Читать книгу The Man Who Shook the Earth: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6

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Monk broke his connection. His anthropoid features were a study. He scratched among the reddish bristles which stuck up straight on top of his head.

Outside, a newsboy passed. He was piping in a cold-shrilled voice. “Earthquake! All about the big earthquake! Read about it!”

Monk called the number of a hospital which was noted all over the world for the remarkable surgical feats which were performed there.

“Is Doc Savage there?” Monk asked. “I’m a friend of his.”

The man at the hospital hesitated, then said: “I do not believe that Doc Savage is free to answer the telephone at the moment.”

“Why not?”

“Doctor Savage is conducting one of his demonstration operations. There are more than two score of famous surgeons watching.”

Monk showed no surprise at this. Doc Savage, famous man of bronze, was considered by those in the profession to be the greatest living surgeon. Doc did not practice professionally, but frequently performed his surgical magic while other surgeons looked on. He did this to demonstrate new technique, to teach others to do what he himself had learned through intensive study and research.

“What kind of an operation is Doc doing this time?” Monk asked the hospital attendant casually.

“An extremely delicate piece of work to remove a paralytic condition from the nerve center of a man’s left eye,” explained the fellow at the hospital.

Monk started slightly. “What?”

“Doc Savage is operating on a left eye,” the hospital attendant reported. Apparently he felt loquacious. “This will be a remarkable feat, if successful. Sight has been lost to this eye since an injury was suffered in the Great War.”

Varied expressions were convulsing Monk’s homely features. Astonishment, anxiety, and delight struggled for possession of his pleasantly ugly lineaments. He seemed too overcome to speak.

“The successful completion of this eye operation will be one of the greatest feats of its kind ever performed,” continued the man at the hospital. There was awe in his tone.

Monk found his voice. “Is the guy being operated on tall and bony?”

“Right,” the other replied. “He is a remarkable physical specimen, but in excellent condition. The nerves of his eye, it seems, have been allowed to strengthen for years since his injury in the War, in order that the operation might be feasible.

“That the operation was not performed earlier was due to Doc Savage’s realization that to do so would result in permanent loss of vision in the eye. He has waited until the time was ripe.”

“What’s the name of the man with the bad eye?” Monk demanded thickly, his voice strained.

“William Harper Littlejohn. He is a famous archaeologist and geologist.”

Monk leaned against the booth side. He was perspiring. The hospital attendant’s words had obviously put him under a great strain.

“Listen,” he pleaded. “Go see how that operation is coming along, will you? This guy Littlejohn is a pal of mine. I didn’t know he was being operated on to-night.”

The man at the hospital left the phone. He was gone a few minutes, then reported:

“The operation is over. Doc Savage will be here to speak with you as soon as he removes his working robes.”

“Was it successful?” Monk yelled anxiously.

“It was.”

Monk emitted a tremendous bawling howl of delight, and did his best to jump up and down in the cramped confines of the phone booth. The booth was too small to permit successful dancing, however.

In a blissful silence, following his outburst, Monk waited for Doc Savage to reach the hospital phone.

Outside the drug store, the newsboy was still howling.

“Paper!” he cried. “Read about the great earthquake!”

From the phone receiver pressed to Monk’s ear came a voice. It was a remarkable voice, for it seemed peculiarly able to adapt itself to the limitations of telephone transmission. It came from the metal diaphragm with the clarity of a bell.

“Doc Savage speaking,” said the voice.

“Listen, Doc!” Monk howled. “Why didn’t you tell us you were gonna work on Johnny’s eye to-night?”

“You fellows would only have stood around and moped,” Doc replied. “I was just saving you the worry.”

Monk snorted. He knew there was logic in what Doc said, but he hardly appreciated the kindness. He would have preferred to stand outside the operating room and sweat and worry throughout the critical period. “Johnny” was a very close friend indeed.

“Did it turn out all right—the operation, I mean?” Monk asked, as if he wanted to be reassured that Johnny was all right.

“It did,” Doc replied. “Johnny will be walking around to-morrow, and in a few days, will be reading papers with that bad eye.”

“So soon!” Monk ejaculated.

“The operation was largely one of adjustment,” Doc explained. “It’s too technical to go into over the phone. What’s on your mind?”

Monk had been so concerned over Johnny’s prospects that he had temporarily overlooked the thing which had first moved him to call.

“I guess I pulled a boner, Doc,” he said.

He told of the appearance of Velvet at the skyscraper office, of the five-hundred-dollar bribe which he had taken, and finally, of the disposal of the bribe at the breadline.

“I nearly keeled over when the guy coughed up five hundred, Doc,” he finished. “I didn’t like him a bit. But I decided to take his money. He couldn’t steal anything around the office. Everything was locked up. And I knew you did not plan to show up there again to-night.”

Monk, waiting for Doc’s reaction to the information, started violently, and glanced around inside the phone booth. Then he pressed the receiver more tightly to his ear and grinned.

A strange sound was coming from the receiver. It was low, mellow, and trilling, like the song of some strange feathered creature of the jungle, or the sound of a wind filtering through a denuded forest.

It was melodious, this eerie note, although without tune. It came from the telephone receiver with such astounding clarity that Monk had been startled into glancing about, thinking it was made by some one in the booth with him.

Monk had heard this sound before. It was part of Doc Savage, a small thing which he did in moments of concentration. To his friends, it was possessed of many meanings.

Sometimes, it was Doc’s cry of battle; again, it was his song of triumph. Occasionally, it precoursed some plan of action. Often it came when Doc was surprised.

Just now, Monk concluded the sound must indicate that Doc was puzzled.

“Everything around the office was locked up?” Doc queried.

“Sure! Everything. This guy couldn’t do any harm. That’s why I relieved him of his mazuma.”

“Since the man lied about working for a newspaper,” Doc said, “we’d better look into this, Monk. Something is up.”

“So I figured,” said Monk.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby of our office building in about fifteen minutes from now.”

“Quarter of an hour it is,” said Monk, and hung up. He waddled out of the booth.

Velvet had been quite sincere in addressing Monk as the janitor. The homely, apish fellow looked the part; his garb was shabby enough. His hair needed cutting badly, and he could have stood a shave to advantage.

No doubt the thing which had misled Velvet most of all was the fact that there did not seem room enough for a thimbleful of brains behind Monk’s low forehead.

Monk’s looks were deceptive. He was not a janitor; he was a chemist of world-wide repute. His most jealous colleague admitted that Monk was a magician of the test tubes.

Monk’s short legs pumped like pistons as he headed for Doc Savage’s skyscraper office. The grin was back on his homely face.

So Johnny would be able to use his left eye now! That was swell!

Johnny and Monk were both members of a group of six remarkable men. Just as Monk was a great chemist, and Johnny a world-renowned geologist, so were three of the others experts in their lines. One was a lawyer, another an electrical wizard, and the third an engineer.

The other member of this group of six—Doc Savage—was the leader. Incredibly enough, Doc was a greater chemist, a greater engineer, a greater lawyer, a more learned geologist, and a more skilled electrical expert than any of the other five.

Doc Savage’s forte was not surgery alone. His fund of learning covered almost all things. Sometimes those associated with him were inclined to wonder if this amazing man had not in some miraculous fashion attained that supreme goal of students—an infinite knowledge of all things.

Fabulous as Doc Savage’s accomplishments seemed, there were actually nothing of the supernatural about them. They were things which could be duplicated by another, simply by going through the years of preparation to which Doc had submitted himself. From the cradle, Doc had been trained for a definite purpose in life.

Doc’s life work was to go here and there, to the ends of the earth if necessary, striving to help those in need of help, and punishing those who justly deserved it.

The love of excitement and adventure, together with an unbounded admiration for Doc Savage, and the pleasure they got out of associating with him, held Doc’s five aids in a group.

Monk, just before he reached the skyscraper, stepped aside to avoid a newsboy. The lad was howling: “Earthquake! Read about the earthquake in South America!”

Monk was not at all interested in earthquakes.

Monk entered the skyscraper lobby. He walked past the phalanx of elevators. Of each operator, he asked a question.

“Have you brought down a guy from eighty-six within the last few minutes—a bird in evening clothes, who walked like he thought a lot of himself?”

“That gentleman just left,” reported the third attendant.

Monk made a clicking sound of regret with his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

“Here comes Doc Savage!” an elevator operator said dramatically.

The exclamation was a bit breathless, and filled with awe. It was as if the operator were seeing a famous personage for the first time. Yet it was certain that this attendant saw Doc Savage many times daily.

Monk turned. He understood how they felt. He had himself been closely associated with Doc Savage for years, yet he still got something of a wallop each time he saw the metallic giant that was Doc.

Doc Savage, crossing the cavernous lobby, did not look the giant that he was. Tendons and vast muscles bundled his body like cables, yet they were developed in such universal fashion that they blended in a strikingly symmetrical whole.

It was only when Doc came close to other men that his huge size became apparent.

Bronze was the color motif on Doc Savage’s skin. Due to the corded hardness of his muscles, he resembled a statue of the metal. His eyes were weird—flaky golden pools which seemed always astir, always alive.

Doc lifted a hand in a gesture of greeting to Monk. The hand was muscled until it looked as if it had been wrapped with steel wire, then painted with bronze. However, the fingers were long, regardless of their obviously incredible strength.

“Let’s go up,” Doc said. His voice was as remarkable as it had been when Monk heard it over the phone. Not loud, it nevertheless carried to the recesses of the lobby.

An express elevator, its progress a hiss of speed, rushed them to the eighty-sixth floor.

“The guy is gone,” Monk explained. “I got that from an elevator operator.”

Saying nothing, Doc approached the office door. An uncanny thing happened—the door opened at his approach.

There was no living thing near it.

Monk hastily peered into the office. He was completely at a loss to understand the business of the door opening. The room beyond was as he had left it. Apparently, nothing was disturbed.

Monk squinted at the outer door, seeking to figure out what made it swing ajar when Doc had approached it. He shook his head. Then he walked around the office, trying the safe door, the locker, and the doors into the inner rooms. All were locked.

“It don’t look like the guy bothered anything,” he said in his small voice. “That’s funny. Why should he pay me five hundred dollars, just to get into the office?”

Doc walked toward the door into the inner chambers.

Monk’s hair threatened to stand on end at what happened. The solidly locked door—Monk was mortally certain it was locked—quickly opened itself as Doc came near. After the bronze man had passed through, the door closed.

Rushing over, Monk grasped the knob. He exerted all his strength. Monk could take a horseshoe in his big hairy hands and bend it into the shape of a pretzel. This door, however, resisted him.

With a sheepish grin on his homely face, Monk absently fitted the end of his little finger into the hole in his earlobe. Monk was highly intelligent in spite of his apish look. He was trying to figure out what made the doors open when Doc came near them. Doc had perfected many remarkable devices, but this was a new one. For all of Monk’s canniness, he was stumped.

The door opened in the same magic fashion as before, and Doc Savage reappeared. He carried a black composition tube which resembled a cylindrical phonograph record.

Monk grinned. He knew what the record was. It was part of a device which was hooked to the telephone and recorded all conversations. This apparatus monitored Doc’s phone wire continuously. When one record became filled, another one shifted automatically into place.

“Nothing but the telephone seems to have been touched,” Doc said.

Monk peered at the telephone. He considered himself a detective of fair ability. He was certain the instrument was placed exactly as it had always been. He did not doubt that it had been used, though. Doc rarely made a mistake.

Going to the telephone, Monk peered at it from several angles. He sniffed. Then he got it. There was a faint tang of smoker’s breath about the mouthpiece. Neither Doc nor any of his five men smoked; and no one else used this instrument.

Monk had missed the smoke scent on his first round of the room. Doc, however, had caught it. Doc’s nostrils had been trained to an animal sensitivity in smell perception.

Doc switched on the mechanism which played back the record. The pick-up was amplified and reproduced through a loudspeaker. It was like listening to a bit of drama from a radio.

“Hello,” said a voice from the loudspeaker. “Doc Savage speaking.”

“Huh!” Monk gulped. “Why, the liar! That’s the guy who told me his name was Velvet!”

Doc Savage requested silence with a lifted hand.

“This is John Acre,” said a slow, wheezing voice from the reproducing instrument. “I sent you several radiograms from the boat. I wonder if you have received any of them.”

“Yes,” said Velvet. “They referred to various mysterious earthquakes.”

“Good!” exclaimed John Acre. “Then you know how important it is that I see you. I just landed from the steamer Junio.

“You wish to see me at once?” asked Velvet.

“Immediately, Mr. Savage. May I come to your office?”

“Not to my office,” said Velvet. “Come to the Midas Club, on Park Avenue.”

“Very well, Mr. Savage,” agreed John Acre.

A sharp click ended the conversation. The recording had stopped automatically as soon as the receivers were hung up.

“For the love of mud!” Monk ejaculated. “Did you hear that, Doc—the Midas Club! That’s Ham’s hang-out.”

There was a good reason for Monk’s surprise. The Midas Club was the residence of one member of Doc’s group of five remarkable aids. The man who lived there was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks. He was the law expert of Doc’s squad.

“Why should Velvet decoy this John Acre to Ham’s place?” Monk pondered.

Doc made no reply. His bronze features showed no excitement. That did not mean he was unconcerned. For years, Doc had schooled himself in self-control. Now, it was only on the rarest of occasions that he showed any emotion.

“John Acre said he had sent you some messages,” Monk continued, eying Doc. “Did you get any?”

“No,” Doc said. “And I have never heard of John Acre, either.”

“The meeting being arranged at Ham’s apartment is the strangest part of the whole thing,” Monk grumbled. “Do you reckon that shyster lawyer is mixed up in something that he ain’t letting us in on?”

When Monk mentioned “Ham,” he used the same tone he would have used to speak of a horned devil. It gave the idea that Monk would cheerfully have cut Ham’s throat. Monk and Ham’s association was one long quarrel. Rarely did an hour pass but that one offered a biting remark to the other. They seemed continually on the point of slaughtering one another.

But this was only good-natured horseplay. If necessary, one would cheerfully give his life for the other.

“We’ll go up to Ham’s place and look into this strange meeting,” Doc decided.

They walked toward the door—and again Monk’s little eyes threatened to shoot out of their pits of gristle.

Doc had made no gesture. He had not touched his clothing. The door, however, had jumped wide open as they drew near.

“How do you do that, Doc?” Monk demanded.

“It’s trained,” Doc said.

Monk snorted. He looked back as they went down the corridor. The door closed itself when they were a few feet distant. Monk snorted again. The thing had him baffled.

Doc Savage went to the last panel in the long row of elevator doors. To Monk’s bafflement, this door also opened at Doc’s approach. They stepped into a cage. The door closed. The floor seemed to drop from under their feet.

The mechanism of this particular elevator had been designed by Doc himself. It operated at a speed far too uncomfortable for ordinary passenger traffic. For almost sixty stories, Monk and Doc barely had their feet on the floor. Then the cage slowed so abruptly that Monk was forced to all fours. Doc, thanks to tremendous leg muscles, kept his feet.

Monk grinned widely. He always got a kick out of riding this superspeed lift.

They did not step out into the lobby of the skyscraper, but into a narrow, concrete-walled tunnel. They strode down this. It admitted them to Doc Savage’s garage in the skyscraper basement.

Half a dozen cars were housed there. These ranged from a thin, underslung speedster, to a great limousine. All the cars had one point in common—none were painted with flashy colors.

Doc selected a roadster. It was a long, somber machine, which would attract no attention out on the street. Monk happened to know the car could do in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The motor was wonderfully silent. Only by the sudden life in ammeter and oil-pressure gauge, could Monk tell that it had started.

The exit doors were at the head of an incline. They opened in an eerie way as Doc drove up to them.

Park Avenue is the swankiest street in the city of New York. The Midas Club was situated on the most fashionable corner of the avenue. It was not a tall building, lifting less than twenty stories; but for its size it had undoubtedly cost more than any other structure in town.

New York City is rumored to have two or three clubs which require that the candidates for membership possess a bank roll of at least a million dollars. The Midas Club had raised the ante. To get on its roster, you had to have five million. In addition, you must have made the money yourself. If you had inherited the five million, you were out of luck.

Ham was reported to have the most sumptuous and luxurious suite in the Midas Club.

“Gosh!” Monk ejaculated. “Look!”

At least a dozen policemen were dashing about outside of the clubhouse.

There was a great crowd milling around. Every one seemed excited.

“What has happened?” Doc asked a policeman.

“A man who said his name was John Acre tried to get into the club,” the officer explained. “While he was doing that, and shouting his name, several other men came up with guns. They grabbed him and carried him off.”

A newsboy ran up to the roadster.

“Buy a paper, fellers!” he cried. “Read about the earthquake in South America!”

“Scat!” said the cop. “You got a nerve, tryin’ to peddle your earthquakes right here where there’s just been a snatchin’!”