Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 051 - Mad Eyes

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MAD EYES

A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson

http://www.blackmask.com

? Chapter I. NIGHTMARE OF MONSTERS

? Chapter II. VANISHED TRAIN

? Chapter III. DOC SAVAGE ACCUSED

? Chapter IV. MISSING GLOBES

? Chapter V. THE RUMBLING TRUCK

? Chapter VI. HAM SEES MONSTERS

? Chapter VII. DOC’S STRANGE ATTACK

? Chapter VIII. THE VANISHED SAFE

? Chapter IX. TWO DOC SAVAGES

? Chapter X. TEETH OF THE RATS

? Chapter XI. SKYSCRAPER MURDER

? Chapter XII. THE PROFESSOR’S FINISH

? Chapter XIII. MURDER IN THE NIGHT

? Chapter XIV. FEAR OF MADNESS

? Chapter XV. TRAIN IN THE NIGHT

? Chapter XVI. UNDER THE MOUNTAIN

? Chapter XVII. CAVERN OF MONSTERS

? Chapter XVIII. MEN WHO LIVED AGAIN

? Chapter XIX. END OF THE DOCTOR

? Chapter XX. WHEN CRAGROCK FELL

Chapter I. NIGHTMARE OF MONSTERS

"THEY’RE after me!" screamed the gaunt, loose-jointed man. "Take them away!" His voice cracked out

with a nasal twang.

The man’s arms were long. His big hands flapped. He was beating at the empty air about him. One set of

fingers clutched suddenly at his colorless hair. The hand came away with strands the man had torn loose.

The long man was clad in brown overalls. Lights slanting across the railroad yards showed him to be

beyond middle age. His wild, terror-filled screams were loud enough to be heard above the grinding and

the clanking of switch engines.

A cut of freight cars was being shunted onto a siding. The running man evaded these by only a few feet.

He was headed back toward the building from which he had dashed.

A thin rain slashed down on the railroad yards. The mist of it almost obscured the building from which the

man had darted.

"They’ll tear me to pieces!" screamed the man.

He pitched to his hands and knees in the middle of a track. Two brakemen were riding the bumper step

of a switch engine. One man shouted hoarsely.

"Hey! Look out! You gone nuts? You’ll be pulverized!"

The brakie’s lantern swung. The switch engine stopped with a squealing of brakes. The two railroad men

scrambled off. But the tall man had leaped to his feet.

"Grab ‘em!" he shrieked. "That one’s got ten heads!"

The two brakemen tried to seize and restrain the fellow. The man was too quick for them. His hands

apparently were batting at nothing.

"They’re everywhere!" the tall man continued to scream.

Having escaped the switch engine, he leaped across the tracks. He tried to reënter the building from

which he had come. But there appeared to be no doors.

"That’s the watchman—an’ he’s gone nuts!" growled one brakeman. "Anybody’d go off his bean, locked

up in that crazy place every night!"

"Yup!" barked the other railroad brakie. "This big guy, Doc Savage, fixed them doors. Even the

yardmaster can’t open ‘em!"

THE doors of the long, low, concrete building were as described by the railroad men. The structure,

unlike other industrial plants along the metropolitan railroad yards, bore no sign.

In the thin rain, the building looked much like a tomb. No windows appeared anywhere. The wildly

screaming watchman had emerged from a small door. This door was of chromium steel.

One end of the long building appeared the same as the other. But at intervals—perhaps twice a

week—one end would slide open. When this took place, the yardmaster would be notified.

All of the incoming and outgoing shipments were handled in special sealed cars. None of the regular yard

crews were ever permitted inside. It was not surprising that the railroad men viewed the plant with

suspicion.

Especially ominous were those doors. On a few occasions, the railroad men had seen persons connected

with the plant enter the place. It seemed to the railroad men that these persons merely stopped and

looked at that small, low door of chromium steel.

The yardmen were not aware the small door and the house track slide were locked by an electroscopic

device. Those opening the doors were equipped with radio short-wave control of these electroscopes.

The screaming watchman had now returned to the small door.

For a few seconds he beat his fists against the steel. His voice still rose above the pounding of wheels in

the yards. When he was not hitting the door, the man was whirling and striking at something invisible to

the near-by brakemen.

"Guess we’d better sit on ‘im an’ get one of the yard bulls to take ‘im out," suggested one of the

brakemen. "He’ll bump into something around here!"

Though the engineer and fireman of the switch engine climbed down and joined the chase, the screaming

man evaded them.

His long arms writhed above his head, as if he were being tortured. Though he might have been, as the

railroad men imagined, in an advanced stage of delirium tremens, John Corbin, the trusted watchman,

never would describe the frightful monsters he may have seen.

Leaving the concrete building, the man started running across the maze of yard tracks. He leaped and

screamed, tearing off some of his clothing. The four men of the switch-engine crew were close behind

him.

"If he runs into one of them third rails—"

One of the brakemen yelled this. His cry was lost in the roar of a local train coming out of Manhattan.

The crazed watchman apparently just missed being struck by this train.

He had fallen and rolled over when the local flashed past. Now he again staggered to his feet. The

blinding headlight of a limited express came across the yard and bore down on the watchman.

The crew of the switch engine stood frozen to the spot. They could do nothing more. Against the brilliant

headlight of the express, the leaping watchman showed for a few seconds. His long body with the

flapping arms was like that of some black human bug about to be impaled.

"Goshamighty!" gritted the engineer of the switch engine. "It got ‘im!"

THE roaring express had hit John Corbin, the watchman.

For an instant it was a fearful human projectile. Then the watchman was only a bag of crushed bones,

lying more than a hundred feet from the spot where he had been struck.

The four men from the switch engine were the first to reach the crushed body. The watchman’s face had

escaped disfigurement. But the railroad men were sick.

John Corbin’s eyes were still wide open. Though his hands no longer batted at invisible monsters, all his

features were twisted, as if the man still saw something horrible.

"By criminy!" grunted the engineer. "If that’s what hooch does, I’m never takin’ another drink!"

The whole tragedy thus far had the brand of being an overdose of intoxicants.

"Couldn’t blame a guy for takin’ on a few snifters in that doggoned graveyard buildin’!" said one of the

brakemen.

One of the railroad men had summoned a yard bull. This representative of the law had in turn put in a call

for a regular State police detail, an ambulance and the nearest deputy coroner. Waiting for the arrival of

proper authority, the yard bull went over to the long, concrete building.

Like the other railroad men, the bull suspected the business of this windowless, lockless structure might

not be on the up and up. But the name of Clark Savage, Jr., was a power with the railroad officials.

Among his countless other interests, the noted Doc Savage had a considerable financial finger in the

affairs of this transportation line. The railroad officials knew only this building was under the control of

Doc Savage. They also knew the plant was operated by a rather queer old codger, a Professor Lanidus

Spargrove.

"That’s funny," muttered the yard bull, walking around the end of the building where two lines of railroad

tracks disappeared under the blank wall of the door. "Never saw it up like that before."

The yard bull bent down in the rain. This end of the concrete building was in darkness. The bull played a

flashlight across the two tracks. The immense door was made to fit down evenly over the rails.

Now the big door was almost a foot above the tracks. It looked as if the door had been opened and then

improperly closed. The yard bull was a bulky man. But there seemed to be space for him to crawl under

the door.

"Might as well have a look," he murmured, and started twisting under the wall-like door.

Something happened. It was noiseless. Only the agonized yell of the yard bull hit the ears of the railroad

men beside the watchman’s body. Two men ran through the rain around the side of the building.

The yard bull had screamed only once. What the two railroad men saw was worse than the body of the

watchman. The door over the tracks had dropped.

The yard bull had been part of the way under it.

THERE were two cases awaiting for the county police and the deputy coroner. That of the yard bull was

the most horrible. But the brakemen, still beside the watchman’s body, had quit looking at the twisted

face.

"I’m signin’ off this yard after to-night," muttered one of the men.

The twin lights of a motor car showed on the highway just below where the body of the watchman lay.

The car stopped. Apparently the driver had been attracted by the railroad men’s lanterns near the track

above.

The man who got out of the automobile was a bulky figure. Yet he moved up the embankment with the

easy, soundless steps of a cat. A slicker over his other clothes protected him from the rain.

"What’s happened here?" said the new arrival. "One of your men get hit?"

"No," said one brakeman. "It’s the old guy who had the job of watchman at that nutty building without

the windows. Acted like he’d been hit by the D. T.’s an’ run right into the—"

The brakeman stopped speaking abruptly. His mouth hung open.

The big man from the car on the highway had thrown back his slicker. He had dropped on one knee

beside the dead John Corbin. One big hand was passing softly over the dead watchman’s face.

The stranger was making a swift examination. The light from the brakemen’s lanterns were shining on

him. It was this that had caused the brakeman to quit talking so suddenly.

For the driver’s hands were the color of bright bronze. The skin of his face and his thickly corded neck

was of the same golden hue. The rain slid off his hair as if it were a waterproof mask.

The hair, also, was bronze in color. It was only slightly different from the skin.

The brakeman found his voice again after his survey.

"You must be Doc Savage himself," he said. "Then maybe you know more about this guy than we do.

Say! One of the bulls got hurt over there! A couple of the boys have gone over!"

The big bronze man rubbed the tips of his fingers across the forehead of the dead watchman. He

straightened to his feet. Once more the slicker was around his body. But his eyes were fixed on the

brakemen.

These orbs seemed now to be shining like flakes of polished copper.

"You say one of your men was hurt over by the building?" asked the bronze man. "I shall see about it."

The bronze man walked around the corner of the building. The men there could do nothing for the yard

bull. The door on his body weighed tons. The bronze man stood behind them.

Perhaps the others thought the bronze man only looked at the great door over the house tracks. One

hand was under his slicker. Suddenly, the great door started upward.

"Remove the man," stated the bronze giant. "Have the police been called?"

"Ye-yes, Mr. Savage," stammered one of the railroad men. "I—I guess all this trouble’s over that

watchman hittin’ the hooch."

The body of the yard bull was then removed. The bronze man said nothing. When the railroad men

looked where he had been, he was no longer visible.

POLICE INSPECTOR HIGGINS had an Adam’s apple which seemed to make him mad. When he

talked, this lump slid up and down his thin neck. Inspector Higgins talked most of the time.

"Well! Well! Well!" jerked out Inspector Higgins, walking around the bodies of John Corbin, the

watchman, and the yard bull. "Whyntcha stop ‘im from runnin’ head-on into that express? An’ where’s

the engine that hit ‘im? Why’d this bull crawl under the door, an’ how’d he get out? Answer me that?"

The railroad men attempted to reply to all of these several inquiries at once. One said, "Well, the

watchman was crazy with too much booze an’ he got away from us."

The deputy coroner who was also the medical examiner shook his head mildly.

"You’re all wrong about the liquor," he stated. "This man shows no evidence of having been drinking. It

must have been something else."

The railroad men stared at each other.

"Then it must be that crazy building where Doc Savage makes machinery for war or something," one man

volunteered. "When the watchman came out of there, he was nuts an’ runnin’ in circles. An’ when the bull

tried to crawl in, the door come down on him."

Inspector Higgins hopped around the building on his skinny legs. He took in the railroad door with a

jumping Adam’s apple and a gleam in his eyes.

"Well! Well! Well!" he snapped. "Somebody open these doors, an’ we’ll have a look at what started

this!"

"You have to know how to look at them doors to make them open," grinned a railroad man. "I guess it’s

done with mirrors or something."

"Don’t try bein’ funny!" snapped Inspector Higgins. "You fellas in the yard know how to get cars in and

out! Where’s the yardmaster?"

"He don’t know no more than the rest of us," said another railroad man. "That dump’s Doc Savage’s

own plant, an’ none of the crews ever get inside."

"That’s a good story!" yapped Inspector Higgins. "Then how in time didja get the bull’s body out from

under that door? Will you answer me that?"

"Sure," said a railroad man. "Doc Savage himself just stood there an’ looked at the door. It opened and

closed."

"DOC SAVAGE?" barked Inspector Higgins. "Well, where is this Doc Savage? This is his trouble!

Where’d he go? Why didn’t you hold him here until duly constituted authority arrived?"

A chunky brakeman scratched his head.

"You mean you think we should’ve grabbed Doc Savage himself?" he said. "Say, from what I’ve heard

of that big bronze guy I wouldn’t try grabbin’ him if he was already tied up with barbed wire!"

"I guess you fellas are just dumb because you’re shackies on a railroad, or maybe it’s the other way

around!" sneered Inspector Higgins. "Me, I’m gettin’ into that dump an’ seein’ what’s been goin’ on!

Come on, boys, bust down that little door!"

Inspector Higgins was accompanied by half a dozen of his men. If he said break down a door, it was

their job to do it. They failed, however, to carry out this laudable intention.

"Well! Well! Well!" snapped Inspector Higgins. "Jam it in with the end of a railroad tie!"

But though he added his bony weight to the tie, the improvised door-buster might as well have been

rammed into the two-foot thickness of the concrete itself.

"I would suggest calling Professor Spargrove, the fellow who runs this joint," said one of the railroad

men. "He’ll just look at that door and it’ll open up."

Chapter II. VANISHED TRAIN

WHILE Inspector Higgins was making his useless and profane effort to break down one small steel

door, a closed car was smashing several speed records. This car slewed and skidded alarmingly in the

rain.

"Listen, you misfit of nature, you either slow down or I’m getting out of this bus and walking the rest of

the way!" rasped a stridently sharp voice. "You might bounce that solid skull of yours off the concrete

without any damage, but I’ve got something inside mine I’d like to keep there!"

The apish-looking driver twisted the speeding car dangerously near the edge of the concrete. He seemed

to have an uncanny skill at just shaving the soft shoulder of the highway.

"There wouldn’t be nothin’ much missin’, unless you happened to bite off your tongue," said the driver, in

a childlike voice. "Anyway, I could make this car climb a tree."

"You slow down, or I’m ramming about ten inches of this sword cane into your neck!" snapped the other

man. "Now what—That cursed shote of yours has gone and bit Chemistry! In about a minute—"

The hunched-over driver straightened. One long arm whipped over the back of the seat. A hairy fist

smashed into a flat nose. A voice much like that of some angry child jabbered.

The driver skidded the car to a stop with a reckless disregard for brakes and tires.

"Hey!" yelled the driver. "You take that wrench away from that bob-tailed monkey of yours, or I’ll wring

both your necks!"

The thing in the back seat of the car did look much like a bob-tailed monkey. He was a baboon, and

tailless. Also, he was a smart baboon. The thin, raspy-voiced man in the car was Theodore Marley

Brooks, better known as "Ham."

Ham was a lean man. He dressed in most perfect taste. And he was one of the world’s smartest lawyers.

His companion, Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, was everything in appearance that Ham was not. Known as

"Monk," though he was one of half a dozen leading industrial chemists, he really resembled a gorilla. His

arms were too long and his legs too short. His forehead sloped, and his eyebrows were too near the top

of his skull.

Added to this, Monk was thickly covered with wiry, reddish hair.

THE wild scrimmage now taking place in the back of the closed car was between two of the world’s

oddest animals.

One was an Arabian woods hog, composed of mostly long ears, and long legs. The other was a tailless

baboon. The baboon came from South America.

The hog answered to the name of Habeas Corpus, which was a direct insult to the impeccable Ham. The

baboon had been named Chemistry, with malice aforethought on the part of the lawyer.

Just now, Habeas Corpus had taken a good-sized bite out of one of the baboon’s legs. Chemistry knew

better than to risk himself close to the razor-edged teeth of the hog. A tire wrench was handy.

Chemistry was in the act of trying to brain Habeas Corpus, when Monk interfered. The baboon

chattered and cracked the heavy wrench across Monk’s arm.

"Daggonit!" squeaked Monk. "This time I’ll put that baboon brother of yours to sleep for keeps!"

"That would be no less than fratricide," drawled Ham. "You can’t go killing off your own relatives."

How far this bickering would have continued never would be determined. Monk twisted suddenly back

in his seat.

"Good gosh!" exploded Monk. "Didja see that?"

"Well, what am I supposed to see, and where?" snapped Ham.

"Huh!" grunted Monk. "Well, it was either something that went past us on the road or up on the railroad

or between the highway and the railroad. I just got a glimpse of it an’ then it was gone."

"I knew it," nodded Ham solemnly. "It’s been creeping up on you gradually. Nothing passed us. I see the

lights of a car coming around the bend ahead, but that’s all there is."

Monk scratched his furry head. His small eyes glittered.

"You didn’t see anything that might have been a train?" he said plaintively. "Not on the track—maybe

down here on the road?"

"Too bad, too bad," said Ham mournfully. "I’ll come and see you some time in the hospital. I’ll try and

take good care of Habeas Corpus for you."

Monk started the car. But he continued to stare up at the railroad. About ten minutes before a limited

express had roared northward. Since then, Ham was sure nothing had moved on the lines of rails.

"Perhaps all this mystery about Doc’s new machine has gone to your head," suggested Ham helpfully.

"This must be about the biggest thing he’s ever tried. He hasn’t even taken Renny or Long Tom or

Johnny in on it. They’re supposed to meet us out here at midnight."

"Daggonit!" complained Monk. "You know, I don’t like this! We haven’t seen Doc for three days, then

he calls us by radio. It must be somethin’ Doc’s afraid somebody wants to steal."

Ham and Monk were speeding toward the tomblike plant they knew only as the Spargrove Laboratories.

The same plant where even now one Inspector Higgins was jumping up and down because he had failed

to break in the door.

The inspector, though, had succeeded in raising Professor Spargrove. The excited professor would not

be more than half an hour in reaching his locked laboratories.

HABEAS CORPUS and Chemistry temporarily adjusted their war. They watched each other with

bright, wary eyes.

Ham caught Monk’s right arm.

"Look out," he cautioned. "That driver’s hitting seventy, and he’s taking most of the road."

"Howlin’ calamities!" squawked Monk. "You think I’m movin’ over for any road hog! I’ll—"

Two blinding headlights leaped down the road directly toward their car. For the fraction of a second, it

seemed as if the other driver intended crashing them head-on. Monk quit talking to hold as far to the side

of the highway as he could.

"I told you!" rapped Ham. "Hey, hold her!"

The lawyer’s warning was too late. The flying headlights had stabbed on into the rain. But where the four

tracks of shining, wet concrete had been brilliant, Monk was now driving into what resembled a floating

pool of ink.

Monk’s hand reached out and turned a switch. He clapped huge, over-sized goggles to his eyes. Still he

was looking into a smoky cloud.

An infra-red beam of invisible light should have penetrated almost any smoke screen. But this was

something more than mere smoke. It had the density and opaqueness of black velvet.

Ham let out a yell, but it was somewhat scattered by his head having been banged into the roof of the

car.

The reason for this was simple enough. Their car was no longer on its wheels. In the black cloud, the

automobile had plunged from the road. It was bouncing along on its top. It traveled thus for possibly fifty

yards, before it rolled over and again stood upright

Ham was bruised and scratched in several places. Only the glass being bulletproof and shatterproof had

prevented serious injury.

"All right, you imitation of an ape, I hope you broke your nose!" yelped Ham. "Just why in the devil do

you want to try driving upside down?"

Monk made no reply to this. The inky cloud was now clearing away.

Monk was whipping the car around. But few motor vehicles would have taken that shock and continued

to run.

But the tires were of sponge rubber. The chassis was of special alloy. From wheels to top, nothing much

less than a cannonball could have wrecked this car’s amazing motor.

"Run me offa the road, will they?" exploded Monk. "Daggonit, I’ll show ‘em!"

"Good gosh!" groaned Ham. "Now I’m in for it!"

Riding with Monk on a normal drive was filled with dire possibilities. But riding with Monk when he was

in a hurry was only a degree short of suicide.

THE car which had emitted the inky cloud must have gained at least two miles. It was still being trailed by

a dense screen of smoke. Monk was favored in one respect. A brisk wind was now whipping the rain in

sheets across the highway. This gave glimpses of the concrete in Monk’s headlights. Ahead, the tail-lights

of the other car jumped in and out of Monk’s vision.

"And when you get those fellows, then what?" inquired Ham sarcastically. "They haven’t done anything to

us but throw a little smoke in our eyes."

"I’m findin’ out what kind of juice throws that smoke screen," announced the stubborn Monk. "Maybe

we could use some of it."

Ham was watching the red tail-lights of the other car.

"I wouldn’t be too sure we’ll catch up with that fellow," he announced. "There’s something funny about

that motor. You haven’t been gaining an inch."

Monk had the gas in his car wide open. The big chemist was mad all the way through. He knew Ham

was telling the truth. For ten miles, he hadn’t gained an inch.

"Suppose we call it off and get back to meet Doc," suggested Ham. "The message said midnight. That

isn’t far away."

Monk was holding the car at close to a hundred. The lights bored around a curve. They picked up a pair

of brilliant red reflectors. Ham’s fingers gripped Monk’s right arm.

"Grade crossing, insect!" he rapped. "Pull her down!"

The red reflectors told where the highway crossed the lines of the railroad.

Monk had made no movement to slacken the speed.

Abruptly, the red reflectors disappeared. They were blotted out as if a giant hand had’ smashed them off

the crossing. The night was shattered with a rending, crackling crash. Two red tail-lights went up in the

air.

These lights acted as if they were attached to pinwheels.

The crash died suddenly into a grinding drag. It sounded as if steel and glass were being dragged along

the ground. One wild, human scream of pain came out of the darkness.

"Howlin’ calamities!" exploded Monk, jamming on the brakes. "That car got hit at the crossin’! It’s

smashed to splinters!"

"Hit by what?" Ham grated. "There isn’t a train in sight! Pull over, Monk! We’ll have to look into this!"

The highway swung onto the railroad on a slight grade. Both of the red reflectors had been broken off.

Nearly a hundred yards from the road crossing a bright flame flared up.

"Hurry up, Monk!" shouted Ham, running along one railroad track. "It’s that car, an’ it’s on fire! They’ll

be burned up!"

Ham was correct in part. The blaze was shooting from what had been a part of an automobile. Other

parts were scattered along the track.

Monk had twisted the headlight beams of his own car to cover part of the space. Ham was using one of

Doc Savage’s special generator flashlights. Both men were prepared for the shock of coming upon a

scene of horror.

MONK and Ham reached the blazing fuel tank together.

"Good grief!" rapped Ham. "What became of the people in that car? Say! You don’t suppose they

jumped and made their get-away before the car crashed?"

Monk was standing in the middle of a track, scratching his head.

"It’s confounded funny," he muttered. "Ham, there ain’t any sign of anybody havin’ been in that car, an’ if

there was, what hit ‘em?"

"Why, it had to be a train—" Ham began, then stopped. Then he blurted, "Monk, we didn’t see any

train! That car couldn’t have been hit! It’s been fifteen minutes since that last train passed us!"

"Daggonit!" growled Monk. "I don’t like this! I looked all along the road where we stopped! There ain’t

any place the people in that car could have jumped out! Their lights were movin’ as fast as ours all the

time!"

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MADEYESADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.NIGHTMAREOFMONSTERS?ChapterII.VANISHEDTRAIN?ChapterIII.DOCSAVAGEACCUSED?ChapterIV.MISSINGGLOBES?ChapterV.THERUMBLINGTRUCK?ChapterVI.HAMSEESMONSTERS?ChapterVII.DOC’SSTRANGEATTACK?ChapterV...

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Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 051 - Mad Eyes

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