The Polar Treasure - Robeson Kenneth - Страница 10

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"I have your men located, Doc," said Johnny. "They halted their sedans before a low-class rooming house. Renny and Long Tom radioed me the location from the plane, where they were watching, and I arrived in time to see the men enter."

Johnny added an address on New York's lower east side. It was not far from Chinatown.

"Be right with you!" Doc replied, and hung up.

Monk was already half through the door.

"'Hey!" Doc called. "You're staying here."

"Aw!" Monk looked like a big, amiable pup who had been booted in the ribs. He was disappointed. He did love action!

"Some one has to guard Victor Vail," Doc pointed out.

Monk nodded meekly, pulled out his makings, and started a cigarette as Doc went out.

DOC SAVAGE'S gray roadster was equipped with a regulation police siren. He had authority to use it. His careening car touched eighty several times.

A dozen blocks from his destination, he slowed. The wailing siren died. Like a gray ghost, Doc's car slipped through the tenement district.

He pulled up around the corner from the address Johnny had given.

A tall man was selling newspapers on the corner. The fellow was very thin. His shoulders looked like a coat-hanger under his plain blue suit. The rest of him was in proportion, incredibly skinny.

He wore glasses. The right lens of these spectacles was much thicker than the left. A close observer might have noted that this left lens was in reality a powerful magnifying glass. For the wearer of the unusual spectacles had virtually lost the use of his left eye in the World War. He needed a powerful magnifier in his business, so he carried it in his glasses for handiness.

The newspaper vender saw Doc. He came over. As bony as he was, it was a wonder he didn't rattle when he walked.

"They're still in the room," he said. "Third floor, first door to your right."

"Good work, Johnny," Doc replied. "You armed?"

Johnny opened his bundle of papers like a book. This disclosed a small, pistollike weapon which had a large cartridge magazine affixed to the grip. A more compact and deadly killing machine than this instrument would be difficult to find. It was a special machine gun of Doc Savage's own invention.

"Fine," Doc breathed. "Wait on the street. I'm going up to that room."

THE STEPS whined under the giant bronze man's considerable weight. To avoid the noise, he leaped lightly to the banister. Like a tight-rope walker, he ran up the slanted railing.

He took the second flight in the same manner, not troubling to see if those steps squeaked also. By using the banister, he avoided any electrical alarms which might have been under the steps.

A white rod of light lying close to the floor marked the bottom of the door he was interested in. He listened. His keen ears detected men breathing. One grunted a demand for a cigarette.

Doc Savage lurked outside the door perhaps two minutes. His mighty bronze hands were busy. They dipped into his pockets often. Then he turned and started up another flight of steps in the fashion of the first two.

The structure had five floors. A creaking hatch let Doc out on a tarred roof. He moved over to a spot directly above the window of the room in which his quarry waited.

A silken line came out of his clothing. It was thin, strong. One end he looped securely about a chimney.

Like a spider on a string, Doc went down the cord. His sinewy hands gripped the line securely. He reached the window.

Hanging by one thewed fist, he dropped the other hand into a coat pocket. He boldly kicked the window inward. Through the aperture his foot made, he threw the objects he had taken from the pocket. A roar of excitement seized the room interior.

Back up the silken cord, Doc climbed. He 'had no more trouble with the small line than he would have with a set of stairs. At the top, he replaced it inside his clothing. He seemed in no hurry.

Below him in the room, the excitement had died a mysterious death.

Doc ambled to the front of the building and seated himself on the parapet. Below, he could see the gaunt Johnny with his papers.

"Poi-p-e-r-s!" Johnny was bawling lustily. "W-u-xtra! Latest poi-p-e-r-s!"

No one would have dreamed Johnny was actually doing all the bellowing to cover any sounds from within the building.

Nearly ten minutes elapsed before Doc Savage went down to the third-floor room.

On the hallway carpet lay many colorless glass bulbs about the size of grapes. Doc had spread these there. Men charging out of the room had trampled many of them, crushing them. This had released the powerful anaesthetic they held. Any one near, and not equipped with a gas mask, was certain to become unconscious.

The hallway floor, and the room itself, were littered with senseless men.

Doc stepped in, avoiding the unbroken bulbs of thin glass.

His bronze hand made a disgusted gesture.

Ben O'Gard was not among the vanquished!

DOC SAVAGE let his eyes range the room again, making sure. He noted that all the glass balls of anaesthetic which he had tossed through the broken window had been shattered. None of the gaslike stuff remained in the room or corridor — Doc had waited on the roof long enough for it to be dispelled.

Ben O'Gard was certainly not present. These were merely the gang Doc's men had trailed here.

"Bag anybody of any importance?" Johnny asked from the doorway. He had thrown his bundle of papers away.

"Not to us," Doc admitted. "We'll send these gentlemen upstate for our usual treatment, though. I imagine every one of them has a police record."

Johnny inspected the unconscious villains judiciously. "I'll at least bet our treatment can't hurt them any. But what about the chief devil, Ben 0'Gard?"

"He simply wasn't among those present."

Doc and Johnny now loaded the prisoners aboard their cars. Doc's roadster held several.

Johnny's machine was a large touring car of a model at least ten years old. The thing looked like a wreck. A used-car dealer, if asked what he would give for it, would probably have taken one glance and said: "Twenty dollars! And I'm robbing myself at that!" Yet within less than a year, Johnny had paid three thousand dollars for the special engine in it. On a straightaway, the old wreck might do a hundred and fifty an hour without unduly straining itself.

They got their prizes in both cars and drove uptown. They parked before the white spike of a skyscraper housing Doc's office. Loading the captives into the elevators, they took them up to Doc's headquarters.

Gales of derisive laughter met them as they unloaded in the corridor. It was Ham laughing.

Doc stepped into the office.

Homely, hairy, gorillalilte Monk sprawled in a chair. He held his bullet of a head in both furry hands. He rocked from side to side. His doleful groans made a somber orchestration for Ham's uproarious mirth.

A trickle of crimson wriggled through Monk's fingers.

Doc thought for an instant that Monk had been goading Ham again, and for once had been too slow in dodging the whack with the sword cane which Ham inevitably aimed at him.

Then Doc saw the implement which had struck Monk. This was a heavy metal paper weight. It lay on the rug. A twist or two of Monk's coarse, rust-colored hair still stuck to it.

Doc noted something else.

Victor Vail was gone!

"WHAT HAPPENED?" Doc Savage demanded.

Ham tried twice before he choked down his mirth.

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