Читать книгу The Red Skull: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 10

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Forty-second Street and Broadway had proved to be a more difficult meeting place than Bandy Stevens expected. The streets were very wide, and despite the lateness of the hour, a good deal of noisy traffic flowed—most of it taxicabs.

The hour had passed, together with an extra fifteen minutes. Bandy was worried.

“Why didn’t I keep that belt on me!” he groaned. “I won’t be able to give Doc Savage the low-down without them papers and maps and plans, and the letter. Blast it, anyhow!”

He peered at each taxicab which cruised past. This invariably had an embarrassing result, for the hacks always stopped, thinking he wanted to hire them. Bandy had never thought a great deal of cities, and they were dropping rapidly in his estimation.

Suddenly he discovered the vehicle for which he was waiting. He hurried to it.

“Dag-gone it, pard, I thought you was never comin’!” he grinned.

“I drove past a couple of times without seein’ youse,” lied the thin-necked driver. “Where’s dat coin?”

Bandy passed over a hundred dollars in crisp currency. Then he dived a hand behind the rear seat cushions.

He brought out his money belt. Opening it swiftly, he saw a bulky brown envelope and a smaller white one, both apparently intact.

“Say, what’s dat?” demanded the driver, pretending to be astonished at the appearance of the money belt in Bandy’s hand.

“Never mind,” grinned Bandy. “You can drag it, hombre. I’m through with you.”

The driver let out his clutch and rolled away. He went directly to a dark, shabby street two blocks distant. Buttons Zortell waited there.

“The bow-legged runt never suspected a thing,” smirked the hackey. “He looked at de envelope in de belt an’ thought dey was just like he left ’em. Now I’ll take de other hundred frogskins you was gonna pay me.”

Buttons extended his left hand, holding currency. The driver reached for it.

Bringing his other hand into view, gripping a gun, Buttons bludgeoned the driver on the head. The man slumped. A crimson stream dribbled from his nostrils.

Buttons Zortell had been doing some thinking—and reached a conclusion. There was seven hundred dollars here—money easy for the taking. That was the kind of money Buttons liked. Six hundred of it would go on the expense account, and no one would be the wiser. Buttons’s men were not in the vicinity. He had seen to that.

With swift fingers, Buttons robbed the driver.

As an afterthought, he felt of the limp man’s wrist. There was no pulse. The blow had crushed the skull.

“Dead!” Buttons gulped, somewhat surprised. He squinted up and down the murky street, and was indeed glad to perceive no one in view. “Oh, well—what the heck! He ain’t the first gent I’ve salivated.”

Buttons Zortell left the vicinity, walking swiftly—but not so rapidly as to arouse suspicion. He turned southward.

The skyscraper which housed Doc Savage’s sanctum spiked up only a few blocks distant. It was for this structure that the killer headed.

Near the towering building, Buttons Zortell met one of his own men.

“Whatcha so sweaty about?” the man queried, eying his chief curiously. “You look kinda spooked.”

Buttons changed the subject with an angry grunt. “How about Bandy?”

“He ain’t showed up.”

“Yeah? Well, he hasn’t had time. He’ll be here—huh! There he goes now!”

The scheming pair sidled into a convenient doorway. They could see Bandy walking, turning often to look alertly behind, toward the skyscraper entrance.

“Did you fix things for ’im?” Buttons whispered.

“I sure did!”

“Good! Bandy won’t be around much longer to devil us!” Buttons chuckled fiercely. “Or Doc Savage, either! Our plan will take care of that gent!”

“He may be smart enough to see through——”

“Not a chance!”

The two fell silent, watching Bandy enter the lobby of the cloud-piercing building.

Bandy, unaware of the evil attention centered upon him, walked straight to one of the elevators which was in all-night operation.

“I’m lookin’ for a jasper named Doc Savage. Got any idea where I can find ’im?”

The elevator operator smiled at Bandy’s engaging cowboy drawl. “Mr. Savage is in his office on eighty-six, I believe.”

The express elevator lifted Bandy to the eighty-sixth floor. He experienced no difficulty in locating the door he sought. The plain panel bore, in extremely small bronze-colored letters, the two words:

DOC SAVAGE.

Bandy discerned a push button beside the door. He thumbed it, then stepped back. Without being aware of doing so, he held his breath, wondering what manner of man this remarkable Doc Savage would be.

He was destined never to learn. His arms abruptly began to twitch, and the movement turned into a mad flailing. His eyes shut tightly in agony. His lips writhed.

“Nate Raff!” he shrieked. “Nate Raff——”

The words rattled and stuck in his throat. He sought vainly to scream again, his jaws straining wide with the frightful effort. Then, pivoting slowly as he collapsed, he slammed his length on the richly tiled corridor floor. A few spasms shook his stocky little figure, then it became slack and immobile.

Bandy had ridden his last bronc, unless they have cow ponies in the hereafter. He was dead.

The door of Doc Savage’s office whipped open an instant after Bandy had expired.

The man who stood in the opening, presented a striking figure. By his appearance alone, he would have been outstanding among any assemblage of men.

In stature, he was a giant, although proportioned with such symmetry that only his relation to the size of the door in which he stood showed his bigness. His every line—the metallic tendons of his hands, the columnar cording of his neck—denoted great physical strength. The man had the gigantic muscles of a Samson.

Bronze was his color motif. His features might have been done by some skilled sculptor in the metal, so regular were they. His hair was of a bronze a trifle darker than his skin, and it was straight, close-lying.

His eyes caught—and held—attention, above all else. They were weird, commanding eyes, like nothing so much as pools of flake gold. They radiated a hypnotic quality, an ability to inspire fear or respect—to convey threat, domination, or command. Even in repose, they glowed with the heat of an indomitable will.

He seemed, by his appearance alone, to weave a spell—this man of bronze whose fame was trickling to the far ends of the earth. He was a man, once seen, never to be forgotten—this Doc Savage.

Roving swiftly, his gaze swept the situation in the corridor, perceiving not only the body of Bandy Stevens, but also ascertaining that no one else was in sight.

Suddenly, he whipped back into his office. The speed with which he moved was amazing, for he seemed hardly to go before he was back with a strange mechanical device of chemical-filled tubes and atomizerlike spray nozzles.

The apparatus was small enough to fit compactly in the big bronze man’s palm. He manipulated it an instant.

The contrivance, utilizing chemical reaction, was capable of indicating instantly the presence of poison gas in the air.

Satisfied no delay vapor was present, Doc Savage laid the device aside. He sank down beside the body and held one of the limp wrists briefly. He examined the dead man’s hands. After that, he remained statuesque, quiescent.

A low, fantastic sound now filled the corridor. Mellow, trilling, the sound partook of the nature of a whistle. It was like the song of some exotic bird of the jungle, or the note of a wind filtering through a frozen forest It was melodious, yet adhered to no particular tune.

It was part of Doc, this unique sound—a tiny, unconscious thing which he did in moments of intense concentration. His lips did not move as he made it, and it was difficult, for one not knowing, to believe the note came from Doc, such a strange essence of ventriloquism did it hold.

Doc arose and stepped to the call button beside the door. He scrutinized this.

The fact that he went directly to the push button emphasized the analytical power of his mind, his ability to discern in a minimum of time the solution of the deepest mystery.

For the call button held the explanation of Bandy Stevens’s demise. It was coated with a poison so potent that a small quantity of it upon the skin would bring quick death.

Doc Savage reëntered his office. The room was furnished for quiet luxury. A large safe stood against one wall, and a massive, exquisitely inlaid table shimmered in the glow of indirect lighting.

Adjoining this room was another, richly carpeted, the walls lined with bookcases. Other ponderous volumes reposed in cabinets which stood thick on the floor.

Doc crossed this vast library to his experimental laboratory. He moved through a forest of stands and cases which held intricate chemical and electrical apparatus, and secured a bit of peculiar cloth and a stout glass jar.

With the cloth, he wiped the poison from the push button. Then he sealed the rag in the jar. Should Doc wish to analyze the poison to determine its nature, he had merely to soak the cloth in a simple chemical solution. The fabric would dissolve, leaving the poison behind, unchanged in nature, and ready for his skilled scrutiny.

A swift search of the deceased Bandy Stevens produced the well-stuffed wallet, some small change and a watch. The wallet bore Bandy’s name. There were no cards or letters for identification.

Doc removed the chamois money belt, withdrew the two envelopes—one large and brown, the other small and white—and inspected them.

On each was written Doc Savage’s name.

At the point of opening them, he suddenly slid both into his pockets. He glided down the corridor. He reached the end-most elevator, and a touch upon a concealed button caused the doors to open. He entered. The cage dropped like a falling rock. This was a private lift, operating with extreme speed. It made very little noise.

As he neared the street level, a sporadic series of sharp reports became louder. In the eighty-sixth-floor office, the bangings had been very faint. But Doc had heard them and recognized their nature—gunfire.

The speed elevator braked to a stop, doors opening quietly. Doc drove a swift glance at several large mirrors across the lobby. These were part of the modernistic decoration scheme—although they had been installed only after Doc became a tenant in the skyscraper. They were arranged so as to reflect the interior of the lobby to any one within the elevator cage.

Doc saw no one.

Two shots slammed noisy echoes.

The firing was outside.

An automobile engine began to moan loudly.

Two men appeared on the sidewalk. They dived headlong for a door, tore it open and pitched through. Tumbling to the tiled floor, they rolled wildly to one side, striving hurriedly to reach shelter.

A volley of lead, pursuing the men, hammered glass out of the door. Glancing bullets screamed and chopped at the rich lobby decorations.

The car engine continued to roar. The machine flashed past the front of the great building, and sped rapidly away. After that, silence fell, proving the gunmen had fled.

The two men who had plunged through the door, now picked themselves up. They grinned wryly at each other.

One was a huge elephant of a fellow with a severe, puritanical face. His fists were enormous, even for one of such bulk—each seemed composed of at least a gallon of flinty knuckles.

The other man was slight of build, with a somewhat unhealthy-looking complexion. He had a nervous, intense air.

The big man was Colonel John Renwick, more often known simply as “Renny.” He was an engineer of ability—and fame. More than once, foreign governments had paid him fabulous fees for his services as a consulting engineer.

“Major Thomas J. Roberts,” read the business cards of the pallid man. Scientific circles knew him as one of the most skilled living men in the field of electrical research. He was a wizard with the juice. He answered to the nickname of “Long Tom.”

Renny and Long Tom were two of the five men who were Doc Savage’s associates.

They turned their grins on Doc when he appeared.

“What was the trouble?” Doc asked. His voice was pleasant, powerful.

“Search me,” Renny thumped in a tone that was like thunder gobbling in a cavern. “We came back from eating, and saw several suspicious-looking birds hanging around outside. We started over to take a squint at them—and they turned loose the fireworks.”

“What became of Johnny and Ham?”

Johnny and Ham were two more of Doc’s five aides.

“I guess they’re outside,” Renny said soberly. “They were both trying to get behind the same fire plug, the last I saw of ’em!”

Doc stepped to the sidewalk.

Near the corner, two men were arguing. They had their faces shoved in close proximity, and their arms gestured heatedly.

“There they are,” Renny grunted. “Squabbling over who saw that fire plug first! You see, none of us had guns.”

Doc approached the pair.

“Johnny,” or William Harper Littlejohn, an archæologist and geologist with few equals, was an exceedingly tall and gaunt man. His bony shoulders resembled a clothes hanger under his coat. He wore glasses, the left lens of which was a thick, powerful magnifier. Johnny’s left eye had been rendered useless in the World War. Needing a magnifying glass in his work, he found it could be conveniently carried as a part of his spectacles.

Johnny scowled amiably, grumbling, “Listen, Ham, I didn’t mind you trying to hog the fire plug, but I do object to being gouged with the blasted sword cane!”

“I got to the plug first!” snapped “Ham.”

Ham was a dapper, wiry man, quick in his movements. His attire was sartorial perfection. The way Ham wore his clothes was a delight to the hearts of tailors. He was one of the most astute lawyers Harvard ever produced. His business cards read: “Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks.” Quick thinking had earned him the high military commission.

Ham now sheathed the sword cane which had caused the dispute. It became an innocent black walking stick in appearance. Ham was never without it.

“What I can’t understand is why that gang started shooting, with no warning!” he grumbled.