Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 016 - The King Maker

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THE KING MAKER
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. RICHES, RAGS, AND TERROR
? Chapter II. EXPLOSION IN THE NIGHT
? Chapter III. DEATH TIES A TONGUE
? Chapter IV. THE PRINCESS
? Chapter V. THE “OLD WOMAN”
? Chapter VI. THE RIVER STYX
? Chapter VII. THE FAT RESCUER
? Chapter VIII. MYSTERY EXPLOSION
? Chapter IX. THE MAKER OF KINGS TALKS
? Chapter X. THE “SEAWARD” TROUBLE
? Chapter XI. CASTAWAYS
? Chapter XII. THE PLANE
? Chapter XIII. BAT SHIP
? Chapter XIV. THE BRONZE MAN PLANS
? Chapter XV. THE CHINESE BUZZARD
? Chapter XVI. THE CALBIAN TOUGH GUY
? Chapter XVII. BOTEZUL TAKES CHARGE
? Chapter XVIII. THE TERROR CACHE
? Chapter XIX. THE SHOCK
? Chapter XX. TALE OF DECEIT
? Chapter XXI. THE DEATH STEEPLE CHASE
? Chapter XXII. LOCKED ROOM
? Chapter XXIII. THE HUNDRED PERILS
? Chapter XXIV. THE FIRE
? Chapter XXV. THE PLOT MASTER
Chapter I. RICHES, RAGS, AND TERROR
SIXTY or seventy pedestrians probably saw the silk-hatted gentleman get out of his resplendent town car in front of
New York's finest skyscraper. Out of the sixty or seventy, nobody seemed to catch the significance of the man's pale
face and lips drawn so tightly that they were blue.
“The lucky stiff,” some onlookers possibly reflected.
Taking snap judgment on the silk hat and costly town car, most of the onlookers would have swapped places willingly
with the top-hatted personage. In New York, such trappings signify an individual of importance, a somebody.
Had they known the truth, no amount of money would have inveigled an onlooker into changing places.
Maybe some of the spectators noted that the man's face was pale and grim. If so, they may have decided he was a
business magnate with pressing responsibilities.
The truth was that the gentleman in the topper was scared. He was in the grip of an awful terror.
This frightened, very-much-dressed-up personage stalked rapidly into the vast and ornate lobby of the cloud-piercing
building.
His town car waited. On its door was the coat-of-arms of the ruling house of the kingdom of Calbia, one of the Balkan
countries of Europe. Probably nobody in the crowd knew it, but the uniform of the chauffeur designated him as no less
than a general in the Calbian army.
Now there is something about ragged clothing and shabby attire that seems to label the wearer, the world over, as a
person of lowly station.
This was why those rubbering at the swanky car and the silk-hatted man paid little attention to the old woman who
entered the building at the same time.
She was very short, broad and stooped. There were wrinkles in her face, in which one could almost hide a lead pencil.
A shawl was tied over her head, knotted under her chin. A rent in the top permitted a glimpse of gray hair. Her dress
looked as if she had made it herself. Her shoes were shabby.
The man and the old woman—riches and rags, as it were—entered the same elevator.
“Call your floors,” said the elevator operator.
“Eighty-six,” came from the man in the silk hat.
“Eighty-six,” the old woman echoed, somewhat shrilly.
The two passengers looked at each other. There was nothing in their expressions to indicate that they had ever met
before.
“The eighty-sixth is Doc Savage's floor,” the elevator operator offered, apparently by way of information.
The cage shot upward and stopped. Both passengers stepped out into a plain, yet rich, corridor. It was evident, from
the way they looked around, that neither had ever been here before. They found their way to a door.
The door bore a name outlined in very small letters of bronze. They read:
DOC SAVAGE
Grasping the knob, the man in the silk topper tried to walk in. But the door was locked. He knocked with a brisk
impatience—and the door opened.
The gentleman in the silk hat made a mistake which later cost him his life. He elbowed into the room ahead of the old
lady. This act was anything but chivalrous.
So unusual was the appearance of the man who had opened the door, that both visitors jerked to a stop and stared.
The individual was little taller than a half-grown boy. He came near being as wide as he was high. His hands swung on
great beams of arms well below his knees, and they were covered with hairs which resembled rusty shingle nails. This
gorillalike fellow's face was phenomenally homely. He frowned at the gentleman in the silk topper, showing dislike of
the way the man had shoved in ahead of the old lady.
“Doc Savage?” the silk-hatted one demanded imperiously.
“I'm Monk,” grunted the apish one. “I mean—I'm Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.”
His voice was tiny, childlike, a ludicrous tone for such a mountain of hair and gristle.
“Tell Doc Savage that Baron Damitru Mendl wishes to see him at once,” commanded the pompous man.
Monk did not seem impressed. He glanced past the silk hat, frock coat, and morning trousers to the shabby old lady.
“You wanta see Doc Savage, too?”
“Please, sir,” she quavered.
She appeared to be overawed by the magnificence of the office, with its sumptuously comfortable chairs, its
impressive safe, and a huge, finely inlaid table.
“Just a minute,” said Monk, tiny-voiced. He crossed to a door, opened it and stepped through, closing the panel
behind him.
He was in a great room, which held literally hundreds of huge bookcases. These were crammed with tomes.
Monk advanced. He stopped when he could see the bronze man.
This man of bronze occupied a chair under a reading lamp. The chair was massive, yet it seemed small, so Herculean
were the proportions of the man sitting in it.
The muscular development of the bronze man was something to arrest attention. Like great cables, sinews wrapped his
frame. Their size, and the way they seemed to flow like liquid metal, denoted a strength bordering on the superhuman.
These sinews, in repose, were not knotty, but were more like bundled piano wires on which a thin bronze skin had
been lacquered.
“Two persons to see you, Doc,” said Monk. “One is a guy in a silk hat who seems to think he's somebody. He shoved
in ahead of the other one, a kinda ragged-lookin' old lady.”
Doc Savage glanced up. This movement emphasized the most impressive thing about him—his eyes. The orbs might
have been pools of fine flake-gold. The gold flakes, appearing to be always in motion, caught little lights from the
reading lamp.
“The gentleman has bad manners, eh?” The bronze man's voice was pleasant and low, but obviously capable of great
volume and tonal change.
“You said it.”
“Use your own Judgment, Monk.”
Monk ambled back into the outer office, furry hands brushing his knees. He executed a polite bow in the direction of
the shabby, elderly woman.
“Doc'll talk to you first,” he said kindly.
“Thank you.” She started for the door.
Baron Damitru Mendl snapped, “I am the Calbian ambassador to the United States. My business is important!”
Monk frowned. “You could be the king, and it wouldn't make any difference around here.”
When she entered the ample library and saw Doc Savage, the old woman's mouth sagged open. She was more than a
little impressed by the bronze giant.
“Doc Savage?” she quavered. “I've heard a great deal about you and the wonderful things you do. You help poor
people who are in trouble, don't you?”
Doc Savage's nod and the tone of his reply were calculated to put her at ease. “Something like that,” he said.
“My poor son,” said the visitor rapidly. “He's crippled. The doctors say they can't help him. I've heard that you can do
many things better than any other man. I read in the paper that you are one of the greatest chemists in the world, and
that nobody knew as much about electricity as you do. But, above everything else, is your skill as a surgeon. I want
you to help my boy!”
Doc Savage said nothing. The tiny lights flickered in the flake-gold of his eyes.
“I know you can help him,” quavered the elderly lady. “You see, his legs—”
“It will be better to make the diagnosis myself,” Doc Savage put in quietly.
“Then you'll help him!” The elderly visitor sounded as if she were about to burst into delighted tears.
“Where is he now?”
“In my room at 7832 East Fourteenth Street.”
The tiny lights in the bronze man's eyes seemed to grow a bit more brilliant.
A box of apparatus, replete with knobs and dials, stood on a stand at his elbow. A microphone was attached to this.
Leaning over, the bronze man flicked the switch, then spoke into the microphone.
The elderly woman seemed startled when she heard his words. To her, it was plain the syllables were not
understandable. They were in some weird, not unmusical, guttural language.
Doc Savage switched off the apparatus, then glanced at his guest.
“The matter of your son will be looked into,” he stated.
“What did you say into that box of a thing?” the old woman asked, surprisingly enough.
Doc Savage seemed not to hear the inquiry. He bowed her politely to the door.
The success of her mission seemed to have moved the elderly woman to an ecstasy of delight. Once she was in the
outer office, she appeared unable to control her pleasure. She hobbled to Baron Damitru Mendl, kneading her hands
together.
The baron glowered at her.
“Doc Savage is helping me!” squealed the crone.
Then she opened the hands which she had been kneading together. The homely Monk was behind her. Doc Savage
was still in the library. Hence, neither saw what the old woman's cupped palms held.
Baron Damitru Mendl saw it, however.
The object was a small red marble.
At the sight of the red marble, Baron Damitru Mendl became starkly pale. He actually trembled. His eyes protruded.
“Doc Savage is helping me!” shrilled the old woman.
Repetition of these words had a startling effect upon Baron Damitru Mendl. He whirled, grabbed up his silk hat and
fled the office. Once in the corridor, he thumbed an elevator button furiously, and when the cage arrived, literally dived
inside.
The elderly woman took a second cage a moment later.
Doc Savage appeared in the door which connected outer office and library. The size of the door emphasized his giant
proportions.
“Thought we had another visitor, Monk.”
Monk scratched the bristles atop his bullet of a head. “We did have, Doc, but I guess the guy flew into a rage because
we interviewed the old woman first. He walked out on us.”
Monk was an intelligent, observing individual. He was, in fact, conceded to be one of the greatest of living chemists.
His reputation in that field was world-wide.
But Monk had not seen the red marble.
Down in the lobby, the old hag was hobbling toward the street. Chuckles came from her wrinkled face.
“
Ce frumos!” she cackled. “How beautiful! That Doc Savage is not the mental wizard these Americans
seem to think he is.”
The words were spoken in the language of the Balkan kingdom of Calbia.
Outside the crone scampered down the street. More muttered words came.
“
Ma bucor! I am pleased. I very cleverly made Baron Mendl think I had enlisted the aid of Doc Savage.
The fool! He now believes Doc Savage to be against him.”
Chapter II. EXPLOSION IN THE NIGHT
BARON DAMITRU MENDL climbed into his costly town car and sank back nervously on the rich cushions.
“
Ce plictisitor!” he groaned in Calbian. “How vexing! General, look! See that old hag?”
The town car had the most modern of equipment. One could not yell at the chauffeur; there was a
microphone in the rear, which actuated a loud-speaker beside the driver.
“I see her,” said the chauffeur, who wore the uniform of a Calbian general.
“Follow her!”
The town car crept forward. But the trail was a short one. The crone ducked suddenly into a crowd
about a subway entrance and lost herself thoroughly although Baron Damitru Mendl got out and
searched.
Returning to the town car, Mendl perched on the cushions and tangled and untangled his hands
nervously.
“I have heard a great deal about this man, Doc Savage,” he said. “They say he is a muscular marvel and
a mental wizard who devotes his life to the strange business of helping those who are in trouble.”
“Doc Savage has a remarkable reputation, your highness,” agreed the general, who seemed to be a
confirmed “yes-man.” “But who was the old wench?”
“I went to Doc Savage to enlist his aid in preserving my own life,” replied Mendl. “In Savage's office, the
old hag ran up to me and cried out, 'Doc Savage is helping me!' Then she exhibited a red marble.”
The general in the driver's seat started violently. “A red marble.”
“Exactly, general! The red marble proves that the old crone is a secret agent—one of my enemies.”
The general wiped a slight dew of perspiration off his forehead. “I suggest we leave this vicinity at once,
your highness.”
“An excellent idea!” Baron Mendl nodded vehemently. “Drive to my hotel. I must send a radiogram, then
take all possible measures to protect myself.”
The long town car went into motion without a jar.
BARON DAMITRU MENDL had a suite of rooms in the hotel which was conceded by almost every
one to be New York's most fashionable hostelry.
The national flag of Calbia was displayed in front of this hotel, alongside the United States colors. The
presence of the Calbian emblem had a meaning. It indicated that an important diplomatic personage was
a guest of the hotel.
The flag was out in honor of Baron Mendl, Calbian ambassador to the United States.
Baron Mendl went directly to his room, secured a radiogram blank and wrote out a message. He
addressed it simply to a stateroom number on a liner which was now crossing the Atlantic from Europe.
The communication read:
FIRST-CLASS CABIN 36
LINER S S MONTICELLO, AT SEA
AGENT FROM CALBIA HAS ENLISTED AID OF DOC SAVAGE AGAINST US STOP HAVE
OBSERVED OTHER SECRET AGENTS WATCHING ME STOP BELIEVE MY LIFE IN
DANGER STOP LEAVING CITY STOP WILL ADVISE YOU MY WHEREABOUTS LATER.
BARON DAMITRU MENDL.
As an afterthought, Baron Mendl drew a small brown code book from a pocket and converted the
message into a secret cipher. He burned the first copy painstakingly, crushed the ashes, and threw them
out of the window. Then he went down to the hotel wireless telegraph office and filed his coded missive.
His movements marked by an apprehensive haste, he packed his luggage. Bellboys, made unusually spry
by the prospect of handsome lips, loaded his bags into the town car.
“We are going on the yacht, general,” Baron Mendl informed the driver.
Along the upper shore of Manhattan Island, on the Hudson River side, are a number of swanky yacht
clubs. To one of these, Baron Mendl went. The town car was left in the yacht club garage.
Baron Mendl and his chauffeur boarded a seventy-foot, Diesel-engined, seagoing palace. The boat had
lines of speed, while mahogany woodwork and brass fittings lent an air of luxury to it. Native Calbians
composed the crew, with one exception—the first mate, who was a freckled, red-headed New England
Yankee.
“Mr. Lacy,” Baron Mendl addressed the red-headed mate. “Put all hands to searching the yacht. Look
for bombs, or stowaways.”
Twenty minutes later, the red-headed mate made his report. “No bombs. No stowaways,” he stated.
“You are positive, Mr. Lacy?” persisted Baron Mendl.
“Plumb certain. We even probed the water tanks.”
Baron Mendl surveyed the sky. The sun was just dropping below the horizon. A profusion of clouds
promised an extremely dark night.
“Cast off,” directed the Calbian ambassador. “Head southward through the bay, and straight out to sea.”
The trim vessel got under way, took the middle of the river, picked up speed, and swept past the
warehouses and wharves which fringe the Hudson's banks. The sun disappeared entirely, and after a
brief dusk, black night came.
The yacht was just nosing into the open sea as complete darkness fell.
“Extinguish all lights,” commanded Baron Mendl.
“That's agin' the law, sir,” the mate, Lacy, protested.
“Lights out!” snapped Baron Mendl. “Otherwise my enemies, using an airplane or a speedboat might
spot me.”
The red-headed Lacy had been holding his curiosity fairly well, but now it got the better of him.
“What's going on here, anyway?” he demanded.
“You were hired to take orders, not to ask questions,” he was informed sharply.
Lacy grumbled, and departed to switch off the lights. Masthead lights, running lights—even the
illumination in the cabins was turned off. A silent wraith in the thick murk, the yacht ran out to sea.
Lacy, consumed with curiosity, and still smarting from Baron Mendl's rebuke, stood in the bows with
binoculars jammed to his eyes. He had appointed himself as extra lookout.
Lacy was in the bows when he heard the hissing sound. It was shrill, that hiss, and unlike anything he had
ever heard before. He could not tell exactly from where it came.
He started to turn, got half around—and the whole Atlantic ocean seemed to go to pieces. There was a
flash—so brilliant that its lights ran into his eyeballs as if it were molten metal.
Lacy had a split-second impression that the yacht and the surrounding sea were both going to jump high
into the sky and that the yacht had separated into many pieces for its jump.
Then an explosion-hurled timber slammed against Lacy's red-thatched head, and he became
unconscious.
Chapter III. DEATH TIES A TONGUE
DOC SAVAGE, in his headquarters on the eighty-sixth floor of New York's most impressive skyscraper, saw the flash
which marked the destruction of Baron Damitru Mendl's yacht. The bronze man's windows faced toward the lower bay
and the sea. Moreover, his flake-gold eyes missed little that transpired about him.
At the moment he observed the flash, Doc Savage was nearing the end of his daily two-hour exercise routine. It was
rather late for the exercises, but the unusual man of bronze never allowed a twenty-four hour interval to elapse without
taking them.
When he saw the bright flash out at sea, Doc Savage called a suggestion to Monk, the homely chemist.
“Tune in the radio, Monk, and see if you can pick up something that will tell us what that flash was.”
The pleasantly ugly Monk was engaged at the moment in painting a small, crimson flag on the side of Habeas Corpus.
Habeas Corpus was as uncouth a specimen of his kind as Monk was of the human race. Their kinship extended farther
than that. Both Habeas and Monk would be classed as very intelligent members of their species.
Habeas Corpus was Monk's pet pig. Habeas was lanky and razor-backed, with legs like a dog, and phenomenal ears.
His ears seemed large enough to serve as wings.
Monk dropped the brush he was using into the can of crimson paint, went to a radio receiver, turned it on, and tuned.
Later, he let out a yell.
“Doc! Doc!” he barked excitedly. “That flash was a yacht blowing up! A coast guard cutter just reached the wreckage!
I picked up the cutter radio report.”
Doc Savage approached the radio. The flowing ease of his movements conveyed a striking impression of tremendous
muscular strength. “Any survivors?” he queried.
“One—the mate of the yacht, a guy named Lacy. He's all banged up, but was able to tell 'em who was on board.”
Monk paused and squinted his small eyes at the giant bronze man. “Listen, Doc—you remember the guy in the silk hat
who came in here this afternoon, then walked out? He told me he was Baron Damitru Mendl.”
Doc Savage said nothing, but the flake-gold in his strange eyes seemed to swirl faster.
“Baron Mendl was on that yacht, and the explosion killed him,” Monk concluded.
The closest inspection of Doc Savage's lips would have showed no movement, yet a weird trilling sound came into
being and permeated the vast room. It defied description, this trilling, being possessed of no tune, roving the musical
scale aimlessly. It might have been the product of some wayward breeze through the array of massive bookcases, or
the night song of an exotic jungle bird.
Monk blinked. He knew this sound. The eerie trilling was a characteristic exclusive to Doc Savage—a tiny,
unconscious thing which he did in moments of stress.
“We'd better get at the bottom of this,” Doc said sharply. “Something queer is going on!”
“Wonder what's back of it?” Monk pondered.
“No telling.” Doc moved for the door. “Come on.”
Monk scooped Habeas up by an ear—the oversized ears served very nicely as handles, and Habeas did not seem to
mind—and cried, “Where we goin'?”
“To the explosion scene.”
The Hudson River lay only a few blocks to the west. It did not take them long to reach the water front.
The warehouses were great gloomy hulks in the pale light cast by street lamps. Signs were barely decipherable in the
dimness. One of these read:
HIDALGO TRADING COMPANY
A door in the shoreward end of this warehouse opened to Doc Savage's signal, and it became evident that walls and
roof of the structure were remarkably thick. The place, in fact, was virtually a huge vault. Darkness gorged the rear, and
just what this huge building held was not immediately discernible. A hooded bulb illuminated the forward portion. This
light stood on a workbench.
Affixed in a vise on the bench was a long, thin, razor-sharp blade of Damascus steel. The sheath for this, reposing near
by, disclosed that the weapon was a sword cane, innocent-looking but deadly.
A man who had opened the hangar door looked at Monk and said sarcastically, “The world's homeliest man, and
ugliest hog!”
Monk leered. “Hello, Ham, you shyster!”
Ham—his Alma Mater, Harvard, knew him as Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the most astute lawyer ever
to pass its portals—was a slender man with a waist like a wasp, the dark, piercing eyes of a listener, and the large,
mobile mouth of an orator. Ham's dress was sartorial perfection. Good taste kept his clothes from being flashy, but he
was a man who gave his physical appearance close attention.
Ham and Monk glowered at each other.
An uninformed observer would have thought fisticuffs, if not something worse, imminent. The truth was that these
two were good, if quarrelsome, friends.
Doc clicked light switches, and electric radiance whitened the hangar—for that was the real purpose of the vast
building. Housed inside were a number of planes. These ranged from small gyros to a gigantic tri-motored speed ship
with wonderful streamlining. All were amphibians, capable of berthing on land or water.
“We'll take the big plane,” Doc announced. “It is more efficient for a landing in the open sea.”
THE coast guard cutter, which had been first to reach the spot where disaster had overtaken Baron Damitru Mendl's
yacht, kept in more or less continuous radio communication with its base. The operation of this radio transmitter
guided Doc Savage to the scene. The bronze man employed a sensitive radio direction-finder, with which his fast
amphibian plane was equipped.
The direction-finder amplifier fed into a loudspeaker, so that Monk and Ham could hear the cutter's transmission. This
was in continental code, but both the chemist and the lawyer understood it. They were skilled operators.
“The cause of the explosion seems to be a profound mystery,” Ham remarked.
“I wonder what we're gettin' mixed up in,” Monk muttered. The homely chemist leaned over to scratch one of Habeas
Corpus's winglike ears. “What does this thing smell like to you, Habeas?”
“Trouble!” said Habeas.
When the pleasantly unlovely pig made this intelligent reply—or seemed to make it—Ham started violently. The
phenomenon gave him a shock, although he had witnessed it numerous times before, and knew very well that the pig
did not have a voice.
Monk was a proficient ventriloquist, and frequently exercised his dexterity in the art on Habeas Corpus.
At an altitude of two thousand feet above the cutter, Doc Savage ran a bronze fingertip over a row of buttons on the
dashboard of the plane, selected one and pressed it. Mechanism clicked, and from a wing compartment a parachute
flare was launched. This was like a small sun, as it settled slowly toward the sea.
Doc Savage pointed. “Wreckage—evidently from Baron Mendl's yacht.”
The flotsam consisted of deck chairs, life preservers, portions of lifeboats, and a few torn timbers.
Before the parachute flare fell into the sea, Doc Savage dropped his big amphibian on the surface and taxied alongside
the cutter. The sea was rough, the landing a dangerous one, requiring great skill. The man of bronze, however, showed
with no expression that he considered the descent anything but ordinary.
The cutter was a drab, businesslike vessel with a keel length of approximately a hundred feet. Three-Inch guns fore
and aft had their breech mechanism swathed in weather coverings.
Doc turned the amphibian controls over to Monk, then clambered out, balanced adroitly, and ran to the tip of the wing.
Monk, an expert airman, jockeyed the wing tip close enough to the cutter to enable Doc, with a tremendous leap, to
board the coast guard craft.
“This fellow Lacy,” Doc demanded of the cutter skipper. “Where is he?”
“In the fo'castle,” replied the officer.
“Let's see him.”
Lacy was a still, slack shape on a bunk. His ordinary ruddy color had ebbed until his skin about matched the
battleship-gray paintwork of the cutter. He was senseless, and barely breathing.
Doc made a quick examination. The strange bronze man was skilled at many things—he knew more chemistry than
Monk, more law than Ham; but above all was his knowledge of surgery.
“There's a fracture of the squamous portion of the occipital,” he stated. “In other words, a fractured skull.”
The cutter skipper strained his hair with his fingers. “He must be pretty bad. He was unconscious when we found him,
revived enough to talk some, then passed out again.”
“Did he give any hint as to what caused the blast, or why the yacht was destroyed?” Doc asked.
“No.”
“I want to take him to a hospital. That is his only chance.”
The commander shrugged. “That'll have to be OK'd by my commanding officer.”
The cutter captain went to the radio cabin and communicated with his headquarters. Orders to coöperate fully with
Doc Savage came crackling back with a rapidity that gave the officer rather a shock. He had heard of Doc Savage, of
course, but he did not know the bronze man had such influence with the coast guard.
Guardsmen transferred the seriously injured Lacy to Doc's speed plane.
The small boat, which had been lowered to pick up Lacy, still bobbed alongside the cutter. Entering this, Doc Savage
directed that he be rowed through the floating wreckage of Baron Damitru Mendl's yacht. The casual strength
dominant in his unusual voice had its effect on the sailors, and they rowed about briskly.
The bronze man picked up a shattered hatch, inspected it closely, then discarded it. He did the same with a life
preserver, two deck chairs, the stem of a lifeboat, and miscellaneous spars and timbers.
His examination was short, for he wanted to get Lacy to the hospital. He soon boarded the plane.
“You sized up the wreckage, Doc” Monk said. “Whatcha' make of it?”
“The manner in which those timbers are shattered indicates that the force of the explosion came, not from within the
yacht, but from the top of the superstructure.”
“You mean like a dropped bomb?”
“It might have been a bomb.”
Doc Savage was moved to alter his surmise shortly after he reached the hospital with Lacy.
THE hospital to which Doc took Lacy was not especially large or ornate, but it was acquiring an increasing reputation
for good work, and, moreover, handled an unusual number of charity cases.
Probably not more than a dozen people in New York City knew that Doc Savage had financed the construction of this
institution and was furnishing the money which kept it in operation. The building stood near the river, and Doc was
able to taxi his plane almost to the door.
Appearance of the bronze man with the patient created something of a flurry among the surgeons, and it was not
because their salaries were paid out of Doc's pocketbook. They did not know that. What excited the surgeons was the
prospect of seeing a master of their profession perform.
The main operating room, scene of the most delicate work, was circular, with a glass ceiling, through which spectators
would observe operations. Every surgeon who could find a free moment posted himself above this glass with a pair of
strong binoculars, hoping to see Doc Savage's skilled fingers perform new miracles of surgery.
They were not disappointed. Exactly how Doc revived Lacy was probably understood by only those with the
necessary technical knowledge. Certainly it was beyond Monk and Ham, who were present. The attention of those on
hand, the rapt intensity of the observers above, told them that Doc was doing something far beyond the ordinary.
An hour later, Lacy talked a little.
“Have you any idea what caused the explosion?” Doc queried.
“Nope,” said Lacy, in a fairly strong voice.
“It was apparently something in the nature of a bomb.”
“You mean dropped from an airplane?”
摘要：

THEKINGMAKERADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.RICHES,RAGS,ANDTERROR?ChapterII.EXPLOSIONINTHENIGHT?ChapterIII.DEATHTIESATONGUE?ChapterIV.THEPRINCESS?ChapterV.THE“OLDWOMAN”?ChapterVI.THERIVERSTYX?ChapterVII.THEFATRESCUER?ChapterV...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：101 页 大小：588.39KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

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