Читать книгу The Vanisher: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 5

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Doc Savage, when the warden’s phaëton brought him through the prison gates, created quite a sensation. It was now daylight, and a bright, sunny day well lighting the bronze man’s arrival.

The prisoners had been kept in their cells, and from the windows of these, a great many could look out and witness the coming of Doc Savage. More than one of these observers had a cold chill and hastily ducked back. For Doc Savage was the nemesis of evildoers.

The sensation of the bronze man’s arrival did not extend alone to the prisoners. The guards craned their necks and their mouths came open and their eyes went wide. They had been wondering what to expect.

When they saw Doc Savage, they were not let down.

The bronze man was a physical giant. After he had stepped out of the car and a bit away from it, so that he was not close to anything to which his size might well be compared, he did not seem so large. This was due to the remarkable symmetry of his physical development.

There were other striking things about Doc Savage. His skin was of an unusual bronze hue, as if burned by countless tropical suns; his hair was straight, fitting like a metal skullcap, and of a bronze hue only slightly darker than his skin.

Most striking of all, perhaps, were his eyes. Weird they were, like pools of flake gold always stirred by tiny gales. They seemed to possess a hypnotic power, an ability to compel.

Doc Savage was taken to the warden’s office. There were a number of newspapermen and one newspaperwoman present. The newspapermen had the usual baggy suits and worldly looks, but the newspaperwoman was different. She did not look as if she belonged. She kept in the background and did not seem to care about having her face show.

Doc Savage was presented to the warden. The warden was an honest tough guy who did not believe in beating around bushes and who would have stood up for his rights against the president as quickly as he would have stood up against one of his guards.

“A dying prison guard named John Winer stated that you shot him this morning,” said the warden bluntly. “The shooting occurred at a quarter of five this morning. Have you an alibi?”

“No,” Doc Savage said.

The bronze man had a voice in keeping with his appearance. It was not loud, nor low either, but it had a timbre, a quality of vibrant power and pleasantly musical undertone which marked it instantly. It was a voice which obviously had received years of intensive training.

“Then you’re under arrest,” said the prison warden.

The State prison official who had gone to get Doc Savage shoved himself forward.

“I’m afraid arrest is not the wise thing,” he said. “I found this Doc Savage giving a lecture on something or other——”

“On electrokinetics,” Doc Savage supplied.

“On electro—electro—well, he was lecturing,” said the official. “He was lecturing to a fellowhood of big-shot scientists and they had been in session, and this bronze man had been talking to them, all night.”

“Are you sure?” asked the warden.

“Sure I’m sure. And the scientists raised hell when I broke up the lecture!”

“It was an important lecture and demonstration,” said Doc Savage dryly. “We hoped it would lead to the solution of the problem of transmission of energy by Hertzian waves.”

“It looks,” said the warden, “as if you have an alibi.”

The woman newspaper representative eased about among the onlooking members of the press. She held in one hand some small object, a mechanical device of some description, which she was attempting to keep concealed.

Doc Savage waited, his metallic, extremely good-looking features expressionless. Only his flake gold eyes belied his easy attitude; they seemed to be in motion steadily, never to rest in their scrutiny of his surroundings.

The warden growled, “Why didn’t you tell me you had an alibi?”

“An alibi is technically a plea of having been elsewhere when an alleged act was committed,” the giant bronze man explained. “The word somehow has grown to have a stigma attached and does not appeal.”

The warden scratched his head. “You know anything about this?”

“Nothing.”

“And there’s no funny business about stigmas and words about that?”

“None.”

The young woman journalist was still shifting her position. She seemed to be attempting to work into a position where she could lift the object in her hands and point it at Doc Savage.

The warden turned as a messenger entered the office. The messenger bore an envelope which he handed to the warden, and which the latter in turn opened, and read. The warden looked up and eyed Doc Savage.

“From the governor,” he said. “He suggests that while you are here you might be kind enough to look the situation over and afford us some assistance.”

“Of course,” Doc Savage said.

The warden abruptly thought of something concerning this unusual man of bronze.

“Will you want us to send for any of your assistants?” he asked.

“That will not be necessary,” Doc Savage assured him.

The press representatives were permitted to accompany Doc Savage and the warden, together with some prison guards, as they moved on a tour of inspection. The fidgety young woman journalist went with them. She kept hidden the thing in her hands as best she could.

When out in the brilliant sunlight, it became evident that the young woman was rather a looker. She wore a coarse frock with practically no lines, but it failed what it was probably intended to do, conceal a lithe young form that did not leave much to be desired.

She wore a spinsterish hat which allowed only a tendril or two of hair to show, gossamery hair that was almost the color of polished silver. Spectacles did not do justice to a pair of entrancing eyes, and lack of rouge and lipstick did not detract a great deal from the ravishing effect of the rest of her features.

Doc Savage’s examination of the scene inside the prison was rapid enough to surprise almost every one. He seemed to give only a glance here and there.

“The guy ain’t half trying to solve the mystery,” a reporter in the background grunted.

“Don’t fool yourself!” jeered a companion journalist. “That guy is a wizard!”

At this point, Doc Savage said distinctly, so that every one near by heard, “It might be best to interview the twenty men who took the place of the convicts in the cells.”

“The twenty men are being detained in my home,” said the warden. “I will take you to them.”

Doc Savage, the warden and the newspapermen—and the newspaperwoman—made quite a string walking across the prison yard.

Doc asked, “Have you a list of the twenty missing convicts?”

“Yes,” said the warden.

“We need their pictures, finger prints, and a record of their crimes which caused them to be sent here.”

“We’ll stop in my office for the dope,” the warden replied.

A moment later, Doc Savage’s strange flake gold eyes were sifting the data. He had done this only a moment when a small, strange sound became audible—a trilling, tiny and fantastic, tracing up and down the musical scale without definite tune, vaguely remindful of a soft wind going through a denuded tropical forest.

This trilling was a small, peculiar thing which Doc Savage did in moments of intense mental activity. Usually it meant surprise; sometimes it marked advent of a proof which he had sought, and often it precoursed some definite plan of action. The bronze man did this unconsciously.

“Sounds like winter,” remarked a reporter, not understanding that the exotic sound was not the wind.

Doc drew the attention of the warden to the records he had been inspecting.

“Did this rather peculiar fact come to your attention?” he asked.

The warden came over and scrutinized the documents. He started shaking his head, then changed the movement to a sharp nod.

“I see it!” he exploded. “Each of the missing convicts claimed from the time of his conviction that he had been framed!”

“Partly that,” Doc admitted. “But there is also another angle——”

A prison attendant came rushing up.

“They’re gone!” he howled. “The twenty men who were in the cells are gone!”

“Of course they are!” snapped the warden. “But we’ll get those convicts!”

“You don’t understand!” gulped the attendant. “The twenty men who took the convicts’ place in their cells have vanished!”