Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 039 - The Seven Agate Devils

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THE SEVEN AGATE DEVILS
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE CAMPHOR WRAITH
? Chapter II. ACCIDENT CASE
? Chapter III. THE SECOND CORPSE
? Chapter IV. THE VAULT TRAP
? Chapter V. THE ROCK DEVIL
? Chapter VI. THE BALD-HEADED GIRL AGAIN
? Chapter VII. THE OMINOUS BEQUEST
? Chapter VIII. TURKEY-NECK
? Chapter IX. ONE MILLION
? Chapter X. CAMPHOR WRAITH UNMASKED
? Chapter XI. END AND BEGINNING
? Chapter XII. DEATH WARNING
? Chapter XIII. GRIM MANSION
? Chapter XIV. AGATE DEVIL AGAIN
? Chapter XV. DESTINATION UNKOWN
? Chapter XVI. THE DEVIL’S BREW
Scanned and Proofed by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. THE CAMPHOR WRAITH
SOME ONE who made his living with words once said that drama is everywhere. Presumably, this was
intended to mean that many persons contact adventure and fail to recognize it.
This was undoubtedly the case at the Los Angeles airport on one particular Monday evening. There was
something sinister underway. But no one was sharp-eyed enough to realize it.
This was explained by the fact that the two men in the black coupé were good actors. There was nothing
furtive or suspicious about the manner in which the car drove into the parking lot, where hundreds of other
machines were already stationed.
The two did not leave their car immediately. They might have been just two more spectators.
It was an inspiring scene over which their eyes roved. The airport administration building, around which the
milling throng was most dense, was washed with brilliant light. Beacons cut great swaths through the
darkness, and out on the field ground lights were rows of colored dots. Every available source of illumination
at the airport appeared to have been tapped.
Somewhere among the parked cars, a pint-size newsboy with a barrel-size voice was shouting:
"World-girdling airship to touch Los Angeles! Read about it!"
The two in the coupé listened icily to the boy’s shouting.
"Doc Savage and two aids aboard airship!" yelled the news-vending urchin.
The two men in the coupé looked as if a hornet had suddenly blown into the car.
The newsboy howled, "Doc Savage making mystery trip!"
"Mystery trip!" one snarled. "Savage ain’t kiddin’ nobody! He’s found out about them agate devils! He’s maybe
got a line on our whole—"
"Shut up, you nut!" gritted the other. "Somebody might overhear!"
The other put out his jaw angrily. "Who you gettin’ tough with?"
"You, you dope! Talking about agate satans! Next thing you’ll be broadcasting to the world that in China and
Germany and England and—" The man stopped and swallowed. "This is too big to take any chances with."
HE was a large man, who had the look of one who made his living with his muscles. There was little
intelligence perceptible in his heavy-featured, brutal face. He was the type who did what he was told, and
probably was not too particular about what it was. His clothes were flashy and in bad taste.
The second man began to speak.
"That airship came from Europe, and is a new type, making an experimental flight around the world," he said.
"Doc Savage joined the crew unexpectedly in New York. He is not going on around the world, but is getting
off here; so there’s not much doubt about what he’s coming for."
This man was rather slender, remarkably well dressed, and would have been handsome had it not been for
the lower part of his face. He had a hybrid visage. His eyes, his forehead, were fine and delicate. The rest of
his countenance was rather terrible. Something had happened to it in the past, making the skin and flesh
below loose and rubbery. The folds of tissue lay in gullied lines.
The lower part of this man’s face had a somewhat hair-raising way of retaining whatever expression was on it.
It seemed incapable of changing expression voluntarily. The man had a discomfiting habit of fingering his
countenance.
He would push up the corners of his mouth with his fingers, giving his face a grim smile, and the smile would
stay there.
The other man, the one with the muscles, growled. "I’ve heard things about this bronze guy. He’s arsenic to
some."
"We’ll stop him," grunted the hybrid-faced man.
"Yeah?"
"A little agate devil will take care of that."
All the muscles of the other seemed to swell and harden. His voice whispered, "You mean we’re gonna kill
Doc Savage?"
The first man absently touched his lips, straightening them. They remained straight, due to the weird
condition of his facial muscles.
"There is too much at stake to take chances," he said, "Sure, we’ll have to kill him!"
A new sound came into the night air. It might have been a big swarm of metal bumble-bees in the distance.
The crowd by the administration building milled more violently, surging toward the confining rail. Faces turned
upward. The distant buzz became louder, a deep-throated drone.
The airport searchlights darted up like great rapiers, probing the black belly of the night. The tip of one of
these beams picked up a silvery glint. Play of all the searchlights concentrated on that point. A huge strange
shape began to take on form and outline.
It was the world-circling dirigible.
The airship descended. A ground crew laid hold of its dangling hand lines, and it was snugged down to a
temporary mooring. Pandemonium broke loose. The crowd surged through perspiring police lines.
It became evident that many of the spectators were interested in more than a mere glimpse of the airship.
They wanted to see some one else, an individual of whom they had heard a great deal. The throng surrounded
the dirigible passengers as they began to alight. These latter wore ordinary business garments, for the
dirigible accommodations were the height of comfort and luxury.
Whenever a passenger of more than ordinary size appeared, a roar went up from the crowd.
"There’s Doc Savage!"
A moment later, they would find they were mistaken.
Men garbed as the dirigible crew got little attention. It was easy to sort these men out. They wore rather
unusual cover-all suits—a special stratosphere garment, with attached hood.
Thus it happened that the crowd overlooked a little group of three figures, clad in the stratosphere suits, that
moved across the field to the operations office. One of the trio was short, immensely broad, with long simian
arms which dangled hairy hands below his knees. The other figure was slender, of medium height, and
carried one article oddly at variance with his aërial garb: a thin, black cane.
The third member was far the most dominating of the trio. His size was remarkable. The stratosphere suit
hood was over his head, and there was a flap with goggle attachment down over his features, concealing
them completely.
It was possible that, among the spectators, only one individual recognized the trio. This was the fellow with
the unlovely hybrid face.
"There goes Doc Savage and his two aids!" he hissed at his stupid-looking assistant. "Let’s get our job done!"
Doc Savage entered the airport operations office and lifted the goggle flap of the stratosphere suit and
chucked back the hood. Perhaps the most striking thing about the features thus revealed was their bronze
hue and the fine texture of the skin. The modeling of the face—the wide forehead, straight nose, firm
mouth—bespoke rigidly directed force. Sinews of the neck, almost startling in size, indicated tremendous
physical strength.
The bronze man’s eyes lent a touch of weirdness to his countenance. They were like pools of flake gold,
swirled by hidden current. The bronze man spoke and his voice, clear and resonant, perfectly modulated, was
as attention-arresting as a police siren.
"Take care of this, Monk," he requested, and handed his aid a pouchlike bag.
"Monk" pursed a tremendous mouth and handled the pouch gingerly. "I don’t like the dang thing that’s inside
this."
Doc made no reply.
Monk continued, musingly, "What I mean, it’s queer! The whole thing is queer! It’s a dag-gone mystery, and I
hate mysteries!"
Instead of replying, Doc Savage said, "Wait here. I’ll look after the baggage. In the excitement, some of it
might not be unloaded."
A moment later, he was gone.
Monk had a pleasant homely face, which bore out his resemblance to an ape. He turned the document case
in his hands, looking puzzled.
"Do not strain your one brain cell over it," the other man of the trio that had departed the airship, advised.
This individual was slender, dapper, with a high forehead, intelligent eyes and the flexible mouth of an orator.
He still held his thin black cane.
"The great Ham speaking!" Monk sneered. "Knows all, sees all, says all!"
The two glared at each other.
An old acquaintance of the two would not have been surprised. No one could remember either of the pair
having addressed a civil word to the other. Contrarily enough, each had found past occasions to risk his life to
aid the other.
Monk was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, the chemist of Doc Savage’s group of five aids.
"Ham" was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, and one of the smartest lawyers ever turned out of
Harvard.
Doc’s three other aids were not accompanying him on this adventure, for they were practicing their various
professions in other parts of the world. They were "Renny"—Colonel John Renwick—famous for his
engineering accomplishments; "Johnny"—William Harper Littlejohn—one of the greatest living experts of
geology and archaeology; and "Long Tom"—Major Thomas J. Roberts—a wizard with electricity.
Unexpectedly, Monk’s hand which held the document case made a flicking gesture.
Ham, staring at the hand, was puzzled; but only for an instant. Ham did not turn around. Instead, he whipped
a hand inside his stratosphere suit to an armpit where was holstered a machine pistol of Doc’s own design.
"Leave it there!"
The voice came from behind Ham, and sounded as if the speaker were delivering the words entirely through
his nose.
Ham raised his hands, not too briskly, then came around to face the door. The stranger was standing half
across the sill of the door, one foot in and one foot out, as if ready to go in either direction. His gun was a
small cannon, the kind of weapon with which Mr. Colt had cornered the frontier trade when men liked their
hardware substantial to the eye. The gun did not waver.
The man behind the weapon had the face of a beet and the neck of a turkey. So far as could be seen; there
were only two teeth in his mouth; one was in the upper jaw, the other directly below it, and they were
tobacco-stained until they resembled a pair of mahogany pegs.
"They’ve got it!" this strange-looking individual said to some one out of sight behind him. "You can come in
and get it!"
The one who had been spoken to was a woman—a girl, in her early twenties. She was very beautiful.
It was not her clothing that made her such. She wore carelessly a nondescript felt hat, leather jacket, and
one of those rough and ready tweed skirts which look as if they wrap around.
Evidently she had definite ideas about what she wanted. She walked soundlessly in tennis shoes, reached
Monk, and snatched the leather document case from under his arm.
"Here’s a tip!" she snapped. "Clear out, see? Get back on that airship and go around the world, or
something!"
She had a nice enough voice.
Monk growled, "Just what’s the big idea?"
The girl eyed him intently. "You know what you’re mixing into?"
"No!" Monk exclaimed heartily.
"Fine!" said the girl. "Maybe you won’t be killed."
"Haw!" Monk jeered. "Am I scared!"
"You would be," the girl snapped, "if you knew just what you are running up against—"
"Get movin’!" advised the man with the beet face and turkey neck.
Carrying the document case, the girl began to back toward the door.
Then the red-faced, turkey-necked individual holding the gun got a surprise of his own. A voice gritted behind
him.
"Just let go of that cannon!"
THE scrawny-necked man let his arm bend down, and the gun fell out of his hand.
Ham darted to the dropped revolver, scooped it up, and used it to gesture its discomfited owner inside the
room.
Monk’s pleasantly unlovely features were now wearing a smirk of supreme satisfaction.
"Boy, was my ventriloquism good!" he chortled. "If I had a stuffed doll to sit on my knee, I’d join a circus!"
The turkey-necked man and the attractive girl registered surprise. They stared at the door, as if loath to
believe that no one was there, and that the voice had merely been a ventriloquial effort on Monk’s part.
Then Monk proceeded to spoil everything. He reached for the leather document folder, which the girl still held.
She extended it toward him, as if glad to get rid of it.
What happened next gave the homely chemist one of the genuine shocks of his career.
The girl dropped the leather folder. And before Monk could stiffen, resist in any way, she had seized his arm
and the arm had become a lever by which he was yanked toward her, twisted, and sent spinning across the
room. It was beautiful jujutsu.
Monk’s bulk crashed Ham. The big revolver filled the room with noise, and its bullet dug plaster out of the
ceiling.
The girl had lost her hair. In the sudden exertion, the wig which she wore had been dislodged. The girl’s head
was absolutely bald.
She started forward, as if to seize the document case.
"No!" barked her companion. "The dude’ll use the gun before you can get it!"
The girl surrendered ideas of securing the case, spun, sprinted out of the room. Her companion followed, and
they made quite a clatter running down the corridor leading to the outside.
MONK and Ham were as tangled on the floor as a pair of quarreling octopuses. Their separation was delayed
somewhat by the tendency each displayed to be as rough with the other as possible. Finally they separated,
stood erect, and ran in pursuit of their two assailants.
"She was bald-headed," Monk gulped. "Notice that?"
Ham stared at Monk, and a quick succession of emotions swept his face—rage, utter scorn, superior
contempt. Then—most galling of all to Monk—derisive mirth. Ham emitted a roar of laughter.
"He flies through the air with the greatest of ease," he jeered. "When the lady his arm does seize—"
Monk’s ears got red.
Then came the sound of a car. It was a machine leaving the parking lot in a hurry. Monk and Ham raced
toward the sound.
It was hopeless, of course. The car got away into the night. As it passed under a distant floodlight at the
entrance arch, Monk got a glimpse of the occupants—the woman, and the man with the scrawny neck. Monk
endeavored furiously to find a car which was unlocked, but failed.
He was still at the task, when Doc Savage and Ham came up. Ham had dropped back to find Doc. Ham was
still chuckling.
"Monk was going to join the circus," he smirked. "He’s a ventriloquist. And you should have seen him
rehearse an acrobatic act with the bald-headed girl!"
The miserable sound that came out of Monk’s throat made Ham look very happy.
Doc Savage asked, "What were they after?"
"That document case," Ham declared.
They worked back toward the operations office and, wishing to avoid the throng, made for the rear door.
Doc Savage stopped suddenly. "Wait!"
Monk and Ham halted. Anxious peering into the surrounding darkness showed them nothing.
"What is it?" Monk demanded.
"Detect that odor?" Doc queried.
Monk sniffed. Ham did likewise. They both caught the scent.
"Moth balls," Monk grunted.
"Camphor," Ham corrected.
"That does somewhat describe the odor," Doc said. "But it probably is neither. It has a distinctly different
quality of its own. See if you can detect the stuff on your persons."
Monk and Ham sniffed.
"Not on us," they declared.
"It is distinctly noticeable on my stratosphere suit," Doc told them.
The bronze man finally moved forward again toward the operations office.
"Queer business," Ham murmured. "First, the attempt to seize the document case. Second, that odor."
"I told you it was all a dag-gone mystery!" Monk grunted.
THEY entered through the rear of the brightly lighted main operations office, and Doc Savage removed his
stratosphere suit. He made a bundle of the garments and hailed an airport attendant. Doc handed him the
suit.
"In my baggage you will find an unlocked duffle bag," he told the attendant. "Put this suit there, please."
The attendant took the suit and walked off.
Monk squinted curiously at Doc Savage. "What was the idea?"
"That odor," Doc told him. "So far, we have experienced no symptoms of toxic action; so, presumably, it was
not a poison gas. Yet the odor was strange, quite different. An analysis of it, during spare time, might be
interesting."
"I see," Monk said, vaguely.
Ham flourished his black cane, caught it, then untwisted the handle in a manner that showed the
innocent-looking thing was, in reality, a sword cane.
"That pair wanted the document case!" he snapped.
The homely chemist, Monk, still carried the document case. He tapped it with a finger.
"Let’s look the things in here over again," he said, "and see if we can figure out—"
The words seemed to freeze in his throat—freeze because of a sound that came through the door from the
hallway outside. It carried a quality utterly blood-curdling. The product of a human throat, a cry with agony in
its every pulsation.
Doc Savage was already diving into the hall. The other two followed him. They headed for the shrieks, running
down a dark hall.
The light!
They saw it, quite unexpectedly. It must have been a tremendous light, because it was reflected down
corridors; and even then, its intensity blinded. It had a reddish quality—or was it yellowish? It lasted only a
moment, and then vanished.
They ran on. Doc Savage produced a small flashlight and sprayed light over two lumps on the hall floor.
One of the lumps was the stratosphere suit which Doc had given to the attendant to place in the duffle bag.
The other lump was a human body, contorted in a manner that was utterly grisly.
The shouts had attracted the throng. People began to run up, many of them to take a look at the thing in the
flashlight glow, then regret their impulsiveness.
Most hideous was the hole in the center of the dead man’s chest. A cannon ball going through might have left
such a path.
The dead man was the attendant to whom Doc Savage had given the suit.
"Blaze!" the homely Monk choked. "Lookit!"
A miniature devil carved from agate stood on the floor near the corpse.
The floor was of concrete, and the little devil stood perfectly upright on it. The height of the thing could be
more than spanned by a man’s hand; but the workmanship of it, the proportioning, the carving, was perfect.
It was a rather glassy red in color.
Monk leaned over to pick the thing up. He touched it, howled and wrenched his hand back.
"It’s hot!" he squalled.
Chapter II. ACCIDENT CASE
MONK GASPED, "what killed the guy, Doc?"
Doc Savage, apparently not hearing, dropped a handkerchief over the little satanic image. It was too hot to
hold in the bare hands, but did not quite burn the handkerchief. He picked it up.
"Come on!" he rapped.
They ran through the hallway searching, but found nothing before the crowd, drawn by the cries and finding of
the body, overran the place.
"Hm-m-m," Monk scratched the bristles atop his bullet-shaped head. "It would be kinda hard to find anything
now. But, say, this is the queerest dang thing I ever saw!"
Monk started to say something else, then gave a violent jerk. He had just noted that Doc was carrying a
bundle under his right arm—the stratosphere suit which the airport attendant had been directed to put with
the rest of the baggage. This suggested things to Monk.
"Lookit, Doc!" he gulped. "Remember the funny odor? It was on that suit!"
Instead of answering that question, Doc Savage, who had paused to examine the little satan image, said,
"Here’s something almost as strange. Notice the face of this image." The bronze man handed Monk a tiny
magnifying glass.
Monk observed the face of the little devil image. The workmanship was exquisite.
"Recognize the face?" Doc asked.
"Yours!" Monk squalled. "Doc, this thing has your face!"
"Exactly!" Doc Savage said. "Now, let us look around."
The bronze man had spent almost no time around the body of the slain attendant, but this did not mean he
was not going to make an investigation, for he now roamed over the operations office, flake-gold eyes
searching. Finding nothing, he went outside. He was soon recognized, and became the center of a seething
throng of autograph hunters. He gave up the search.
Some time later, Monk stood on tiptoe under the brightly lighted marquee of the administration building and
stared over the thinning mass of parked cars. He frowned and shook his small head.
"A car was to meet us, wasn’t it, Doc?" he asked. "Funny it don’t show up."
"Nothing was said about the car having a driver," Doc Savage reminded him.
MONK still carried the black document case, and Doc now took this, opened it. It held, among other things,
money and at least two, folded telegrams. Doc removed one of the telegrams, opened it and extended it for
the scrutiny of Monk and Ham. It read:
DOC SAVAGE
NEW YORK CITY
BLUE CAR LICENSE CALIFORNIA 9K7376 WILL BE AT AIRPORT FOR YOUR USE.
MONTGOMERY MEDWIG PELL
"Uh-huh," Monk grunted. "Let’s look around."
They found the car shortly. It surprised them somewhat, for it was a very big, very expensive town car, with
the driver’s compartment open.
"Match you shyster, to see who drives," Monk suggested to Ham.
"Nothing doing!" snorted Ham. "You look the part! The job is yours."
Monk got behind the wheel. Doc and Ham entered the rear, and the machine was put in motion. Doc Savage
rolled down the glass partition which separated them from the driver’s compartment, in order that Monk might
hear what was being said.
Progress proved very slow. There was something of a traffic jam near the airport.
From the front seat, Monk called, "Hey, read that first telegram we got, will you? I’d like to hear it again."
Doc Savage drew back the flap of the document case and extracted a second folded telegram. The traffic jam
was holding their speed down, so Monk had time to read it:
DOC SAVAGE
NEW YORK CITY
HAVE CLIENT WHO HAS AUTHORIZED ME ENCAGE YOUR SERVICES FOR JOB OF SAVING NUMBER
OF LIVES STOP CLIENT SAYS WILL PAY FOR YOUR SERVICES BY CONVERTING ANY REASONABLE
SUM TO ANY CHARITY YOU NAME STOP CAN YOU COME LOS ANGELES AT ONCE STOP IT MIGHT
BE ADVISABLE USE PRECAUTIONS
MONTGOMERY MEDWIG PELL
LAWYER
Monk passed the message back, said, "And so we wired him we could come, and he sent us the other
message about the blue car being at the airport."
Ham said, "It looks as if it were advisable to use precautions. Wonder just what’s back of this?"
No one answered. The big car worried at the traffic stream, making a little better time.
"Blazes!" Monk exploded, suddenly. "Look! This was fastened to the brake lever with a rubber and I just
noticed it!"
He passed back a bit of cardboard. A business card, it bore on the front:
MONTGOMERY MEDWIG PELL
Attorney at Law
Suite 720 Western Bldg
Doc Savage turned the card over. The back of it bore a penciled inscription:
DOC SAVAGE:
Please come immediately to my office in the Western Building.
PELL.
"That," Monk said, "seems to fix us up."
THE Western Building proved to be a gaudy piece of showmanship. The terra cotta facade was illuminated
much too brightly by a profusion of floodlamps. It had a distinctly cheap look.
The neighborhood bore out the feeling of cheap flash. It had been given what is slangily called a "front" at the
outlay of the least expense possible. The sidewalks were too wide, and too cheap, because they were
beginning to crack.
There was an alley alongside the Western Building.
Monk suggested, "I’d better run our bus in the alley and get it out of sight. Some crook might annex the
tires."
"Very well," Doc Savage agreed.
The bronze man and Ham alighted in front of the Western Building, and Doc said, "We will wait here for you."
Monk drove into the alley and discovered a small court recessed into the rear of the office building. Provided,
probably, for the loading and unloading of trucks.
Monk drove into this, turned off the ignition, and got out.
Monk’s small eyes were sharp, and walking much in the paths of danger had given him an almost animal
alertness. This accounted now for his observing of something suspicious.
The something was a man who had popped his head around the corner of a door which opened on the little
freight court. The fellow had obviously been watching Monk, and he jerked back suddenly.
Monk scowled, taking a moment to make up his mind. He was in a suspicious mood after the events at the
airport, so he dashed for the doorway.
The man he had discovered, ran. His feet made noise in a passage. Monk charged after him. The rapidity with
which he gained on his quarry surprised even himself.
The fleeing man was short, but very fat. He was not built for fast movement. Somehow, he resembled a
gorged buzzard trying to get started in flight. He even flapped his arms in a way that carried out that
impression.
The fleeing man was running past open doors, the rooms beyond which were darkened. Monk kept on his
trail, centering all attention on catching him. That was a mistake.
A chair swung out of a darkened doorway and broke itself to bits on Monk’s nubbin of a skull. Monk put his
head down, turned a perfect somersault, landed flat on his back, and did not move.
摘要：

THESEVENAGATEDEVILSADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THECAMPHORWRAITH?ChapterII.ACCIDENTCASE?ChapterIII.THESECONDCORPSE?ChapterIV.THEVAULTTRAP?ChapterV.THEROCKDEVIL?ChapterVI.THEBALD-HEADEDGIRLAGAIN?ChapterVII.THEOMINOUSBEQUEST...

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