"Doc Savage Adventure 1939-07 Merchants of Disaster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

"Doc Savage speaking," he said. His voice was not loud, but it had a peculiar carrying timbre.

In Washington, the war secretary spoke swiftly. A strange trilling sound filled the office. It came apparently from no one particular place, but from everywhere. It was a sound Doc Savage always made when surprised.

Across the room a giant of a man, with huge, bony monstrosities of fists, stirred himself up in his chair and looked interested.

Colonel John Renwick, known as Renny to his friends, was the only one of Doc's aids in the office with him at the time. Renny was a world-famous engineer, one who took pleasure in his work.

Even better than that work, however, he loved the adventures he encountered with Doc Savage. But he never showed that pleasure. Now, his features drew themselves into stiff, disapproving, puritanical lines.

Doc's trilling sound had been enough to prove that something was up.

The bronze man spoke softly, returned the telephone to his desk.

"Give me just one guess," Renny grumbled. "I'll bet it's about those soldiers who got killed today. We're going to get into something."

Doc nodded. "The army," he said quietly, "has found how those men died."

Renny showed a flicker of interest. The stern lines of his face relaxed a trifle. "And that was - "

"They all suffocated," Doc explained gently. "But not from any gas or any other known cause. The army is sure it was no accident, but deliberate murder."



Chapter 3

VISITORS ARRIVE


WORD of the army's conclusion reached the press. It increased the clamor in the newspapers.

Pacifist organizations claimed the army deliberately was trying to cover up a blunder that had cost the lives of two hundred men. They charged officers had allowed men to walk into a new and deadly gas without adequate safeguards.

Militarists were just as far on the other side of the fence. They charged that enemies of foreign powers had operated a death machine, one that paralyzed the lungs, killing American soldiers wantonly. Had the United States gone to war with all the countries accused, she would have been fighting more than half the world.

Scientists were interviewed. They gave as their solemn opinion the statement that the soldiers could not have been killed, that it was impossible for them to have suffocated in the manner described, and that, as a matter of scientific fact, they could not be dead.

A mass funeral was scheduled for the soldiers just the same.

And special orders went to all army posts calling for extra precautions. No one knew where the terror might strike next.

The affair attracted attention in other countries also, particularly those countries whose leaders made threatening speeches and pompous declarations about "our rights." Strangely, those leaders quieted for the time. Intelligence departments of the various nations were instructed to get and learn just what had caused the mysterious deaths.

Doc Savage's fame was world-wide. Word was sent down the line to keep an eye on the bronze man and his aids.

Those who received the orders tried to do just this. Certain secretive individuals suddenly manifested great interest in office space at the building where Doc had his quarters. The investigators were disappointed. Doc's offices were deserted.

An effort was made to pick up the trail either of the bronze man or of his five skilled aids. For a time, this also proved in vain.