Читать книгу The Motion Menace - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 4

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Pat Savage looked at some white whisker hairs in her fingers for a while after she awakened. They had tied her wrists with a necktie, but her fingers must have remained unconsciously clenched on the whiskers. She tried her strength. But the necktie was stronger.

Trees and brush were whisking past on either side. The woods did not look as if it had been farmed. Wild country.

Pat looked her captors over. They were a queer pair. They reminded her of old owls. Their hooked noses did that. The way they kept their lips tight made it look as if they had something in their mouths. They did speak good English, though.

As she finished her inspection, she nearly snorted. They were dressed like a vaudeville team. Each wore a gaberdine topcoat buttoned to the throat, and each head was topped by a hat shaped like a stewpan, and made of some white fur that might have been dyed-and-clipped rabbit, or ermine.

Pat looked around. The other car was following.

“Well,” Pat demanded, “what’s the meaning of this?”

“Quiet, madame,” said one of the old men. “His Highness will confer with you when the time comes.”

The time, it developed, was some distance off. The cars drove for half an hour—there was a clock on the dashboard. Then both machines pulled off the road and headed for the shore of a lake. They nearly got stuck. Every one alighted, and Pat was helped out.

Two canoes were cocked up on the lake shore. Every one got in them. Three of the men gave Pat every help possible. When one of them did her a service, he always prefaced it by a funny little bow. The canoes were of American make.

Pat wondered, as they paddled out in the lake, if they could swim. Two men were in her boat and three were in the other. She could make good time with her hands and feet tied. Pat became intrigued with the idea.

She upset the canoe.

The old men could swim. They were, in fact, a bunch of old Neptunes. Pat, swimming underwater, just started to vision escape—the water was loosening the necktie—when they caught her. She kicked around some, but they held her.

They righted the overturned canoe, with the help of the bearded gentlemen in the other canoe, and spilled the water out of it. Two of them gave their bows, then hauled Pat, dripping and madder than she could remember being, into the craft.

Not a word was said by anybody. But it took great control for Pat to keep silent.

They rounded a headland. A plane—a seaplane, two-motored, big and fast—stood on the lake. A man was inside, waiting.

More bows, and Pat was lifted into the plane cabin. The pilot—he had a helmet chin strap buckled under his whiskers—had the bowing habit, also. He made Pat comfortable in a seat, then backed away.

The old men then upset both canoes.

“If the trail comes this far, the upset canoes may mislead them with thoughts of drowning,” an old gentleman told Pat. He smiled widely, then closed his mouth and held it as if he had something in it.

The plane then took off. The ship climbed beautifully. It headed south.

“I’m sorry, madame,” one old man apologized. He bowed, then tied a scarf over Pat’s eyes; and Pat thereafter could not see where they were going.

The plane finally landed nicely on water, taxied a bit, then the floats ground against what sounded like rock; and other noises indicated the craft was being tied with ropes to the shore.

An old gentleman then removed Pat’s blindfold and bowed. “My arm, madame,” he said politely.

Pat tried to jump into the water as they helped her ashore. She wanted to leave wet tracks. They politely prevented this, then removed her high-heeled pumps, which might leave scratches on the stone.

The old men had also taken off their shoes. They all wore very woolly socks.

They walked in silence across the stone. Nowhere was there a blade of grass, although there were high, wooded slopes around the lake.

A cleft appeared ahead. They walked to it. As they walked in, it narrowed, and quickly became the mouth of a cave. The hole was not waist high, and only wide enough for one man at a time.

The old man in the lead stepped back, bowed, and said, “You first, madame.”

Pat glanced angrily at the surrounding rocks. There was not much she could do. She bent and dived into the hole. Straightening up, she looked around.

Pat’s career had not been entirely without scares. She had rather good self-control; but she suddenly emitted a startled screech.

She had crept into the den of an enormous bear. And the occupant was home!

Pat knew a good deal about bears. This one was the worst kind. A grizzly! Monstrous! The beast showed its fangs. A growl came from it. Then it started for her.

The grizzly was not a dozen feet distant, and grizzlies are not customers to meet at that range, even with the most high-powered rifle.

Pat whirled, hopped for the outlet. Her feet were not now lashed with the necktie, but she doubted very much if she could make it anyway.

One of the old men blocked the way.

The thoughts that lashed Pat’s brain the next instant were chaotic.

Shrill, chortling glee came from the old man’s lips. He had his head back. Laughing! Like a babe with a lollypop!

“Be calm, madame,” he said. “The bear is a pet. Perfectly gentle. Back, Moe!”

Moe stopped. He showed his teeth, lathered his gums with a red tongue, burped, then lurched around and retreated.

“You can’t tell me Moe is a pet!” Pat said shakily.

“His temper may not be the best,” the old man said sorrowfully. “You see, his stomach has been bothering him. He likes that strong brown Chinese beer, but we unfortunately ran out of it.”

One of the bearded men then stooped and began working on the floor. The interior of the cave was veined with cracks, that being the nature of the stone.

The man working on the floor lifted a slab of stone—a trapdoor.

“You see,” said Pat’s informant, “any one finding this place with Moe in it would think it a mere bear’s den.”

Pat almost remarked that as far as she was concerned it was anyway, but didn’t.

After several polite bows, Pat was guided into the hole in the floor. She expected steps. There were none here.

Pat discovered herself standing in what seemed to be a metal bucket about seven feet deep and three across. There were handholds around it, and the sides were padded.

Three of the old men got in with Pat. The bucket lacked the size to hold all of them. The others said they would wait for the second trip.

Some one operated a switch or a lever. The bucket sank. But the way did not lie downward much of the distance, either. Instead, the bucket traveled on one side. Pat appreciated the padded sides and the handles then. Because she had the sensation of standing on her head, she knew the bucket was being pulled upward.

They came out in a twilight, and Pat looked around. What she saw was amazing enough that she somewhat forgot about being mad.

She stood in a giant crack. There were walls of stone on each side, the natural rock sides of the crack, which Pat judged to be four hundred feet high, or more. The width at the bottom was nowhere more than two hundred feet. Strangely, the crack seemed narrower at the top. Pat decided this might be an optical illusion.

Suddenly Pat became so interested in listening that she forgot all else. There was a sound in the air. A weirdly fantastic sound. An orchestration. The vibrations did not rise and fall. They were steady.

Pat was escorted to a mass of stone which looked as if it had fallen into the crack, but hadn’t. It proved to be a box of a hut, carefully camouflaged. There was a door, but no lock on the door.

“Unfortunately, madame, we never prepared to keep prisoners,” an old man told Pat.

“Listen here, you old goats!” Pat snapped. “Why did you bring me here?”

“It is very simple, madame. You are associated with Doc Savage indirectly. You started to the Orient and began inquiring for Captain Wizer. Obviously, you knew something. So we set about apprehending you.”

“But,” Pat exclaimed, “I only wanted to hire Captain Wizer to build beauty apparatus!”

“In that case, we took some lives needlessly.”

Pat looked horrified. “Then you did wreck the China Rocket?” she gasped.

“That was an unfortunate bit of futility, it seems—if you only wanted Captain Wizer to build beauty machines,” the old fellow said calmly, and walked away.

Pat stood and stared after him. She turned away. Utter revulsion was on her features. All those innocent passengers aboard the China Rocket——

There was a noise at the door. Pat turned.

“Captain Wizer!” she gasped.

Captain Wizer was a tall affair of bones and wrinkled hide. He had no beard. He did have piercing eyes and a forehead of almost remarkable size. He wore big horn-rimmed spectacles and they had thick lenses which magnified his eyeballs, giving them a weird aspect. He wore a long white smock, very heavy rubber gloves and a strange sort of mask of some kind of metal that resembled lead was dangling around his neck.

“Ay yust bane learn ’bout you,” he said.

“You—you’re one of these butchers!” Pat snapped grimly.

The old man—Wizer was past sixty—blinked soberly.

“It vars too bad dis had to happen. Ay don’t vant to see you ha’ar.”

“Who are these old men?” Pat asked.

“Ve oll bane Elders,” said Wizer.

“So you old reprobates call yourselves the Elders, eh? I think murderers would be more apt.”

Old Wizer blinked owlishly at her behind his thick spectacles.

“It yust bane too bad,” he muttered. “Oll you can do bane to hope. Maybe——” He fell silent.

“What have I done?” Pat demanded angrily.

“You got yourself mixed up in somet’ings so big dot you can’t do anyt’ings ’bout her. Ay vould not tell you any more.”

“But I only came to China to get you to design beauty apparatus!”

“Ay know. But ve make mistake. Ve bane tank Doc Savage send you to investigate us.”

Pat could think of nothing to say to that. Old Wizer stood there squirming.

“Ay don’t tank His Highness bane here now,” he said finally. “Vhen he come, Ay bane try to see you don’t die. You bane awful pretty girl to die.”

He shuffled away, head down, looking sorrowful.

Pat stood and thought. She had accidentally come upon something sinister. The old men thought she had been sent by Doc Savage. They were scared of Doc. That was not strange.

Doc Savage, the man of bronze, the man of mystery, the mental marvel, as the newspapers called him, had a reputation which was capable of frightening crooks. For evildoers were Doc’s specialty.

These Elders were taking no chances.

Pat snorted, and went back to the door. It did not have a lock, she had noted. She craned her neck and looked through the ventilating slit. Then she opened the door the merest crack. It did not make a noise.

An old man stood beside the door, on guard. The fellow must have been made a trifle deaf. He had not heard the door. No other Elders were in sight.

Pat was an impulsive young lady. She picked out a spot behind the old gentleman’s right ear and let him have it.

She grabbed, jerked him inside. No need to hit him again, though. He was out. She shook him out of his gaberdine and lifted off his fur cap, which had not been knocked off. Under the gaberdine he wore a rather startlingly brilliant uniform. There was much gold braid and many medals, some of them jeweled. She looked closely at the medals. Genuine!

Pat stepped out clad in the gaberdine and the white fur hat.

She had not taken a dozen steps when one of the old men saw her. He was the fellow guarding the tunnel mouth. But he did not give an alarm, and she went on, satisfied she had fooled him. She headed toward the upper end of the crack and quickly rounded the bend.

Pat would not have been as confident had she seen the expression on the wrinkled visage of the old owl at the tunnel mouth. He was smiling grimly, and talking to himself.

“It is best that she learn now how hopeless her position is,” he chuckled.

He waited. Obviously, he was expecting something to happen. It did.

There was a scream. Pat’s voice! Tearing with horror! She screeched again, long, drawn-out, starting loud, and trailing off to an end that was almost a whimper.

The violinlike singing sounds kept on steadily. There was a definitely sinister quality about them.

Pat appeared. Running. Staggering, rather. She did not seem to be wounded. Yet she weaved and could hardly walk. And upon her face was an awful whiteness.

Men were appearing from whatever tasks had employed them. They ran until they saw Pat, after which they stopped and stared.

“Get the physician!” one of them called.

Pat weaved to the hut where she had been confined. She collapsed in the door, and began to wring her arms, to beat them against her sides and against the ground. Her eyes were almost glazed. She mumbled, delirious with agony.

The men gathered around her. With great solicitude, they clasped her wrists and arms and began to knead and pat them. They still didn’t forget to bow before each small service.

Pat moaned, “Oh—that—that—horror——”

An old man in the background said solemnly, “She knows, now.”

“Yes,” said another, with equal solemnity. “And she is a nice young woman, with courage. It is sad.”

Pat, in her delirium of pain, rolled and mumbled. In her blankness, she seemed to be trying to convey a warning.

“Doc!” she moaned incoherently. “You won’t guess—you’ll never have—a chance!”

Her mumblings became weaker and weaker and her movements less and less, as if an unseen beast of silence were slowly swallowing her.