Part 3 (2/2)
MacBride, it is reported, heard sounds from the direction of Bruno Hen's cabin. Rus.h.i.+ng to the spot, he found his neighbor dead in the wreckage of his home.
MacBride reported that he saw no evidences of a tornado, and that it was a moonlight night.
The coroner and the sheriff, however, point out that a tornado is the only explanation for the demolished condition in which the cabin was found.
The tornado apparently dipped suddenly upon the exact spot where the cabin stood. After annihilating the building, the twister tore up brush and smashed down small trees over a narrow path to the lake's edge. The storm evidently progressed out over Lake Superior without doing more damage.
Bruno Hen, it will be remembered, a few months ago sold the largest collection of muskrat pelts trapped in this vicinity in a long time.
AFTER HE finished reading, Doc Savage's fantastic trilling sound came into being. So low as to be scarcely audible, it existed for three or four seconds, then ebbed away.
Bruno Hen had sold muskrat pelts. The scent on the roll of bills was musk, such as would be put there by the pawing of hands which had skinned muskrats.
Doc Savage carried the bills into the laboratory and used a finger-printing outfit upon them. He discovered a few of Carl MacBride's prints upon the bills, but the preponderance of handling had been by another set of fingers.
Having found musk odor on bills which Carl MacBride had hardly touched, and which were thick with the other finger prints, Doc felt there was a likelihood that the money had originally been the property of Bruno Hen.
The giant bronze man returned to his search of the body. The dated stub of an airways ticket showed that Carl MacBride had come to New York by plane; that day.
DOC BROUGHT out the newspaper which Carl MacBride had purchased in the filling station.
MacBride was a laborious reader, and in perusing the strange advertis.e.m.e.nt regarding the giants, had traced the words with a finger nail. The indentations were plainly discernible: WARNING! WATCH OUT FOR THE MONSTERS!.
Doc Savage studied this with no little interest. Then he went to the library, and came back bearing a tray.
This contained newspaper clippings.
One, from a Detroit paper, read: BEWARE! THE MONSTERS BRING DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! Another, from a Chicago paper, stated: TERROR! THAT IS WHAT THE MONSTERS BRING!.
There were numerous others, all in like vein. In no ease were the advertis.e.m.e.nts signed. They came from newspapers in Cleveland, St. Louis -- every city of consequence in the country.
Doc Savage sorted over these thoughtfully. His fingers, sensitive and possessed of a dazzling speed, for all their superhuman strength, turned to the clipping concerning the weird death of Bruno Hen.
The giant man of bronze made it his business to keep tab on all strange circ.u.mstances. Thus did he sometimes see danger before it struck.
He had collected these ”monster” clippings because their very nature was sinister. Doc had newspaper connections.
Through them he had learned that no one actually knew what was behind the ”monster” advertis.e.m.e.nts. It was no motion picture press agent's build-up.
The ads simply came in the mail, with money to pay for their insertion. And in each case, the ads had been mailed from Trapper Lake, Michigan.
Chapter 6. MYSTERY MANSE.
IT WAS more than an hour later when the telephone buzzer whined and Doc Savage picked up the instrument.
The tiny childlike voice which had spoken to him from the televisor-phone in the laboratory came over the wire.
”At the junction of Hill Road and the Hudson Turnpike, in New Jersey,” said the small tones.
”Be right out”' Doc replied, and hung up.
The bronze man took his private high-speed elevator to the skysc.r.a.per bas.e.m.e.nt. This lift was the product of his inventive genius, and operated at hair-lifting speed.
Stepping from the elevator, Doc entered his bas.e.m.e.nt garage. This was the chamber with the array of parked cars which had appeared on the scanning Screen of the televisorphone.
For his immediate purpose Doc chose a long, somberly colored roadster. This machine, as he wheeled it up to the street, showed by its acceleration that the hood housed a powerful engine. Wending through traffic, it attracted no attention, due to its quiet hue.
Not so the bronze man. Scarcely a glance rested upon him that did not become a stare, so striking was the picture he presented.
The roadster swept over George Was.h.i.+ngton bridge, which connects Manhattan Island with New Jersey.
When traffic thinned, the machine increased speed. It traveled just within the bounds of safety.
Several times, traffic policemen sprang into startled life as the car moaned past; but they subsided upon observing the occupant. The greenest rookie knew there was an imperative order out to extend to this man of bronze. every possible co-operation.
Hill Road ran east and west, and the Hudson Turnpike was a north and south thoroughfare. The twointersected in a nest of filling stations and hot-dog stands.
Doc Savage pulled into a gasoline station at the intersection and ordered fuel.
A few yards distant, a crowd of excited children surrounded a man whose appearance was nothing if not startling. He came near bearing more resemblance to an ape than to a man. His furry hands dangled on beams of arms well below his knees. He had a little nubbin of a head. His hair grew back from his eyebrows. The huge simian fellow's face was likeable, although entirely homely.
This pleasantly ugly personage was amusing the kids by calmly folding pennies between a hairy thumb and forefinger. The feat of strength he performed without great exertion.
The gorilla of a man hardly glanced in Doc's direction. He ceased performing for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the children and entered a large sedan which stood near by. He drove westward along Hill Road.
Doc Savage, having paid for his tank of fuel, also rolled westward along Hill Road. He topped the first hill. In the valley beyond, the gorillalike man had stopped his car.
Doc came to a halt alongside the simian one. ”Where's Ham, Monk?” he queried.
Monk grinned, showing a tremendous array of large white teeth. His head seemed to disappear entirely behind the grin; certainly, there did not seem to be room for much intelligence in his head.
His looks belied the truth, however. He was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, whose ability as an industrial chemist had brought him worldwide fame and a fortune in money.
MONK WAS one of a group of five who had a.s.sociated themselves with Doc Savage. These five men were all capable of commanding high monetary returns, had they chosen to exercise the professions at which they were skilled. But they loved adventure. Possessing ample wealth, they had thrown in with Doc Savage in his career of punis.h.i.+ng evildoers in the far corners of the earth.
Monk pointed down Hill Road. ”We trailed the killer to a kind of a funny-lookin' country estate. Ham's watchin' the place. We better go on afoot.”
Doc switched off the roadster motor. So silently had it operated at idling speed that cessation of movement of the ammeter needle was all that showed the cylinders had ceased firing.
The two men strode along Hill Road, leaving the cars drawn into weeds beside the highway.
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