Читать книгу The Man Who Shook the Earth: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 8

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Monk looked at Doc, then at the policeman. Speaking rapidly, Monk described Velvet. He could not have given a better word picture of Velvet had he been looking at the fellow’s photograph as he spoke.

“Was that guy with the gang that grabbed John Acre?” he finished.

“Yep,” said the cop. “That guy was bossing the snatch.”

“The man seized was named John Acre?” Doc questioned.

“That’s right,” replied the policeman. “He got mad when they wouldn’t let him in the club to see somebody. He started yelling his name, claiming he had an appointment.”

“Which way did they go?” Doc asked.

The bluecoat waved a vague arm. “Down one of these streets. I ain’t sure which one. They fired some shots, and everybody seems to have ducked.”

Doc thanked the officer, then rolled the roadster to the Midas Club. He parked directly in front of the door. A large sign said the space along the curb was reserved. That meant it was intended exclusively for use of the gentlemen who had five million dollars in the bank.

A doorman came out, scowling blackly. His expression intimated that he intended to rout Doc in very brusque fashion. However, when he got a look at the bronze man and the roadster, he underwent a striking change. His scowl altered to the politest of smiles. He bowed so low that his gaudy uniform cap fell off. He caught it and flushed in embarrassment.

Instead of ordering Doc away, he almost broke a leg in his haste to open the roadster door and usher the two men from the car.

Doc and Monk entered the Midas Club.

Monk noted that the door of the club did not open at Doc’s approach.

“There’s one you haven’t got trained,” he grinned.

They rode an elevator to the top floor, strode down a corridor carpeted as richly as Doc’s own office, and punched a doorbell.

The door opened.

Monk took one look inside. He emitted a resounding groan, and covered his eyes dramatically with his hands.

“Take it away!” He wailed in mock agony. “It’s so flashy it’s hurting my eyes. It’s going to blind me!”

Through the door swung the end of a slender black cane. Monk ceased his dramatics and dodged. The cane barely missed connecting with his head.

The man with the cane stepped out as if to take a fresh swing. He was a slender man, thin-waisted as a wasp. He had a sharp nose and a pair of intent eyes. They were the eyes of a quick thinker.

The outstanding thing about the fellow was his clothing. His garb was the absolute ultra in sartorial perfection. Ham was famous for his clothes, wearing them with a grace that could hardly be duplicated.

Monk retreated, chuckling. The fact that there was a mystery underfoot, and that a man had just been kidnaped downstairs, had not kept him from flinging a dig at Ham. Even the stress of trouble could not stop his good-natured baiting of Ham.

Ham’s black cane looked innocent enough. Actually, it housed a blade of fine steel. It was a very efficient sword cane.

Doc explained what had occurred—the visit of Velvet to the office, the decoying of John Acre to the Midas Club, and the kidnaping. He ended with: “Know anything about it, Ham?”

“Not a thing,” Ham declared.

“But why did they use this address?” Monk demanded.

“It was clever on the fake newspaper reporter’s part,” Doc decided aloud. “He gave Ham’s address, in case the man he was deceiving might check up. I often visit Ham here. It was logical to suppose I might wish to meet him here.”

Monk scratched his jaw, his head, and ended up by putting the tip of his little finger through the bullet hole in his ear.

“How in blazes are we going to find out what this is all about?”

“There’s the steamship Junio,” Doc said. “John Acre arrived on it to-night. Apparently he sent the messages from on board.”

Doc went to the telephone and dialed a number. He spoke into the instrument for some seconds. His voice was so low that Monk and Ham did not catch the words. Then he hung up.

“I got in touch with the captain of the Junio,” he explained. “Here’s a strange one: The Junio’s radio operator is a fellow named Coils. He disappeared a few minutes after the steamer docked. They can’t find him anywhere.”

“Where is the Junio from?” Ham inquired.

“From ports on the west coast of South America,” Doc explained.

Ham twirled his sword cane absently. His eyes roved. They came to a rest on the door. It gaped open a crack.

“Who left that door open?” he growled.

He started forward as if to close the panel. The door was ajar hardly more than an inch, but the crack widened suddenly. A businesslike pistol muzzle shoved through.

“I’d hate to muss up that pretty suit,” a woman’s voice said grimly.

Ham wrenched to a stop, his sword cane extended rigidly. He turtled his head forward as if to see who was behind the door.

“Don’t strain your eyes!” said the woman’s voice. “I’m coming in.”

She stepped across the threshold.

Monk emitted a great gasp. Monk appreciated a pretty girl. This one made his head swim.

From the waist upward her slender body looked as if it were fitted in a tight skin of gold; below the waist the gold cloth fitted almost as snugly. Her hair was evidently boyish-bobbed. It bulged hardly at all under a plain gold-colored helmet. Her small feet were shod in golden-hued slippers. The whole was a wonderful evening ensemble. The effect was amazing.

Her face had an entrancing beauty which seemed to fit in perfectly with her exotic evening attire.

Monk drew in the breath which his sigh had expelled. He seemed to realize for the first time that the astounding young woman held a gun. It was a big, blue .45-caliber army automatic.

From the gun, Monk looked to the girl’s clinging gown. The exotic golden garment exposed just about every ravishing curve. She carried a costly looking fur evening wrap over her left arm.

No doubt she had entered the Midas Club with the gun concealed under the wrap.

“You gentlemen,” said the girl, “will put your hands up.”

Her voice was like the ringing of a small bell in the distance. It was pleasant to hear.

“Are you sure you’re not in the wrong pew?” Ham asked her. “We never saw you before.”

The young woman in the stunning, golden evening gown did not answer. She was eying Doc.

She seemed fascinated by him. That was understandable. Men, when they saw the astounding physique of the bronze giant, noticed only that. Women, however, were apt to observe that Doc was extremely handsome.

The girl in gold was discovering the latter fact.

A minute passed, then another. The striking young woman was still staring at Doc.

Doc Savage slowly lifted an arm. He leveled it, rigid as a metal bar, at the young woman’s pert nose. The arm remained fixed, unmoving, pointing.

Monk and Ham exchanged glances in a knowing way. They had been associated with Doc Savage long enough to become acquainted with some of the many arts which the bronze man commanded. They knew he was a master of hypnotism, so they understood what Doc’s arm-leveling gesture meant.

Doc was hypnotizing the girl in gold.

For the most successful functioning of hypnotism, it is necessary that the subject’s attention be fixed on something. It is also very difficult to hypnotize an unwilling patient.

The young woman suddenly awakened to what Doc was doing. She wrenched her eyes from the bronze man’s strange golden orbs, and sprang backward. She slapped herself violently in the face.

Monk started forward with the idea of seizing her gun while she was occupied with breaking Doc’s spell. But the girl jabbed her weapon at him.

“You come a step closer, and I’ll blow a hole in that ugly face!” she declared.

“Go ahead,” the sharp-tongued Ham invited her. “Anything, even a hole, would be an improvement over the face as it is.”

Monk ignored the insult.

“Where have you taken John Acre?” demanded the girl.

Monk and Ham started slightly.

“Don’t ask me,” Ham ejaculated.

“Huh?” Monk grunted.

“It seems the young lady is in the right pew after all,” Doc offered.

The beauty in gold eyed them coldly over the gun.

“Then you do admit having him!”

“You’re mistaken,” Doc told her.

The young woman plainly did not wish to chance looking at Doc again. She was afraid of his hypnotic powers, yet his mighty bronze figure drew repeatedly her unwilling gaze.

“John Acre called me and told me he was coming here!” she snapped.

“Did he ask you to meet him here?” Doc questioned.

The girl hesitated. “No—but I came anyway. There were some things I wanted to ask him.”

“We do not know where John Acre is,” Doc told her.

“Liar!” rapped the girl.

Doc fell silent. There was one subject about which he did not possess universal knowledge. Personally, he believed it was impossible to ever learn much about the topic. The subject of his deficiency was—women.

Doc did know enough about the fair sex to realize there was no use in arguing. She thought he was a liar, and that was that.

“Where is John Acre?” demanded the girl, putting a grim emphasis on each word.

Doc said nothing. Monk and Ham said nothing. Monk frankly stared. At the moment, the homely chemist could not remember having seen a more gorgeous bit of femininity.

The young woman rolled her eyes to keep them away from Doc. Her gaze touched upon various objects of furniture, returning frequently to the men to make sure they made no overt move.

A wastebasket stood near a comfortable chair and a reading lamp. A folded, discarded newspaper projected from the basket.

Two words of a headline were visible:

EARTHQUAKE IN——

The sight of the two words in the headline had a strange effect on the girl. Horror came upon her face. Her throat tightened visibly.

Doc, Monk, and Ham exchanged glances. The headline had stricken the girl with terror. It had to be the headline—from where she stood, only the larger type was readable.

The girl sank by the wastebasket. She seemed to have forgotten Doc and the other two. She wrenched the newspaper from the basket, and spread it open.

“In Chile!” she gasped. “And it got another of them!”

“Another of who?” Doc demanded.

The girl made no answer.

Doc glanced at Monk. “Remember the telephone conversation recorded on the wax record?” he asked.

“Sure,” Monk grunted. “There was something said about mysterious earthquakes.”

“What’s behind this?” Doc asked the young woman in gold.

The girl arose. Although they had made no effort to seize her while she was so interested in the newspaper headline about earthquakes, she again pointed her big automatic at them.

“You’re wasting your time trying to make me think you do not know what it is all about,” she declared.

Monk shrugged impatiently. He waved a furry hand in Doc’s direction. “Do you know who this bronze fellow is, young lady?”

“He’s the notorious Doc Savage,” the girl snapped.

Monk bristled with indignation. “Listen, goldie! Doc has done more good in this world than any fifty other men you can name. His life work is to go all over the world——”

“Save it!” said the girl in gold. “I’ve heard of him. He’s always in trouble. Well, if you don’t tell me where John Acre is, you’re going to have trouble!”

Monk subsided. He had supposed there were people in New York who were not acquainted with the true nature of Doc Savage’s work—his career of righting wrong, of punishing evildoers—but this was the first such person he had met in some time.

“What is your name?” Doc asked the girl unexpectedly.

“Tip Galligan.” She did not hesitate about giving it. “Helen Tipperary Galligan, to be exact.”

Ham began: “Well, Helen——”

“I don’t like gigolos,” snapped the girl unkindly, eying Ham’s sartorially perfect attire. “Anyway, the name is Tip.”

“Why does that earthquake headline scare you, Tip?” Doc asked her.

She did not answer that. Instead she thrust out her small jaw fiercely.

“I’ve heard that you have five men who help you,” she said angrily. “I guess this pair here are two of them. I’m going to tell you something: Either you release John Acre, or I’ll grab your other three friends and hold them until you do cough up!”

Monk was grinning from ear to ear. For some reason he could not have explained, he was delighted that the young lady in gold did not like the dapper Ham.

“She sounds violent,” Monk said cheerfully.

“I am violent, too!” “Tip” assured him.

“I think we would all get along better if you put your gun away,” Doc suggested.

“I don’t,” said Tip, and waved her gun carelessly.

Doc Savage looked at the ceiling. His lips moved. Strange words came forth. They were guttural words and rather musical, but absolutely unintelligible to Tip.

Monk and Ham made no reply, but it was plain that they understood the weird vernacular. Both men did an unusual thing. They began to hold their breaths.

“Listen, you three,” Tip hissed. “You can’t pull anything on me. Don’t try——”

The young woman seemed to go to sleep on her feet. Her eyelids, with lashes more than a half an inch long, drooped. She swayed on her feet. Had Monk not leaped and caught her, she would have fallen.

Even in the act of springing to catch her, Monk did not release his breath. He still held it. Cheeks distended, face a little purple, he carried the young woman over and draped her in a deep chair.

Doc Savage, a close observer might have noticed, was also holding his breath. In not quite a minute he gave a small signal. They all began breathing normally again.

Doc now removed his coat. He pulled out the left sleeve, so that the lining showed. It held a small pocket. From this Doc dumped a broken fragment of a thin-walled glass bulb. He had broken this by expanding his enormous biceps muscle.

The bulb had held a powerful anaesthetic gas. This was a substance Doc himself had perfected. It was remarkable in that it spread through the air almost instantly, producing sudden and complete unconsciousness.

After having been in the air for something less than a minute, the gas became harmless. Doc and his two friends had simply held their breaths during the time the stuff was dangerous.

Doc had spoken in the Mayan language, to give warning of what he intended to do. It was an ancient dialect of the Mayans. No more than a dozen men in the so-called civilized world understood it. Doc and his five friends spoke it fluently.

Back of their knowledge of the ancient Mayan tongue was a fantastic story. It was a tale which in itself explained something that was a mystery to the rest of the world—the source of Doc Savage’s seemingly limitless wealth.

It was common knowledge that Doc spent millions. He built great hospitals. He financed industrial concerns, in order that they would not close down and throw their employees out of work. He had countless expensive philanthropies.

The fabulous gold hoard of a lost Mayan race in a remote mountain valley in Central America was Doc’s source of wealth. The Mayans, pure descendants of the ancients, had been lost to the world for centuries. In the valley was a great cavern, which held an almost limitless supply of gold, much of it as yet unmined.

To pay a debt of gratitude, the Mayans were furnishing this gold to Doc—but only on the condition that he should use it to do good in the world.

On each seventh day, should Doc be short of money, he had but to go to a powerful radio station at high noon, tune into a certain wave-length, and broadcast a few words in the Mayan dialect.

His message was picked up in the lost valley—on a radio set which Doc himself had left there. Several days later, a burro train invariably arrived at the capital of the mountainous Central American republic. Seldom were these caravans laden with less than four or five million in bullion.

“A young lady who met her match,” Monk chuckled, eying the sleeping girl in gold. “It’ll take an hour or so to wake up, won’t it, Doc?”

Doc did not answer. Instead he drew a flat metal case from his pocket. He extracted two small vials. The contents of these Doc poured down the sleeping girl’s throat.

Scooping her up, he carried her into the bedroom.

Ham’s expensive suite in the Midas Club occupied half a dozen rooms. Some of these had private entrances on the corridor. It was to one of the latter that Doc carried the girl. He placed her on the bed.

Moving swiftly, Doc went to the hallway door.

Monk and Ham, watching him, thought he had tested to see if the door were locked.

Doc came forward quickly, grasped his two friends by the arms, and guided them into an adjoining room. Monk was plainly reluctant to lose sight of the entrancingly pretty girl in gold.

“She’s my idea of a lalapaloosa,” he said. “Brothers, she sure is pretty!” He leered at Ham. “She can spot a gigolo, too.”

Ham gritted his teeth, gripped his sword cane. The young woman’s crack about his being a gigolo had hurt.

“Quiet, you fellows!” Doc directed.

The bronze man went to the telephone, picked it up, and gave a number. Ham and Monk knew instantly who was being called. They were very familiar with this number.

It was that of a hotel near the skyscraper which housed Doc’s office. This hostelry was the dwelling of the other three members of Doc’s group of five aids.

“Johnny?” Doc queried.

Monk and Ham traded somewhat startled expressions.

“Johnny” was William Harper Littlejohn, a geologist and archaeologist who had few superiors in ability. In the Great War Johnny had lost the use of his left eye.

It was to return the use of that eye that Doc had to-night performed a great surgical operation. Some individuals wondered why Doc, with his tremendous ability of a surgeon, had not earlier operated on that eye.

The fact was that Doc had been waiting for years in order that certain delicate muscles and nerves might strengthen sufficiently to withstand the operation.

Ham and Monk were astounded to realize that Johnny had quit the hospital so soon after his operation. The fact that he had, was no mean tribute to Doc’s fabulous skill.

“How’s the eye feel, Johnny?” Doc asked.

“Great!” Johnny said.

“O.K.,” Doc told him. “Go to bed. Put Long Tom or Renny on the wire.”

“Listen, Doc, if there’s some excitement afoot, I ain’t agoin’ to miss——”

“Hit the hay!” Doc ordered. “It’s a few days’ rest for you, and no argument.”

“Well, all right,” Johnny grumbled. “Here’s Renny.”

A moment later the receiver in Doc’s fist seemed about to fly to pieces under the impact of a great, roaring voice. It was as if a small lion had awakened in the receiver.

The tremendous tone belonged to Colonel John Renwick. “Renny” was famed for two things: He was a great engineer, and he had two incredibly huge and hard fists, with which, he boasted, he could knock the panel out of any wooden door.

“Renny, you and Long Tom drop over by my garage and pile into one of the cars,” Doc directed. “Then drive on up here to this shack Ham calls home.”

“Something up?” Renny thundered.

“There is,” Doc told him.

Doc had been speaking in a loud, distinct voice. Now, he suddenly switched to a low tone which hardly vibrated the transmitter—and he spoke in the strange-sounding Mayan language.

“You men may be kidnaped on the way up,” Doc said in Mayan. “Let yourselves be snatched, and try to pump your captors. I’d like very much to know what’s on their minds.”

Doc Savage hung up the receiver. He stood beside the phone for several seconds. The cold winter wind howled faintly outside. Occasionally there were faint, clicking sounds against the window glass. These were made by wind-driven snowflakes.

As if he had been waiting for a certain length of time to pass, Doc came to life. He walked to the bedroom door, threw it open. He said nothing.

But not so Monk, who was at his elbow.

“Hey!” Monk bawled. “She’s gone!”

The girl in gold was nowhere in evidence. The gaping corridor door advertised her parting route.

Monk started forward, as if in pursuit.

Doc stopped him. “Wait. Let her go.”

A great understanding dawned on Monk. He gulped: “You gave her something which brought her out of that unconsciousness in a hurry. You figured she would overhear your phone conversation and then make a break.”

Ham grinned, flourishing his sword cane. “You even unlocked the door for her.”

“But what was the idea?” Monk demanded.

“You will recall,” Doc explained, “that she made a statement about seizing our friends.”

“And you made the way easy for her,” Monk chuckled.