"035 (B071) - Murder Mirage (1936-01) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

MURDER MIRAGE
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Chapter I. MIDSUMMER SNOW
PATRICK BRENNAN, police patrolman, was the first to see the beautiful woman of glass. Unfortunately, Patrolman Brennan did not live long enough to report the incredible apparition. The policeman died heroically in the discharge of duty.
The snow had been pelting down. It had started more than an hour before the lovely, vivid woman was transformed into a horrible, shadowy silhouette in the window of plate glass. The twin phenomena of the snow and the ghastly shadow seemed to be wholly unrelated.
Patrolman Brennan might have told something of what really happened, if he had survived. As it was, the policeman was left lying in the street. His service revolver had belched death. It had taken double toll of his attackers, but that had not been enough to save him.
Snow is not unusual in Manhattan. Blizzardfalls, such as this one, are rare, but they happen occasionally in proper time and season. This snowfall was remarkable. It was being recorded by the United States weather bureau as an all-time mark in freakish weather.
It was nearly midnight when the first stinging particles whipped the faces of the theater crowds on Broadway. Amazed voices intoned unbelief.
"Can you imagine? A sleet storm! Of all things!"
These and kindred exclamations greeted the beginning of the storm.
IN the offices of the government weather bureau was even more amazement than elsewhere. A gray-haired, scholarly observer divided his time between a window and his instruments. He frequently consulted his various graphs.
"Look at that night map," he growled. "We are directly in the area of high pressure extending a couple of hundred miles into the Atlantic. So it couldn't be possible!"
"Sure, that's what the map says," boomed a deep voice. "But that stuff on the window isn't taffy candy, mister. I felt it, and I tasted it. It's snow. You'll have to make a new map."
The speaker was an authority on maps. For his name stood among the ten or dozen most eminent engineers in the world. The man's fists were approximately of the size of his head. And his head was of leonine proportions.
He was Colonel John Renwick, known to the weather bureau officials, and to thousands of others, as "Renny." His fame as an engineer was perhaps somewhat less than his position of note as one of the five adventuring companions of Clark Savage, Jr., better known as the man of bronze, Doc Savage.
"You are correct," stated a smaller man, whose face was thin and of an unhealthy pallor. "It is undoubtedly snow. Moreover, within a short time there will be a violent thunderstorm."
"You're crazy!" promptly declared the grayish weather observer. "How could there be a thunderstorm? Look! The nearest area of low pressure is south of the Carolinas! So there couldn't be an electrical storm."
The small, thin man shook his head.
"How could there be a snowstorm in midsummer?"
The thin man was Major Thomas J. Roberts, known as "Long Tom." He was another of the companions of Doc Savage, an electrical wizard.
This was the incredible part of the snowstorm. For it was midsummer. To be exact, it was the midnight of July 4th. In a matter of only minutes, it would be the morning of July 5th. So, as the weather observer had insisted, "it couldn't be snowing."
The oldest resident of Manhattan had never witnessed such a phenomenon. As long as there had been a weather bureau there had been no such freakish occurrence.
"Look at this," directed the grayish weather observer. "All of the Middle West is having the worst heat wave of the summer. Boston and all the way to Portland, Maine, show high temperatures. Right now, Washington and Philadelphia are in the eighties!"
WHILE unbelievable, almost fantastic weather history was being recorded in the offices of the government, downtown streets rapidly became deserted. Shortly after midnight but little traffic moved in the vicinity of the shopping districts. The snow had not been deep enough actually to block motor vehicles, but summer-clad residents had faded from the streets.
The pale headlight beams of a small car penciled into a deserted block near an elevated railway corner. The little car was a yellow coupщ of the "for rent" variety. The driver held to almost the exact middle of the street. As the coupщ turned into the street, there was a loud, squishy blop! Air hissed for a few seconds.
"Oh!" breathed a tense voice. "I was afraid something would happen!"
A front tire had blown out.
Street lights picked out the face of the driver. The face was small, with features exquisitely formed. Large, luminous eyes reflected the outside light. Slender white hands gripped the steering wheel. These hands were inadequate to driving with a front tire flat.
The small coupщ coughed over to the curb. One side bedded down where the snow had drifted some.
"We'll have to get out here and go on quickly," said another woman, who was seated beside the driver. "I know we were followed when we left the airport. We should have separated then."
The fear in the woman's voice was immediately confirmed. Two other cars were turning into the block. Both were black, closed sedans. The curtains of both cars were tightly drawn.
The slender young woman under the wheel slid from her position. She pushed the door open against the storm.
"We'll go different ways!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "I'll endeavor to catch an elevated train! Then you can slip over to the next street and take a taxi!"
The two closed cars, one trailing the other, were moving down upon the coupщ. The young woman who had spoken reached into the little car and snatched a satchel purse of metallic chain mesh from the seat. She slipped and floundered with her first steps, but she gained the sidewalk and started running.
"You go the other way then!" she cried out to her companion. "Oh, hurry! I'll get the message to Mr. Savage! I'll wait, if you do not get there first!"
One of the two sedans swerved past the yellow coupщ. Its invisible driver pulled the car in again close to the young woman on the sidewalk. She had caught up her light skirts and her trim legs flashed with silk as she ran. The clinging snow was more than ankle deep.
Four figures sprang from the sedan into the snowy street. These were men of unusually upright stature, but they moved stiffly. Their feet made dragging motions, as if their legs and bodies were impeded by some heavy weight.
These men were between the young woman and the elevated stairs at the corner. But they did not move as if they intended intercepting her. When they sprang from the sedan, they took up a position near the middle of the street.
The young woman's mouth was opened gaspingly. Her luminous eyes widened with terror. She could see the faces of the four men in the street.
"Oh! They've come!" she gasped. "I knew they'd come!"
THE faces of the four men were of the color of dull lead. Any one observing them would have had the impression of corpses walking. Perhaps the young woman imagined that, or it might have been something more sinister, more appalling.
For a few yards, the four men merely kept pace with the fleeing woman. The color in their faces was caused by masks. These were fitted snugly over their noses and chins. They covered their necks and appeared to be attached to the heavy material under their rough outer clothing.
These men did not display any weapons openly. Two carried peculiar-looking instruments. These could have been an iceman's tongs, only they had handles several feet in length. The men paced the woman with these strange devices over their shoulders.
The young woman was nearing the stairway to the "el."
Again she cried out, as if to reassure herself, "I'll get it to Mr. SavageЧ"
The black sedan from which the four men had emerged scooted suddenly ahead. The four men edged out into the street and made way for it. The car speared in between them and the running woman.
The young woman then was in front of the plate-glass windows of a store. This store handled musical instruments. Its double windows were filled with the gleam of polished silver and brass. The plate glass was fitted in from the level of the sidewalk. The woman's shadow was reflected on it like a fleeing ghost.
The door of the sedan next to the sidewalk, popped open. A globe twice the size of a football rolled out. This sphere had been impelled sharply from inside of the car. The sedan door snapped shut. The globe struck the sidewalk pavement in several inches of snow.