Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 166 - The Disappearing Lady

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2024-12-23 0 0 358.86KB 73 页 5.9玖币
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THE DISAPPEARING LADY
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I
? Chapter II
? Chapter III
? Chapter IV
? Chapter V
? Chapter VI
? Chapter VII
? Chapter VIII
? Chapter IX
? Chapter X
? Chapter XI
? Chapter XII
? Chapter XIII
? Chapter XIV
Chapter I
LATER, Doc Savage was to connect the several little incidents together and discover that they formed a
distinct pattern. Each had a bearing on the mystery. Each, really, had involved himself. But, at the time,
how was he to know that he was the focal point of a whirlpool of events leading to a sinister climax?
The sidewalk vender selling gardenias—it later developed—had absolutely nothing to do with the crime.
Nevertheless, gardenias, at least the sweet cloying smell of them, was always there in the background . . .
throughout the case, a vague, challenging, threatening thing as elusive as drifting fog. Touching one swiftly
and unexpectedly at times, as fog sweeps in from the sea with a sudden vagrant change of the wind.
Then, moving quickly away as if scattered by an offshore breeze, dissolving, vanishing into intangible
nothingness.
Because Doc Savage was somewhat early for his appointment, he had noted several unrelated events,
and later they were to fall together in the pattern.
IT still lacked fifteen minutes till five o'clock when he parked his car on Park Place and walked down the
narrow steep street that bordered rambling Boston Common. Near the corner of busy Tremont Street he
entered the park and found a deserted bench.
A clock in a tower atop the building at the corner of Park Place and Tremont showed the time. The
bank, where he had the appointment at five, was a few doors up the narrow street that climbed toward
Beacon Hill. It did not look like a bank. It was a typical conservative Boston institution.
Red brick, with white trim at narrow windows that looked like ordinary private dwelling windows, the
bank appeared more like a three-story residence squeezed in between the other business houses of the
hilly street.
The new automobile was the first in the chain of little small details that Doc was later to remember. When
he left his own coupé, and started toward Boston Common, he had noticed several people looking at the
new car. Each was trying to guess its make.
Doc surmised it was a standard 8-cylinder chassis with several thousand dollars' worth of custom-built
body placed on top of it—the first of the fancy postwar jobs for which someone had squandered some
real money.
In place of the standard all-metal roof, the section above the driver's seat was of plexiglas—offering the
driver the kind of visibility a pilot enjoys in a modern glass-enclosed airplane cockpit. Or perhaps the
owner was seeking a lot of sunlight.
Then, instead of the usual windows, the rear part of the car body contained small round portholes.
Interior of the machine was of expensive cream-colored leather and fancy chrome fittings. The entire
car—fenders, hood, roof—was blended into a smooth, sleek unit that gave the impression of
ultra-modern design.
A moment after Doc had passed the car and seated himself on the park bench, the man came out of the
store on the corner beneath the clock and went up Park Place. He wore a chauffeur's cap and dark suit,
a tall, long man who appeared to be annoyed when he saw passersby staring at the car.
Unlocking the car door, the chauffeur climbed inside and started the engine. The sleek car moved a little
way up the street, then swung into an alleyway that was pinched between two buildings. Soon the
chauffeur appeared again and walked back down the hill. He disappeared into the corner store beneath
the high steeple clock.
Doc guessed the fellow had merely parked the car in the alleyway because it was attracting attention.
It was ten minutes till five.
AT the corner of Boston Common and Park Place—a wide sort of plaza—sailors from the Charleston
Navy Yard were meeting their dates. The spot was Boston's favorite rendezvous for the men who
followed the sea and the gals who followed the men. “See you at Boston Common, honey, about five
o'clock.” The date could have been made last night, or six months ago. But she'd be there. The ships
came in and out, and on one of them was always her man.
A smile flickered across Doc Savage's bronze features as he watched the flower peddler doing a rushing
business. Gardenias—fifty cents each. There was hardly a sailor who passed them up.
The chauffeur came out of the corner store and went up Beacon Hill again. A taxicab pulled up. Two
well-dressed men climbed out and approached the bank. One pressed a buzzer beside the double
entrance doors. Shortly they were admitted by a gray-haired bank guard.
It was past the usual banking hours but they, probably the same as Doc Savage, no doubt had an
appointment with someone. Perhaps a couple of board members.
Doc kept thinking about his own appointment. The request, urgent, had come from Ernest Green himself.
Green was president of the staid, reliable institution—yet one of the youngest bank presidents in the
country, they said. A sort of business wizard.
Being a stockholder himself in the bank, Doc had felt obligated to keep the appointment when Ernest
Green somehow learned he was in Boston and staying at the Copley-Plaza.
“There's not another person I can turn to,” Green had said urgently over the phone.
Five minutes, now, till five.
Doc Savage stood up, strolled toward the corner of Park Place. Though it was late October, the
afternoon was warm enough to be pleasant.
Now people were pouring out of office buildings and department stores. The business day was over.
They headed for buses and the subway-like entrances that led to the carlines beneath the Common.
The chauffeur came down Beacon Hill again and entered the store. Doc noted that it was a cigar shop.
Doc crossed the street, entered the place and asked for a package of gum. The man in the chauffeur's
cap was inside a telephone booth. By the time Doc came into the shop the fellow was already talking to
someone. While Doc was getting his change the fellow hurried out of the booth and went outside again,
once more going up the hilly side street. He had no eyebrows. It gave his face a peculiar, gaunt
appearance.
As he disappeared, a man detached himself from a group of people waiting for a bus at the corner just
outside the store. Doc Savage thought he noticed the merest indication of a nod as the chauffeur passed
the small, dapper little man. A moment before the birdlike small man had been watching for the bus; now,
he seemed to have completely forgotten this and was heading up Beacon Hill.
Little casual incidents like this Doc Savage always noted. His mind, trained for alertness, tagged such
details. He was hardly aware that he was making the observations even now; yet later, sharply distinct,
the happenings were going to be remembered and they were going to be significant.
Five o'clock was striking when Doc Savage pressed the buzzer beside the bank entrance.
A HEAVY gate of steel grillwork had been locked for the night. The gate was just outside the regular
doors. Almost immediately a big man with ruddy Irish features and wearing the uniform of a bank guard
appeared.
He looked out at the bronze man and made no attempt to unlock the gate. A slight frown touched his
brow as he looked up at Doc Savage.
“Yes?” he asked, and he kept sizing up Doc's build.
A tall, heavy man himself, the guard nevertheless had to look up at the bronze man. For Doc Savage,
standing close to someone as he was now, always gave strangers a somewhat startling impression.
He was taller than most big men. His eyes were an unusual flake-gold color. There was a breadth to his
shoulders, an attitude about his figure that denoted amazing physical perfection. One sensed this
underlying deep strength whenever Doc Savage moved close beside another individual, and now the two
men were separated only by the steel bars.
Doc said quietly, “I have an appointment with Ernest Green. The name is Savage—Clark Savage, Jr.”
“We're closed,” the Irishman said.
“That's obvious,” said Doc patiently. “Nevertheless, I have an appointment—”
“Nobody said anything to me,” the bank guard said. He continued to frown. Also, he appeared to be
somewhat uneasy. He made no attempt to unlock the gate, but continued to be disturbed by the size of
this stranger standing there.
He started to say grumblingly, “I ain't forgetting the trouble we had at the South Boston branch—”
A voice behind the guard, a woman's voice, said pleasantly, “It's quite all right, Reilly. Mr. Savage does
have an appointment.”
The interior of the bank was a dark cavern behind the woman, and Doc Savage only caught a glimpse of
her while the guard unlocked the heavy gate. Then, as he stepped inside into the cool vaulted room, he
was able to observe her fully.
She was brunette, tall, slender, and probably in her late thirties, though he had found that he was never
positive about women's ages. She wore an expensively tailored black gabardine suit and a white pleated
waist beneath. He wondered if you would call her pretty. Attractive, yes—in a neat, quiet, subdued
businesslike manner.
She smiled briefly in the way a perfect private secretary smiles. “This way, Mr. Savage,” she directed.
“I'm sorry I forgot to tell Reilly. I planned to be at the door myself to let you in. Mr. Green asked me.”
They were moving down the length of the big banking room. Darkened tellers' cages were on either side.
Their footsteps on the marble flooring echoed against the high walls.
“I'm Miss Lang,” she was saying. “I—”
“Velma Lang,” said Doc Savage. “Mr. Green's secretary.”
She glanced at him quickly. Her eyes were gray-green, quiet analytical eyes that gave evidence of
intelligence. Her hair, parted straight through the middle, was done a little too severely. She had smooth
fine skin and a delicate bone structure to her face. A beauty expert no doubt could accomplish startling
changes in her appearance.
“Yes,” Doc explained, “five years ago, as I recall. I stopped off here for a board meeting. You were in
the office when we all left. Green spoke to you a moment about something. He happened to mention
your name.”
They had reached a wide, carpeted stairway at the rear of the banking room. Velma Lang paused
momentarily before starting up the steps. “You have an unusual memory, Mr. Savage. All those years!”
Doc shrugged.
Though outwardly impersonal, businesslike, you could tell the remark had pleased her. There was a new
expression in her eyes for the barest instant. They seemed just a trifle more green than gray.
Nothing further was said as they climbed the stairs.
VELMA LANG led the way along a balcony that bordered the stair wall. Up here the walls were
paneled from floor to ceiling, dark wood, somber, in keeping with respectable Boston tradition. She
entered an office that was also carpeted and there were fine prints in expensive black frames on the
walls. There was a single large desk, and atop it a zippered briefcase lay open. Beside it rested a black
hat, black gloves and a purse.
She moved toward an adjoining doorway that was closed. “I'll tell him—”
Doc waited. He noticed that it was the kind of desk that did not contain a typewriter section. Velma
Lang was the executive type of secretary who had her own stenographer.
Doc heard her say something, announcing him. Her quiet-spoken words were quietly absorbed by the
rich, quiet surroundings.
The man came out of the adjoining room and quickly approached Doc Savage with outstretched hand
and an expression on his round, clean, bright face as if Doc were a wealthy relative arriving with a
trunkful of gold.
“Lord, man!” exclaimed Ernest Green. “I'm glad you're here!”
Doc felt his hand worked up and down like a pump handle.
Velma Lang followed the banker out of the inner office. She stepped past them to her desk, closed the
briefcase, picked up hat, purse and gloves. She waited quietly.
Ernest Green was a short, solid man with a round young-looking face and blond hair. There was an alert
boyish expression about his pink face. It was his round brown eyes, sharp and bright as polished
marbles, that gave a true indication of the man's capabilities.
Gripping Doc's arm, he urged him toward the private office. “We'll get right down to this,” he was saying.
His voice held a slight shrillness. The man was tense, you could tell. “God, man, I'm glad you came—”
He stopped saying that and swung back, his quick mind remembering the woman standing there. “Sorry,
Velma,” he said with some apology. “You're going up to the house, of course?”
“Yes.”
“You have those statements?”
She nodded. Doc saw her face above the short blond man's head. He imagined her eyes, large and
round, could be very expressive. But she had trained herself to be quiet, placid, efficient. Her entire
manner was one of reserve.
“We'll go over them tonight,” Ernest Green finished. “I'll see you then, Velma—”
The woman said, “You won't forget the two gentlemen who are waiting?”
Green jerked his blond head quickly. “I know, I know. In the board room?”
“I told them you would be tied up for a little. They said they didn't mind waiting.”
“They shouldn't!” The banker's words popped out with rapidity. He was certainly keyed up about
something. He glanced at Doc and flashed a tight smile. “Not when they want to borrow a hundred
thousand, they shouldn't mind. They can damn well wait.” Then, again to the woman, “Good-night,
Velma.”
“Good-night.”
She glanced briefly at both men, that quiet impersonal look, and went out.
Green hurried into his own office and motioned to a heavy leather chair on the near side of a heavy, huge
carved desk.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said to the bronze man.
He bounced around behind the desk and perched on the edge of a swivel chair, hands flat on the desk
top, looking at Doc Savage. He stared for several seconds without saying a word, his round, bright
brown eyes boring into Doc's face.
The manner in which the banker sat, hands held palms down flat against the desk top, was a gesture to
help steady jumpy nerves, Doc surmised.
“Now!” said Green, letting out his breath. “We can talk!”
Chapter II
“YOU act,” commented Doc Savage, “as if someone were going to rob the bank.”
“That,” said the banker, “I could take.” He gave a half-sickly smile. “Insurance would cover a robbery.
Insurance won't cover me, however, or my reputation.”
“You?”
“I'm the one who is going to be robbed. A million, Mr. Savage—not counting my reputation.” He turned
his hands over, palms up, then slapped them back on the desk top again. “Besides, I don't have that kind
of money. I'd be ruined . . . completely ruined!”
His eyes, shrewd, intense, thinking eyes, bored into Doc's and waited for the bronze man's reaction. Doc
remained relaxed in his chair, knees crossed, studying the banker's round pink face.
“And who plans to do all this wrecking?”
“My wife!”
“I thought—”
“You thought we were divorced?”
Doc nodded.
“Five years ago, it was,” Green explained tightly. “That was shortly after the last time you visited the
bank.” He shook his blond head. “No, Mr. Savage, we were not divorced. Merely separated. It was a
sort of a mutual understanding. The marriage was a complete mistake. We both agreed to that, Sybil and
I. We just decided to call it quits, all very friendly, no ill feelings.”
“No settlement?”
“Nothing. Sybil had done some singing before we were married. Call her a show girl, if you like. Not
really, though. A lovely, beautiful girl—nothing flashy, understand. You never met her, did you?”
Doc shook his head.
“Well, she was like that.” Ernest Green sighed. Talking seemed to loosen some of his tension. He
reached behind him to a small carved wood cabinet, opened it, removed a flat teakwood cigarette case
and offered one to Doc Savage. When the bronze man shook his head, the banker lit one for himself. He
leaned forward and continued talking.
“No, Sybil asked for nothing. But the lure of radio fame or Hollywood was too great. She realized she
couldn't be both—an entertainer and the wife of a banker.”
“A Boston banker,” corrected Doc.
“Exactly. The Green name, you know—”
“Dates right back to Plymouth Rock, doesn't it?”
Ernest Green smiled briefly. “My sister would have me wear the family coat-of-arms right on my coat
sleeve. She has been an invalid for years, you know.” He turned his perfectly manicured hands over and
back again. “But it was more than that. The bank here—the depositors—some of the city's oldest
families. Sybil was decent enough to understand all that. Banking and show business don't go together in
Boston.”
Doc unfolded his legs, the only indication that he was impatient for the man to finish his story. He saw
Green's face tighten up again, the expression of uneasiness in the back of his agate-brown eyes.
“So a few weeks ago it starts to happen. Letters from her, Sybil.” He opened a drawer of the huge desk
and started placing things in front of Doc Savage—several letters, a photograph, and what appeared to
be a phonograph record in a large brown envelope. “More recently, phone calls right here to the bank.
She's using an intermediary.”
“Who?”
Ernest Green crushed out the cigarette in an ash tray, straightened up in the big chair and gripped the
edge of the desk.
“I haven't the slightest idea—yet. So far, the blackmail negotiations have been in the preliminary stage.
Two days ago, however, she displayed one of her hole cards. She has something I can't ignore.” He was
perspiring a little now. “One of those affairs while I was in my last year at Harvard, here. Every college
student has one sooner or later. Somehow, she's managed to unearth it. That is the axe she's wielding
over me, Mr. Savage.”
Doc said: “You thought I could do something?” He ignored the exhibits that had been pushed in front of
him on the desk.
“Yes. Your work . . . your unusual organization with its facilities for unearthing things in a hurry. And I've
got to move fast. She wants a million, cash, which I haven't got, and now she's becoming impatient. I've
got to find some way to stop her—or stop the people who are putting her up to it.”
He came around the desk, like a man jerked along on strings, picked up letters, photograph and large
envelope, shoving them into Doc's hands.
Doc Savage continued to ignore the things. “You say you think someone might be helping her?”
“You wonder,” said Ernest Green. “Five years ago she walked out of my life. Everything ended clean,
finished. Then—this, all of a sudden. You figure it out.”
“No word from her in all that time?”
“Nothing.” The banker took another cigarette from the polished wooden case, put it between his lips,
removed it without lighting it. “Oh, of course I kept track of her for awhile. She was singing at a club near
Boston. Changed her name—her maiden name, which was damned decent of her. She spent a summer,
part of it, in Vermont. Then—” He spread his hands. “Never heard from her again.”
“Until recently?”
His blond head jerked.
DOC SAVAGE stood up, his bronze features immobile. He still held the exhibits that Green had forced
on him.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
The banker looked confused. “You mean—”
“You'll have to sell it to some one else,” Doc explained. “A good, reputable detective agency could
handle it. The police, naturally, are out. There would be too many political angles.”
The banker's brilliant brown eyes still were puzzled. “I don't understand. You—your organization—have
handled some of the toughest problems in the world. You accomplish things without publicity. In fact, you
always avoid that sort of thing. Somewhere along the line you can stop her, or you can find out just who
else is mixed up in it, and block their vicious purpose—”
Doc said quietly, “Don't misunderstand me, Green. I'm convinced you're telling it straight. I appreciate
the spot you're in. But blackmail built around this sort of thing . . .” He broke off, moved his chair aside,
indicating that he was quite finished with the interview. “I'm not having any. Sorry.”
The executive seemed at a loss for words. Obviously he was accustomed to having people cater to him,
because of his position. This was different. Doc Savage was different, somehow, than anyone he had
ever met.
There was a soft discreet knock on the heavy door to the outer office. Ernest Green's marble eyes jerked
that way, were annoyed, then apparently remembering Velma Lang's reminder about the other
appointment, he hurried to the door and opened it a few inches.
A mans voice spoke quietly and briefly. The bank president nodded. “All right. Tell them right away.”
He returned to speak to Doc. “That was my head cashier.” He moved his immaculate hands impatiently.
“This loan . . . two business men from out of town are waiting for me. All the details have been
completed. I've never even met them. There just remains the formality of my signing the papers. A cash
loan. It will only take me a moment.”
He touched Doc Savage's arm briefly. “Wait, won't you? I'll drop you off at your hotel as soon as I'm
finished. Better yet, we'll have dinner together.” He swung toward the door and was already half across
the threshold. “I'll be right back.”
He was gone before Doc Savage could mention that he had his own coupé with him.
Doc found himself still holding the assorted items in his hands. Golden lights in his eyes flickered
restlessly. Ordinarily, he disliked being rude to people. There was no doubt in his mind that Green's
request was quite sincere. But it was the type of case any private “op" could handle.
So this delay irritated him slightly. Naturally the banker was hoping he could use high-pressure talk when
he returned.
Doc wasn't buying. Not one part of it.
He dropped the letters on the desk without reading them. He opened the large heavy brown envelope. It
was a personal recording, prepared by a small firm here in Boston. The title of the song and the singer's
name had been typed on the circular paper disk glued to the record.
“The Last Time I Saw Paris.” That was the title of the song. The singer: Lois Lee.
That would be the name Sybil, Green's wife, had used after they had separated. He had already
mentioned it.
Doc placed the record on the desk also.
The photograph remained. He glanced at it once, started to put it on the desk, then drew his arm back
and looked at the photo again.
A thoughtful somberness was in Doc's eyes as he studied the photograph. This woman was Sybil, and
she was beautiful. His mind, trained for exactness in all things, noted the perfect contour of the woman's
features. He imagined the eyes were dark, as was the hair. Against this the skin would be very fair, ivory
white, a soft, delicate, almost Latin type of beauty.
In the picture, Sybil stood beside a radio-phonograph cabinet, one arm resting on the machine. She had
been looking directly toward whoever had taken the picture, and now, holding the photograph, it was as
if she were looking directly at him. She was not tall. Her figure was small and perfectly formed.
But it was the face that held him. He took it apart mentally, put it back together again, and could find no
flaw anywhere. Calmly beautiful, just the trace of a smile on the delicate small mouth, he imagined her a
person of deep sensitivity. It was in the eyes.
A man could be mistaken, of course. Perhaps you couldn't completely judge character from a
photograph, a picture that must have been taken at least five years ago—for the banker had said he had
never seen his wife again since their separation.
And yet—yet Doc Savage could not quite conceive that a woman with that kind character mirrored in
her eyes would be the instigator of a vicious blackmail plot such as Green had outlined.
Doc's gaze wandered from the photograph in his hand and stared across the room, as he turned the
thought over in his mind. A faint mechanical hum abruptly disturbed the complete silence of the richly
furnished office. He glanced up, saw the grill-covered outlet of an automatic air-conditioning system in the
paneled wall. The whisper of sound came from there.
Gaze dropping again, his eyes came in line with the handsome Capehart radio-phonograph cabinet
located against a far wall. Familiar details of the cabinet's construction touched a spark in his mind.
Somewhere he had seen—
The photograph in his hand, of course. She—Sybil—had stood beside this very identical Capehart. It
was the same room, the same background of dark paneled wall and beautiful polished phonograph
combination.
Doc stood up. It wasn't so much curiosity that caused him to pick up the record as it was a desire to be
doing something while he awaited the bank president's return. Anyway, he told himself, this was the only
reason why he carried the recording over to the machine.
Women, as a rule, did not interest Doc Savage. They did not interest him for the simple reason that he
would not allow himself to be fascinated by them. It was his work, the kind of career he followed.
Adventure had taken him to every out-of-the-way corner of the world. Adventure in which there was
always real danger. There was no place for a woman in that sort of life.
Placing the record on the turntable, he flicked a switch and turned the volume control down low. He
moved back across the room and closed the door, which Green had left ajar.
Soft hum of the machine mingled with the faint whir of the air-conditioning system, which had not yet
gone off again. Then the song started.
DOC SAVAGE stood there, head turned slightly, and it was almost as if someone were there in the
room with him. Her! The rich, full-toned words of the song exactly matched the photograph, somehow.
His thoughts visualized the fair, pale skin of her face, the large deep dark eyes.
摘要：

THEDISAPPEARINGLADYADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIV       ChapterI LATER,DocSavagewastoconn...

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