Читать книгу The Sea Angel: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 4

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Standing on pedestals here and there inside that part of the museum devoted to sculpture were a number of bronze statues of ancient athletes who had legendary strength.

This stranger was like that. He might as readily have been one of the statues come to life, as the other men had lately been Calhugi Indians. He was, however, attired in a neat, brown civilian suit, and there was no make-up on his skin to make it resemble bronze, whereas the others had their hides painted a coppery red.

Nothing happened for some moments. The fake redskins looked at the man they had met.

Boscoe said quickly, “Watch it, guys, watch it! Daniel in the lion’s den didn’t have anything on us!”

“One side, bronze guy!” a man snarled. “Or we’ll take you plenty!”

“You apes!” Boscoe growled. “Do you know who this guy——”

Boscoe did not finish. The action started. A man pointed his pistol at the bronze giant. There was blurred motion, and the bronze giant was not where he had been; and two men were flat on their backs, kicking their legs like flies and trying to figure out just what had happened.

Poor old Leander L. Quietman had been dropped on the hard cement alley pavement. The men who had held him leaped to the attack.

A man drew a gun. “Get ’em up!”

“Nix!” Boscoe barked anxiously.

The next instant, as if by some miraculous legerdemain, the bronze man had secured the gun. He pointed it at the sky, pulled the trigger. A mousetrap would have made more noise. The pistol was not loaded.

Boscoe groaned, “Now he knows our guns are empty!”

If the fact that a gang of men staging a kidnaping carried unloaded guns amazed the bronze giant, he did not show emotion about it.

The fight continued. It became obvious the unbelievable was going to happen. The mountain was coming to Mahomet, water would run uphill. One amazing bronze man was going to whip the whole gang!

Then, and the very suddenness of it was incredibly weird, men seemed to freeze where they stood. They had been jumping about wildly, striking, trying to get clear of their Nemesis. They stiffened. It was as if they were a movie which had been stopped at one scene. They seemed scarcely to breathe, until finally, Boscoe lifted a thick arm slowly and pointed.

“The Sea Angel!” he croaked.

The bronze man—Doc Savage—whirled and saw it.

Fantastic thing. An incredible thing. Had it been night, the thing might have been a bit more believable.

Eight feet might be the height of the incredible creature. That, though, was a guess. It was frilly around the edges. It was half as wide as high. It had a thick part for a body. It had triangular wings, two of them, and these ran to a point; and from these dangled black ropelike arms, eight or ten feet long. Each arm terminated in a black ball a little smaller than a baseball.

Silver was the creature’s color. The slick silver of a fish. But there were black markings—the edges of the thing, and the arms.

As it stood there, it did bear some resemblance to an angel.

It had a mouth. This was evident when the mouth opened and showed a jet-black gullet. The mouth was large enough to take a beer keg, with only a little stretching.

Boscoe croaked, “Boys, we’re in a predicament now!”

Doc Savage lunged for the silver monstrosity. He was lightning on his feet.

But the Sea Angel was lightning doubled. One of the black arms whipped forward, and the long, black rope came around like a blacksnake whip.

Doc dodged, and the dark ball barely touched him. But the touch had an incredible effect: He felt it from head to foot. Not pain. Something else. Shock. Agony.

The bronze man stumbled back, was clear when the other arm struck. He kept moving, reached old Leander Quietman, scooped him up.

It became evident that there was no way out of the alley and court. But in a corner was a small brick box of a building, the door open, a key in the lock. Tools, lawn mowers, were inside.

Doc whipped to the shed, popped Leander Quietman inside, and closed the door. He turned the key in the lock, then took the key out.

Doc got close to the brick wall. He shoved the key into a cranny between the bricks, twisted, and broke it so that it would never open the little tool cubicle again.

The strange creature, the Sea Angel, glided to the tool house, fluttered about it a moment. It could not get in. It made no sound.

Boscoe and his men ran. They ran as if getting away from there was the nicest thing they had ever been able to do.

The Sea Angel advanced on Doc Savage. The bronze man dipped into his clothing and brought out a small gas grenade. He hurled it. The thing broke against the monster, poured out tear gas.

The tear gas had absolutely no effect, except that it made it necessary for the bronze man to get away immediately. He managed to do it by a wild rush.

Doc got out of the alley and onto a side street.

Boscoe and his men were in two cars, leaving rapidly.

A young woman stood on the sidewalk. An unusually tall and attractive young woman, who was staring in wonder at the goings-on.

Suddenly she screamed, whirled, ran.

She had seen, of course, the Sea Angel. The thing was following Doc Savage.

Doc ran swiftly. Construction work was being done on a near-by street, under the elevated railway. The bronze man made for the loose bricks, and when he reached them, he picked one up, and let fly.

The brick struck squarely. And the monster wavered for an instant, driven off balance. Doc picked up more bricks. The incredible apparition retreated swiftly.

A taxicab came cruising around the corner, and the daydreaming driver saw the silver-and-black creature. He gave a violent start and hung his amazed face out a window.

One of the monster’s strange, black feelers snaked out and barely touched the driver’s elbow. The hackman shrieked. Screeched as if he had lost the arm. And he fed his cab gears and gas.

The monster leaped, and got onto the cab. Not onto the running board, but across the top, great flipperlike wings draped down on the side, the black feelers tossed up over its back.

The taxi driver saw what he had aboard. He was still shrieking when he and his machine and his fantastic passenger were lost to sight, six blocks away.

Doc Savage ran to his car, a long, powerful, plain roadster and gave chase; but the cab was gone, although he hunted over an area of many blocks before he gave up.

Doc Savage went back to the alley between the museum buildings where he had left old Leander L. Quietman.

The girl who had been such an interested observer of the excitement was not in sight. She was, it developed, concealed just inside the mouth of the alley. She showed Doc the business end of a small lady’s pistol when he walked into the alley.

“You will put up your hands,” she said, and shook a little.

“Miss Quietman,” Doc Savage said. “Sure you are not making a mistake?”

She widened her eyes at him. “You know me?”

“You are Nancy Quietman.”

She snapped, “That makes no difference! Get your hands up!”

Doc Savage appeared not to hear the order. “Changed your mind or something?”

“What do you mean?”

“It was you who asked me to try to help your grandfather, who was in trouble. You wrote me a letter.”

“Oh!” Nancy Quietman lowered her gun. “You are Doc Savage! I’m sorry. I did not know you.”

“I am glad,” Doc told her.

She showed surprise. “Glad that any one should not recognize you?”

“Publicity,” the bronze man said, “is very bad for any one doing such work as myself and my aids do. Now, what is your grandfather’s trouble? Your letter gave no details.”

“I do not know,” Nancy Quietman said. “He has suddenly become terribly worried about something. He hired bodyguards, and got the police to assign detectives to guard him.”

“What excuse did he give the police?”

“Merely that he was scared.”

Doc questioned, “You have no other clue?”

“No,” Nancy Quietman said. “Unless it is this: I heard grandfather muttering over and over, ‘the twenty-third! I am to be the twenty-third!’ He said it did not mean anything when I asked him about it.”

She was silent, looking, at the bronze man. Finally, the girl shuddered.

“Was it real?” she asked. “Has any one ever heard of it before?”

The bronze man did not answer.

“Your grandfather?” Doc Savage asked finally.

“I found him in the tool shed,” Nancy Quietman said. “He was yelling. One of the groundskeepers let him out.”

“We might talk to him,” Doc said, and walked into the alley between the museum buildings.

But old Leander Quietman was not there.

Some groundskeepers and a few curiosity-seekers stood around and looked puzzled.

“He left,” they explained, “in a hurry.”