Monk did not get a clear impression of what happened next. Things moved too fast. Doc Savage must have read the intention of the man with the queer eyes. Doc lunged.

The gun went off. But the man with the eyes had tried to shift from Monk to Doc for a target and had not quite made it. His bullet pocked the wall. Then Doc had a grip on the revolver.

The man let go of the revolver. He bounced back, fast on his feet, reached the door and sloped through. He was yelling now. His yells caused noise of other feet in the next room. There were evidently more men.

Doc grasped Monk and propelled him backward. They got into a rear room and slammed the door. Doc shot the bolt.

Revolver bullets chopped around the lock. Wood splintered. The lock held. A man kicked the door. Monk roared a threat.

There was no more kicking, no more shooting. Silence fell, except for the traffic noises.

Monk looked at Doc.

“That guy with the performing eyes was gonna kill us both,” he mumbled.

Doc Savage did not comment. He listened, then unlocked the door. The room beyond was empty. He advanced. In the next room, one of the chloroformed morgue attendants was sitting up and acting sick.

The street outside held no sign of the violent raiders. There was no trace of the bundle of clothing.

The reviving morgue attendant began to mumble.

“They wanted clothes off a corpse,” he muttered. “Whatcha know about that?”

“Off what corpse?” Doc asked him.

“Off Willard Spanner,” said the attendant.