Читать книгу The Mystery on the Snow: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 7

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Few citizens of New York City knew of Doc Savage’s secret hangar on the Hudson River water front.

Many individuals, however, knew that the remarkable bronze man maintained quarters on the eighty-sixth floor of the city’s finest skyscraper. The newspapers had published that fact innumerable times.

Not many had seen the interior of Doc’s skyscraper office. But it was vaguely known that there were three great rooms, covering the entire eighty-sixth floor. One of these held a vast laboratory, equipped with the most modern apparatus. Another chamber held a library of scientific tomes, which for completeness had few equals.

The third room was an outer office, fitted with a safe, a costly inlaid table, and comfortable furniture. It was here that Doc received those who had occasion to come to him.

Johnny arrived in this room in somewhat of a flurry.

Johnny was extremely tall, and thinner than it seemed any man could be. No tailor could fit clothing to his bony frame. As a result, all of his garments always appeared ill-fitting.

A monocle was attached to Johnny’s lapel with a ribbon. It was actually a powerful magnifying glass. Johnny needed a magnifier in his profession as archeologist and geologist, so he carried it there for convenience.

William Harper Littlejohn was the name by which the world of science knew Johnny. He had few equals in his profession.

“Long Tom!” he called.

Out of the laboratory came a querulous voice. “Scat! Go ’way and lemme alone!”

Johnny ambled to the laboratory door and looked in.

Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts was a small, thin man, who looked as if he had grown up in a cellar where there was no light. He had the complexion of a mushroom. His forehead was tremendous, bulging.

He was working over a complicated mass of electrical apparatus. This device, Johnny knew, was Long Tom’s mania at the moment. With it, utilizing the projection of atomic streams, there was a possibility of killing destructive insects. This would be an inestimable boon to farmers.

Long Tom was the electrical wizard of the organization. He and Johnny were the two remaining members of Doc Savage’s group of five aides.

“Why is your radio not functioning?” Johnny asked with scholastic preciseness.

Long Tom frowned impatiently. “I switched the dang thing off.”

“Why? May I ask?”

“You may ask. The blasted static bothers me.”

“You missed something,” Johnny advised.

“I missed a lot of static,” Long Tom shrugged impatiently. “Listen—you ex-college professors may not need peace and quiet to look at your rocks and prehistoric relics, but a guy like me needs a lot of it. If you haven’t any rushing business, clear out.”

“Renny seems to have become embroiled in a predicament,” Johnny remarked.

“Predicament!” Long Tom abandoned his sour attitude. “That means trouble. Why didn’t you say so?”

Trouble was the one thing which would draw Long Tom away from his electrical experiments.

The two men rushed from the office, locking the door behind them. They entered a private elevator, in which Johnny had come up. This was used only by Doc Savage and his associates.

Down, and out on the street, they entered Johnny’s car—a coupe inexpensive enough to attract no attention. Johnny maneuvered the machine into traffic.

Long Tom stamped his feet on the floorboards. His shoes were shiny, new.

“I don’t think a lot of these new shoes,” he complained. “They’re stiff.”

Johnny eyed his own pedal extremities. These also were shod in new footgear.

“You should lament,” he said dryly. “The foot vestments cost you exactly nothing.”

“Doc furnished them,” Long Tom agreed. “He had special shoes made for the whole gang, including himself.”

“An enigma,” Johnny commented.

“A what? Oh, you mean you don’t savvy why he did that. Neither do I. But he probably had a reason.”

“Sagacity usually motivates Doc’s operations,” Johnny agreed.

“They’re good shoes.” Long Tom eyed his feet. “But I like old cases for my dogs.”

The car was now negotiating almost deserted streets. The district was not prosperous. Buildings, shabby and old, were of the walk-up type. Dirty, uncurtained windows advertised many vacancies.

“We are nearing the designated locale,” said Johnny, who never used a small word where a larger one would do.

Long Tom squinted at house numbers, then said “It’s the next block. Drive past and we’ll look the joint over.”

The coupe rolled slowly, swaying in sympathy with pavement irregularities. The engine was quiet. They could hear traffic sound on a near-by boulevard, and the rumbling of a more distant elevated train.

The entrance of Mahal’s building was grimy. No one could be seen near it.

“Gloomy dump,” Long Tom offered.

The coupe went on and swerved around a corner.

Then suddenly Johnny boomed, “There’s Renny’s taxi!” and levelled a bony arm.

They parked near the taxi, got out and inspected it.

“It’s the bus Renny was driving, all right,” Long Tom asserted. “But where’s the pride of the engineering world?”

They were sure about the cab; it belonged to Doc. The bronze man kept the vehicle for exactly such use as Renny had been making of it.

Long Tom shook his head, and said, “No sign of Renny.”

“A fact of ominous portent,” added Johnny.

“I understand Renny got into the basement to install his dictograph. He may be there.”

It was Johnny who located the sidewalk hatch giving admittance to the basement. They entered, and saw no trace of the engineer.

“Strange he’s not around,” Long Tom muttered uneasily.

Both produced small flashlights. These lights were of a type perfected by Doc Savage. They had no battery, the current for the bulbs being supplied by spring-operated generators inclosed in the cases. One winding of the spring would produce a brilliant light for several minutes.

The flashbeams found the stand which held the listening end of Renny’s dictograph.

Johnny picked up the dictograph receivers and clamped them over his ears. With a forefinger like a long-jointed bone, he threw switches. Voice sound came from the ear phones as the dictograph began operation.

For a long ten seconds, Johnny listened. Then: “I’ll be superamalgamated!” he gulped.

Long Tom had been prowling the basement regions. He pitched to Johnny’s side. It took something potent to shock the skeleton-thin geologist into any kind of an ejaculation, even one containing a four-dollar word.

Johnny clawed off the head set.

“Renny—some girl—upstairs!” he sputtered.

Long Tom snorted. “Renny visiting some gal and you raise all——”

“They’re being killed!” Johnny exploded. “Their throats are about to be cut!”

“Come on!” Long Tom snapped. “There’s a stairway in the back that leads up.”

Flashlights poking white beams, they rushed toward the steps. With their free hands they fumbled at a harness under their armpits.

Clipped to the harness were weapons resembling over-sized automatics. Magazines on these were curled, ram’s-horn fashion, to occupy a minimum of space. The guns were machine pistols with an unbelievably rapid rate of fire. When they went into operation their sound was not unlike the croak of monster bullfrogs.

The super-firers were charged with mercy bullets—slugs which were merely a chemical-containing shell. They did not kill; they produced instant unconsciousness.

Stair steps whined under the weight of the two men. The air smelled of cobwebs, mice. They reached a half-open door; its hinges squawked as they pushed it further ajar.

Like white serpent tongues the flashbeams darted. Simultaneously, both lights picked out the prone figure of a man.

“Renny!” Long Tom moaned; then, in the same breath: “No! It’s somebody else.”

Johnny bent over the sprawled figure. “Face like an almond—slant eyes,” he breathed. “Must be an Oriental. He’s unconscious, it seems.”

Johnny barely breathed his words, but they seemed to awaken the unconscious man. His eyelids fluttered, came wide open.

“Don’t hit me again, sahib,” he whined.

Long Tom sank to a knee. “We’re not the birds who hit you. Who are you?”

“The janitor,” moaned the man who had a face like an almond.

“We’re lookin’ for a fellow with big fists,” the electrical wizard rasped. “Seen him?”

The man on the floor appeared very weak. “Upstairs,” he gasped.

Long Tom and Johnny charged for the staircase. They did not know they had been fooled. They had never seen Mahal—and the man they had just encountered was Mahal.

Mahal was a foxy soul, or he would have long ago been in jail, where he belonged. Hearing Long Tom and Johnny in the basement, he had started upstairs to warn Stroam and the others. He was lurking just inside the street door when his ears had detected their presence. He had not moved fast enough.

Cornered on the first floor landing, he had feigned unconsciousness as the best way out. Moreover, Mahal had a plan which might save the day.

The squeaky stairs piped like flutes as Long Tom and Johnny mounted. They did not try for silence. They latched the safeties of their supermachine pistols into “on” positions.

Yells and startled oaths volleyed down from the upper regions. Prominent was Stroam’s squeaky voice.

“The voice that needs greasin’ belongs to the chief,” rapped Johnny, for once forgetting his big words.

Johnny had evidently heard Stroam over the dictograph.

Below them, Mahal yelled loudly. “Stroam—retreat to my inner room.”

Long Tom jerked to a stop, pointed his super-firer in the direction of Mahal’s voice.

“That rat pulled a fast one,” he grated. His gun emitted a deafening, baying noise.

But Mahal had cannily side-stepped to shelter after shouting. The storm of mercy bullets missed him.

“To my inner room, Stroam!” he bellowed again.

Long Tom and Johnny continued their rush. They did not know the meaning of Mahal’s command for Stroam to withdraw to the innermost sanctum of fakery. They supposed it was a chamber which might more easily be defended.

The supposition was a mistake, but due to their excitement, and their anxiety to save Renny, they learned the truth somewhat tardily.

They dived into Mahal’s reception room.

From behind them came a sound like a dropped tin can. The two men whirled. The door through which they had come was now closed by sliding steel panels. They charged across the room. But before they reached the other door, there was a second metallic clang.

Sheet steel barred that door, also.

Mahal was indeed a cunning rascal. Many months ago he had equipped his reception room with those steel panels. This had followed a distressing incident in Mahal’s life.

The wily fakir had got an elderly and particularly gullible society matron under his oriental spell. From her he had wormed a considerable sum of money. The matron’s husband, upon learning the facts, had searched Mahal out in a great rage. He had given Mahal the beating of his checkered career.

Mahal had equipped his reception room to imprison any such future visitors. He had hoped that the arrangement of steel panels would prove useful in other ways, also. They had.

The steel panels could be operated by push buttons concealed in a number of spots. Nor were the panels all. In the ceiling of the reception room, unnoticeable to the casual eye, were minute holes. From these, tubes led to bottles. The bottle necks were equipped with valves which could be opened by pulling a string.

The containers held ether. While this substance was not the most efficient of anesthetics, there was an ample quantity of it in the bottles.

Mahal tugged the valve strings. A spray of ether poured from the ceiling. It covered the entire reception room.

Long Tom and Johnny attempted to open the doors, or to cut through the walls, using their rapid-firers. But they gave that up quickly. Both knew enough about ether to realize the vapor was violently explosive.

After a while, they went to sleep from the fumes.

Mahal let himself into the inner sanctum by a rear doorway. He smirked at Renny and the girl, who were being held in a corner. Renny’s shirt was open. Across his huge chest were several deep cuts, evidence of torture.

“What happened?” squeaked Stroam from behind his curtain.

Mahal explained about the steel panels and the ether trap.

“I am not such a dumb one, eh, sahib?” he finished.

Then he started for the curtain. He intended to take advantage of his triumphant moment and get a look at Stroam.

“Back!” Stroam ordered hurriedly. “No one sees my face.”

Mahal stuttered, “But I——”

“No talk! You are going to be a valuable man to me. You have brains—and brains command a high price in my organization.”

Mahal grinned, no little mollified.

“The noise of their guns may have been heard,” Stroam declared. “Moreover, Doc Savage seems to be well acquainted with this place. It will never do for the bodies to be found here.”

“No,” echoed Mahal, and shivered. “It would point suspicion at me.”

Stroam gave orders. Mahal’s reception room was opened. Johnny and Long Tom, senseless, were carried out, and, together with Renny and the girl, were dumped in the corridor.

They were on the point of being hauled outside, when there was an interruption. One of Mahal’s gang had evidently gone out to scout the vicinity for more enemies. He returned, no little excited.

“A hack! She is parked aroun’ ze corner,” he gulped. “Me, I look in him. She got funny thing under dashboard.”

Stroam had not come from behind his curtain in the inner room.

“What is this?” he called loudly.

“A taxi with something under the dashboard,” Mahal relayed.

“Go down and look at it,” Stroam directed, not showing himself.

Mahal departed.

Within a very few minutes, Mahal was back. He, too, was perturbed.

“There’s a radio in the cab, sahib,” he declared. “Parked near it is another car—a coupe. That also contains a radio.”

“Many cars have radios in this modern day,” said Stroam disgustedly.

“These machines are not only fitted with receivers,” Mahal told him. “There are transmitters, too.”

Shrill profanity came from Stroam’s lurking place. “Obviously, it is with these radios that the bronze man maintains contact with his associates,” he cried. “That suggests an idea!”

Mahal’s slant eyes squinted. “What?” he asked.

Stroam laughed. “Have that fellow with the big fists get on the radio and tell Doc Savage he is safe, and that everything is all right.”

Eying Renny, Mahal stated, “You will do as commanded.”

“Yeah, watch me!” Renny rumbled.

“He refuses?” Stroam asked.

“You said it!” boomed Renny.

“Slit the girl’s throat,” Stroam ordered callously, abruptly. “See if he would rather watch that than talk.”

A swarthy, evil-faced man flashed a knife. He advanced on Midnat D’Avis.

Renny eyed the knifer in the gloomy corridor. The big-fisted engineer had seen riffraff before. He knew a calloused murderer by sight.

This was one.

The knife-wielder reached over, gripped the girl’s hair and bent her head back.

Midnat D’Avis tried to scream. A grimy palm over her lips prevented that. Her throat muscles writhed, convulsed; her face grew noticeably whiter.

Renny’s forehead became damp.

“Wait,” he growled. “I’ll tell Doc whatever you say.”

He was conducted down to the car.

“One wrong word, any attempt to accent certain words to convey a secret message, and the girl will be killed,” one of Stroam’s men warned him.

Renny switched on the transmitter. “Doc!” he said. His great voice was normal enough.

“Yes,” came Doc Savage’s remarkable tones from the loud-speaker.

“We’re O. K.,” Renny stated.

“Did you get the prisoners?” Doc queried.

“Yes.”

“Bring them to the hangar.”

“O. K.”

“Tell him,” a man hissed in Renny’s ear, “that it may be some time before you arrive.”

Renny relayed this to Doc, as commanded.

“Make it as soon as you can,” Doc suggested.

This terminated the forced radio conversation.

Renny was conducted back to the corridor outside Mahal’s office.

Stroam was still behind his drapery. He cackled shrill laughter, when told that Renny had complied exactly with his orders, and the sound was hollow, muffled by the curtains.

“Take them out on Long Island!” he squeaked. “Question them thoroughly to see what that Savage knows of me. Then dispose of them in some ditch.”

The knifeman leered. “Yo’ mean for me to——”

“Use your blade, my friend,” Stroam called from the inner sanctum.

“Murder!” Mahal gulped. “I don’t want to go along.”

“Then stay here with me,” Stroam squeaked.

The bad news seemed to have sapped Renny’s strength. He sank to a sitting position on the corridor floor. His huge hand, smeared with crimson from his own wound, came to rest on the carpet. The hand moved slightly. It shifted again, most carefully.

No one chanced to note Renny’s act.

The big-fisted engineer was kicked to his feet. He and the girl were forced to walk down the rear stairs. Men carried the still unconscious Johnny and Long Tom.

Two touring cars were parked in an alley, their curtains up. This fact would not attract attention, since it was a spring day and not too warm.

The captives were loaded into the cars, and these, in turn, rolled out into traffic. Thanks to the curtains, no pedestrians noticed the four figures huddled on the floorboards.

Stroam, the mysterious one, and Mahal, were the only ones left behind, and they soon departed on some errand of shady portent.