"Doc Savage Adventure 1934-11 Death in Silver" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

Chapter 3

THE ARCHER QUEST


THE archer was not a large man - if he was a man. He was shorter than Ham, who was not tall, and he was also scrawny, with thin arms and gnarled legs.

His garb was the strange, the gripping thing. It was silver. The cloth was of the metallic stuff such as is used to make the stage costumes of show girls, and it was cut in one garment - a coverall.

There was a hood over the head, also of silver, elastic and tight fitting. Because eye and mouth openings were dark against the shiny metallic hood, the affair had the aspect of a death's-head, a silver skull. A costly wrist watch adorned one of his pipestem arms.

The silver archer stood in the door of an adjacent office, holding a heavy medieval bow, evidently one of the antiques which filled the rooms. He dropped the how, it thumping loudly as it fell; then he leaped backward.

The movement snapped Monk and Ham out of their trance. They dived headlong in pursuit But the killer slammed the door; a key clinked among the tumblers. Doc Savage's two aides, flinging against the panel, found it solidly resistant.

"So there isn't any such thing as the Silver Death's-Heads!" Ham snapped.

Monk knotted an enormous, bristle-covered fist and grated, "You were the first one to get that idea, you nitwit shyster."

Then Monk grimaced and hit the door panel with his fist. The wood splintered, gave a trifle; it splintered more extensively under a second blow, then collapsed, making a bole large enough to pass the apish chemist's hairy hand. Standing well clear of the door, Monk groped for the key, found it in place, and unlocked the panel. He shoved it open.

Ham started through, sword cane in hand.

"Wait, stupid," Monk growled, and shoved the dapper lawyer back.

From a holster, so cleverly padded under an armpit that it was unnoticeable, Monk drew a weapon bearing close resemblance to an overgrown automatic pistol. But it was no automatic.

It was a supermachine pistol, product of Doc Savage's mechanical genius, a weapon which fired at an incredible speed, discharging, instead of regulation lead slugs, thin-walled composition bullets which carried an anaesthetic compound producing quick, harmless unconsciousness.

Machine pistol in hand, Monk jumped through the door. Considering that a murderer had just entered the room, his act might have seemed reckless. But Monk wore a bulletproof vest which protected his entire body, and he knew gunmen of the modern type do not often shoot at a man's head.

Ham trailed the homely chemist. He, too, wore one of the bulletproof vests which were so light and thin as to be unnoticeable under their clothing, and was not at all uncomfortable. These vests were also a product of Doc Savage's mechanical skill.

Both men jerked up inside the room. Their jaws sagged; their eyes, roving, widened in amazement.

"Well, I'm a camel's uncle!" Monk breathed. "Where'd he go?"

Ham shook his head slowly and turned his sword cane in his hands, for their quarry was nowhere in the room. Both the outer windows were down, and the lawyer knew that this skyscraper had a wall sheer and smooth, impossible for even a so-called "human fly" to scale by ordinary methods.


MONK, charging around the room, jerked a rectangle of expensive tapestry from the wall, scowled when he saw there was no aperture back of it, and flipped the carpet up. Nowhere was there a trapdoor.

"The windows are unlocked," Ham pointed out.

"But that bird in silver couldn't have - " Monk swallowed the rest, ran to a window and wrenched it up. He looked out, seemed stunned, but said nothing.

Ham leaped to his side. Together they peered down.

"We must be getting very dumb," Ham said disgustedly.