Читать книгу The Monsters: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6
ОглавлениеPLANE ACQUAINTANCE
Modern passenger planes are remarkably efficient creations. Not only are they capable of great speed, but the cabins are soundproofed until it is possible to conduct a conversation in ordinary tones. Pretty hostesses serve coffee and sandwiches.
Big Carl MacBride occupied a seat in one of these passenger ships, as it rushed toward New York. He tried to look nonchalant. He balanced a cup of coffee clumsily on one calloused palm and held a tiny sandwich between thumb and forefinger of his other hand. Between nibbles and sips, he eyed the surrounding clouds.
This was his first time in the air. From impressions gained in a life spent on the ground, he had supposed clouds were fairly solid things; but he was discovering they were really of a very wispy nature, with hardly more body than widely diffused cigarette smoke.
A fellow traveler interrupted the bulky woodsman’s thoughts.
“I see you like to read back issues of magazines,” the fellow remarked.
Carl MacBride turned his head. He saw a tall man with a freckled nose, reddish hair and a reddish mustache. The latter was an artistically waxed creation. The man was attired in a quiet business suit, and looked prosperous.
The fellow had been perusing a newspaper. This was folded carelessly, and an advertisement was uppermost. It was a strange sort of an ad. It consisted simply of large black type in the center of a white space:
BEWARE!
THE MONSTERS ARE COMING!
This somewhat unusual advertisement was not in line with Carl MacBride’s gaze, however. He failed to see it.
The big woodsman had always associated freckles with friendly individuals. He smiled, and said: “Sure—if the magazine ain’t too old, I enjoy it just as much as a late one.”
“I notice you were reading about Doc Savage,” said the freckled man.
“Yep.”
“My name is Caldwell,” the fellow traveler introduced himself. “Quite an interesting chap, this Doc Savage.”
“Do you know him?” Carl MacBride asked eagerly.
“Oh, no, although I’d rather like to. I’ve read of his accomplishments. I guess almost every one has heard of him.”
“Yep. He’s quite a detective, I reckon.”
“Detective!” laughed Caldwell. “Doc Savage is not a detective.”
Carl MacBride’s jaw fell. He was shocked. The article in the magazine was all he knew of Doc Savage. He had judged Doc Savage to be a detective, for the story was one telling how Doc and a group of five assistants had ferreted out a gang of villains seeking to seize the nitrate industry of the South American country of Chile.
Believing Doc Savage to be a detective, MacBride was now on his way to ask him to investigate the death of Bruno Hen.
“Not a detective!” he gulped.
“Not exactly,” smiled Caldwell. “He is more in the nature of what you would call a trouble-buster. He goes to the far corners of the earth, metes out justice to evildoers, and helps those in trouble.”
Carl MacBride breathed a little bit easier. Doc Savage might be interested in Bruno Hen’s death, after all.
“What do you know about Doc Savage?” MacBride asked. “This magazine story didn’t tell very much.”
“No one seems to know a great deal about Doc Savage,” replied Caldwell. “It is general knowledge, however, that he is a man who has been trained from the cradle for his present purpose in life. The training was done scientifically by his father, who is now dead. As a result, Doc Savage is almost a superman, both in physical capabilities and in mentality.”
“How do you mean—physical capabilities and mentality?” Carl MacBride asked vaguely, befuddled by the—to him—high-sounding phraseology.
“They say that Doc Savage has developed his muscles until he is the strongest man ever to live,” Caldwell explained. “He has also studied intensively in every branch of science. He has become a mental marvel. In other words, he knows about everything.”
The plane dipped sharply.
Caldwell looked over the side. “We’re nearing New York City.”
Carl MacBride showed little interest in New York City, although he had never seen that impressive metropolis before.
“What else do you know about Doc Savage?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, not much more,” Caldwell rejoined amiably. “Doc Savage has five men who help him. Each one of these is a world-famous expert in some line. One, according to what I’ve heard, is a chemist, another a lawyer, and a third is an electrical expert of ability. Of the other two, one is an engineer and the other a geologist.”
“Sounds like some crew!” ejaculated the big woodsman.
Caldwell eyed Carl MacBride. “You seem rather interested in Doc Savage?”
“I am,” MacBride grinned. “I’m on my way to see him.”
Caldwell looked properly impressed at this, his brows rising in astonishment.
“Imagine!” he ejaculated. “Say, that is the most interesting thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
Carl MacBride expanded before the flattering tones. He wanted to talk about the strange demise of Bruno Hen, anyway. He proceeded to do so.
He told the story in detail. Drawing a newspaper clipping from his pocket, he exhibited it.
“I cut that from the Trapper Lake Clarion, as you can see by the name at the top of the sheet,” he explained.
Caldwell read the clipping.
“It says here that a peculiar tornado dipped down and demolished Bruno Hen’s cabin, killing the breed,” he remarked.
“That newspaper feller done some tall guessin’,” MacBride said confidentially. “My cabin ain’t very far away from the breed’s place. There weren’t no daggone tornado. I’d have heard it. Anyway, the sky was as clear as crystal.”
Caldwell returned the clipping. “And you are going to New York to get Doc Savage to investigate?”
“That’s right. Bruno Hen gave me the money to do it. It’s only fair that I should live up to the promise I made him.”
“Quite true,” Caldwell agreed; then broke off to watch a young woman who came down the aisle from the washroom.
Carl MacBride also eyed the girl. She was a striking vision. She had hair the exact hue of steel. Her traveling costume, while neat, was somewhat worn. MacBride’s contact with pretty girls had been largely from their pictured faces in magazines. This young woman was as entrancing as any photo he could recall having seen.
The girl passed the two men without a glance. Her eyes were a steel color that about matched her hair. She took a seat forward.
A battered traveling bag reposed on the floor beside the girl’s seat. Carl MacBride possessed eyesight an Indian would have envied. He read the writing on the tag appended to the young woman’s bag:
JEAN MORRIS
THE WORLD’S PREMIER WOMAN
LION TAMER
THE ATLAS CONGRESS OF
WONDERS
“Atlas Congress of Wonders” had a line drawn through it. Immediately below the circus name was written: “New York City.”
Carl MacBride scratched his head. He remembered that the Atlas Congress of Wonders was the circus which had gone broke in Trapper Lake many months before.
MacBride recalled one particular morsel of gossip. There had been three pinhead savages with the stranded circus. These had wandered off and mysteriously disappeared.
“There’s the New York airport,” said Caldwell, interrupting the woodsman’s thoughts.
In the excitement of disembarking, Carl MacBride lost track of his friendly traveling acquaintance, Caldwell.
Had he been able to watch Caldwell, he would have received a surprise. Caldwell scuttled around to the deserted side of the field operations office. Hidden there, he opened a large bag which was his only luggage.
He unearthed two large, blue automatics, and slung them in holsters under his armpits. Next came a hand grenade of the small, fluted type used in the world war. He pocketed this.
The bag yielded a banjo. The round body and the neckpiece of the musical instrument were in separate sections which clamped together. The banjo actually held an ingenious, silenced gun, which could be fired simply by plucking one of the banjo strings.
One who knew how could aim this unusual weapon with accuracy, without seeming to do so.
Working rapidly, Caldwell combed out his waxed mustache. He applied a chemical to it, and smeared more of the same compound in his hair. Mustache and hair turned black. He drew a ragged coat from the bag and donned it. He sagged his shoulders as he walked.
A stooped musician with a stringy black mustache and black hair got in one of several cabs waiting near by.
New York is a city harboring many curious people. The taxi driver thought little of it when his face querulously commanded him to wait a few minutes before starting.
Not until Carl MacBride had clambered into a cab and rolled in the direction of the business district, did Caldwell permit his machine to move. Issuing terse orders, he contrived to follow the hulking woodsman without calling his driver’s attention to what he was doing.
When they had traveled twenty or thirty blocks, Caldwell became sure of their destination. It was Doc Savage’s office. He ordered his conveyance to halt while he entered a telephone booth located in a tobacco shop. He got a number.
Caldwell and the party he was calling recognized each other’s voices. They exchanged no names.
“Exactly what we were afraid of is happening, boss,” Caldwell informed the other. “This lunk of a backwoodser is on his way to see Doc Savage.”
“You sure?” asked the voice at the other end of the wire. “We don’t want to go to a lot of trouble taking care of him, unless it’s necessary.”
“It’s necessary, all right, boss,” said Caldwell. “I pumped the guy while we were on the plane. He never suspected a thing. Came right out and told me the whole story.”
“He told you he was on his way to get Doc Savage to investigate what happened to Bruno Hen?”
“That’s exactly what he told me.”
The voice at the other end swore violently. “We’ve got to stop him before he gets to Doc Savage.”
“I’ve got a grenade, my gat, and that silenced pistol-in-a-banjo contraption. I’ll be able to stop him at Doc Savage’s office.”
“Nothing as reckless as that!” ordered the other. “Can you keep MacBride in sight and nail him somewhere en route?”
“He’s headed straight for New York on the main road. Guess I can overhaul him.”
“Do that. Get him on the road somewhere.”
Caldwell, his deadly banjo tucked under an arm, dashed to his cab.
“Whoop it up, buddy!” he ordered the driver. “If you get me downtown fast enough, there’s an extra twenty in it for you.”
“Get the twenty ready,” retorted the driver, and they were off.
