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

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Southampton is one of the major ports for express passenger traffic across the Atlantic, and, as such, had seen the arrival and departure of more than one notable.

The chief London and Paris newspapers had ship reporters regularly assigned to the port, and it was a rare occasion when a personage arrived who was so important that the battery of regular journalists was amplified by the arrival of additional special writers.

But to-night, some of the leading newspaper men of England and the Continent were on hand as snorting tugs pushed a certain transatlantic liner into her berth. The journalists were augmented by a battery of cameramen and quite a number of curious citizens.

The mayor was down in his robes of office, and numerous Englishmen of high rank were present in full regalia. Had a foreign potentate been arriving, the reception would hardly have been more elaborate.

It was all in honor of Doc Savage, the man of mystery, the individual who was a symbol of scientific knowledge and physical daring, the man who was by way of being the supreme adventurer of all time.

The newspaper men were down there because Doc Savage never did things in the ordinary fashion. Almost any move he made was good for a headline. Furthermore, it was a fact that Doc Savage did not look with a permissive eye on newspaper publicity. He was that rare individual, a celebrity who did not care about seeing his name and picture in the newspaper. More particularly, he did not care about seeing his picture, because it gave his enemies a means of familiarizing themselves with his physical appearance.

The reluctance which Doc Savage displayed toward newspaper publicity had the effect of making the journalists more determined. Had Doc Savage hired a publicity agent and showed a desire for news space, the scribes would have ignored him to a degree; as it was, they fell over themselves to get a story about him.

The high-ranking Englishmen were present because Doc Savage had done great service for their country in the past. For instance, there were delicate procedures in surgery which the unusual man of mystery had instituted and which had saved numerous lives. Too, there were charities to which Doc Savage had contributed enormous sums of money—money which, incidentally, he had taken from villainous individuals who had no right to it.

Doc Savage had cabled specifically that there was to be no reception in his honor; but the Englishmen had ignored that. They stood at the gangplank with the journalists and scrutinized each passenger to alight, in search of their remarkable visitor.

Roustabouts unloaded baggage at the cargo gangway, sweating and swearing. Several of these noted a tall figure which strode past them and went ashore.

The individual wore a turban and a flowing robe. His face was almost hidden by a ruffle of the robe, but that portion of it which showed to view was a nut-brown color.

The roustabouts, thinking the one who had disembarked was an oriental, of which several were aboard the liner, paid no great attention, especially after they saw the individual in the turban show the proper papers to an officer on the dock. They did note that officer bowed with marked deference after he had seen the name on the papers.

Observers would have been surprised had they seen the strange personage after he entered an unused shed on the shore end of the dock.

Indeed, one person was watching as the individual in the turban entered the shack, but this watcher kept out of sight behind a huge wooden bitt on the dock, being very careful not to show himself.

As soon as he was concealed inside the shed, the man who had just come ashore removed the turban. A few strokes erased brown grease paint from his features. He had been walking with a stoop, but as he whipped off the white robe, he straightened.

The erstwhile wearer of oriental garb, when he left the shack, was a striking personality. He seemed enormously larger than he had before, but it was only by comparing his size to the proportions of the shack that his true Herculean build was evident.

The man’s complexion was a metallic bronze, a hue that could only have come from exposure to a good many tropical suns. His hands and neck were notable for the unearthly size of the tendons and muscles which stood out under the bronze skin at each movement.

Most striking of all, however, were the eyes which caught stray light rays from a near-by street lamp. They were weird eyes, like pools of flake-gold which were being stirred continuously. There was a strange quality in them, a power to compel. They were hypnotic eyes.

The bronze man’s features were regular, firm, and possessed an aspect of undeniable handsomeness. He swung along the gloomy street with a silent, athletic ease.

So outstanding was his appearance that a cab driver, glimpsing him by chance, stopped short and stared, mouth agape.

“Blimme!” breathed the hackman. “Wouldn’t that bloke be a tough one in a fight!”

It was many hours before that hack driver ceased to see, in his mental eye, the astounding bronze man whom he had merely glimpsed.

The driver was so awe-struck that he failed to note a furtive individual who passed him in the near-by gloom. This man was the one who had been watching from behind the dock bitt, and he was trailing the giant of bronze. He did his shadowing furtively, showing experience at the art, and he seemed confident that the bronze man had not observed him.

The bronze man seemed in no hurry, nor did he give evidence of having a definite destination. He walked to the north, then swung west, and came finally to a corner. He loitered there for a time, apparently waiting for some one. His hands rested behind him, as if to support his weight, as he lunged against the corner.

The man who was shadowing the bronze individual was not close enough to note that the bronze man was doing something with one of his hands—he was apparently writing on the glass of the show window against which he leaned.

After a while, the bronze man walked on, moving slowly, heading into streets which were dark and filled with smells none too appetizing.

The shadow fell in behind.

Slightly less than five minutes later, two men approached the corner where the bronze giant had loitered and written on the glass show window. These two newcomers carried bags, and came from the direction of the dock where the transatlantic liner had tied up.

The pair were quarreling. They seemed on the point of flying at each other’s throats.

“You awful mistake of nature!” gritted the one who was slender and extremely dapper of dress, and who carried a thin, black cane. “I’m ashamed to be seen with you, and especially with that filthy hog you’re leading!”

“A horse collar for you, you overdressed shyster!” growled the other.

The latter’s head came scarcely to the shoulders of his companion, who was not tall. But the man lacked very little of being as wide as he was tall. His arms were some inches longer than his stubby, bowed legs, and hands and wrists were rusty monstrosities from which grew hairs as thick as small shingle nails.

The man had an incredibly homely face, garnished with a mouth so huge that it seemed his maker had had an accident. He could easily be mistaken for a gorilla on the gloomy street.

“Go on, take a taxi to your hotel,” snapped the man with the black cane. “Otherwise, some of these bobbies are likely to throw you in the local zoo, you missing link!”

The homely one said with a small, almost childlike voice, “If you think I like going around with an overdressed snob, you’re nuts, you pain in the neck!”

At the apish man’s heels trailed a pig. The pig was a remarkable specimen of the porker family, obviously a runt who would never grow beyond his present size—that of a small dog. The pig had long, thin legs, a gaunt body, and ears so huge that they looked as if they might serve for wings in an emergency.

The dapperly dressed man glared at the pig and wrenched at his black cane, which came apart near the handle, disclosing that it was a sword cane with a blade of fine steel.

“I’m certainly going to turn that hog into breakfast bacon one of these days, Monk!” he promised fiercely.

“Any time you’re ready, Ham,” growled the apish “Monk.”

They came within sight of the corner where the bronze man had loitered. They stopped, seeming surprised.

“Doc ain’t there!” grunted the gorillalike Monk.

“Hm-m-m,” said “Ham,” and absently sheathed his sword cane. “I wonder what happened? Doc said he would meet us there after he gave those newspaper men the slip.”

They advanced, looked the vicinity over, and found no trace of the individual whom they sought.

“Maybe Doc left a message,” Monk said, small-voiced.

The hairy fellow opened one of the leather bags and withdrew what at first might have been mistaken for a folding camera. He touched a switch on the side of this and pointed the round lense at the corner. The lense, instead of being clear glass, was purple, almost black.

Eventually, the homely man passed his queer device over the glass window. A strange thing happened. Written words sprang out where none had been before. They glowed in an eerie, electric blue.

MONK AND HAM: A MAN IS FOLLOWING ME. I AM CONTINUING ALONG THIS STREET. FOLLOW AND GRAB THE FELLOW.

DOC

Monk switched off the cameralike device without comment. Both he and Ham had received such messages from Doc Savage on other occasions, and knew that Doc had written the missive with a chemical chalk which was normally invisible, even with a moderately strong microscope, but which fluoresced, or glowed, when exposed to the ultraviolet light exuded by the lantern device which resembled a folding camera, or possibly a small magic lantern.

It was by this method that Doc Savage habitually left messages for his associates—and Monk and Ham were two members of Doc’s group of five unusual aides.

Monk—Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair—despite his low forehead and apish appearance, was one of the most learned industrial chemists alive. Ham—Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks—the dapper dresser was a lawyer whose oratorical powers had swayed many a jury, and whose keen legal mind was capable of grasping the most intricate problem of law.

The two sought the shadows and glided up the street. They were working in harmony now, their late quarrel temporarily elapsed. As a matter of fact, they were the best of friends, although acquaintances could not recall having heard one speak a civil word to the other.

The homely pig—Monk had long ago named him Habeas Corpus to aggravate Ham—followed them silently at a word from Monk. The pig was well trained. Monk spent all his spare time—rather, that which was not expended in goading Ham—in training Habeas.

A few minutes after Monk and Ham merged themselves with the shadows of the Southampton street, there was a sudden outburst of peculiar sounds. These came from a point some distance up the murky thoroughfare.

The sounds were such as might be made by two small dogs and a very big rat. The growling of the dogs was absent, but not so the noises of the rodent. Perhaps such burghers of Southampton as were aroused by the brief outburst did believe it to be made by prowling canines, and accordingly dismissed it, for no one came to investigate.

No one, that is, with the exception of Doc Savage. The giant of bronze was loitering along when he heard the small tumult. He promptly wheeled, retraced his steps and almost at once came upon Monk and Ham.

“Good work,” said the bronze man, in a voice which was striking for its controlled power.

Monk and Ham had seized the individual who had been trailing Doc Savage. This man was a thin-faced fellow with the neck of a turkey and the round body of a stunted ostrich. There was an ostrich aspect about his eyes, as well, for they were large for his thin face. He was attired in dark clothing, and his black hat had fallen off in the scuffle as he was seized.

The pig, Habeas Corpus, was engaged in systematically pulling the hat to pieces.

Doc Savage produced a flashlight which got its current from a self-contained spring generator, gave it a wind, and then twisted the lense head so that the beam became very wide. Not only was the captive’s scrawny face illuminated, but the bronze man’s as well.

For several seconds, nothing was said or done. The remarkable bronze man merely studied the captive—and the latter stared at Doc, looking very uneasy, moistening his lips often. There was something grim and terrible about the bronze giant’s features.

“Blimme!” the captive gulped. “I wasn’t meaning no harm!”

“You were following me,” Doc pointed out.

The other nodded. “Picked your trail up at the boat. I won’t deny that.”

The homely Monk put in, “Here’s what he had in his pockets,” and extended several articles in the palm of a hairy hand.

Doc turned the flashlight on the objects and saw cards bearing the inscription:

W. P. WALL-SAMUELS

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

There was also a badge of the type issued to private detectives in England.

“That’s right,” the prisoner said earnestly. “I am W. P. Wall-Samuels, a private operative.”

“Who hired you to trail me?” Doc questioned.

“No one,” Wall-Samuels denied.

“Of course we will believe that!” the sword-cane carrying Ham clipped dryly.

“It’s the truth,” Wall-Samuels insisted. “I was following you on my own initiative. You see, I had a business proposition to put up to you. I had an idea you would avoid the newspaper men, so I watched the gangways where they were unloading baggage. Sure enough, I recognized you under your oriental disguise. I had seen your picture before.”

Doc Savage asked, “What is your business proposition?”

“I hoped to persuade you to become my partner in a London detective agency,” said Wall-Samuels. “With you as my partner, I could make a lot of money. You would not even have to do any of the work. Just lend your name to my firm, and take half the profits.”

“Blazes!” snorted Monk. “The brass of this guy!”

Wall-Samuels looked injured. “Then you won’t become my partner.”

“No,” Doc said.

“If you were Doc’s partner, somebody would kill you within twenty-four hours,” the homely Monk growled.

“I’ll take that chance,” said Wall-Samuels.

“No,” Doc told him again.

Wall-Samuels scowled and snapped, “Then I’ll thank you to let me go free!”

“Release him,” Doc directed.

With reluctance, Monk and Ham took their hands off the person of the private detective, and the latter stood erect, glanced around, saw Habeas Corpus putting the final touches on the ruination of his hat, and fell to glaring.

“You owe me a new hat!” he grated.

“You’ll get a swift kick where it’ll do the most good, if you don’t haul out of here,” Monk promised.

Muttering under his breath, Wall-Samuels took a hasty departure.

Wall-Samuels walked in the middle of the sidewalk, making his footsteps heavy, until he rounded a corner and judged himself out of hearing of Doc Savage and his two companions. Then Wall-Samuels ducked into a doorway and waited for some minutes, eying the gloomy shadows along his back trail and listening. He became satisfied that he was not being followed.

Arising on tiptoe, Wall-Samuels began to run. He slackened his pace to a walk when he sighted a bobby, then ran again, keeping to the more gloomy side streets until at last he reached a corner which held a shop that was labeled, “Apothecary.” In the United States, this establishment would have been called a drug store. It held telephone booths.

Wall-Samuels secured a number.

“Chief?” he asked.

“All right, what is it?” snapped an impatient voice. “Did you follow Doc Savage?”

“Not very far,” Wall-Samuels admitted ruefully. “I picked up his trail when he left the liner by the cargo gangway which I was watching. But somehow he found out I was on his heels—or his two men, Monk and Ham, found it out. I don’t know how they did it. But they grabbed me before I knew what was happening.”

“You were warned to be very careful!” grated the other over the telephone wire.

“How in the bloody deuce was I to know this man Savage wasn’t human?” Wall-Samuels snapped. “I was as careful as I could be.”

“What happened?” queried the other impatiently.

“I fed Doc Savage and his two men a fast story,” Wall-Samuels chuckled. “I always carry fake private detective credentials with me, and I told them I was a private sleuth who wanted to take Doc Savage on as a partner.”

“Did you think they would swallow that silly yarn?” the distant man asked sarcastically.

“It was a good story,” the false detective growled. “And they believed it.”

“You sure?” asked the distant man.

“Positive!”

“All right—here is what you are to do,” said the voice over the wire. “You are to go back and shadow Doc Savage again. Do it so that he will catch you once more. I don’t think you will have any trouble with that part, after the flop you just made.”

“Let him—catch me again!” Wall-Samuels wailed. “But I do not understand this.”

“It has become necessary to get Doc Savage out of England,” said the other. “When he catches you this second time, you are to tell him a story which will cause him to leave.”

“But what can I tell him?” Wall-Samuels asked wildly.

“Tell him that William Harper Littlejohn, one of his men, sailed on a boat last night for South America,” directed the other. “Tell him you are not sure what it is all about, except that William Harper Littlejohn was trailing somebody, and left a letter containing the particulars behind for Doc Savage.

“Tell Doc Savage you were hired by the man whom Littlejohn was trailing, and that you stole the letter and gave it to that man. Then tell Savage that you were hired to watch him and radio the man who hired you if Doc Savage made a move to go to South America.”

“This is complicated,” Wall-Samuels groaned.

“You are an expert liar,” the distant speaker complimented. “You can put it over. The idea is to get Doc Savage to take a boat for South America, thinking he is following his helper, William Harper Littlejohn, or Johnny, as they call him.”

“Where is Johnny?” the fake detective wanted to know.

“We have him,” said the other. “The fool got to chasing King John’s ghost up in The Wash region, and we had to seize him.”

“This is bad,” Wall-Samuels muttered.

“Do not fall down on this,” growled the distant voice. “We have other troubles on our hands, too, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wehman Mills.”

“What about him?”

“He has disappeared in Brest, France.”

“What in the hell was he doing over there?” asked Wall-Samuels.

“He said he had to have certain machinery, and I sent him over with some of the men,” replied the mastermind. “Now he’s disappeared.”

“Think he’s wise to the set-up?”

“It looks as if he was. I have the men hunting for him.”

“What about his niece? She’s in Brest, isn’t she?”

“Yes. But we’ll take care of that end. You get Doc Savage out of England. We cannot have him hunting this Johnny.”

“I’ll do my best,” promised Wall-Samuels.

Then he hung up, freed himself from the telephone booth and walked outside.

The instant he was through the door, two men stepped close to him from either side. It happened so swiftly that he did not even have time to try to escape. Muscular hands gripped his arms.

Wall-Samuels tried to assemble his shattered composure, and exploded, “What does this mean?”

His two captors were Monk and Ham.