Читать книгу The Mystery on the Snow: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6

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Renny, in flicking off the master switch of his taxi radio outfit, employed the extreme tip of a thumb and forefinger. This was so that his huge hand would not disturb other switches and dials on the apparatus.

The radio installation was very compact, being entirely concealed under the dashboard of the taxicab. Mahal, when riding in the cab, had not dreamed of its presence.

As he slid out of the parked taxi, the expression on Renny’s long face was more funereal than usual. This signified that Renny was enjoying himself. The prospect of trouble always made Renny look gloomy. He loved trouble.

He dropped through the sidewalk hatch into the basement where he had concealed the terminus of the dictograph. He fitted the receivers over his ears, intending to listen in while he awaited the arrival of “Long Tom” and Johnny.

The first words he overheard changed his whole plan.

“We will leave here at once,” the squeaky-voiced Stroam was saying. “You are going to work for me in the future, Mahal, so you will abandon this place.”

Mahal began, “But my things here are——”

“Worthless stuff. Leave it. Come, we will go.”

Renny wrenched the ear phones off. There was no time to await Johnny and Long Tom—he would have to seize Mahal and Stroam himself.

Renny crept for the stairs. Like black cotton, darkness crammed these. Renny progressed slowly, gingerly. The old wooden steps were inclined to squeal like pigs under his two hundred and fifty pounds of solid flesh.

On the first-floor landing, he heard the footsteps. They were light steps—and they were descending the stairs.

Renny found an angle in the wall, and positioned himself there. He blew a warm, soft breath into either capacious palm. He would grab the plotters. Then Doc would make them talk.

Renny was not in the least skeptical about Doc’s ability to extract information. The bronze man did not use strong-arm methods. His ways were more subtle. He used hypnotism, or truth serums which functioned with startling efficiency.

The individual on the stairs came closer.

It was simple. Renny merely reached out and clutched. A gigantic steel trap could not have taken the prize more efficiently.

Renny clamped a palm over the captive’s mouth, so there would be no outcry. It was then that he got a shock.

Renny had a pet ejaculation to fit occasions when he was amazed.

“Holy cow!” he breathed.

The big-fisted engineer managed to produce a tiny pocket flashlight, still maintaining a grip on his captive. The flash protruded a rod of white luminance. This raked up and down the prisoner.

Renny had snared a girl!

She was a pint-sized edition of femininity. In the huge engineer’s clutch, she was almost birdlike. Indeed, she seemed so small that he hastily released her, fearing his monster hands would do injury.

In his perturbation, Renny removed his palm from her lips. Surprisingly enough, she did not cry out.

Renny planted the flashbeam on her face. His jaw sagged. The girl’s rose-petal lips, her smoky eyes, her entrancingly dark hair, left nothing to be desired. She was a knockout.

“Holy cow!” Renny breathed again.

The girl promptly hit him in the eye with a small fist. The blow gave Renny another considerable shock—she was unexpectedly strong. It was as if he had been hit with a hammer.

Renny dropped his flash—and the girl darted away, with the speed of a scared rabbit. Renny lunged, flung out a huge hand and recaptured her.

“You big hooligan!” she hissed, and tried to pummel him again.

Evading her blows, Renny weaved and ducked in a fashion a trained boxer would have envied. He trapped her tiny fists in his huge ones.

Thought creases came into his sombre brow. The girl’s voice was pitched rather high. The tones would have to be altered very little to resemble the squeaky voice of Stroam, as it had come over the dictograph.

“You’re Stroam,” Renny voiced a half-formed suspicion.

The small, dark-eyed girl stopped struggling suddenly.

“What, m’sieu’?”

“Your voice—you are Stroam.”

“You are crazy!” cried the girl.

“I heard the voice which spoke to Mahal,” Renny insisted stubbornly. “It sounded mighty like yours.”

The girl was silent. Renny picked up his flashlight and put its beam on her face. He saw then that she seemed vastly puzzled.

“Do you mean to tell me you were eavesdropping on the conversation of Stroam and Mahal?” she asked.

“You said it.”

“C’est trop fort!” she ejaculated. “It is too bad!”

Renny eyed her unwinkingly. The exclamation and its accent had marked her as being a French Canadian.

“Yeah,” Renny agreed. “It’s too bad you got caught.”

“My name is Midnat D’Avis,” the girl said rapidly. “I, too, was eavesdropping on that conversation.”

A harsh voice, coming from the darkness to their left, rasped, “Sacre! It is good of you tell us zat!”

Renny, in his associations with Doc Savage, had walked much in the shadow of danger. This had made him wary. Rarely was he caught napping.

But his unexpected capture of the girl, his suspicion that she was Stroam, her insistence to the contrary, had him slightly befuddled. He had been totally unaware that men were lurking behind a door near by. It was possible the skulkers had made no sound to betray their presence—until one of them spoke. This would help explain Renny’s bad luck.

“Grab zem!” yelled the man who had spoken.

The door had been open a crack. It whipped open wider and spouted a flood of men.

“Wait!” yelled one. “A few bullets will nicely——”

“Non!” ejaculated the other. “Shots would draw police. With knives is a bettair way.”

If Renny held any delusion about the intent of the attackers, the words enlightened him.

“Beat it!” he rumbled at the girl. “Vamoose!”

He switched the flash beam over the charging men. They were wiry fellows, swarthy. They had the look of men who had spent much of their lives in the open. Two or three wore beaded belts.

Several knives were in evidence, the blades reflecting the flash beam back in chill glitters.

With an expression of profound gloom, Renny snapped a huge hand out and grabbed a knife wielder. What happened next was a little too sudden for the assailants to comprehend.

Their companions came flying back at them. A cannon ball of comparative size would hardly have wrought more damage. Five men were bowled over.

“Sacre bleu!” gasped a survivor.

Renny saw the girl had not fled as directed. She was at his side, belligerent as a small pup.

“Hold this!” he commanded, and gave her his flash. “Keep the light in their eyes, and out of mine.”

“Bon!” said the girl, and took the flash.

The stairway to Mahal’s quarters sloped up behind them. Unexpectedly, a voice came from above.

“Take them alive!” it yelled. “Stroam wants to question them.”

Diminutive Midnat D’Avis turned the flashbeam up the stairs.

The speaker was the slender, almond-faced Mahal.

Mahal was holding something in one hand—an egg-sized object of metal. He hurled this at Renny and the girl.

“Grenade——” Renny began, then saw that he was mistaken.

He leaped, tried to catch the thing, but he was a trifle tardy. The metallic container hit the wall over their heads. The lid was jarred off.

It was nothing more mysterious or dangerous than an ordinary box of pepper, but it played havoc with their defense. The pepper flakes brought smarting agony to their eyes.

Renny emitted a bellow which shook the walls. He started a blind charge.

The dark-haired girl gripped his arm, hung on.

“Wait!” she gasped. “You will make them excited, and they will put a knife in you, m’sieu’.”

“Yeah,” Renny rumbled, and came to a stop.

They were quickly seized. Rough hands slapped over Renny’s person in search of weapons.

“The big boeuf is not armed,” said one.

“Bring him upstairs, sahibs,” Mahal commanded. “One of you go to the street to see if the noise drew the police.”

Obeying the command, a swarthy man scampered away.

Many hands leeched upon them, Renny and the girl were propelled up the stairway. Their captors pushed them across Mahal’s waiting room and into the sanctum of fakery.

Renny peered about in search of Stroam. His gaze fixed on a curtain which spanned an end of the chamber.

Stroam’s voice squeaked from behind the hanging.

“Who are these two?” he demanded.

Evidently he had a peephole in the curtain which was too small to be discerned.

Mahal glared at Renny and the young woman. The other men also looked them over. Then they all exchanged blank glances.

“No one here seems to know them, sahib,” said Mahal.

“You, with the big fists!” Stroam gritted from his concealment. “Who are you?”

“What’s your guess?” Renny asked sarcastically.

“Yo’ smart boy, eh?” sneered a man. He took an elaborate windup and struck Renny’s middle a terrific blow with his fist.

The fellow jumped back, a pained expression on his face, and nursed his fist. His knuckles felt as if they had collided with a large rock.

Behind Stroam’s curtain there were fluttering sounds. Renny decided Stroam was looking through the newspaper clippings. This surmise proved correct.

“Look at this!” A picture cut from a newspaper came flying from behind the drapery.

Renny scowled at the item. It was a picture of Doc Savage and his five aides. Renny knew his own big-fisted likeness was prominent in the foreground.

“This is one of Doc Savage’s men!” Mahal yelled, indicating Renny.

“But who is the girl?” demanded Stroam.

“Probably another of Doc Savage’s aides,” said Mahal, making a wildly incorrect guess.

“It is fortunate that I took the precaution of having my men handy,” Stroam squeaked.

Mahal nodded. “Even I did not know they were here, sahib.”

One of Stroam’s swarthy henchmen interrupted impatiently. “What we do with zis man an’ woman?”

“Doc Savage is nosing into affairs which are none of his business,” Stroam shrilled angrily. “We will hand him something by way of a small hint, that he had better leave us alone.”

A man leveled an arm at Renny and the girl. “Yo’ mean——”

“Use your knives on them,” Stroam finished the man’s thought.

Mahal wailed, “I don’t like murder at all——”

“Who cares what you like, clumsy fool!” Stroam squealed.

“But blood makes me——”

“Go downstairs and help my man watch the front door,” Stroam ordered.

Mahal departed hastily.

Balancing long, sharp blades, two dark men advanced on Renny and Midnat D’Avis.

“Wait!” gritted Stroam. “I have questions to ask. You, with the big fists. How much does Doc Savage know of me?”

“Go jump in the ocean and pull a wave over your head,” Renny boomed.

“That tune will soon change,” Stroam predicted ominously.