Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 026 - The Spook Legion

VIP免费
2024-12-19 0 0 545.27KB 103 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
THE SPOOK LEGION
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE FIRST SPOOK
? Chapter II. NUT?
? Chapter III. NO CHANCES
? Chapter IV. THE SNATCHING GHOST
? Chapter V. GIRL IN GREEN
? Chapter VI. PHANTOMS
? Chapter VII. THE SPOOK AT THE AIRPORT
? Chapter VIII. TERROR AMONG ERMINES
? Chapter IX. MARIKAN
? Chapter X. INVISIBLE RAIDERS
? Chapter XI. GHOST PRINTS
? Chapter XII. FUR FARM
? Chapter XIII. ALCHEMY
? Chapter XIV. SPOOK WAR
? Chapter XV. THE LIFE OF A GHOST
? Chapter XVI. THE SPOOK DETECTOR
? Chapter XVII. SEIZURE
? Chapter XVIII. UNMAKER OF SPOOKS
? Chapter XIX. DEATH DEVICE
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. THE FIRST SPOOK
LEO BELL was a counter clerk in a Boston telegraph office. Leo was level-headed. He certainly did not
believe in spooks. At least, he did not believe in spooks at precisely ten o'clock at night, as he moved
behind the counter straightening the books of message blanks.
At five minutes past ten Leo's disbelief in spooks received a rude jarring.
It happened that Leo Bell was an ambitious young man who had studied the finer points of selling, so, of
course, he knew the importance of making things convenient for a customer, even the small things. It was
Leo's habit to place three or four books of message blanks on the counter top so that prospective
senders of telegrams had merely to step up and start writing.
As he went along tidying the counter, Leo examined each of these books, because careless customers
sometimes went off and left scribbling on them. At this particular examination, all of the blanks were clean
and fresh, showing unmarked sheets. Leo was sure of that. He remembered it particularly.
Leo stood at the end of the counter and waited for a customer. None came in. Leo was positive of that,
also. No one even passed on the street outside. It was very quiet.
Then the wastebasket upset.
The wastebasket was not placed exactly where it should have been—near the writing table—but was out
about a yard from the table. It upset noisily. Trash fell out.
Leo Bell leaned over the counter and his eyes popped. He licked his lips. Then he rubbed a hand over
his eyes. Finally, he walked around the counter. He thought a cat or a dog might have gotten into the
wastebasket. But there was no cat or dog.
Leo straightened the basket, then stood and scratched his head, trying to decide what had overturned the
basket, and failing to reach any satisfactory conclusion, he moved over to the counter. There, he got his
next shock.
The telegraph blanks there had borne no writing when he arranged them a moment before. But one now
bore a message printed in heavy but somewhat uncertain strokes. It read:
DOC SAVAGE
NEW YORK CITY
MATTER OF VITAL DANGER TO THOUSANDS MERITS YOUR ATTENTION STOP PLEASE
BOARD BOSTON TO NEW YORK PASSENGER PLANE OF EXCELSIOR AIRWAYS AT
NOON TOMORROW STOP GET ABOARD IN BOSTON STOP SUGGEST YOU USE
DISGUISE AND BE PREPARED FOR HIDEOUS AND AMAZING EXPERIENCE
A N ONYMOUS
(1440 Powder Road)
Leo Bell stared at the message, noting that it was marked to be sent collect at destination. He was
dumfounded. He felt as if cold water had trickled unexpectedly down the back of his neck. He eyed the
address on the message and shook his head, because he knew, from past experience, that a telegram
addressed to one man in a city as large as New York had very little chance of being delivered.
Leo carried the message back to the night manager.
“I have here a straight telegram addressed to Doc Savage in New York City,” he told the night manager.
“I think we should get a better address.”
“Where have you been all your life?” demanded the manager.
“Huh?” Leo blinked.
“I thought everybody had heard of Doc Savage,” said the other.
LEO asked, “Who is this Doc Savage?”
The night manager opened his mouth as if to speak, but did not.
“Wait,” he said. “I'll show you something.”
The night manager walked to his desk in the rear. The night manager was a studious individual. There
was a large book open on his desk. The counter clerk knew this book was a late work outlining in brief
the discoveries of scientists during the past ten years or so. The night manager was interested in different
branches of science. He riffled through the pages, and opened them to the section marked, “Light.”
“Read this,” he advised, and pointed out a paragraph.
Some to the most advanced study of the dispersion of doubly refracting and naturally gyrating substances
has been conducted by Clark Savage, Jr., (better known as Doc Savage).
Leo Bell asked, “What are naturally gyrating and doubly refracting substances?”
“Never mind,” said the night manager.
He opened the book at another section marked, “Chemistry,” and said, “Read this.”
Great impetus has been given colorimetric analysis by recent work of Doc Savage.
Before Leo could speak, the night manager turned to another part of the book marked, “Electricity,” and
pointed out an item:
To Doc Savage, the field of electric science is indebted for new theories concerning velocity of
propagation of electro-magnetic effects through air.
The night manager hurriedly shifted to a portion of the volume designated as dealing with “Surgery.”
One of the greatest methods of recent years for the intravenous administration of hypertonic solutions in
delicate brain operations is credited to Doc Savage.
Leo Bell exploded.
“Whew!”
he gulped. “That guy Doc Savage seems to be tops at everything!”
The night manager grinned. “There's a note at the front of this book about him. It says that Doc Savage
has one of the most remarkable brains of any man ever to live. It says he is a mental marvel.”
They both re-read the telegram which had been found on the counter blank. Leo Bell now broached the
subject of the upsetting wastebasket and the mysterious appearance of the missive, but he spoke
hesitantly, and none too firmly, because the whole thing seemed ridiculous.
The night manager laughed him down.
“Somebody came in and left the message,” he said. “Of course we'll send it!”
They sent it.
HALF an hour later, the telephone rang, and Leo Bell answered it. He heard the most striking voice to
which he had ever listened. It was a man's voice, and even over the telephone it had impressive quality
and a tone of great flexibility and power under careful restraint. There was something compelling about
the voice.
“This is Doc Savage speaking from New York City,” the voice said. “A telegram to me was filed from
your office tonight, was it not?”
So gripping was the unusual voice that Leo Bell had to swallow twice to loosen his own vocal cords.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Will you describe the sender, please,” Doc Savage requested over the telephone.
“I c-can't,” Leo Bell stuttered. It was the first time he had stuttered in years.
“Why not?” queried the unusual voice.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the appearance of the message then came out. Doc Savage
heard it through without comment, then advised, “There is probably no A, N. Onymous listed in your
directory.”
Leo Bell looked in the directory.
“No,” he said. “There is not.”
“The name was the result of a trick writing of the word 'anonymous',” Doc pointed out. “The dictionary
defines an anonymous work as one of unknown authorship, which seems to fit this case. Was there an
address of sender given on the message?”
“There was.”
“What was it?”
“1440 Powder Road,” said Leo Bell, after consulting the message.
“There is no such address in Boston,” Doc Savage said, and hung up.
Leo blinked dazedly after the connection was broken, wondering how Doc Savage had known the
address was a fake—and it was indeed false. Leo ascertained a moment later, upon consulting the street
directory. There was no such number on Powder Road.
Leo wondered vaguely if Doc Savage did not know as much about Boston as he did about the different
branches of science. Leo would have been surprised.
The two employees in the telegraph office discussed the happening through the remainder of their tour of
duty. It seemed as if something smacking of high adventure had touched them briefly, and they rather
liked the manner in which it spiced their humdrum lives.
They would have liked more of it. But this was, fortunately, or unfortunately, as near as they were to
come to the chain of horror and mystery which followed the sending of the strange message.
The affair really got under way the next day at noon.
THE Excelsior Airways was among the most modern lines serving the east coast of the United States.
Their planes were huge tri-motored jobs carrying a pilot, co-pilot and a stewardess in the crew.
The seats were comfortable, and each bore a number, for it was customary for passengers to make seat
reservations in advance. The passengers who got aboard were prosperous-looking individuals, business
persons obviously—with one exception.
The fat man was not the one exception. There was nothing particularly outstanding about him. He was
neither larger nor smaller than the average portly man. His gray suit was neat, well-tailored. The only
thing which characterized him at all was the black felt hat which he wore, and his white-gold-rimmed
spectacles which he adjusted from time to time as if they were not comfortable.
This fat man presented two tickets. These called for seats located one behind the other. The fat man
walked slowly down the aisle and took the rearmost of the two seats which his tickets called for.
If any one noticed there was something just a bit strange in that, they gave no sign.
And if there was nothing exceptional about the appearance of the fat man, there was a great deal out of
the ordinary about the last passenger to enter the ship. The size of this man was tremendous. He had to
bend over much more than any one else as he came down the plane aisle.
Nor was his great size the least of the man's marked qualities. His face was something with which to
frighten infants. It was scarred, in fearsome fashion. The ears were thickened, tufted with welts. One of
the eyes drooped almost shut. Over the brows, there were rolls of gristle which might have been put
there by much pounding. When the man opened his mouth, he showed numerous gold teeth.
The passengers looked at him curiously. The mark of the man's trade was unmistakable. He was a
prize-fighter.
The pugilistic-appearing individual lurched down the aisle, came to the vacant seat ahead of the fat man,
looked around, saw the closing of the plane door to indicate no more passengers were expected, and
started to take the empty seat.
“No, no!” the fat man squawled.
He leaped to his feet, gave the scarred giant a lusty shove, and looked very belligerent.
The other kept his balance with the ease of a man who might have received many lusty belts in the
squared ring.
“Whatsa idea?” he growled.
He had a voice fully as pleasant as the sound of a heavy box being dragged over a concrete floor.
“I reserved this seat and paid for it!” snapped the fat man.
The prizefighter scowled. His scarred face was terrible. He gave the appearance of being but little less
dangerous than an angry lion, and he seemed on the point of doing violence to the other. But finally, when
the hostess approached and indicated the seat which he had paid for was in the rear, but on the side of
the plane which would be in the sun, he shrugged.
“You needn't have been tough about it!” he rasped to the fat man, and padded back to his rear seat.
The plane took off without more incident. To all appearances, there was to be no more excitement during
the flight. But appearances are deceptive.
IT was near New York that one of the passengers forward reached up and jerked open the window
beside his seat. No doubt he wanted to thrust his head out and stare at the skyscrapers of Manhattan,
which were coming into view ahead and below.
As a result of the window being opened, a strong wind whipped into the plane cabin.
Swept by the gale, a square of paper appeared over the back of the empty seat in front of the fat man. It
slapped into the face of the fat man. Startled, he grabbed at it, and securing it, naturally glanced at it.
The results of that one look at the paper which had been blown over the back of the empty chair were
surprising. The fat man lifted slightly in his seat, as if his leg muscles had tensed. His mouth came open
and round; his eyes grew equally round. He was naturally a florid man, and it was distinctly noticeable
that he became pale. Suddenly he sagged back in the chair as if some nerve cord had been cut.
He sat there for some time. Then he reached under his coat, thrust a hand beneath the left armpit and
brought out a stubby but deadly-looking revolver. Simultaneously, he wrenched at his hip pocket and
produced a handkerchief. He wrapped the handkerchief around the muzzle of the gun as he stood up.
He leaned over the back of the empty seat in front of him. There was an expression of wild desperation
on his features.
His gun went off three times, as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. The reports were loud.
In the middle of the shooting, a shriek piped out. It was an eerie, hideous shriek, a sound which held the
rasp of death.
The fat man sat down and wrapped both arms over his head and face. The way he did this was very
strange.
Then the voice sounded. It was a strangled voice, one which was labored, gurgling, and hardly
understandable. It said four words—really two pairs of words with a slight pause between the first pair
and the second. Just where the words came from, it was impossible to say. The fat man had his mouth
covered with his arms. The other passengers were watching the fat man and not each other. But almost
every one heard the words, which sounded above the uproar.
“Doc Savage—be careful!”
Chapter II. NUT?
THE average American lives in a high-pressure world where things happen with rapidity. He is not
inclined to become wildly excited about an occurrence which does not menace him directly.
These plane passengers were no exceptions. They merely looked around. Those farthest away stood up.
Nobody screamed. Nobody yelled.
The stewardess went forward and said something to the two men in the control compartment. The
assistant pilot left his seat, came back and confronted the fat man with the revolver.
“What's the idea, brother?” he demanded.
The man with the gun moistened his lips, then reached up and absently adjusted his black felt hat.
“I'm terribly sorry,” he said.
The co-pilot did not seem impressed, but repeated, “What was the idea?”
The plump man became glib.
“I am an actor,” he said. “I was mentally rehearsing a scene from my new show. My enthusiasm got the
better of me, and before I realized this was no place for such a thing, I had leaped up and reënacted a bit
from my part.”
The fat man was still standing up, and he absently reached around and stowed his handkerchief in a hip
pocket. The paper which had blown over the back of the empty seat was still in the hand which held the
handkerchief.
The man carefully stowed the paper in an inner pocket.
The assistant pilot whipped out a hand suddenly and seized the other's gun before he could resist.
“You might have shot somebody,” he said angrily.
The portly man rolled his eyes, then fixed them downward at the empty seat. Perspiration beads came
out from under the band of his black hat.
“I fired blank cartridges,” he said.
The associate pilot broke open the gun, ejected the cartridges, and three empties and two slugs came
out. With a finger he indicated the leaden pellets in the two unfired cartridges.
“This don't look like it,” he said.
“The first three were blanks!” the plump man gulped.
“Yeah?” The flier scowled. “I'll see about that. The bullets should have hit somewhere.”
He leaned over, as if to get into the empty seat and hunt for bullet holes.
The fat man did a surprising thing. He leaped back, threw out his arms dramatically and began to speak
in a stagelike voice.
“The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,” he intoned. “And the sad augurs mock their own presage.
Incertainties now crown themselves assured, and peace—”
The associate pilot straightened.
“What the hell?” he demanded.
“Shakespeare,” declared the plump man. “The supreme dramatist, my good fellow. The supreme
dramatist! And a very good friend he was indeed.” The man winked and crossed two fingers. “He and I
were like that.”
The pilot smiled slightly and his weather-beaten features assumed a knowing look. He winked at the
other passengers, then dropped an arm over the fat man's shoulder.
“So you and Shakespeare were buddies,” he said, with the manner of one agreeing with a person he
considers insane. “Tell me about it, mister. I've always wanted to meet someone who knew
Shakespeare.”
“Shakespeare was the supreme dramatist,” said the fat man. “Knowing him was a pleasure, a supreme
pleasure. Indeed it was!”
“Sure, sure,” said the pilot.
The aviator thrust the portly one down in his seat, then sat on the chair arm and encouraged him to talk
ramblingly of Shakespeare, who had been dead hundreds of years. The plane swung down toward the
landing field.
The passengers had been interested in the little drama. Two or three had crowded close, among these the
big fellow who looked like a prizefighter. He had looked closely at the empty seat into which the gun had
been discharged.
There were no holes or tears in the seat where a bullet might have struck.
The prizefighter individual went back to his seat. Seated in such a position that no one could see his
hands, he opened one hand and examined the object which it held. This was the fat man's handkerchief,
the one which had been wrapped around the gun muzzle. It had been filched from the owner with
consummate cleverness.
There were holes in the handkerchief, undoubtedly holes made by leaden bullets ripping through.
THE plane landed without event, and the portly man arose to get his baggage and disembark with the
rest of the passengers. But the co-pilot grasped his arm firmly and requested, “Please wait.”
The plump man's next words were not nearly as inane as his earlier ramblings.
“What for?” he demanded.
“Shakespeare wants to see you,” said the flier.
It looked as if the portly one was on the point of venting an explosive, “Hell!” but he did not. Instead, he
stated, “Shakespeare has been dead a long time.”
“Well, you'd better talk to this fellow who says he is Shakespeare,” said the assistant pilot, and went
forward to consult with the airport operations manager.
They discussed the fat man and the shots.
“He's daffy,” said the co-pilot. “Something ought to be done about a guy like that running around with a
gun. He'll kill somebody.”
“Put him in a car and take him to the police station,” suggested the manager.
“Good idea,” agreed the co-pilot.
“The pilot will help you,” added the manager.
There were two observers to this conference, neither of whom was close enough to overhear. The fat
man was one, standing and fumbling his black hat uncertainly. The prizefighter individual was another,
although he looked on in a fashion calculated not to arouse suspicion. He was ostensibly fumbling over
his baggage.
The plane had emptied by now, and mechanics had appeared to wheel it into a hangar. One of them
drove a small caterpillar tractor, which was hitched to the ship and pulled it toward the hangar.
The pilot and co-pilot approached the fat man.
“We're going to take you to this guy who claims to be Shakespeare,” said the pilot.
The plump fellow put a very serious look under the black hat.
“The man is an imposter!” he declared loudly. “He cannot be Shakespeare, because I am Shakespeare!”
The instant he got that out, the man spun and leaped wildly in the direction of the operations office. The
abruptness of his move took the pilot and his assistant by surprise. By the time they started in pursuit,
their quarry was already passing through the operations office door. He slammed the panel. The spring
lock clicked.
Pilot and co-pilot hit the door with their shoulders. It held. They bounced back, looked at each other.
“He's sure bats!” said the pilot.
Inside, the fat man made a silent snarl when he heard that. His face had been benign, a bit vacuous. The
snarl turned it into the visage of an animal.
He fanned a glance around the room. There was a desk, a typewriter. He leaped to the typewriter,
seized it and used it as a clumsy club, and with one driving blow, smashed glass and metal crosspieces
from a window in the rear wall. The aperture was hardly ample to pass his plump frame, and he struck
again, so violently that his black hat fell off. Then he started to jump through.
His eyes lighted on a small group of men standing a short distance away. He waved his arms and caught
their attention.
The fat man now made a remarkable series of gestures with his hands. These gestures were small—such
casual movements as might be made unthinkingly by a man who was merely idling time away. He rubbed
thumb and forefinger together. He made various kinds of fists. He drummed soundlessly with his fingers.
All of these small gestures were made with lightning speed, and the group of men whom the fat fellow had
sighted saw them, and when they were finished, one went through the motion of adjusting his right coat
sleeve slightly.
The fat man's manner showed that the sleeve adjusting was a signal that his other pantomiming had been
understood.
The fat man now turned, picked up his black hat, put it on, went over to a mirror and tried three or four
grins before he got one which was particularly silly. With it fixed on his face, he opened the door and
admitted the excited pilot and his assistant. "What on earth has so excited you fellows?” he demanded
calmly.
THE men to whom the fat individual had signaled were no longer standing inactively. They had moved at
a fast walk toward the hangar where the passenger plane had been hauled. The noisy little caterpillar
tractor was still attached to the plane, and three field attendants were assisting in storing the air giant.
The attendants stared in surprise at the group to whom the fat man had signaled. The men had stalked
into the hangar without speaking.
There were six men in the group. They ranged from a young fellow who looked as if he might be a high
school student to a white-haired individual who looked as if he were past sixty. None of them wore
flashy clothing, but all were neat. Neither would any of them attract attention because of their garb. They
might have been a party of conservatively dressed business people. It was certain that all of their faces
were above the average in intelligence.
“What do you want?” demanded one of the airport flunkies.
One of the six strangers coughed twice. It was obviously a signal—for all six men drew revolvers and
pistols of various sizes and calibres.
“Silence,” said the one who had coughed. “We want a lot of it, too!”
The attendant stuttered, “W-w-what's t-t-the idea?”
“Turn around,” directed the spokesman. Stand with your backs to us.”
The attendants complied, which was obviously the sensible thing to do.
Two of the six nice-looking strangers kept the attendants covered while the other four went to the plane,
opened the cabin door and scrambled inside. The plane, being large and high, could not be surveyed
from the level of the hangar floor. One of the attendants, turning his head, could not see what the four in
the ship were doing.
Another of the attendants did not waste more than a single glance on the ship, then shifted his attention to
a row of oil drums a few feet from where he stood, a row three drums thick and almost as high as his
own belt, and extending several yards to a small side door used by the mechanics. This door was open.
One of the four strangers in the plane all but fell out of the cabin door. He was highly perturbed.
“It ain't here!” he said shrilly.
“But did you look in the seat?” squawled the spokesman.
“Yeah,” said the other. “We went all over the ship. We even got down on our hands and knees and felt
around.”
The spokesman was the nice-looking old man with the white hair. He began to curse. He stopped
quickly, however, and spun and grabbed one of the attendants.
“That plane door was closed when we got here,” he snapped. “Was it open at any time while you were
hauling the plane from in front of the operations office?”
“I d-don't k-know,” stuttered the grease-monkey.
One of the nice-looking men said, “Damn it, anyhow! The door was open when the passengers got out.
That was enough!”
At this point, the attendant who had been looking at the oil drums decided this was his chance. He gave a
great leap, sailed over the drums, landed in their shelter and scuttled for the door.
The men with the guns yelled at him. They fired, but their bullets only made oil leak from the drums.
The attendant got outside through the door, slammed it, secured the hasp fastening, then ran away as fast
as he could.
摘要：

THESPOOKLEGIONADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THEFIRSTSPOOK?ChapterII.NUT??ChapterIII.NOCHANCES?ChapterIV.THESNATCHINGGHOST?ChapterV.GIRLINGREEN?ChapterVI.PHANTOMS?ChapterVII.THESPOOKATTHEAIRPORT?ChapterVIII.TERRORAMONGERMINE...

展开>> 收起<<
Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 026 - The Spook Legion.pdf

共103页,预览21页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：103 页 大小：545.27KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 103
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注