"033 (B015) - Murder Melody (1935-11) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

If the strange force now opposing him was so far advanced as to have conquered magnetic and gravitational elements, then television must also be present. His theory was instantly confirmed. It was an amazing scene which leaped into the television receiver.
This receiver was operated on a cathode ray tube which reproduced a surface similar to the retina of the human eye.
The scene which for seconds held Johnny and Monk speechless, was accompanied by a liquid voice. In the center of the glass appeared the slim figure of a girl. She was of average size, but the perfection of her form and the fitting of her clinging garments gave her the appearance of a miniature woman.
The face was delicately patrician. Her nose was small and straight. Even in the television, the skin had an alabaster texture. Widely spaced eyes seemed to be appealing to the men in Doc's plane.
"Howlin' calamities!" shrilled Monk. "It's a girl an' she can see us!"
Certainly it was indicated the girl was either staring at them, or some freakish force of television made it appear that way. The girl's eyes were large. The pupils were round and black.
At the instant she appeared the girl's lips moved in speech:
"Clark Savage, look out for the Zoromen. I have been betrayed by spies among my own crew. You are in danger from Zoro. He wants to take you alive."
Suddenly the girl's face filled the whole space of the television window. It was as if she were floating directly into their plane. Monk made a choking noise in his throat. Then the girl's voice cried:
"They are coming! I am Lanta of theЧ"
The television glass blurred in a tangle of figures. The hard, shining faces of men replaced that of the girl. Hoarse voices were scrambled in the radio receiver. Doc's window went black.
"Gosh!" squealed Monk. "He's back again! Lookit!"
JOHNNY'S lantern, forgotten during the interval of the girl's dramatic appearance before them, had picked up the floating corpse. Visibility was better now in the higher smog. The dead man was not floating so steadily. He was slowly falling toward the harbor.
All space around the amphibian became filled with a throbbing pulsation. It was as if an earthquake had moved its locality from the ground to the air. That was it. The space of the smog was being shaken. Doc knew this could not come from any airplane motor.
The higher sun broke the greasy mist into fragmented clouds.
"There they are, Doc!" exclaimed Johnny. "The others! Look! They're dropping, too!"
Out of one of the smoggy clouds appeared three raincoated men. Their bodies were rigidly upright, as if they were walking through some gummy element instead of being supported by only the insubstantial air. But they were swiftly descending toward the surface of the harbor above the rushing wave-tossed water of The Narrows.
The corpse of the murdered Turlos, if that was his name, was not far from the other suspended figures. The body still glowed a ghastly green under Johnny's swinging black light. What effect these apparently supernatural men were having on persons who might be observing them from the boats below could only be conjectured.
But at this moment, the passengers of the ferries had their own worries. Two of the North Vancouver boats drifted into each other. There was a grinding collision.
Doc was scanning every inch of the smoggy clouds as he kept the stream-lined amphibian on half throttle and seemed to be lazily circling around the harbor. But though the pulsation continued with an increasing beat, nothing visible rewarded his keen vision.
All four floating figures were being drawn to the surface of The Narrows. The force doing this was invisible. The vibrations affecting the plane abruptly ceased. Doc and his men saw the bodies disappear. Then where they had been was nothing tangible.
A mighty geyser spouted. This was almost in the middle of The Narrows. Here the tide was a treacherous, swirling trap. It offered no clearness for observation from above. The sudden fountain leaped more than a hundred feet into the air. A powerful side rush of the waters made mere ripples of the usual waves of The Narrows.
"Howlin' calamities!" piped Monk. "I don't believe in them sea serpents! But somethin' got 'em!"
Doc interposed calmly. He was holding the amphibian in a tight spiral over the turmoil of the sea below.
"This is astounding," he said. "It seemed as if there must have been something in the air. But the waves move as if from another quake."
The blue water continued to be disturbed. It was like some giant hand might have slapped the surface repeatedly. Doc was watching the jutting rocks of the high cliff. These did not appear to be shaken.
The waves continued their wild lashing.
Doc was forced to bank the plane sharply and take on altitude. As he returned, the corpse and the three live men who had been in the air close to The Narrows had disappeared. Johnny looked at the slash of still-dancing currents ripping under the promontory point of Stanley Park.
"I believe we have just looked upon what is commonly known as retributive justice," he remarked solemnly. "The killers wouldn't have a chance in that whirlpool."
"Perhaps," Doc stated, "but I would say retribution has been somewhat delayed. Watch those fishing boats."
Doc was bringing the nose of the amphibian down. He pointed for a quiet space of water near an old abandoned lumber mill. This was safely out of the tidal channel, but close to The Narrows on the harbor side.
JOHNNY and Monk followed Doc's direction. Directly opposite Stanley Park Point on The Narrows was the broad sand-and-gravel bar marking the mouth of a creek. This stream was known as Capilano Creek, emerging from a deep mountain canyon of the same name.
Though in the dry summer season there was little water in this creek, it was one of the favorite spawning streams for spring salmon. The big fish came in from the ocean in schools of thousands. Until the rains came to flood the creek in Capilano Canyon, the salmon played in English Bay and The Narrows. Instinct brought them to their birthplace. They waited for the rains.
At the side of The Narrows next to the canyon creek bar, many fishermen had anchored their small boats just beyond the dangerous channel. They caught the salmon by trailing flash spoons down the current.
Johnny and Monk saw a score of these small boats being tossed aside. They seemed to be lifted by a giant hand. Fishermen spilled into the shallow water. Johnny was trying to fix the origin of the disaster. The first great waves had subsided.
Then he noted this was a new disturbance. As the fishermen floundered toward the shore, a new earthquake started. Rocks were bounding from the side walls of the canyon. The bar extending into The Narrows heaved and cracked. Doc's plane was slapped by a succession of choppy waves that threatened to capsize it. Only its clever streamlining prevented the amphibian from overturning.
On the highway paralleling the shore an automobile hurtled into the air and turned over three times. The new quake was splitting the road concrete into uprearing slabs.
Chapter 4. THE GREAT DIAMOND
DOC SAVAGE ran the amphibian pontoon on a shelving beach. The ground still quivered as he led Johnny and Monk toward the highway. Huge boulders bounded and boomed in Capilano Canyon.
A woman screamed. She was crawling from the wrecked automobile. A man with a limp, dangling arm was trying to pull her from one of the crushed doors.
The bronze man was quickly beside the man with the broken arm, giving him assistance. This help was invaluable. Doc's bronzed and corded hands simply grasped the metal sides of the shattered doorway. His muscles flexed without apparent strain.
The door of the smashed car was torn loose. Doc lifted the woman to her feet. He saw there was another man in the automobile. The bronze man knew it was useless to bring him out until an ambulance could arrive.
Above the echoing fall of rocks boomed an explosion. It was repeated with sharp concussion. Doc whirled, and led his men swiftly toward the shore of The Narrows. He made for the place where the fishermen's boats had been whipped from their moorings.
In The Narrows a long blue vessel was tossing about. The British ensign, the Union Jack, flowed from its flagstaff. A bright brass one-pounder was mounted on its foredeck. The slim-snouted cannon spouted and boomed again. The shot skipped into the middle of The Narrows.
"Canadian coast guard," announced Doc. "The shots are by way of informing us explanations of our plane are in order."
They did not have long to wait. Officers of the coast guard boat had seen the landing of the amphibian plane. They had seen the bodies of men floating in the air. Then the bodies had mysteriously disappeared.
A small boat was dancing toward shore. Upright in the bow was a man of short stature. Insignia on his arm and cap marked him as an officer. When he stepped out he was belligerent, and possessed a cockney accent.
"H'I s'y, you chaps!" he hailed Doc and the others. "Wot th' bloomin' blyzes you Yankees think you're doin'? Fillin' the h'air with floatin' blighters an' shykin' h'up everything around! H'I'm arrestin' you blokes h'in the nyme of the king!"
THOUGH he was impressed with his own importance and more than a little shaken and puzzled by the recent happenings, the cockney officer had one long look at Doc Savage. Apparently he was impressed in another way. The bronze man's flaky gold eyes were fixed upon the cockney's pale blue orbs.
"H'I'm meanin' as 'ow you've got some explynin' to do," the bantam officer sputtered in a greatly modulated tone. "H'even h'if you are Doc Savage 'isseif, some'ns gotta tyke the blyme forЧ"