Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 035 - Murder Mirage

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MURDER MIRAGE
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. MIDSUMMER SNOW
? Chapter II. "CORPUS DELICTI" IN GLASS
? Chapter III. MEN OF DARK FACES
? Chapter IV. WINDOW ATTACK
? Chapter V. AN ANCIENT WARNING
? Chapter VI. ANALYZING THE STONE
? Chapter VII. A MOB GOES BLIND
? Chapter VIII. FUSSEIN, THE BEDOUIN
? Chapter IX. CHASE THROUGH THE FOG
? Chapter X. BLACK MAGIC
? Chapter XI. WHEN THE BAY BURNED
? Chapter XII. THE BLACK YACHT SINKS
? Chapter XIII. DEATH RIDES THE SKY
? Chapter XIV. CROSS-EYED BEGGAR
? Chapter XV. VANISHED RAIDERS
? Chapter XVI. THE DIRIGIBLE DISSOLVES
? Chapter XVII. VALLEY OF TASUS
? Chapter XVIII. STAND IN THE TOMBS
? Chapter XIX. THE STAKED WOMAN
? Chapter XX. OUT OF THE TOMBS
? Chapter XXI. BURIED DEATH GLOW
? Chapter XXII. FLEET OF DEATH
? Chapter XXIII. THE ALL-WISE ONE
Scanned and Proofed by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. MIDSUMMER SNOW
PATRICK BRENNAN, police patrolman, was the first to see the beautiful woman of glass. Unfortunately,
Patrolman Brennan did not live long enough to report the incredible apparition. The policeman died heroically
in the discharge of duty.
The snow had been pelting down. It had started more than an hour before the lovely, vivid woman was
transformed into a horrible, shadowy silhouette in the window of plate glass. The twin phenomena of the snow
and the ghastly shadow seemed to be wholly unrelated.
Patrolman Brennan might have told something of what really happened, if he had survived. As it was, the
policeman was left lying in the street. His service revolver had belched death. It had taken double toll of his
attackers, but that had not been enough to save him.
Snow is not unusual in Manhattan. Blizzardfalls, such as this one, are rare, but they happen occasionally in
proper time and season. This snowfall was remarkable. It was being recorded by the United States weather
bureau as an all-time mark in freakish weather.
It was nearly midnight when the first stinging particles whipped the faces of the theater crowds on Broadway.
Amazed voices intoned unbelief.
"Can you imagine? A sleet storm! Of all things!"
These and kindred exclamations greeted the beginning of the storm.
IN the offices of the government weather bureau was even more amazement than elsewhere. A gray-haired,
scholarly observer divided his time between a window and his instruments. He frequently consulted his
various graphs.
"Look at that night map," he growled. "We are directly in the area of high pressure extending a couple of
hundred miles into the Atlantic. So it couldn’t be possible!"
"Sure, that’s what the map says," boomed a deep voice. "But that stuff on the window isn’t taffy candy,
mister. I felt it, and I tasted it. It’s snow. You’ll have to make a new map."
The speaker was an authority on maps. For his name stood among the ten or dozen most eminent engineers
in the world. The man’s fists were approximately of the size of his head. And his head was of leonine
proportions.
He was Colonel John Renwick, known to the weather bureau officials, and to thousands of others, as
"Renny." His fame as an engineer was perhaps somewhat less than his position of note as one of the five
adventuring companions of Clark Savage, Jr., better known as the man of bronze, Doc Savage.
"You are correct," stated a smaller man, whose face was thin and of an unhealthy pallor. "It is undoubtedly
snow. Moreover, within a short time there will be a violent thunderstorm."
"You’re crazy!" promptly declared the grayish weather observer. "How could there be a thunderstorm? Look!
The nearest area of low pressure is south of the Carolinas! So there couldn’t be an electrical storm."
The small, thin man shook his head.
"How could there be a snowstorm in midsummer?"
The thin man was Major Thomas J. Roberts, known as "Long Tom." He was another of the companions of
Doc Savage, an electrical wizard.
This was the incredible part of the snowstorm. For it was midsummer. To be exact, it was the midnight of
July 4th. In a matter of only minutes, it would be the morning of July 5th. So, as the weather observer had
insisted, "it couldn’t be snowing."
The oldest resident of Manhattan had never witnessed such a phenomenon. As long as there had been a
weather bureau there had been no such freakish occurrence.
"Look at this," directed the grayish weather observer. "All of the Middle West is having the worst heat wave of
the summer. Boston and all the way to Portland, Maine, show high temperatures. Right now, Washington
and Philadelphia are in the eighties!"
WHILE unbelievable, almost fantastic weather history was being recorded in the offices of the government,
downtown streets rapidly became deserted. Shortly after midnight but little traffic moved in the vicinity of the
shopping districts. The snow had not been deep enough actually to block motor vehicles, but summer-clad
residents had faded from the streets.
The pale headlight beams of a small car penciled into a deserted block near an elevated railway corner. The
little car was a yellow coupé of the "for rent" variety. The driver held to almost the exact middle of the street.
As the coupé turned into the street, there was a loud, squishy blop! Air hissed for a few seconds.
"Oh!" breathed a tense voice. "I was afraid something would happen!"
A front tire had blown out.
Street lights picked out the face of the driver. The face was small, with features exquisitely formed. Large,
luminous eyes reflected the outside light. Slender white hands gripped the steering wheel. These hands were
inadequate to driving with a front tire flat.
The small coupé coughed over to the curb. One side bedded down where the snow had drifted some.
"We’ll have to get out here and go on quickly," said another woman, who was seated beside the driver. "I
know we were followed when we left the airport. We should have separated then."
The fear in the woman’s voice was immediately confirmed. Two other cars were turning into the block. Both
were black, closed sedans. The curtains of both cars were tightly drawn.
The slender young woman under the wheel slid from her position. She pushed the door open against the
storm.
"We’ll go different ways!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "I’ll endeavor to catch an elevated train! Then you can
slip over to the next street and take a taxi!"
The two closed cars, one trailing the other, were moving down upon the coupé. The young woman who had
spoken reached into the little car and snatched a satchel purse of metallic chain mesh from the seat. She
slipped and floundered with her first steps, but she gained the sidewalk and started running.
"You go the other way then!" she cried out to her companion. "Oh, hurry! I’ll get the message to Mr. Savage!
I’ll wait, if you do not get there first!"
One of the two sedans swerved past the yellow coupé. Its invisible driver pulled the car in again close to the
young woman on the sidewalk. She had caught up her light skirts and her trim legs flashed with silk as she
ran. The clinging snow was more than ankle deep.
Four figures sprang from the sedan into the snowy street. These were men of unusually upright stature, but
they moved stiffly. Their feet made dragging motions, as if their legs and bodies were impeded by some heavy
weight.
These men were between the young woman and the elevated stairs at the corner. But they did not move as if
they intended intercepting her. When they sprang from the sedan, they took up a position near the middle of
the street.
The young woman’s mouth was opened gaspingly. Her luminous eyes widened with terror. She could see the
faces of the four men in the street.
"Oh! They’ve come!" she gasped. "I knew they’d come!"
THE faces of the four men were of the color of dull lead. Any one observing them would have had the
impression of corpses walking. Perhaps the young woman imagined that, or it might have been something
more sinister, more appalling.
For a few yards, the four men merely kept pace with the fleeing woman. The color in their faces was caused
by masks. These were fitted snugly over their noses and chins. They covered their necks and appeared to be
attached to the heavy material under their rough outer clothing.
These men did not display any weapons openly. Two carried peculiar-looking instruments. These could have
been an iceman’s tongs, only they had handles several feet in length. The men paced the woman with these
strange devices over their shoulders.
The young woman was nearing the stairway to the "el."
Again she cried out, as if to reassure herself, "I’ll get it to Mr. Savage—"
The black sedan from which the four men had emerged scooted suddenly ahead. The four men edged out into
the street and made way for it. The car speared in between them and the running woman.
The young woman then was in front of the plate-glass windows of a store. This store handled musical
instruments. Its double windows were filled with the gleam of polished silver and brass. The plate glass was
fitted in from the level of the sidewalk. The woman’s shadow was reflected on it like a fleeing ghost.
The door of the sedan next to the sidewalk, popped open. A globe twice the size of a football rolled out. This
sphere had been impelled sharply from inside of the car. The sedan door snapped shut. The globe struck the
sidewalk pavement in several inches of snow.
The snow did not impede the progress of the spherical object. For where the globe touched, there was
instantly no snow.
The fronts of buildings, the skeleton-like structure of the "el," the coupé and the other cars were abruptly
bathed in a weird, greenish light. The light was a warm glowing, yet it seemed to have some substance. It
was as if the air had suddenly been filled with invisible particles.
THE second sedan had been pulled to the opposite side of the street, some distance away. Two men sprang
from this car, running as they hit the street. These men were unmasked. Their white faces looked drawn and
desperate under visors of caps pulled low over their eyes.
The two men swung automatic pistols of heavy caliber. They seemed intent upon reaching the four men with
the dull leaden masks. But they did not shoot. The sedan from which they had come remained standing.
The air was filled with a low, slow hissing. The rolling globe lost the impetus it had been given. It was close to
the young woman.
The woman, then in front of one of the plate-glass windows, gave forth a scream. The cry was high-pitched,
almost animal in its utter anguish. Only death could wring such an emanation from a human throat.
There was another, lesser scream. It was like a minor echo of the death wail. This came from the yellow
coupé from which the young woman had come. A slender figure, closely hooded and cloaked, slipped from
the little car. This was the other woman.
The glowing of the strange globe on the sidewalk was blinding in its intensity. The two men armed with
automatics skidded to a halt in the snow. They cursed wildly and swabbed their coat sleeves across their
eyes.
The slim figure from the car crossed the sidewalk. It reached the building front. The woman ran along the
buildings, guiding herself with one lightly touching hand. Arriving at a cross alley between streets, she darted
into it.
For a few more seconds the whole street was filled with the low, slow hissing. The invisible particles seemed
to fill the air with a minor crackling. The fluorescent, greenish glow gave the snow an unearthly aspect.
With the one soul-chilling scream, the young woman who was attempting to reach the elevated, vanished
from before the tall plate-glass window. The space between this spot and the stairs of the "el" was brightly
illuminated. But the woman did not reach the steps of the "el."
For a matter of seconds, it appeared she might have fallen in the snow; that the fleecy downfall had buried
her. But all around, the snow was melting as if touched by sudden, fierce heat. And when the pavement in
front of the plate-glass windows was smooth and bare, the woman was not there.
The four men in the masks of leaden color moved like automatons. The pair with the long-handled tongs
reached the sidewalk. Between them, they trapped and nipped the globe that had come from the sedan. With
the tongs they swung it back into an opened door of the car.
All climbed in quickly. The sedan jumped away with a clashing of gears. The driver did not appear to be an
expert, but he was in a hurry to leave. The car skidded around the corner, following the line of "el" pillars.
PATRICK BRENNAN, the patrolman, was ringing in at a box in the next cross avenue when the woman
screamed. The patrolman’s teeth had been playing like castanets. His light, summer uniform had not been
made for a July blizzard.
Dropping the patrol box phone, Brennan whipped toward the corner.
Blinding luminance shut off the policeman’s vision as if a camera shutter had clicked. He groped with one
hand around the corner building.
Patrolman Brennan first saw the outline of the yellow coupé. He hard-heeled toward it. His feet were hitting
bare pavement. He clop-clopped over to the little car. His vision caught the music store window. He stared for
a moment, his lower jaw dropping.
Beyond the coupé, the two men from the second sedan started running. They held automatics. Both
stumbled as if partly blinded.
"Hold it, you two!" barked Patrolman Brennan. "What’s this all about? Stop, I say!"
This was a mistake on the part of the policeman. His voice provided the two white-faced men with a target.
Their hands whipped up and the automatics erupted with a mean ripple.
Patrolman Brennan sagged, and he coughed. One hand on the side of the coupé prevented him from
collapsing. The erupting streams from the automatics were all that guided his aim. Though his big body was
slowly sinking, Patrolman Brennan’s hand was steady.
Three jumps of the service revolver and both running men rolled into the snow. One lay still. The body of the
other jerked. Patrolman Brennan was now on his knees. He was unable to rise, so he crawled. He clawed his
way into the street, making toward the halted, second sedan.
The driver of this car ignored the bodies in the street. The sedan moved away mockingly. Patrolman Brennan
lifted his revolver. His finger curled around the trigger. But his strength left him.
Scarlet fluid trickled from the policeman’s lips. It stained the snow in a circle around his head.
The yellow coupé stood alone and empty. All life had gone from the block. The three bodies were only dark
lumps. These were whitening with the still-falling snow.
In the space where the young woman had been before the plate-glass window of the music store was a
blackened area. The pavement looked as if a searing iron had been run over it.
The young woman’s body could not be seen.
On the sidewalk in front of the music store was a queer little collection of objects.
Directly before the plate-glass window lay a satchel purse of metallic chain mesh. The purse had flopped
open. A small caliber automatic pistol, such as a woman might have carried for protection, had slipped out.
A dozen bright metal buttons lay in a glittering cluster. From these emanated the greenish glow which still
lingered over the street.
A diamond ring had rolled to the edge of the curb. An expensive wrist watch and earrings set with emeralds
were close to the window of the music store.
Of the lovely figure which the jewelry had adorned, there was no slightest trace.
Chapter II. "CORPUS DELICTI" IN GLASS
CORDED bronze hands moved deftly among a variety of gleaming instruments affixed to a panel of black
marble. The tiny lights set in the panel were reflected in flaky, golden eyes. The specks of light moved in the
bronze man’s orbs as if they had been caught in small whirlwinds.
Doc Savage’s bronze skin over his corded neck merged with the smooth mask of similarly tinged hair. He
was so motionless in concentration that his head gave the effect of being that of a carved statue.
"There is no doubt but what the snowstorm of itself is isolated and purely local in the New York area," stated
the bronze man. "But there are indications possibly of other distant spots similarly affected. She said there
might be sudden weather changes."
The bronze man’s words were more musing tone, rather than a statement to the three companions then with
him. For nearly an hour, he had been studying the freakish July snowstorm. With the radio and other
instruments, he had been checking many widely separated areas of the world.
The scientific equipment in the eighty-sixth floor headquarters of the noted adventurer was advanced in its
design. With but a touch, Doc Savage could contact almost any latitude.
"Johnny," who never used a short word where a longer one would serve, was busy with the radio.
"This barometric phenomenon is indubitably a solaric manifestation beyond the scope of casual elucidation,"
observed the scholarly geologist and archeologist of Doc Savage’s adventurous group.
"That would be sun spots to you, Monk, if even such simple words come within range of simian
understanding," grinned "Ham," flicking some dust from the sleeve of a suit that was the latest in summer
fashions.
"Monk’s" broad body nearly filled one opened window. His figure was almost as wide as it was long. He
turned and his small eyes snapped with fire under his gristled brows. Hair the color of rust stuck out like
clipped wires around his ears and on his neck. His hands were covered with it. It looked like shaggy fur.
Monk’s body shook with indignation. One furry hand scooped snow from the window ledge.
"In less than a minute, one crackpot shyster will be in the market for a new suit of dude clothes!" he
squealed.
For Ham—Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks—one of the most astute lawyers ever graduated from
Harvard, and Monk—Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, famous chemist—considered any day
misspent without the exchange of caustic insult.
Johnny continued his observations on the weather. The keen, scholarly geologist was tall and bony to the
point of emaciation. As William Harper Littlejohn, he had occupied one of the highest chairs of learning in a
leading university. He spoke in one-syllable words only when he was excited or the going got rough.
"She said there would be sudden weather changes," Doc Savage repeated, glancing at the barometric
reading on the black marble board.
Though the repeated statement was cryptic, none of his three companions questioned its meaning. The
bronze man would explain in due time.
Just now, the blizzard, or snowy tempest, was at its height. Snow swirled around Monk in the opened
window. The impressive skyscraper, with its tower thrusting into the sky, seemed to sway and rock in gusty
blasts.
THE telephone buzzed. Doc Savage swung over to the instrument. Johnny instantly made contact with an
extension. It was a device of Dr. Savage’s which would allow an instantaneous check-back on the number
calling.
But this was Renny calling from the office of the government weather bureau. He had been sent with Long
Tom by the bronze man to keep an added check on the freakish storm. Doc Savage did not usually concern
himself with such matters as weather, but, before the beginning of the snowstorm, he had been given reason
to overlook no detail that might be of value.
"There will be a violent electrical disturbance," announced Doc, ending his conversation with Renny. "It is
Long Tom’s prediction. The weather officials dispute it, but it coincides with my own observations."
The bronze man took two yellow slips from the table. They were telegraph messages. Doc studied them
intently, as if he were reading something written between the lines.
One telegram had been filed in Los Angeles. This read:
DEATH THREATENS MANY PERSONS STOP DISASTER MAY MENACE WHOLE WORLD STOP WILL
YOU HELP US STOP ON MY WAY TO SEE YOU
SATHYRA FOTHERAN
The other message had been filed in Chicago only ten hours later. This stated:
HAVE LEARNED YOU ARE IN GRAVE DANGER STOP BEWARE VISITORS WITH DARK SKINS STOP
MUST GO TO SYRIA IN THE DESERT STOP BE ON GUARD UNTIL I REACH YOU STOP WATCH
CHANGE IN WEATHER CLOSELY
SATHYRA FOTHERAN
"
Sathyra Fotheran," said Doc aloud. "That would be Lady Sathyra Fotheran, the sister of Denton Cartheris."
Johnny eyed the telegrams intently. A quick gleam of interest showed in his keen eyes.
"Lady Fotheran?" he said. "She could be no other, with that peculiar cognomen. She is the sister of the
revelationist of pre-dynastic mortuary disembodiment of the ultra-civilization of the vanished Hittites." Then he
added in crude, concise English, "How I envied that guy, Denton Cartheris. Wasn’t there some question
about his death, Doc, or whether he had really died?"
"Denton Cartheris disappeared during a new trip of exploration after his discoveries in the ancient Hittite
capital," stated Doc. "But information received by his friends indicated he believed he was going to die and
had made preparations for his demise."
Lightning suddenly stabbed across the open window. Its vividness was that of a gigantic, slashing sword.
Thunder cracked instantly with an explosion that shook the skyscraper tower.
"And she said to watch for a change in the weather," mused Doc. "Recent reports show unprecedented
storms in upper Syria. The River Euphrates has been twenty-three feet above all previous high-water records."
"Blast it!" exploded Monk. "How could that be possible? We’re to believe this dame knew in Chicago this
afternoon the weather was due to go on a bust here tonight?"
"That’s how it would seem," stated Doc. "At any moment, we may be hearing more directly from Lady
Fotheran."
The bronze man was not evincing occult insight. He was merely estimating the flying time between Chicago
and New York. The phone buzzed again. Johnny swung to the extension. A woman’s strained, tense voice
greeted Doc Savage.
"Mr. Savage? I’m trying to reach you—"
The woman was spilling words, as if she might have only a few left to use.
"I’m being followed—can’t tell you more—I’m—"
"Where are you?" demanded Doc Savage.
"Thirty-third Street, near the—"
The words ran into a choked gurgle. The instrument bubbled with the woman’s strangled pain. Two slapping
blows came like the breaking of dry sticks. In the bronze man’s ear was only the low hum of an open wire.
The receiver at the other end had not been replaced. Doc was convinced the cord had been suddenly ripped
loose.
"Have you got the trace-back?" said Doc quickly.
"Public booth," announced Johnny, giving an address only a few blocks away.
"Stay here, Johnny," directed Doc. "Be prepared, for you may have a visitor. Watch out for any one with an
Asiatic complexion. Monk and Ham will come with me."
DOC SAVAGE was passing through the outer door before he had finished speaking. He did not pause to arm
himself, because he never carried a gun. His men were equipped with the superfirers of his invention, which
were in reality, convenient automatic machine guns loaded with mercy bullets.
Doc’s special high-speed elevator dropped with the force of a leaden plummet nearly all of the eighty-six
floors.
From the elevator the three men whipped into Doc’s concealed basement garage. The roadster in which they
emerged on the street within less than a minute after the woman had been snatched from the telephone,
looked like any ordinary car.
But bullets would only drum upon its armor metal or flatten on the bulletproof glass.
With Monk at the wheel, Doc instructed, "Take no chances. This may be something much bigger than we
can guess."
Monk was a skillful driver. The car, with its powerful supermotor, grazed the steel of the elevated railway
columns. Monk seemed able to estimate to the fraction of an inch how much room he could allow. The steel
brushed the bronze man’s clothes at times.
Monk turned off the avenue along which ran the elevated. He was swinging around the block to reach the
address of the public phone booth traced by Johnny. This street was almost empty. There was only a small
yellow coupé standing by one pavement. Its nose was bogged down, as if it had been wrecked.
Apparently, the woman’s call had been made at about the time Patrolman Brennan had died in the snow. The
bodies had remained undiscovered.
Monk braked the roadster down. "Howlin’ calamities!" he squealed. "Them humps of snow are bodies!"
BUT Doc Savage was off the running board before the car came to a stop. His quick hands brushed the snow
from the uniform of Patrolman Brennan. The policeman lay as he had been crawling, toward the companions
of the men who had shot him.
The bronze man saw the position of the other two dead men. He observed the automatics still gripped in their
hands.
"A brave copper," murmured Doc. "And—a couple of Whitey Jano’s rats."
Monk and Ham had followed him.
"These two men are Creeper Hogan and Slim Decarro," announced Doc. "They are two of Whitey Jano’s
killers. I didn’t know Whitey Jano used gunmen for ordinary jobs."
"The cop got ‘em," said Monk. "Walked right into it."
"Yes," said the bronze man, "and after they shot him."
He did not explain how he knew this. He was already on his way toward the yellow coupé. For perhaps two
seconds, he remained looking at the little car.
Apparently from nowhere came a low trilling sound. It might have been the throaty whistle of some tropical
bird. A wind through wires could have made somewhat the same sound. Doc’s lips were unmoving but the
vibrant emanation came from him. It was his sign of unusual concentration.
Monk and Ham were beside him. Doc moved slowly along the sidewalk in the direction of the elevated railway
stairs.
"This snow," he said, moving a foot in the thin film, "has been here only a few minutes. The first snow is
gone, yet there is no heated basement under this pavement."
The wide area in front of a music store had been blackened. The seared section of the street showed plainly
through the later snow.
Now thunder cracked and rolled. Lightning played with lurid lashing over the tops of cloud-scraping buildings.
Between these flashes, the building fronts took on a greenish glow.
Doc halted in front of one window of the music store. Brushing aside the new fall of snow, he picked up a
woman’s chain-mesh purse. His fingers touched the cold metal of a small automatic pistol.
He held the purse and the pistol in his hands.
"The initials are S. F.," he stated, pointing to the silvered lettering on the side of the purse. He flicked one of
several cards from a case inside the purse.
"Lady Sathyra Fotheran," he read aloud.
"Blast it!" howled Monk. "Y’ mean them alley buzzards got the lady? Lookit, Doc!"
Doc Savage already had seen what now brought a long gasp from Monk. Monk was scooping up a pair of
earrings and a costly wrist watch.
"Must have stripped the woman of her jewelry and then dropped it when the cop started pluggin’ at them,"
observed Ham. "Here’s one of her rings."
He had discovered the diamond ring glittering in the snow near the curb.
"I think not," stated the Man of Bronze. "Notice the peculiar light. It’s in the snow. It’s stronger in the diamond
than anywhere else."
The fluorescent glow still lingered over the street. The scene was almost like that of a brilliantly painted stage.
It was as if a strong phosphorescent substance, perhaps a special sulphide of zinc, had been spread over
everything.
Again the trilling sound filled the space around them. Only in a moment of greatest stress did this emanate
from Doc. And the man of bronze was standing motionless. His eyes had followed the focusing point of the
strange glow in the street.
"Howlin’ calamities!" squawked Monk. "Danged if I believe what I’m seem’! Ham, do you see it? There in the
window?"
"You are seeing it, Monk," stated Doc. "Rather you are seeing her."
AN "el" train had rumbled to a stop. Several persons came down the stairway. Police sirens wailed from two
directions. The first squad car hooted into the block and the driver picked out Doc’s group in front of the
music store as a point to stop.
Detective Inspector Carnahan was red-faced and choleric. Followed by four men, he sprang out in the snow.
A minute later, he was bellowing orders.
"Ring in the block! It’s Slim Decarro and Creeper Hogan of that cursed Jano gang! They got one of the boys!
There’s been a mob rubout here! Hiya—so you’re here, Savage? What brought you into this, or is this just
one of them funny accidents?"
The red-faced inspector confronted the Man of Bronze.
"It wasn’t any accident," said Doc, calmly.
"Then what do you know about this?" demanded Carnahan. "Who was them Jano killers out to get? An’ how
did it happen they left them rats in the street? I thought we had this rubout stuff about cleaned up."
"It wasn’t a mob feud, inspector," said the bronze man quietly. "It was the murder of a woman."
"A woman! What woman?" barked Carnahan. "Where is she?"
"Right there," pointed Doc. "In the glass of that window."
"In the glass—a murdered woman—sa-ay! You must’ve been eatin’ nuts this time for sure!" howled the
inspector, the blood boiling his face to the color of a beet. "Whadda you think—well, for Pete’s sake!
O’Malley, Connors, come here!"
Detectives O’Malley and Connors made dry, clucking noises in their throats. Their eyes bugged and they
edged closer.
"By all the saints!" gasped one. "It’s nothin’ but a picture!"
It might indeed have been only a picture. If so, it was most extraordinary shadowgraphing. In the thick plate
glass, a woman appeared to be walking. The form was more of a silhouette, black in color. It lacked the
highlights of a photograph.
But it was life-size, as if the woman’s body had been flattened and merged with the glass. One slim arm was
extended upward, in the position of warding off a blow or some threatened danger.
Inspector Carnahan rubbed his hand dubiously over the glass. The surface was smooth, unmarred.
"Get that door open!" he rapped out. "Bust the lock or smash the window, but get in! We’ll see about this
nutty stuff! Savage, you stick around! I’ll wanta talk to you!"
摘要：

MURDERMIRAGEADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.MIDSUMMERSNOW?ChapterII."CORPUSDELICTI"INGLASS?ChapterIII.MENOFDARKFACES?ChapterIV.WINDOWATTACK?ChapterV.ANANCIENTWARNING?ChapterVI.ANALYZINGTHESTONE?ChapterVII.AMOBGOESBLIND?Chapte...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：94 页 大小：245.58KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

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