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

From the vicinity of the car in the alley came the crash of splintering glass. Half a dozen of the sheet-clad figures had surrounded the automobile. A slender woman was pulled out and thrust against an alley wall. What might have been a knife of huge size, flashed in a glittering arc.
"You black devil!" shouted a heavy voice. "I'll burn you forЧ"
The huge knife gave off a sudden glinting light. The mouthing of the other man ended in a wild scream of pain. Then the man yelled, "Grab the black devil! Grab 'im, Curt! He's chopped off my hand!"
Doc traversed the short length of the alley with the speed and silence of a jungle cat. Four men had spilled from the car from which the woman had been pulled over to the wall. There was light enough to glint on their guns.
The man who had screamed now had slumped to the running board of the car. At his feet a machine gun had thumped to the bricks. The man was holding up the bleeding stump of his arm. His right hand had been neatly amputated above the wrist. Apparently, he had been trying to use the machine gun.
Before Doc could decide where he was most needed, or why, another man from the car gurgled and rolled to his back. This man's heels flapped on the ground. He acted as if he had been partly broken in two. Doc saw this was literally true.
A long knife had slitted across the man's stomach. The blade had been deeply buried and ripped the rest of the way across. The man with the huge swinging blade had aimed it at the neck of another man, who was desperately attempting to get an automatic into action.
Doc arrived with the effect of a silently bursting storm. One cabled bronze hand flashed out with the speed of light. The tall figure wielding the blade somersaulted over Doc's shoulder. His weapon clanged on the alley bricks.
The bronze man's head suddenly took the square impact of a blow. The crashing collision with the base of his skull temporarily paralyzed his active senses. He exerted his will to remain on his feet.
For perhaps a half minute, the man of bronze was what is commonly known as "out on his feet." By exercising his amazing force of will over nerves and muscles, he might have continued active. But the bloody fight apparently was over.
TWO white men, wearing all the marks of hoodlums, were pulling one dead man back into the car. The man with the amputated hand had wrapped his wound with a half of his own shirt. The dark-skinned "sheeted" men had slightly withdrawn. The tall figure Doc had hurled over his shoulder had retrieved his hefty, murderous blade.
This man apparently was the leader. He cried out in a gobbling foreign tongue.
"
Thishahum, bism er rassoul!"
The language was the Arabic of the desert Bedouins. From tribe to tribe in the vast burning spaces of lower Asia the tongue varied but little. The extensive, all-embracing knowledge of Doc Savage included nearly all of the spoken language. He identified the speech instantly.
The tall man's cry had been, "Kill, in the name of the prophet!"
A sudden voice spoke more calmly. It was in Arabic, but Doc interpreted the meaning:
"It is enough!"
The quiet tone carried authority.
Doc remained immobile. All of this and all of his observations transpired within the flashing passage of perhaps thirty or forty seconds. But the man of bronze had trained himself to record and segregate the smallest details.
The tall leader of these dark-skinned men was not a true Bedouin. All of the white men's attackers wore the garb of the desert. Their flowing abbas were long cloaks of camel's hair, dyed. These dropped from their shoulders to their heels.
Their kafiehs were snowy-white headcloths that draped over their shoulders.
But the tall leader's abba was heavily embroidered with gold thread. Doc knew that in Syria this would have indicated the man to be the favorite slave of a sheik of sheiks. Such slaves were much more than ordinary. Sometimes they were warriors of fierce repute.
The great knife that had slashed off the white man's hand was a glittering, curved scimitar. A silver scabbard swung at the man's belt. The scimitar had a brightly jeweled handle.
Though the brief battle had resulted in one dead man and one seriously crippled, the engagement had been almost soundless. The total elapsed time from when Doc entered the alley until the automobile was moving away, was probably less than two minutes.
Now Doc Savage sought for the motive of the encounter. Clearly enough, the white men in the car had been of the hoodlum brand. It had been a strange, mysterious battle.
There was the woman. Doc remained motionless. The woman's white face was like a dim flower in the alley darkness. Another figure was standing beside her. The leader of the Bedouins growled a guttural command. The Bedouins moved swiftly, silently. Their long abbas gave them the effect of gliding along the alley. They faded away as soundlessly as a small company of ghosts.
The man of bronze permitted them to go. He might now have come off well enough in an encounter against even the Arabs with their knives. But another purpose had sprung up instantly. The woman had been left behind with that other shadowy figure.
Doc emerged from beside the wall.
"You are the one who summoned me by telephone," the bronze man stated. "Then you were seized and brought here. Some of this is mysterious. I would take it those Bedouins I have permitted to depart are your friends."
DOC'S generator flashlight flicked into his hand. Its ray was spread. The woman outlined in the brilliant white blaze was beautiful in statuesque fashion, only she was not tall of stature.
She had poised dignity. Her face was drained of blood, and it was pale almost to the point of seeming transparency. Her skin was of the texture of lovely velvet. Eyes of a deep golden hue, not unlike those of Doc Savage, widened upon him.
"You are Mr. Savage, the Doc Savage," she said as a statement and not an inquiry. "None could ever make a mistake, seeing you. Yes, I am the one who telephoned. You arrived just in time."
"You say you telephoned, then you were seized," the bronze man said. "So the Bedouins were your friends," he repeated.
"As to that, I cannot say," was the woman's surprising reply. "It is the first time I have ever seen a Bedouin or an Arab. I mean, of course, directly from the desert in native costume. I know as little about all this happening just now, as you. I was seized by the men in the car."
A man stood beside the woman. Thus far, he had said nothing. His face was long and incredibly thin. It looked unhealthy.
The man has suffered with tropical fevers, was Doc's instant judgment. He has lived in the jungles, or, perhaps, the desert.
"And you?" Doc pointed the two words at this man.
"Yes," said the sallow-faced man. "I happened along. I was following the Bedouins. I have been in Syria and the men were unusual in their native clothes in New York. Then I saw familiar faces."
"Now," suggested Doc, "neither of you has identified yourself."
"Oh, I'm sorry," came instantly from the golden-eyed woman. "I just took it for granted that you would know. I am Sathyra Fotheran, of course. You got my telegram?"
Doc Savage, for the moment, said nothing in reply to the woman's statement. His flaky gold eyes caught the keen gray orbs of the sallow-faced man. They impelled an answer to an unspoken question.
"And I am Carson Dernall," stated the man in his dry, crackling voice. "It is a remarkable coincidence that I should be here. I was an aid to Denton Cartheris, in Syria, before he died. This is only the second time I have met Lady Fotheran. The first time was when I bore the news of her brother's death. I had no idea what an amazing result would come of my following those Bedouins."
"It is a remarkable coincidence," stated Doc Savage, without display of emotion. "When I received the call from Lady Fotheran, I came immediately; but I did not come at once into the street from which she telephoned. There was a slight delay."
The man of bronze thumbed several small white cards into his hand. They bore a name in distinctive engraving. He spread them under the ray of the flashlight.
"Then these, I take it, would be your property, Lady Fotheran?" Doc said.
FOR the first time, the woman displayed visible emotion. Her golden eyes widened. The slender fingers with which she just touched the engraved cards were exquisitely kept.
"Why, yes, yes!" she breathed. "They are mine! Oh, then you've found Marian? She picked up my purse by mistake. We were trying to get to your headquarters, Mr. Savage. We discovered we were being followed."
"You separated when you left the yellow coupщ?"
"Yes! Yes! That was it! We decided to try and reach you by separate ways! Marian is my secretary. She was taking the elevated train. Then she did reach your office? Where is she?"