Читать книгу The Midas Man: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 3

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The American public gets many of its ideas about what is going on, from the newspapers. Newspapers sometimes make mistakes, so the public, on occasion, fails entirely to get the true significance of things that are happening. It was thus in the Jethro Mandebran case.

Maybe it was just as well that the public did not catch on to the true significance of the Jethro Mandebran affair. A good many heads might have turned gray.

Jethro Mandebran vanished on Sunday afternoon on his private golf course. He knocked his ball into the rough, which was a patch of woods, and went in after it. That was the last they saw of him. It was utterly confounding. A swarm of private detectives could find no tracks. Some one finally thought of the old-fashioned idea of using bloodhounds, but the dogs picked up no trail.

The newspapers broke out their biggest headline type, because Jethro Mandebran, in the staid city of Philadelphia, amounted to something.

As a matter of routine, an examiner, on Monday morning, began checking the books of the bank which Mandebran owned—The Mandebran Trust Company. That afternoon, they took the examiner to a hospital, a potential nervous wreck.

There was slightly more than twenty million dollars missing.

When this came out, not a newspaper in town carried the story. They were afraid to. Such a colossal shortage in the accounts of one previously as honest as Jethro Mandebran smacked of impossibility. The editors of the journals, visioning big libel suits, would not allow a word in their columns. But after a corps of examiners corroborated the findings, the front pages of the newspapers could hardly hold the story.

An examiner who liked the bright light of publicity gave out a list containing the names of those whose money was among the missing funds. The list was a long one. It contained the name of almost every prominent person in Philadelphia, as well as numbers of financiers in New York, Boston, and elsewhere.

Clark Savage, Jr., was the three hundred and seventy-sixth name on the list.

The next day, Clark Savage, Jr.’s name as a loser made the headlines. Clark Savage, Jr., was the stuff that newspaper copy is made out of. Most of the journals, however, instead of calling him Clark Savage, Jr., designated him as Doc Savage.

The mention of Doc Savage’s name in the newspapers led to his being involved in one of the most incredible adventures of a remarkable career.

Newspaper reporters and cameramen made a rush for a headquarters which Doc Savage maintained on the eighty-sixth floor of New York’s most distinctive skyscraper. They were met at the door by a tall bag of bones who wore a suit many times too large. A monocle with a thick glass was attached to this man’s coat lapel by a ribbon. He received a certain deference from the newspaper reporters, which was surprising, reporters usually being unimpressed by big-shots.

The string of bones with the monocle was William Harper Littlejohn, one of the most famous archæologist and geologists. He was asked where Doc Savage could be found.

“Prognostication effectuates diaporesis,” the bony gentleman replied.

One journalist, fortunately, carried a pocket dictionary, so the reporters managed to gather that these seventeen-dollar words were meant to convey that Doc Savage’s present whereabouts was a puzzle to the bony gentleman. Further questions got more replies that had to be translated. Approximately half an hour elapsed before it dawned on the reporters that they were being kidded and told nothing.

The scribes then retired to the nearest bar, which happened to be on the corner, and swapped information.

There was conjecture about what could have happened to Jethro Mandebran. Had he vanished of his own accord? Did he have the twenty millions with him in a couple of motor trucks, which would probably be the size of the vehicles necessary to haul away such a sum? Why had a man previously so honest done such a thing?

These newspapermen later had occasion to remark on just how far wide of the facts were their conjectures on this occasion.

Not one of the journalists guessed anything near the incredible truth!

When the collective conversation shifted to such subjects as the horse races, and the pet insanities of certain city editors, two men detached themselves from the group. They did this casually. One of the pair carried a large press camera. The other wore a suit which needed pressing, and had a vest pocket stuffed full of copy pencils.

As a matter of fact, the man was not a reporter. Neither was his companion a news cameraman.

The two mysterious gentlemen held a conference outside, covering up with the business of lighting cigarettes.

“Not so hot, huh?” muttered the one with the camera.

“You said something,” agreed the other. “That skinny gink with the big words was not putting out information. I believe Doc Savage is taking a hand in the Mandebran business!”

“But how could he have gotten wise?”

“Maybe he isn’t—entirely.”

“You figure he don’t know how big the thing really is?”

“Probably not—yet.”

“Then we gotta make him stop nosin’ around before he finds out too much!”

“Yeah,” the man with the seedy suit and the pocket full of copy pencils agreed. “That’s the chief’s orders.”

“You got any ideas,” demanded the first, “about how to do it?”

“I always got ideas,” said his companion. “Come on.”

They now walked rapidly down a side street, and got in a certain taxicab which had been waiting for them. The driver of the cab was a casual-mannered young man, with a face which was noteworthy for its absence of chin.

“The Museum of Natural History,” directed one of the passengers as they got seated.

“What the hell?” snorted the driver. “You guys decided to get an education or something?”

“Stick around us,” he was told, “and you’ll get an education!”

Some three quarters of an hour later, the trio stood looking at a case in the Museum of Natural History. The case held a small plaque which, the card on the case stated, had come from the tomb of the famous Tutankhamen.

It was not a busy time for the museum. The room was empty, except for two guards.

Without appearance of undue haste, two of the men sidled over to the guards, drew blackjacks from under their clothing and swung them against the heads of the two guards. Both watchmen fell without an outcry.

The other man inserted a small jimmy under the wooden lid of the case and broke the lock. He lifted the tablet out and shoved it inside his shirt under his belt. Then he tightened his belt to hold it there.

The three men walked out of the museum with their loot, attracting no attention.

Tall, bony William Harper Littlejohn came to the door of Doc Savage’s skyscraper headquarters wearing a weary expression. He also looked slightly annoyed. He had been examining the almost perfect skull of a prehistoric man, which a cowboy in Wyoming had brought to light while digging post holes. The skull was likely to prove the existence of a high type of man in America much earlier than any one expected.

William Harper Littlejohn instantly recognized two of his visitors as having been with the contingent of reporters and cameramen. The third had the attire of a taxi driver.

“Salutations,” William Harper Littlejohn said, not very enthusiastically.

“I got to talkin’ with them other scribblers, after we left here, and found out you were an archæologist,” said the man who had played reporter. “I had a friend who died a few weeks ago, and willed me his belongings. About the only thing he had was a trunk full of junk. Old jars, tablets and such things. I thought I’d bring one of the things to you, and maybe you could tell me whether the stuff was worth anything or not.”

The man now drew out of his shirt the tablet from the museum.

William Harper Littlejohn gaped at the object.

“I’ll be superamalgamated!” he exploded.

“It worth anything?” demanded the fake reporter.

“Antiquity indubitable!” murmured William Harper Littlejohn.

“There’s a lot more of these thing,” said the fake gentleman of the press.

“Is perlustration a potentiality?” murmured William Harper Littlejohn.

The visitors looked dizzy. The one playing the part of reporter grinned.

“Don’t you know any little ones?” He held up a hand with thumb and forefinger separated about half an inch. “Little ones about that long? Words, I mean.”

“Can I see this trunk?” asked Littlejohn, thereby proving that he did know some small words.

“You sure can,” said the reporter. “It’s in my rooming house. You wanta go out?”

“Subitaneously!” agreed William Harper Littlejohn.

William Harper Littlejohn was ordinarily a gentleman of caution. His long association with Doc Savage had made him so. He was one of a group of five men, each one remarkable in his way, who had associated themselves with Doc Savage, partially for the sake of the adventure involved, but also because they had an unbounded admiration for Doc Savage.

William Harper Littlejohn was a bug on archæology, and highly enthusiastic over this tablet. He had recognized it as genuine, and had visions of turning up a find of archæological relics.

His enthusiasm evaporated in an explosion of colored lights inside his skull, a moment after he was seated in a dark-blue taxi on the street. He did not even see the blackjack blow coming.

By the time he got himself organized, handcuffs were on his ankles and wrists, and a piece of sponge filled his mouth, strapped there with adhesive tape.

The blue taxicab threaded through city traffic. A lap robe was thrown over William Harper Littlejohn, concealing his bony form on the floorboards. He struggled, but upon receiving a kick in the ribs, desisted. He could hear his captors talking.

“That was simple,” declared the captor who had played cameraman.

“Brains,” said the other. “Brains is what makes the world go ’round.”