Читать книгу The Vanisher: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 7

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A bullet hole, round and neat, appeared in Doc Savage’s plain dark suit, exactly over the heart.

The bullet was evidently a large one. The recoil of its discharge knocked the miniature camera out of the girl’s hands, skinning her face slightly. The camera fell on the ground in such a position that the lense was upturned, showing that the glass had been blown out to reveal the round snout of the firing barrel concealed inside, and from which the bullet had come.

The girl squinted painfully and saw the bullet hole over Doc Savage’s heart. Doc Savage was just beginning to fall backward. An indescribable expression came on the girl’s face.

The girl whirled and ran. But she used her head. A guard stood near by, holding a submachine gun.

Loaded submachine guns are commonly kept only in barred towers and other points where convict inmates cannot get to them. When the guns are taken from one point to another, they are first unloaded, and the gun taken to the new point, then the ammunition later and separately, so that both cannot be seized at the same time.

But the convicts were still in their cells, which accounted for this submachine gun being in the yard. And the guard who held it was a slow thinker, which enabled the girl to grab his weapon.

She wrenched. She was strong. She got the gun, reversed it hurriedly and menaced every one.

“Stand still!” she shrieked.

They stood still. The girl backed swiftly to the automobile in which Doc Savage had been brought to the penitentiary. She got in, turned the ignition switch, stamped the starter, shifted from first to second to high, then leaped out, at the same time yanking the gas control wide open. The car was heavy. It hit the barred gate at about forty miles an hour.

The gate did not collapse, because it was of heavy steel bars and had cost the State a nice sum. But it did give sufficiently to make an opening that would pass the young woman. She squeezed through, pointed her submachine gun in the air and pulled the trigger.

The gun discharged with a hideous clamor. Every guard in every tower within sight hastily ducked his head out of sight.

The young woman threw down the gun. It was heavy enough to impede her flight. She put her head down and ran at a surprising clip.

At the first corner, she looked back. Pursuit had not yet organized itself, except for a few guards who were jumping about in the manner of chickens deprived of their heads. The girl continued to run.

She rounded various corners, and seemed to have no definite idea of where she was going, except that she wanted to get on a street where there was no traffic. She succeeded in doing this, and ran swiftly for some minutes. She began to breathe hard and show signs of being winded.

A car appeared on the deserted street and approached slowly. The girl turned around and eyed it. The driver was hunched behind the wheel and seemed to be paying no particular attention to anything.

The girl yanked her spinsterish hat over her eyes, so that it did its utmost to conceal her face. She waited until the car rolled close, at the same time removing a scarf from around her neck and draping it over her right hand.

When the car was abreast, she suddenly leaped onto the slow-moving machine, yanked open the door, and plunked herself upon the seat. She shoved out her hand hidden by the scarf.

“Drive on!” she gritted. “And if you want to absorb some lead, just make a move to call help!”

The driver did not react as he was supposed to do. He reached out and plucked the scarf away, revealing the girl’s empty hand. When the girl gasped and tried to leap out of the machine, he seized her and held her.

The young woman now got a glimpse of the Tartar she had caught.

“Doc Savage!” she squeaked.

Doc Savage drove on, saying nothing. The young woman made an effort to get out again, but the clamp of bronze fingers held her in the car. She discovered that the big man of metal had remarkable strength. His fingers upon her skin felt not unlike warm steel.

The young woman noted that the ignition wiring of the car was hanging down under the dashboard, as if it had been wrenched loose, then patched. She surmised that the car had been locked and that Doc Savage had appropriated it for his own use.

She noted also the round bullet hole over the bronze man’s heart. She blinked at this almost unbelievingly. Then she reached over abruptly and shoved an extended forefinger into the hole.

“Oh!” she said. “Bulletproof vest!”

Doc Savage said nothing.

They rode in silence. The bronze man drove expertly, and was soon in the country, taking unfrequented roads, speeding up when they encountered other cars, but never fast enough to attract undue attention. His metallic features were expressionless, seemingly in repose, except for the life in his flake gold eyes.

“Cat got your tongue?” the girl asked.

Doc did not reply.

“How did you trail me?” the girl asked.

It seemed at first that Doc was still not going to reply.

“Through the hole in the gate that you made,” he said. “The rest was a matter of keeping you in sight and not being seen.”

The girl took off her hat. Her silver hair—it was not quite platinum—was quite abundant.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“To meet one of my aides who will take charge of you,” Doc Savage said.

“Monk” was human, although some people sometimes expressed doubts on that point. He weighed in excess of two hundred and fifty pounds. The hair on his head was about an inch long and as coarse as rusty shingle nails, and the hair on the rest of him was almost the same.

His full name was Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair occasionally. Ordinarily he had the voice of a small child; in a fight, he roared and squawled and whooped and bellowed like the bull ape he resembled; and he was one of the world’s leading industrial chemists.

Monk was a millionaire with a penthouse laboratory near Wall Street, and he had a pet named Habeas Corpus, an Arabian hog with elephantine ears, a set of dog’s legs and a snout built for inquiry. Habeas, the pet pig, had a mud wallow in the penthouse filled with scented mud, artificially sterilized each day.

Monk was also one of Doc Savage’s five unusual assistants. Monk’s great love was excitement, which was one of the reasons why he had associated himself with Doc—excitement and the bronze man were rather steady companions.

Monk stood beside a sedan parked on a country road. The sedan was innocent-looking, giving no hint that its body was made of armor plate, its glass bulletproof. Monk was absently picking Habeas, the pig, up by the ears, swinging him, and dropping him. Habeas liked this.

Next to excitement, Monk’s hobby was pretty women. Despite his gorilla looks, he usually managed to do quite well for himself in this direction.

The homely chemist executed his best bow when the blond young woman got out of Doc Savage’s car.

“What tree did you come out of?” the girl asked unkindly.

Monk gave her a big grin.

“Don’t judge me by first impressions,” he told her. Then, of Doc: “Who is she?”

“A young lady who tried to kill me,” the bronze man explained.

“Didn’t!” snapped the girl.

Doc Savage absently rested a finger on the bullet hole over his heart.

“That was a mistake!” the girl declared.

Monk snorted. “May I take time out for a laugh!”

The girl began to look indignant. “I guess I’m in this over my ears. But when that bullet was discharged, no one was more surprised than myself!”

“Want to tell us all about it?” Doc asked.

She nodded.

“I am a professional photographer and detective,” she said. “This morning, a man called——”

“Isn’t a photographer and a detective an unusual combination of professions?” Monk interposed.

“Well, I’m combining them!” snapped the girl. “I always did think photography and private detective work should go together. After all, you know, there is nothing like a few good photographs to produce as evidence in court.”

“Continue with the story,” Doc requested.

“This morning, a man called me for an appointment, and later appeared himself,” she went on. “He said he wanted a picture of Doc Savage. He said Doc did not like him, and would have him thrown out of the prison if he saw him. He offered me fifty dollars to get the picture with his own camera. He insisted on his own camera, and since it was one of the most expensive miniatures, I did not object.”

“You did not know it was a trick camera?” Monk jeered. “And you a professional photographer!”

“Believe it or not, the truth!” snapped the girl.

“The work on the camera was excellently done,” Doc Savage said. “It would have fooled even an expert.”

Monk eyed the bronze man. “You just telephoned me to meet you here, Doc. I ain’t got no idea of what this is all about.”

Doc Savage did not answer for so long that it seemed at first that he was not going to reply.

“The thing is still very much a mystery,” he said at last.

“You think some one simply murdered those twenty convicts?” Monk questioned.

Doc did not answer that.

The girl had been looking at Habeas Corpus, the pet pig.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed.

“Eh?” Monk grunted.

The girl pointed at Habeas. “I can’t make up my mind what it is!”

Monk gave her his oversize grin and said, “We’re used to such cracks, Habeas and me.”

“Did you collect the fifty dollars?” Doc asked.

“Half of it. I was to get the other half later.”

Monk brightened. “Now, that’s something! How were you to get the other half?”

“At Igor De Faust’s hotel,” replied the girl.

“Who’s he?”

“The man who hired me,” she said, pertly. “At least, that’s what he said his name was.”

“You have his address?”

“The Beaux Artiste Hotel.”

Doc Savage said, “Come on.”

They got in the sedan which Monk had driven to the spot. The sedan was one of a fleet of cars, all of special construction, maintained by Doc Savage. Doc drove.

Monk looked back and said casually, “I see a cloud of dust coming. Must be a car.”

Doc got the sedan in motion. The engine made almost no noise and the heavy body and excellent springing made the car ride easily, lightly.

“Care to give us your name?” Doc Savage asked the young woman.

Her answer came without hesitation.

“Syrmanthe Yell,” she said.

Monk, who was watching the road behind, laughed loudly over his shoulder.

“And you made cracks about my looks!” he snorted.

The car took a corner and swung in the direction of the city.

“If it’s all the same, I’d prefer being called Sandy,” said the young woman. “Sandy Yell.”

“You’re Syrmanthe to me,” Monk told her.

The homely chemist continued to watch the rear. His interest sharpened. He jerked a hairy thumb.

“We’re bein’ followed, Doc!” he barked.

Doc Savage glanced back. A coupe, lean and dark, was like a fleet hound upon their trail. The bronze man increased their speed. The coupe stuck.

The sedan heaved, rocked, in spite of its low slinging and excellent balance. Topping small rises in the road, it seemed to take entirely to the air for yards at a time. Monk craned his neck and saw where the speedometer needle stood.

“Ain’t no stock car can go this fast!” he squeaked.

Doc Savage nodded. “That coupe is following us. We will stop and see what he wants.”

Topping a ridge, the bronze man applied the brakes. Rubber wailed and the car swayed more madly while the passengers braced themselves against the deceleration. The machine stopped.

Monk dipped into an armpit holster and brought out a weapon resembling an oversize automatic pistol. It was a supermachine pistol perfected by Doc Savage, a weapon of remarkable compactness, firing bullets at a fabulous rate. It was charged with the type of slugs commonly known as “mercy bullets,” missiles inducing unconsciousness, through a charge of drug contained in a harmless shell.

The coupe came over the hill, brakes went on, and it skidded. Almost broadside, the car came to a stop.

The man who got out had nice shoulders and not much waist. His face was long, his mouth the large one of an orator, and his forehead was high.

His clothing, however, was really something which made him hard to forget. His morning attire was impeccable, both for correctness and neatness. The creases in his trousers looked sharp enough to split paper.

He carried a black cane which managed to achieve the appearance of both plainness and richness.

“Ham!” Monk roared. “You overdressed shyster! You menace to the uprightness of the American bar! What’s the idea of chasing us?”

“Monk, you accident of nature!” “Ham” said, grimly. “What’s the idea of running away from me?”

The two glared at each other as if about to do mutual murder.

Monk and Ham were good, if strange, friends. Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, one of the most astute lawyers Harvard had ever turned out. He was also one of Doc Savage’s five aides.

Doc asked, “Ham, how did you happen to come here?”

Monk answered that. “I left him a note, Doc, telling him you wanted me to meet you out in the country, and that something seemed to be up.”

“Is something up?” Ham demanded.

“I don’t know,” Monk said. “We’re going to a place called the Beaux Artiste Hotel to interview a guy named Igor De Faust, to find out why he wanted Doc killed.”