Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 022 - The Annhilist

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THE ANNIHILIST
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE POP-EYED DEAD
? Chapter II. THE MYSTERY QUEST
? Chapter III. THE BOKE MEETING
? Chapter IV. MORE POP-EYED
? Chapter V. THE HAND OF SULTMAN
? Chapter VI. PAT HITS A SNAG
? Chapter VII. SURPRISE SHADOW
? Chapter VIII. THE CRIME GLAND
? Chapter IX. BOKE'S TOUCH
? Chapter X. TORTURE
? Chapter XI. TERROR OVER THE CITY
? Chapter XII. DEATH ON THE RIVER
? Chapter XIII. ULTIMATUM
? Chapter XIV. BOKE DECIDES
? Chapter XV. UPSTATE
? Chapter XVI. DOUBLE TRAP
? Chapter XVII. HARDBOILED'S MISTAKE
? Chapter XVIII. MONK TAKES HIS DAY
Chapter I. THE POP-EYED DEAD
JOHN Henry Cowlton was the first pop-eyed dead one. Cowlton was a young man who had inherited
money, and the newspaper reporters, writing his obituary the next morning, called him a Park Avenue
playboy. Cowlton was found in his penthouse gymnasium, and because the gym windows were open and
it had been a cold night, his body was frozen only slightly less hard than a rock. There was no mark on
John Henry Cowlton's athletic body. But there was a very peculiar thing wrong with his eyes.
John Henry Cowlton's eyes were protruding completely from their sockets, and for no good reason that
the coroner could find. They were quite horrible, those eyes.
Everett Buckett was the second pop-eyed dead one. They found him in his limousine, which he drove
himself. Buckett was a Wall Street operator whose machinations had sometimes moved others to call him
"Old Bucket of Blood." He was worth upward of forty millions of dollars.
There was no mark on his body, but every one who saw his corpse noted the way the eyes stuck out.
Not only was this horrible to look at, but it gave the undertaker considerable trouble.
Of course Everett Buckett's death was connected with that of John Henry Cowlton, on account of the
eyes. But the catch was that there was no other connection between the two men, as far as any one
knew. They had not even been acquaintances.
And certainly no one could connect "Nutty" Olsen with Everett Buckett, Wall Street wolf, and John
Henry Cowlton, Park Avenue socialite.
Nutty Olsen was the next victim, and they found him in his cheap, filthy room with his eyes all a-pop.
Nutty had been in numerous jails and he had a long police record; he was known as an utterly bad
character. It was even suspected that he had murdered his mother because the old lady had once turned
him over to the police. This had never been proved.
All of these deaths were in Manhattan.
The next one was in the Bronx. By this time, newspapers had started putting the pop-eyed deaths on the
front page, and people who had nothing else to do were wondering if some new and mysterious disease
might not have sprung up.
The Bronx victim was a lawyer, noted as a very honest man. He had a large family. They heard him
screaming in his room. When they reached him, he was spread out on the floor with his eyes sticking out.
The tabloid newspapers began to turn handsprings. They ran big headlines; and the more timid citizens of
New York began to look into mirrors frequently to see if anything was wrong with their eyes.
The thing was not a joke. A fifth and sixth man were found dead - one a comfortably fixed insurance
man, the other a down-and-out hanger-on in a pool hall - and their eyes were not pleasant things to look
at The seventh was a professor in the city's largest university.
There was no conceivable connection between any of these men. But they all died with their eyes sticking
out.
The police department, urged by the mayor, sent to Chicago for a specialist in strange diseases, for none
of the victims showed the slightest mark on their bodies. The conservative New York papers became as
wild as the tabloids. They did their best to worry every one.
Certain unnaturally timid persons began to go south to Florida earlier than they had intended. Others
went to Europe. Those who had country homes paid them a visit. So far, it was only the timid who were
worried. But before long, every one was to feel the terror of it.
They thought it was some new disease. They were wrong. Just how hideously wrong, no one had yet
realized. The secret of the whole thing started coming out after what happened at the Association of
Physical Health.
In the Association of Physical Health, there was a frosted glass inner-office door which bore the legend:
Dr. J. Sultman, President
Behind the door, a man yelled hoarsely, "I won't do it! No!"
There were scuffling sounds and a thump as if a chair had been upset. Rattling of the doorknob indicated
some one was trying to get out.
In the big outer office, stenographers stopped typing. The flashy blonde on the phone switchboard
ceased chewing gum and opened her lips.
The small man sitting in one of the leather chairs reserved for customers lowered his newspaper against
his chest and looked over it, then shifted the paper so that his hands were concealed between it and his
chest. The small man had long, oily hair and bleak blue eyes. His clothing was extremely conservative.
"let me out of here, you damned fiend!" roared the voice back of the door.
Then the frosted glass panel broke with a jangling explosion. The man on the other side was beating it out
with his fists, and when he had a large opening, he threw a light-brown topcoat over the jagged edges
and vaulted through. He did not bother to recover his coat, but plunged toward the elevators, breathing
heavily) horror on his face.
The man did not look like one accustomed to violent physical action. He was portly, with ruddy cheeks,
and his head was almost bald. He had long-fingered, capable hands, which were also unusually
smooth-skinned.
The small man with the newspaper stood erect hastily, let the paper fall, and showed an automatic pistol
which it had hidden.
"Wait, brother!" he said.
The portly man looked at the gun, veered sharply to the left and slammed himself down in the shelter of a
long leather divan.
"Help!" he roared at the top of his voice. "Police! Help!"
The small man's mouth twisted, giving his face a cast of extreme evil. He aimed at the divan and began
shooting, the gun convulsing and jumping with each ear-shattering report.
Stenographers screamed; nurses began running; and the blonde telephone girl swallowed her gum and
tried to crawl under her switchboard.
When the small man's automatic was empty, he snapped a fresh cartridge clip into the magazine with the
skill of an expert gunman. Then he ran around behind the divan.
The portly man was a limp heap, leaking crimson in several places, for the bullets had driven through the
leather and upholstery of the divan.
The small man shot once more, deliberately, and his victim's head jarred as a small blue hole appeared a
little above the eyes. Then the killer ran for the stairway beside the elevators.
He reached the first stair landing. There he stopped, began to writhe about and shriek.
BETWEEN yells, the killer guashed his own lips so that scarlet ran down over his chin and stained his
necktie and shirt front. He doubled over as best he could, stamping his feet, slowly, then threw back his
head.
When his head was back, the strange thing happening to his eyes first became apparent. It looked as if
something behind the orbs was slowly forcing them out of their sockets.
The small man fell down on the landing and his gargling noises weakened until, before many seconds had
passed, he was silent. He ceased to breathe, but his body still retained its grotesquely stiff posture.
His eyes were all but hanging out of their sockets.
There was only one flight of stairs to the street, and heavy feet pounded these, mounting. Two policemen
appeared, hands on hip holsters, and saw the body of the man on the landing.
"I'll be damned!" gasped one officer, impressed by the dead man's popping eyes. "Whatcha know about
that? The eighth one!"
They went on up the stairs and entered the big reception room of the Association of Physical Health.
There was much excitement, one of the stenographers having fainted.
The two policemen shouted down every one, gave orders that nobody was to leave, and one took up a
position at the elevators after ascertaining there was no back door. The other cop made a brief inspection
of the portly man who had been shot to death behind the divan.
One of the dead man's arms was outfiung, and the wrist was encircled by a shiny metal band which the
policeman at first mistook for a wrist watch, only to learn, on closer inspection, that it held in place a
round metal disk which bore an inscription that read:
Should anything happen to this man, notify Doc Savage.
"Hell's bells!" gulped the officer, and ran for a telephone.
The blonde operator was too nervous to put up a connection, so the policeman did it himself, fumbling
clumsily with the board.
"Doc Savage speaking," came over the wire.
The voice which had answered was one so unusual that the officer was startled into momentary silence.
There was a remarkable depth and power to the voice, a quality of capability which even the
shortcomings of telephonic reproduction did not mask.
"There's a man dead here," said the policeman. "On his wrist is an identification tag asking that you be
called if anything should happen to him."
"What is the number on the back of the tag?" Doc Savage asked.
The officer went over and examined the tag, finding a number he had overlooked the first time. Then he
came back.
"Twenty-three," he said.
The policeman waited for some comment - then a bewildered expression overspread his flushed features.
He absently put a finger up and rubbed an ear, as if that organ were playing him tricks.
He was hearing one of the strangest sounds ever to come to his attention. It was a weird trilling, this note,
having a fantastic rising and falling cadence, yet adhering to no definite tune. It might have been the
product of a faint wind through the cold spiles of an ice field, or it might have been the sound of an exotic
tropical bird. The note ebbed away as mysteriously as it had arisen.
"I shall be there shortly," Doc Savage said, and there was no trace of emotion in his unusual voice.
The policeman hung up and breathed, "Whew! Something about that guy gets you, even over the
telephone!"
THE other cop, who had come over and heard the last of the conversation, demanded, "Who is this guy
Doc Savage?"
The first officer looked dumfounded. "You ain't kiddin' me?"
"Oh, I've heard gossip about him," said the other. "But nothing first hand. What's the dope on him?"
"He's probably the most unusual bird alive," said the first officer. "He's the biggest and strongest man you
ever saw. And he's a whiz! He can do anything. Electricity, chemistry, engineering, he knows all about
'em all."
"What's his business?" demanded the other.
The first policeman shrugged. "High adventure, I guess. He likes excitement. And he goes around getting
people out of trouble. But what I mean, he tackles things on a big scale. He saves thrones for kings and
stops wars. That's his calibre." The cop who was asking questions said, "He has five birds who help him,
hasn't he?"
"Yeah. Scientists, electricians and so on. Each one of the five is a topnotch specialist in some line."
The other policeman nodded at the body, then at the telephone. "How come you called him?"
"That identification disk
"I know. But that's business for Inspector Hardboiled Humbolt. He won't like it, your calling this Doc
Savage."
"I don't give a damn," said the other officer. "This Doc Savage has done more good for the world than
any other ten living men you can name. Yeah - any fifty you can name."
"Hardboiled Humbolt is gonna lay an egg because you called Savage," grunted the first cop. "You could
call the president and the governor and the marines, and Hardboiled would still kick. He likes to run
things."
"Let him lay the egg," snorted the other policeman.
They went out to stand guard. Down in the street, the caterwauling of a police siren was becoming
louder.
THE roadster had a long wheelbase, but it was not flashy and there was nothing particularly outstanding
about its appearance. Only close inspection would have shown that the body was moulded of armor
plate and the tires were filled with sponge rubber which would not be affected greatly by bullets. The
glasswork was also of bulletproof construction, and the machine was fitted with apparatus for laying
either smoke or gas screens.
Under the hood, a siren whined softly.
It was hard to say whether it was the whining of the siren or the appearance of the remarkable bronze
man at the wheel which caused traffic to be parted with alacrity. The siren was the type reserved for
police squad cars. Furthermore, the license plate consisted simply of three letters and a number - DOC
1.
More than a few persons on the streets recognized the bronze man. His picture was often in the
newspapers; his name was mentioned even more frequently in the prints.
"Doc Savage," some one said, and there was a small stampede for the curb to get a glimpse of the
bronze man.
The roadster was a large one, a car in which an ordinary large man would have seemed small. But the
bronze man had the build of a giant, even in the open machine. Tremendous muscular strength was
apparent in his cabled hands and in the vertical muscles in his neck, which were like hawsers coated with
a veneer of bronze.
This bronze hue was the giant's motif throughout, his unusually fine-textured skin having a metallic hue
imparted by long exposure to intense sunlight; his hair, straight and fitting like a metal skullcap, was of a
bronze only slightly darker; the quiet brown of his business suit added to the symphony in metal.
Perhaps the eyes of the bronze man were the most impressive thing about him. They were weird, almost
fantastic eyes, like nothing so much as pools of fine golden flakes continuously stirred by tiny winds. In
them was a hypnotic, compelling quality.
THE bronze man wore no head covering, and his eyes roved ceaselessly, seeming never to devote
attention to the driving but rather to the streets through which the roadster passed. In spite of the seeming
inattention, there was an expert ease about the way he drove.
He reached the building which housed the Association of Physical Health, drew to the curb and switched
off the engine. Little more than the sudden death of the ammeter needle indicated the motor had stopped,
so silently had it operated.
The bronze man drifted a metallic, muscle-cabled hand under the dash and touched a switch. Soft static
crackle began coming from a radio loud-speaker. He brought a hand microphone to view.
"Monk - Ham," he said into the mike.
A voice that might have belonged to a small child came from the radio speaker.
"We're only a few blocks away, Doc," said this small tone.
"Ham with you?" Doc questioned.
"The shyster? Sure. He's along."
"Watch the outside of the building." Doc Savage directed quietly.
"Sure," said the child-voiced "Monk." "What do you know about this Association of Physical Health?"
"It is a concern which makes a business of giving physical examinations," the bronze man replied. "A
physician named Janko Sultman is the president and principal owner."
Monk asked, "Any idea what this means, Doc?"
"None whatever," said the bronze giant, and switched off the radio transmitter-receiver equipment.
He could hear the murmur of puzzled voices as soon as he entered the building. A police medical
examiner was inspecting the body of the man who had died, pop-eyed, on the stair landing. He bowed
with marked deference when he saw Doc Savage.
"What killed him?" Doc Savage queried.
"I haven't the slightest idea," the medical examiner said promptly. "It has me stumped. But he's like the
other seven."
The bronze man said nothing, but knelt beside the dead man, his intention obviously being to make an
examination.
There was a pounding of feet on the stairs, coming down from the second floor above. Doc Savage did
not look around.
The newcomer was a burly man almost as large as Doc Savage. He had very large feet which were
encased in canvas sneakers, and he walked as if his feet hurt him. His face gave the impression of being
composed mostly of jaw.
He slammed a hand down on Doc Savage's shoulder. The hand was red and bony with a skin that
looked as tough as rhinoceros hide.
"What the hell you doing?" he growled. "Get away from that body!"
The beefy man kept his hand on Doc Savage's shoulder as the bronze man stood erect. Then he shifted
his grip to Doc Savage's arm. A slightly blank look overspread his bulldog face as he felt the hardness of
the arm beneath. The next instant blankness became amazement as the bronze man plucked the hand off
his arm, accomplishing the feat with apparent ease.
The burly man peered foolishly at his wrist' which bore pale grooves where the bronze man's fingers had
reposed momentarily. He wriggled the fingers and seemed surprised that they functioned. Then he
rumbled angrily, shook his arm up and down, and a shot-filled leather blackjack dropped into his hand.
Evidently it had hung on a hook or rested in a shallow pocket in his sleeve.
"Tough guy, huh?" he growled.
"Don't be a fool, Hardboiled!" the medical examiner gulped. "This is Doc Savage."
"I know who he is," "Hardboiled" rumbled. "He's the guy who goes around mixing in other people's
business, and guys who try to buck him have a funny way of disappearin'."
The medical examiner said, "Doc Savage has an honorary commission as inspector on the police.
"Yeah, I know," Hardboiled growled. Then he leaned forward and tapped Doc's chest lightly with the
end of his blackjack.
"Listen," he said. "I been intending to get around to you, only I've been too busy. I've beard a lot about
you, and we know each other by sight. You may know I'm a tough cop. That's what the papers call me,
damn 'em! I know you're the Man of Mystery, and I know people try to kill you and you do things to 'em
and the law never hears about it I don't like it. From now on, when anybody takes a shot at you, you call
a cop and he'll handle it. Do it like anybody else does."
"In other words, have the police fight my battles?" Doc asked.
"Call it what you want," Hardboiled scowled. "There'. laws to take care of crooks. And another thing:
behave yourself and you won't have any battles to fight."
Doc asked dryly, "You have a faint suspicion I am a crook? Is that it?"
Hardboiled glared. "'When I have suspicions, they're not faint!" he yelled. "I come out with 'em."
Doc said, "Suppose you come out with them now."
The beefy inspector's leather sap swung for emphasis.
"I think you do things outside the law!" Hardboiled roared. "That makes you subject to arrest. There are
laws to punish criminals. And don't feed me that hokum about them not being punished in this day,
because they are. Let the law take its course."
Doc said, "No one is disputing that"
Hardboiled put out his jaw. "I've heard that you set yourself up as judge, jury and penitentiary, all in one,"
he rapped. "Now that stuff don't go. You make one slip, and I'll clap your pants in the holdover so quick
your head'll swim! If there's any one needs arresting in this town, that's my job. I do it. And I don't stand
for anyhody meddling with my job."
Doc murmured without expression, "Very clear."
Hardboiled got his jaw out farther. "Now I want civil answers to plain questions out of you. There has
been two murders here, one of them the eighth in a damned mysterious chain of deaths that's beginning to
get everybody all bothered."
"I see," Doc said.
"Go upstairs and take a look at that other body," Hardboiled directed. "Maybe you can identify it."
The medical examiner managed to work close to Doc Savage's side as the bronze man mounted the
stairs.
"This Hardboiled is a character," he said. "He would insult the president. He's a leather-skinned cop of
the old school, and he's been doing wonders at cleaning up Manhattan since they put him in charge. He's
got a phobia for sticking to the letter of the law where police duties are concerned."
"I have been following Hardboiled's record," Doc Savage said quietly. "The man is just what Manhattan
needed."
The examiner chuckled. "Hardboiled was canned by a previous administration for knocking the mayor
down when they got in a quarrel over one of the mayor's friends breaking the speed limit. He's some
character. His feet always hurt him. Maybe that's what makes him so grouchy."
Hardboiled Humbolt strode over to the body of the portly, bald man who had been shot to death and
demanded of Doc Savage, "Who is he?"
"}His name," the bronze man said, "was Leander Court."
"What was his business?" Hardboiled asked.
"He was a scientist and surgeon."
"How'd he hook up with you?"
The bronze man's flake-gold eyes seemed to acquire strange lights. "What do you mean?"
"How come he was wearing an identification tag asking that you be called if anything happened to him?"
boomed Hardboiled.
"That, I shall not answer," Doc Savage said.
Hardboiled glared. "Say, didn't that lecture I just gave you take effect? You cooperate with me, or else
you get in some trouble!"
He shook his sap down out of his sleeve.
THE medical examiner yelled, "You're making an unmitigated fool out of yourself, Hardboiled!"
Hardboiled scowled and growled, "I don't like the methods of Doc Savage and I don't give a damn who
knows it, and he's gonna answer my questions. There's some motive behind this killing, and I want to
know what it is. I want to know why the other seven were killed."
"I can assure you," Doc Savage told him, "that I have not the slightest idea why Leander Court was
killed, or the other seven, either."
"All right," snapped Hardboiled. "Now, why was he wearing that identification disk?"
Doc Savage ignored the question. "Just exactly what happened here?"
The medical examiner, who was embarrassed by the attitude which Hardboiled Humbolt had taken, said,
"The dead man, Leander Court, arrived about an hour ago, according to the reception girl. He said he
had an appointment with Janko Sultman, the president of the Association of Physical Health, and she
directed him to Sultman's office.
"He was in there some time. Then he began yelling stuff about not doing something, and demanding to be
let out. He broke the glass out of the door and climbed through. Then the man dead on the staircase
downstairs shot him."
"When did the man downstairs appear?" Doc Savage interjected.
"Shortly after Leander Court arrived," said the examiner. "It looks as if the man followed Court here."
The bronze man nodded. "Then what?"
"After he shot Court, the man fled," explained the examiner. "He ran down the stairs, got to the first
landing and had some kind of a fit, and died. That's as near as we can reconstruct it."
Doc Savage waved at the office. "Who was Leander Court yelling at before he broke out of the office?"
"That," said the medical examiner, "is a mystery."
"What do you mean?"
"There was nobody in the office."
Doc Savage swung over to the door and glanced through the jagged aperture where the frosted glass
panel had been broken out. The office beyond was plainly furnished, the Opposite wall being perforated
with one window, and there was certainly no one inside. He tried the door. It resisted his efforts.
"The lock is peculiar," said the examiner. "It is a spring affair that has to be unlocked from either side with
a key."
Doc Savage questioned, "You are sure no one left the office during the excitement?"
"They would have had to climb out," said the examiner. "Some one would certainly have noticed."
The bronze man glanced through the door again. The window was fitted with a substantial lock, and this
was fastened. No one could have left by that route.
"Very mysterious," Doc Savage said.
"Not any more mysterious than your not wantin' to tell us why Leander Court wore that identification
tag," Hardboiled Humbolt interjected sourly.
"Vot t'ings is happen here?" a strange voice demanded loudly.
Chapter II. THE MYSTERY QUEST
THE man who had spoken was a bulky fellow, with upstanding, frizzled hair and a ludicrously small
mustache. He wore an exceptionally loud checked suit which, however, seemed entirely in keeping with
his unruly hair.
"You pol-eezmans, vot you do here?" he demanded. Then he glimpsed the body of Leander Court and
gulped, "Dot man, who shot him?"
Hardboiled Humbolt shouldered forward and demanded, "Who the heck are you?"
The officer at the elevator called, "He said he was Janko Sultman, the president of the Association of
Physical Health. I thought I'd better let him in."
Doc Savage asked abruptly, "Sultman, why did Leander Court come to see you?"
Janko Sultman looked puzzled. He made a tripod of the thumb and two forefingers of one hand, then
reached up and absently massaged the top of his head.
"Leander Court," he murmured. "I am ,,sorry, genteelmans, but dod name I not hear before. Never.
"Ever see him before?" the bronze man asked, and indicated dead Leander Court.
Sultman shook an emphatic, "Never!" Hardboiled Humbolt, scowling at Doc Savage, monopolizing the
questioning, strode forward so that he was between the bronze man and Janko Sultman.
"The telephone girl says Leander Court came in and said he had an appointment with you and was to
wait in your private office," Hardboiled rumbled.
"Dot mystifies me," said Sultman. "Der man I have never seen before, believe you me."
Hardboiled shifted his sneaker-clad feet as if they hurt him, and said loudly, "Nobody seems to know a
thing around here - except you." He glared at Doc Savage.
The bronze man nodded at the door from which the frosted glass was broken. "Mind if I try something?"
"Some of this snappy scientific detective stuff I hear you're so good at?" Hardboiled growled.
"Something like that," Doc admitted.
"All right," Hardboiled told him. "But before you start, let's get one thing straight."
"What?"
"You're under technical arrest on a charge of concealing evidence," said Hardboiled.
Every one except Doc Savage looked extremely surprised, and the bronze man asked quietly, "Just what
sort of evidence am I hiding?"
Hardboiled jabbed a hand at plump Leander Court's bullet-riddled body. "Why is this guy wearing that
identification disk?"
Doc Savage, seeming not to hear the question, said, "Let's look over the office where Leander Court
waited."
摘要：

THEANNIHILISTADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THEPOP-EYEDDEAD?ChapterII.THEMYSTERYQUEST?ChapterIII.THEBOKEMEETING?ChapterIV.MOREPOP-EYED?ChapterV.THEHANDOFSULTMAN?ChapterVI.PATHITSASNAG?ChapterVII.SURPRISESHADOW?ChapterVIII.TH...

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