Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 006 - The Red Skull

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THE RED SKULL
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE HUNTED MAN
? Chapter II. THE DEATH TRICK
? Chapter III. FANGS
? Chapter IV. THE TOUCH THAT SLEW
? Chapter V. ARCTIC BAIT
? Chapter VI. MONK IN TROUBLE
? Chapter VII. NICK CLIPTON
? Chapter VIII. DEATH DECOY
? Chapter IX. ARIZONA TRAIL
? Chapter X. MAN BATS
? Chapter XI. THE CANYON FIGHT
? Chapter XII. KILLER CHASM
? Chapter XIII. HOT ROCK
? Chapter XIV. THE PLOT SINISTER
? Chapter XV. THE THUNDERING DEATH
? Chapter XVI. NEW SUSPECT
? Chapter XVII. CLEW TRAIL
? Chapter XVIII. MYSTERIOUS MOTIVES
? Chapter XIX. TRUCK DEATH
? Chapter XX. THE FIERY TRAIL
? Chapter XXI. ROBOT MEN
? Chapter XXII. THE DEATH LIGHT
Scanned and proofed by Tom Stephens.
Chapter I. THE HUNTED MAN
FIVE men were running across the golf links of the Widebrook Country Club. They kept in a compact group,
and their manner was determined and sinister. Each carried a hooded golf bag.
The hour was near midnight. The moon sprayed a silver glow over fairways, sand traps and putting greens.
The five men drew no clubs from their covered bags. No golf balls lay on the fairways, not even luminous balls
of the type sometimes used by those eccentric persons who play night golf. They were not indulging in a
moonlight game—at least, not a golf game.
The five did not look like men who would turn to golf for recreation. They had calloused hands, thick necks
and faces which were rocky and cold. Their skins were brown, leatherlike; their eyes had a habitual
squint—marks of lives spent in a land of blistering heat and white-hot sunlight.
An observer would have wondered why they carried the shrouded golf bags, and would have been alarmed at
their grim manner. But there were no observers. The Widebrook was one of the elite links in the vicinity of
New York. Through the day, many persons of wealth played there. At night, there was only the watchman.
The watchman now lay in one of the clubhouse lockers. He was bound with rope ordinarily used to stretch the
nets on the club tennis courts, and gagged with a sponge from the shower baths, held between his jaws by
his own necktie. Moreover, he was still unconscious from a head blow delivered from behind. He had not seen
his assailants.
"Get a move on, you hombres!" rapped the leader of the five runners. "We ain’t got all night!"
This man had two scars, one on either cheek. They looked like gray buttons sewed to his leathery brown
features, and indicated that he had been shot through the face sometime in the past. He was more burly than
the others—his weight fell but a little short of two hundred pounds. He carried his bulk with the lightness of an
athlete.
THE group sprinted on in silence, hugging the golf bags to keep the contents from rattling. Then, at a
command from the leader, they stopped.
"This is gonna be the place," he uttered as he waved an arm to indicate the spot.
"Are you certain about that, Buttons?" asked one of the others.
"Dang tootin’!" The wolfish smile of the man called "Buttons," made the scars on his cheeks crawl back
toward his ears. "Whitey’s telegram said it would be the No. 6 hole on this golf course. Whitey used to hang
out around New York, and he knew about this place."
In a puzzled fashion, the first man peered around. "I don’t see no number."
"You ain’t lookin’ in the right place! Blazes! Ain’t you ever played golf?"
"Naw—and you ain’t either! Why any grown man would fiddle away his time on this cow pasture pool is
more’n I can savvy."
"Dry up. This is the sixth hole. The number was on that white box of a contraption back there. You crawl in
that sand trap."
"You mean that hole full of sand? Do they call that a sand trap?"
"Hop into it!" snapped Buttons.
The other obeyed. With his hands, he hurriedly scooped a trench large enough to receive his form. Then he
plucked open the hood on his golf bag, and drew from it a short, well-worn .30-30 carbine, as well as a
single-action .45-caliber six-gun.
Shoving the six-shooter inside his shirt, the man stretched face-up in the trench he had dug. He placed the
rifle on his chest, throwing his coat over the breech mechanism to protect it from the sand.
Buttons now plucked a large sheet of pale-brown wrapping paper from a pocket. He wrenched off a fragment,
tore eye-holes in it, and spread it over the face of the man in the sand. Then he proceeded to cover the fellow
with sand, leaving the paper-masked head in the open. The job completed, he stepped back for an inspection.
He was satisfied. The pale-brown paper blended nicely with the sand.
"Swell! Anybody would walk right over you and not know you was there. You savvy what you’re to do?"
"Yeah!" grunted the man in the sand. "I’m to pop out of here with my leadslingers, and get Bandy Stevens."
"But no shootin’ unless we have to! Paste that in your bonnet. We gotta stop Bandy. Whitey’s telegram said
Bandy was wearin’ somethin’ bulky in a money belt around his waist, and we want to get whatever that is.
But we wanta grab Bandy alive, so we can ask ‘im some questions."
"Bandy Stevens is poison bad medicine! Don’t forget that!" spoke the man through his paper mask.
"Moreover, he is gonna be expectin’ trouble, since Whitey tried to shoot him in Phoenix and missed."
"He don’t suspect Whitey of that, the telegram said."
"Anyway, Bandy is poison—"
"A jasper named Buttons ain’t no milk tonic, himself!" leered Buttons. "C’mon, you rannies! We’d better get
set."
ON the opposite side of the fairway, another man was soon planted in a sand trap. Two more were concealed
in like fashion along the sixth hole of the golf course. Each man produced weapons from his golf bag.
Buttons, after hiding all his fellows, carried the empty golf bags to a convenient tree and hung them among
the branches. Then he took refuge in the foliage beside them.
Silence now enwrapped the links. In the distance, automobiles moaned on a turnpike. A night breeze shuffled
the leaves of the tree which held Buttons. A furtive, hopping cottontail rabbit came out and browsed on the
grass of a putting green.
The waiting men were well concealed, and they maintained the patience of savage animals in wait for prey.
There was no nervousness, no stirring about. However, each strained his ears to catch a sound for which they
waited.
Buttons was first to hear it. A metallic mosquito drone in the distance! The noise grew louder and louder,
becoming a throbbing howl.
Downward in the moonlight spun a plane. It was a two-place biplane, painted yellow, a little shabby. The big
radial motor boomed gently as the craft floated over the links.
The two occupants peered earthward. The pilot was a tall, stringy man, hard of face. One thing distinguished
his features—his eyebrows and small mustache were white as cotton.
The passenger, seated in the forward cockpit, was stocky. His skin, browned by hot suns, had also been
reddened, where his helmet did not protect it, by the smashing wash of the propeller. His eyes were bleak
behind the goggle glass; a huge jaw strained at his helmet chin strap. He was extremely bow-legged.
"Whitey!" he yelled at the pilot. "Are you sure there’s room enough down there to land this sky bronc?"
"Plenty of room, Bandy. I told you I used to barnstorm around New York. I set my crate down on that golf
course one time when my engine conked." The pilot with the white eyebrows and mustache leveled the plane,
preparatory for a landing.
"Take another circle!" shouted "Bandy." "I wanta look the layout over some more. Since that shot at me in
Phoenix, I figure somebody don’t want me to get to New York. That’s why we ain’t landin’ at a regular airport."
He dropped both hands into the cockpit and withdrew them, gripping a pair of businesslike blue six-guns.
At sight of the weapons, Whitey could not suppress a qualm. When he had hidden behind a hangar of the
Phoenix airport where they had halted for fuel and food, and taken a futile shot at Bandy, it was nothing but
luck that he had escaped discovery. He wondered if Bandy suspected the truth.
But Bandy was hanging over the cockpit rim, interested only in the ground. The plane cast a fleeing batlike
moon shadow.
The cottontail rabbit fled in terror from the putting green where it had been browsing. Bunny fashion, it popped
into the handiest depression, which happened to be a sand trap which held one of the hiding men. There, the
little animal caught the man scent. Association of the odor with shotguns and dogs brought greater terror,
and the rabbit sailed back out of the sand trap the way it had come.
Bandy saw the incident, largely because the rabbit was a flashing gray spot against the luxuriant green of the
fairway.
SUSPICIOUS, Bandy scowled at the sand trap. He knew the ways of wild things, knew how they reacted to
danger. It was plain that something in the sand pit had frightened the cottontail.
"Fly close to them there sand holes, comin’ back!" he bellowed over the motor thunder.
The pilot obeyed. He was unaware his aides were hidden there. He had merely wired them that he would land
Bandy on the sixth hole of this golf course, a procedure suggested by Bandy’s desire to avoid the
commercial airports.
Bandy slanted one of his sixes at the sand pit. It tongued flame twice.
Neither bullet hit the man concealed below. But the fellow thought he had been discovered. Leaping erect, he
drove a rifle slug up at Bandy.
The lead spanked through both wings of the plane.
"Yi-i-p, Powder River!" Bandy bawled the cowboy yell delightedly. He was elated that he had discovered the
trap in time. Stretching far over the pit rim, he fanned lead at the rifleman.
In the rear cockpit, the pilot snarled and gave the controls a convulsive movement. The plane rolled over—in a
flash, it was flying upside down. The object of the maneuver was to throw Bandy overboard.
Dropping both his guns, Bandy grabbed madly at the pit rim. His tough fingers gripped successfully. He kept
himself aboard. But his weapons were lost.
Both cockpits of the plane held parachutes. Bandy had been using his for a cushion. It fell out, and the
bow-legged little man dared not loosen his clutch long enough to seize it.
With an effort that made his arms ache, Bandy drew him upward into the inverted pit until he could grasp the
safety belt. Hanging to that, he twisted to face the pilot.
The flyer’s face was desperate. It had faded until it almost matched the white of his mustache and eyebrows.
He was wishing mightily that he had his gun—he had hidden the weapon after firing the shot in Phoenix,
fearing Bandy might see it on him and become suspicious.
The plane was sagging earthward—but the pilot seemed not to notice.
"Hey—we’re gonna crash!" shrieked Bandy.
The pilot saw their danger. He fought the controls. With only a few feet to spare, the plane rolled level.
Bandy leaned back and shook a horny fist under the airman’s nose. "So you’re in with them sand lizards
down there! I’ll bet you’re the hombre who took that shot at me in Phoenix!"
A vicious glare was the flyer’s reply. He was getting his nerve back, for it had dawned on him that Bandy was
now unarmed. Moreover, the lost parachute gave him an idea.
RECOILING low in the pit, as though fearing violence, the pilot wriggled into the harness of his own ‘chute.
Then he sprang erect, leaned far back out of Bandy’s reach, and stood poised for a leap.
"Climb out on a wing and stay there, or I’ll jump!" he screamed.
Bandy hesitated, then he sagged back in the bucket seat. He knew when he was checkmated. He could not
fly the ship.
"You win!" he gritted.
"Get out on the wing!" the pilot bellowed through the motor clamor.
Bandy obeyed. The dangerous performance of climbing out and hanging to a brace wire did not bother him
much. Bandy had plenty of nerve.
He watched the flyer. The instant the fellow gave his attention to circling the plane back to the golf course,
Bandy flicked his fingers inside his shirt and unbuckled the chamois money belt he wore. A single jerk would
now remove the belt.
Bandy turned so that his back was to the pilot. From a coat pocket he dug an envelope and a stubby pencil.
The rushing air threatened to tear the envelope to bits in his fingers. Holding it close to his chest, he
managed to scrawl words:
$500 REWARD FOR DELIVERY OF MONEY BELT TO DOC SAVAGE.
Bandy glanced slyly over his shoulder. The pilot apparently had not noticed; he was peering downward,
engrossed in the ticklish business of making a moonlight landing.
Folding the envelope, Bandy stuffed it under a flap of one of the money belt pouches.
The motor noise lessened, becoming slow explosions which barely turned the prop over. Less than a hundred
feet up, the plane floated down for the golf course.
A paved road, narrow and apparently not much used, bordered the links. Just before the ship passed over
this, Bandy dropped his money belt. He flashed a look at the pilot, and heaved a relieved sigh. Bandy was in
partial shadow between the wings, and his furtive movements seemed to have escaped detection.
The chamois belt fell a few feet from the road. Bandy bit his lower lip savagely. He had hoped it would land on
the pavement. However, it reposed where it could be seen.
The note promising a five-hundred dollar reward should insure delivery of the belt to the individual Bandy
wished to have it—Doc Savage.
Bandy scowled doubtfully. Suppose the finder of the belt should be unable to locate Doc Savage? But that
was hardly probable.
Doc Savage—the man whose astounding reputation had penetrated even to the acrid waste land of
Arizona—would be widely known here in New York.
Chapter II. THE DEATH TRICK
THE pilot fish-tailed the plane—a maneuver effected by treading the rudder—to decrease air speed. The ship
grazed a putting green, then three-pointed wheels and tail skid in a perfect landing. Bouncing a little, the craft
coasted along the fairway.
Bandy came to life. He was back on his element—the earth. Briefly, he considered jumping off the plane and
taking his chances on a sprint for cover. He dismissed that idea as too risky. The riflemen would pick him off.
Balancing expertly, he leaped along the wing. A vaulting spring landed him atop Whitey in the control cockpit
of the plane.
"Pull a fast one on me, huh!" hissed Bandy, and speared an accurate fist through the arms the pilot raised
defensively.
The blow smacked loudly on the flyer’s temple. The man gurgled. Agony made his eyes stick out. He
grabbed his throat protectively with both hands.
Bandy belted him on the exposed jaw. The pilot began to tremble and make the aimless, feeble gestures of a
man half knocked out.
A .30-30 slug plowed past Bandy’s head with a sound akin to that of a breaking banjo string. The five
ambushers were sprinting for the rolling plane, shooting as they came.
Lifting the dazed pilot bodily, Bandy threw him out of the ship. He knew which lever was the throttle. He
knocked it wide open. The craft streaked forward.
More bullets lashed the plane. Bandy dived into the rear cockpit. It offered scant shelter. Lead gored the
padded pit rim. A slug dug glass out of the instrument board and the fragments cut Bandy’s leathery face.
The plane took a goatlike bound. Bandy hastily cut the throttle, not wishing to leave the earth. The ship had
veered to one side in its wild charge. Bandy saw shadowy trees shoving up ahead and hastily covered his
face with his arms.
There was a jarring crash. The ship spun. One wing had hit a tree. The craft nosed over, the prop digging up a
cloud of grass and black earth. With a lazy crunching and a shrill tearing of doped fabric, the plane settled on
its back.
Bandy was thrown out. He had not been harmed much. Bucking broncs had often given him worse shakings.
He heaved up and ran.
Trees grew thickly in the copse in which he found himself, and lead began scuffing off bark and clattering
fiendishly among the branches. The howling voices of his pursuers reached his ears.
"Run, you galoots! We can’t let that hombre get away!"
Bandy hissed in astonishment as he recognized the voice. "Huh! That guy is Buttons Zortell! He was workin’
on the job as a powder fitter until a couple of weeks ago!"
COLLISION with a tree silenced his rumination. He ran more carefully, striving for silence. But he was too
bow-legged to be graceful on the ground. He jarred small bushes noisily. Twigs cracked underfoot.
Buttons and the other pursuers followed the sounds. They gained steadily.
A woven wire fence abruptly confronted Bandy. The top was armored with two strands of barbed wire. Going
over, he scraped his hands on the barbs and left behind a fragment of his coat.
Ahead, across an open pasture, stood low sheds. He legged it for these. He made a hundred yards—a
hundred and fifty. Then a bullet scraped through the grass underfoot. Gun sound lunged thunderously across
the meadow and caromed in fainter gobbles from trees and buildings.
Bandy pitched alternately right and left as he ran, making himself a difficult target. He rounded the squat
sheds.
About to go on with the buildings as shelter, he heard noisy stampings and blowings within the structures.
"Hosses!" he chortled, and dived inside.
The stable shed held several sleek animals. They were saddlers, long-legged, graceful.
Bandy flung to the halter of the nearest horse. A single wrench freed the knot. He mounted. Halters hung on a
peg beside the door—four of them. Bandy grabbed all four as he rode out.
A few rods beyond was a stone fence. Bandy heeled the horse for the obstacle. The animal cleared it easily.
Simultaneously, a fresh volley of rifle fire clapped out. Buttons and his men had rounded the sheds.
The pursuers did not stop for horses, but came on.
Bandy found himself riding across an oat field. The grain, yellowing with ripeness, reached almost to his
dangling feet. Across the middle of the field ran a small gully. Trees were scattered along this gulch. Bullets
tore the foliage of these.
Two score feet from the concealment of the trees, Bandy flung himself half off the horse, pretending to be hit.
He guided the animal into cover. Then he worked swiftly.
With the four extra halters, he rigged a collar on the horse, with traces reaching back on either side. To the
ends of the traces, he tied what was left of his coat, forming a drag. He seated himself on that and clucked at
the animal. The saddler ran away across the oat field, hauling the man.
It was an old trick of the Indians that Bandy was employing. He held onto the drag and kept his head below
the level of the oats.
Buttons Zortell caught sight of the running horse. In the moonlight, he failed to discern the rude harness, or
the man it pulled.
"We winged ‘im!" Buttons yelled. "He fell off the cayuse! Look sharp, you hombres! He’s probably layin’ in
that ditch somewhere!"
They began searching along the gully.
When a fence stopped the running horse, Bandy rolled off his improvised sled. Scratched and raw, he crept
away. A wide circle took him to the narrow road, and to the spot where he had dropped his money belt. He
retrieved the belt. Then he set off down the road, running easily.
"Now to get in touch with this Doc Savage gent," he told himself.
BUTTONS ZORTELL, unable to find a trace of his quarry, was cursing his men, himself, the moonlight and
whatever else came to his mind.
The frightened horse, head up, loped about the oat field. Buttons suddenly discovered the halter ropes
dragging behind the animal. He released a coyote-like howl of rage.
"The bow-legged runt pulled a fast one on us!"
"I told you he was a bad jasper to monkey with," muttered one of the men.
"We ain’t licked yet! Let’s see if we can locate ‘im!"
They conducted an intensive search. The spot where Bandy had left the pad dragged by the horse, they
found. But that was all.
"C’mon!" ordered Buttons. "I’ve got another plan. And we gotta get away from here. Somebody is sure to look
into all that shootin’."
"What about my plane?" wailed the pilot. "It can be traced to me, on account of the identification numbers
painted on it."
Buttons had no trouble solving that problem.
"We’ll burn it!"
They found the wrecked plane already drenched by gasoline which had leaked from a tear in the fuel tank. A
lighted match thrown from a safe distance caused it to become bundled in roaring flame.
The men ran to a car, which they had secreted near the clubhouse. Not until the machine was bearing them
speedily toward New York, did one of the crew voice a question.
"What are we gonna do, Buttons?"
"Bandy is tryin’ to get to a hombre named Doc Savage. We’ll head ‘im off."
"Blazes! How’d you find that out?"
The scar-cheeked leader leered knowingly. "The big boss told me, before we left Arizona. Me and him
listened through the cracks in a log shanty while Bandy was gettin’ his orders. Bandy was sent east to ask
help from Doc Savage, and he’s carryin’ a letter and a bunch of papers in that money belt. We gotta keep
Bandy and his belt from gettin’ to Savage."
"How?"
Buttons growled fiercely. "I’ll show you!"
HEADLIGHT beams waved stiffly ahead of the fast-moving car. Night insects looked like fluttering bits of white
paper embedded in the white glare. Tire treads sucked and whistled on the pavement.
One of the men put a query. "Who’s this Doc Savage?"
"I’ll tell you the thing about ‘im that hit me most," Buttons replied grimly. "The boss has never seen Doc
Savage, yet he’s scared stiff of the gent!"
"The boss—scared!" The questioner snorted unbelievingly. "With an organization like the boss has, he
shouldn’t be leary of anybody."
"Well, he is! And he’s droppin’ everything else, so as to give all his attention to keepin’ Savage from gettin’
mixed up in this business."
Buttons, who was driving, wheeled the car around a sharp curve before he continued speaking.
"I don’t know as I blame the boss, at that. I got a newspaper on the phone as soon as we hit New York. They
gave me the dope on Savage. What I mean, it was plenty! I figured at first they was kiddin’ me. So I called
another newspaper—and they told me the same stuff."
Buttons glanced around and saw he had a very interested audience. The men were leaning forward to catch
his words.
"I’m still wonderin’ if the newspapers was stringin’ me," he continued. "No one man could be all they said Doc
Savage was. Accordin’ to them, this jasper is the greatest surgeon in the world, as well as the greatest
engineer, the greatest chemist, the greatest electrical expert. Hell! To hear them tell it, nobody can do
anything better than he can! Now I ask you gents—don’t that sound like bushwa?"
The listeners blinked and exchanged doubtful glances. They did not know what to think.
"I got Doc Savage’s life history," Buttons snorted. "It seems his dad trained ‘im from the cradle to make a
superman out of ‘im. The old man’s idea was to fit Doc for what the newspaper gents called a ‘goal in life.’ I
gathered that the goal is to go around huntin’ trouble and nosin’ into other people’s business.
"If a hombre gets in a jam, he can go to Doc Savage, and hocus-pocus, presto!—Doc fixes him up. Just as
easy as that! And it don’t make any difference if the guy in the jam ain’t got no money to pay. Doc ain’t a
money proposition."
"Sounds nutty to me," muttered a man.
"Same here. But the jasper must amount to somethin’, or he wouldn’t have a rep like that. And, remember,
he’s got the big boss worried. I found out somethin’ the boss didn’t know."
"What’s that?"
"Doc Savage has five hombres who work with ‘im. They’re specialists in certain lines. One is a chemist, one
an engineer, one an electrical expert, another an archeologist, and the last one a lawyer. I learned their
names, what they look like, and where they live. I got the same dope on the Savage feller."
"Knowin’ all about ‘em will help us."
"Sure, it will. We’ll have to go up against the gang if Bandy Stevens gets to ‘em. I got an old newspaper an’
cut their pictures out of it."
BUTTONS waited until he was piloting the car down a straight stretch of road, then fished a news clipping
from an inner pocket. He spread it for the others to inspect.
The clipping was a picture. It showed a group of six remarkable-looking men. They were attired in formal
fashion, with top hats and claw-hammer coats.
Buttons put a finger on the most striking character in the assemblage. "This one is Doc Savage."
The other men stared closely. They were impressed, suddenly realizing this was no ordinary personage about
whom they were talking. Even the vague printing of the newspaper cut did not diminish the aspect of strength
and power about the giant form of Doc Savage.
"That hombre ain’t nobody’s pushover," muttered a man. "Look at the gents with ‘im!" grunted another. "One
is darn near as big as Doc! And pipe the hairy gorilla of a feller! Imagine meetin’ somethin’ like that in a dark
canyon!"
"The skinny one with the glasses don’t look so bad. Neither does the shriveled little runt, or the one who
wears his clothes so fancy."
"What does it say at the bottom of the picture?"
Bending close, they read the fine newsprint beneath the clipping:
Clark Savage, Jr., and his five associates at the ceremonial cornerstone-laying of the Savage Memorial
Hospital in Mantilla, capital city of the Luzon Union.
"What was the story with this picture?" a man wanted to know.
Buttons hesitated, then answered reluctantly: "A yarn about this Doc Savage savin’ the Pacific island
republic, the Luzon Union, from a lot of pirates who had come down from the China coast and were tryin’ to
take over the government. Doc wouldn’t take a reward, so they put up the hospital in his honor."
The men seemed somewhat stunned. They moved their hands nervously.
"Jumpin’ steers!" said one uneasily. "The gent ain’t a piker!"
Buttons Zortell sneered loudly. "Don’t let a jasper’s rep get your nannies! We ain’t a bunch of slant-eyed
ginks, like them pirates the paper told about. And glom onto this—the big boss ain’t a slouch himself, when it
comes to brains!"
Little more was said. The car had entered New York, and driving the unaccustomed streets required all of
Buttons’s attention. Due to the late hour, there was little traffic.
Locating Broadway, Buttons drove along that thoroughfare. A halt was made at a shabby hotel where he and
his men had taken rooms.
Buttons entered the hostelry. He reappeared within a few minutes, carrying a metal-bound steamer trunk.
An opening in the end of the trunk was covered by a stout metal screen. Through this came scratchings and
whimperings.
"What the blazes?" demanded one of the crew. "I been wonderin’ why you brought that—"
"Wait and I’ll tell you!" Buttons snapped. He stared about to make sure no one was near, then leaned over
and spoke in a low voice: "The big boss knowed we might have to do some croakin’! So, before we left for the
East, he gimme some sweet tools to do our work with!"
"Whatcha mean?"
Buttons leered at him knowingly. He dropped a hand on the steamer trunk from which the weird noises came.
"This is one of the little things the boss gimme! What’s in this trunk will salivate Bandy Stevens plenty! It’ll do
the job so there won’t be a chance of us gettin’ caught."
Entering the car, Buttons wheeled it downtown. He was heading for one of the tallest skyscrapers in the
city—a towering structure, the eighty-sixth floor of which housed Doc Savage’s headquarters.
Chapter III. FANGS
ONE thing distinguishes New York from other cities—the number and height of its office buildings.
Gothamites can boast of their skyscrapers without fear of contradiction. And few of the cloud-piercers were
the object of more bragging than the structure which housed Doc Savage’s office, library, and experimental
laboratory.
To a height of almost a hundred stories, the skyscraper reared. Outside, the architecture was severely plain,
in the modernistic fashion. The few decorations were in a shiny metal which was impervious to the weather.
Inside, the fittings were elaborate and costly. More than fifty passenger elevators served the tenants.
Bandy Stevens hung his head out of his taxi window and studied the imposing edifice with no little awe.
Bandy had secured a lift from a passing motorist and ridden until he had encountered a cruising taxi. The cab
had hurried him into the city.
No cars were parked near the great office building at this night hour. Only one man was to be seen—a
shabby fellow who sat on the walk near the entrance of the building. This man maintained a hunched position,
and wore dark glasses. He held a bundle of newspapers, which he seemed to be offering for sale. A small
bulldog crouched at his side, head on its paws, as if dozing.
Bandy peered upward at the face of the skyscraper. A number of windows were lighted. He decided this
merely meant the janitor force was at work.
He had scant hope of finding Doc Savage here at this time of night. But he hoped to locate some one who
would tell him where Doc could be found. This address was the only one Bandy possessed.
The taxi drew to a halt before the tower of steel and masonry. The driver was not courteous enough to take
the trouble of opening the door for his fare.
This driver was a surly individual. His neck was a thin stem, and his head perched atop it like a puckered
fruit.
"Five dollars," he said, naming the fare.
The charge was too much, but Bandy did not argue. He dug out a roll of notes which made the taxi driver’s
eyes glitter greedily, and peeled off a bill. Bandy was peering about in search of danger, and failed to notice
he was handing over a ten-spot. The driver pocketed the bill quickly, and made no move to give change.
The vender of newspapers, seated on the walk, kept his head down. He had one hand on the neck of his dog.
There was nothing suspicious in his manner. He might have been asleep.
Bandy started for the skyscraper entrance.
The newspaper seller gave his dog a shove in Bandy’s direction, and released the animal. The canine sped for
the bow-legged man. Its jaws were distended, its fangs showing. There was something hideous, deadly in its
charge.
Bandy strode ahead. It seemed certain he would be bitten before he dreamed of danger.
摘要：

THEREDSKULLADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THEHUNTEDMAN?ChapterII.THEDEATHTRICK?ChapterIII.FANGS?ChapterIV.THETOUCHTHATSLEW?ChapterV.ARCTICBAIT?ChapterVI.MONKINTROUBLE?ChapterVII.NICKCLIPTON?ChapterVIII.DEATHDECOY?ChapterIX.A...

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