Читать книгу The Sargasso Ogre: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 3

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An American man of letters once said that, if a man built a better mousetrap, the world would beat a path to his door.

Pasha Bey was like that. His output was not mousetraps, but it was the best of its kind. Being modern, Pasha Bey had become president of a vast organization which specialized in his product. The fame of Pasha Bey was great. From all of Egypt, men beat a path to his door, which was likely to be anywhere in Alexandria. They came to buy his product, of course.

Pasha Bey’s product was murder!

Just now, Pasha Bey was about to close a deal. He was easing up a dark street just off the Place Mehemet Ali, the center of the life of Alexandria.

Pasha Bey was a large bag of bones. He wore a flowing burnoose. The burnoose was more flowing than the usual one, so as to conceal the fact that two long-bladed singas were in sheaths strapped to Pasha Bey’s bony, naked upper arms.

He also carried two modern, silenced American six-shooters—one on either hip. A silk cord, excellent for strangling purposes, was fastened inside the burnoose with a single thread, so it could be wrenched free quickly.

Pasha Bey always went well heeled with tools of his trade.

He turned, stepping silently, into an entry. This place was like a dark tunnel. Some thirty feet deep, it terminated in a heavy wooden door. A small, barred hole pierced the door.

“Ya inta!” he called softly through the bars.

“What?” growled a harsh Yankee voice from the other side of the grille.

“Holloa there!” said Pasha Bey, putting his call into English. “By the life of your father, your servant is here. He awaits your command.”

“Are you ready to pull the croak?” asked the unseen man.

“Na’am, aywa!” murmured Pasha Bey.

“Speak English, you bony camel!”

“Yes. I am ready!”

The man back of the door did not waste time. He shoved a hand through the bars. The hand was gloved. It held a folded paper.

“Give this note to the guy. It’s a bait to make him go with you without suspecting anything. I don’t care where you do the job, or how you do it. But pick a good spot.”

“Trust your servant.”

“O. K. Now, beat it!”

“Four thousand piastres,” Pasha Bey reminded gently.

“You’ll get your pay when the job is done!” growled the hidden man.

“Half; now,” suggested Pasha Bey, who knew it was sometimes difficult to collect from those who wanted murder done.

There was silence while the unseen man thought it over. Then the gloved hand again appeared. It held a hundred-dollar bill—the approximate equivalent of two thousand piastres. At current exchange, a piastre was worth about a nickel.

Pasha Bey stowed the money in his burnoose. “I will come here for the other half—and to tell you the man is dead.”

“Are you sure you’ve got his name down pat—Major Thomas J. Roberts? Long Tom Roberts.”

“I know.”

“O. K. You may see a big, bronze-looking guy around. Steer clear of him.”

“Very well.”

“Vamose!”

With a meekness that belied his profession, Pasha Bey eased out of the gloomy tunnel. He was pondering if, upon his return, he might not be able to slip his silken strangling cord through those bars and around the neck of the man who had hired him. The fellow might have more of those big bills. It was good, this American money.

Not very many minutes later, Pasha Bey appeared in the lobby of the Hotel Londoner. This hostelry was one of the swankiest in Alexandria, and it catered largely to English-speaking foreigners.

The lobby held the usual quota of guests and loafers. Some of the latter were Pasha Bey’s associates, members of the particular murderer’s guild of which he was dictator. In the United States, Pasha Bey would have been called the big shot of a mob; in Egypt, he was the head of a guild.

He sauntered over and joined one of his men.

“You have a word for me?” he questioned.

“The man—Long Tom Roberts—is in his room,” advised the other. “But he has company. From the hallway, I listened and heard voices.”

“How many voices?”

“Long Tom Roberts’s and one other.”

“A visitor, by Allah!” Pasha Bey folded his arms while he thought. His bony face was benevolent. He looked like a harmless old man in need of a square meal.

“I will go up and pray that my ears may tell me the visitor has gone,” he said at last, and shuffled for the stairs.

At the foot of the staircase, Pasha Bey had a strange experience. He encountered a bronze giant of an American. He took a single look at this herculean figure—and shivered.

That was unusual. Pasha Bey had not, in a goodly number of years, seen anything fearsome enough to give him qualms. He was a hardened rogue, afraid of nothing. That is, he feared nothing until he saw the bronze man. One look at the big, metallic American scared Pasha Bey. There was something terrible about the giant Yankee.

Pasha Bey turned to watch the bronze man across the lobby. He was not alone in his staring; almost every one else was doing the same thing. Alexandria was a city of strange men, but never had it seen such a personage as this.

The American was huge, yet so perfectly proportioned that his great size was apparent only when he was near other men to whose stature he might be compared. They seemed to shrink to pygmies alongside him. Tendons like big metal bands enwrapped the bronze man’s hands and neck, giving a hint of the tremendous strength which must be harbored in his mighty body.

But it was the eyes that got Pasha Bey. They were weird orbs, like glittering pools of flake gold. In one casual glance, they seemed to turn Pasha Bey’s unholy soul inside out, see all its evil, and promise full punishment. The effect was most unnerving.

Pasha Bey had heard of this man of metal—had heard much of him. So had all of Alexandria, for that matter.

The man was Doc Savage. He had appeared in Egypt under circumstances that were cyclonic. Cables had carried news of the event across the Atlantic; airplanes had rushed pictures of his arrival to newspapers in London, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere.

For Doc Savage had come, with five strange men who were his aids, flying the Zeppelin-type airship, Aeromunde, which had vanished mysteriously many years ago. It was all very fantastic, this arrival of Doc Savage and his helpers.

Rumor had it that evil men had stolen the dirigible and used it for years to carry slaves to a lost oasis in the trackless deserts, where there was a great diamond mine, and that Doc Savage had rescued the slaves and punished their masters.

Pasha Bey had probed into those rumors, especially after he heard something about several packing cases filled with diamonds. But he had learned precious little. No one was telling the location of the fabulous lost oasis of the diamonds. The Aeromunde had been restored to the government which formerly owned the ship.

Doc Savage—talk in the drinking places said—had given to each of the rescued slaves a round fortune, and was keeping the diamonds. But the gems themselves were only rumors, for all the headway Pasha Bey had made at locating them.

The names of Doc Savage’s aids had even evaded Pasha Bey’s adroit angling for information.

He would have been very shocked to learn that “Long Tom” Roberts was one of those five. Had he known this, he would have thought long and soberly before undertaking to murder the man for four thousand piastres. Doc Savage and his comrades were a bad crowd to monkey with.

They were reported to be a terror to evildoers. It was said they made a life work out of helping those who needed help, and punishing those who deserved it. Doc Savage and the five aids traveled to the ends of the earth to hunt trouble.

Unluckily for him, Pasha Bey did not know the connection between Long Tom and Doc Savage. So he shuffled upstairs in search of Long Tom’s room.

He found the door in a brightly decorated hall. Composing a look of bland meekness on his bony features, he rippled knuckles on the panel, after making sure he heard no voices inside.

“Who is it?”

“A messenger for Major Thomas J. Roberts, the electrical engineer.”

“Be right with you!”

The man who soon opened the door was rather undersized, pale of hair and eyes, and somewhat pale of complexion. In fact, he did not look at all robust. He did, however, have a very alert manner.

This fellow, Pasha Bey reflected, would surely be an easy one to murder. The thought did not show on his face, however. He extended the note his employer had handed through the barred door.

Long Tom read it.

My Dear Roberts: I have heard a great deal about your ability as an electrical expert, and of your accomplishments in the field of atomic research.

You may not have heard of me, my name not being widely known. But I believe I have perfected a device for killing harmful insects with atomic streams. My understanding is that you have experimented along the same lines.

I certainly wish that you would visit me and inspect my apparatus. If you would be kind enough to do so, the bearer of this note will guide you to my laboratory.

Leland Smith.

Long Tom showed pronounced interest. It was true that he had never heard of Leland Smith. But he had himself perfected a device for killing insects. The thing would be a boon to farmers, and Long Tom expected to make a fortune out of it. If some other inventor was likely to cut in on the profits, Long Tom wanted to know about it.

“I’ll go with you,” he told Pasha Bey.

Hurriedly, Long Tom turned for his hat. A half-packed suitcase stood on a chair. It bore a fresh label, addressed to a stateroom on the steamer Cameronic. This was ample evidence that Long Tom expected to sail on the Cameronic, which was scheduled to depart shortly after midnight.

Long Tom placed the note on the table. At the foot of it, he wrote:

Doc—I’ve gone to look into this.

“So my friends will know what became of me,” he told Pasha Bey. “Let’s go.”

Pasha Bey would much rather that the note not be left behind. It was a clew for the Alexandria police, who were unpleasantly efficient. But he dared not object, and arouse suspicion.

They went down to the lobby. Spying one of his men, Pasha Bey thought he saw a way of removing the note from the scene.

“Ten thousand pardons, master,” he apologized profusely to Long Tom. “I see an old friend. I would like very much to talk to him for a moment.”

“Sure! Go ahead.”

Pasha Bey sidled over to his hireling, a man called Homar.

“Listen closely, oh stupid one!” he muttered. “This fool of a white man left a note on the table in his room. The ways of the police are beyond understanding, and it might be unfortunate for us if they found the note. Go get it.”

“Yes, oh wise one,” agreed Homar.

“When you have the missive, come to the spot in the catacombs where we are to kill this white man. He is small and pale, and should be easy killing. But it is just as well to have plenty of help on hand. He who said too many cooks spoil a broth told a lie.”

“Yes, oh great one,” replied Homar.

Pasha Bey now returned to Long Tom and salaamed politely.

“My friend was very glad to see me,” he lied. “And by the life of your father, I am grateful to you for letting me talk with him.”

“That’s all right,” said Long Tom impatiently. “Let’s hurry along. Our gang is sailing on the Cameronic, a little after midnight.”

They stepped to the street. A neat, moderately expensive closed automobile stood at the curb.

“Our conveyance, my master,” murmured Pasha Bey, neglecting to add that the car was stolen, and that the driver was one of the most accomplished murderers in Alexandria, probably second only to Pasha Bey himself.

They entered. The car rolled along the narrow streets, the booq hooting loudly to clear the hodgepodge of humanity out of the way.

Long Tom settled back luxuriously on the cushions, entirely unaware that he was riding to a death trap.