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

Chapter V. AN ANCIENT WARNING
RENNY and Long Tom shot upward in the high-speed elevator. They ascended to the eighty-sixth floor headquarters of Doc Savage with somewhat the manner of a released rocket.
Only in the last few yards of its upward flight did the bounding car slow.
Lightning crackled across the windows at the end of the skyscraper corridor. Thunder rumbled and shook the vast mass of metal and stone.
Long Tom grinned appreciatively. He had remained at the offices of the weather bureau long enough to see his prophecy of an electrical storm fulfilled.
As Renny started toward Doc Savage's door, the lightning ripped brilliantly. The instant clap of thunder told the bolt had come close. The lights in the building flicked out. Renny and Long Tom were in darkness.
"Holy cow!" bellowed Renny. "Call off your thunderstorm! When you've made good, what's the use in overdoing it?"
Long Tom chuckled.
"Didn't mean to make it quite so tough," he remarked, dryly. "Seriously, I'd give something to know what's causing all this."
He was slightly behind Renny. The engineer's big hand gripped his shoulder. The electrician winced. Renny never seemed to realize the strength in his bone-crushing hands. Perhaps that was why his favorite pastime was smashing tough door panels with his fists.
"Stay back!" thundered Renny. "Look! What do you suppose that is?"
The sudden Stygian gloom of the corridor had lightened. The luminance was of a strange quality. The light was vividly blue. It seemed to be composed of invisible particles.
Renny and Long Tom halted. They stared at the origin of the eerie illumination. This appeared to be a spot directly in front of Doc Savage's door. Renny started to advance.
"Wait a minute; I wouldn't touch it," advised Long Tom. "You never can be sure what funny contrivance some one might be trying to wish onto Doc."
The building electrician had found the fuses burned out by the lightning. The corridor around Renny and Long Tom flooded suddenly with light. The strange blue glow remained, but it was dimmed.
"Huh, after all, it's only a funny stone," grunted Renny. "Looks like it might have been painted."
"I'd be careful," warned Long Tom. "Might be an explosive, or maybe some acid."
Renny seldom heeded warnings. The giant engineer often blundered into trouble. Usually his huge fists mowed a way out. He picked up the curious flat stone. Nothing happened, except the blue glow was spread over Renny's wide hands and along his arms.
Renny turned the stone over. It was worn and pitted, as if it had lain for a long time exposed to the weather. Centuries had added up to thousands of years since the flat stone had been cut into its present form.
"Looks like an ancient," Renny said. "You can see where it's pitted. Might have been ground with sand."
THE pair pushed through Doc's door. Johnny's attenuated bundle of bones reared in the doorway leading to the library and laboratory. Johnny had observed the approach of Renny and Long Tom before the lights went out. He was wondering what had delayed their entrance.
"Got a puzzle for that erudite brain of yours," said Renny. "Perhaps you can make something out of this. It's had something cut into it, but the figures look like some kid's first lesson in geometry."
He placed the stone on the laboratory table. The scholarly Johnny picked it up. He placed a thick-lensed monocle in his eye. This affectation of Johnny's was really a powerful magnifying glass.
The stone was covered by rows of uneven characters. These had the appearance of having been inscribed with some sharp tool, but the carving had been smoothed by generations of time.
Johnny's knowledge of archaeology equaled that of the leading scholars. Only the man of bronze himself had studied the subject more deeply. Johnny plucked half a dozen long words from his extensive vocabulary.
"Luminance polarized indefinitely upon an opaque infragible substance," he pronounced, reflectively. "The characters are of the ancient Himyarite symbolism. They have been definitely affected by long exposure to the vagaries of atmospheric changes."
"Sure," grunted Renny. "That's what I thought. But in a few words of one syllable, does it mean anything?"
Johnny was studying the worn symbols intently.
"Humph!" he emitted. "Unless I'm on the wrong key, this is a direct, if peculiar, warning."
When Johnny thus descended to simple verbiage, it denoted he was either strongly impressed or somewhat excited.
"The characters are clear enough, and they were inscribed on this stone perhaps as long as five or six thousand years ago," he added. "The stone undoubtedly came from the desert in the vicinity of the River Euphrates. It's Himyarite, without doubt."
"What do they mean, if you know?" questioned Renny. "How could those crazy figures carved thousands of years ago be a warning."
Johnny squinted more intently through his monocle.
"As nearly as I can explain," he stated, "the lines read,
' Concern thyself with thine own business if thou would continue to live.' I might have missed a word or two, but it sums up to the same thing."
"Holy cow!" boomed Renny. "In plain English then, it means stay out of somebody's business or take a chance on getting bumped off?"
"
An elemental interpretation, but one hundred per cent perfect," nodded Johnny. "This stone is an original Himyarite brought from the Arabian desert. It is intended as a warning to Doc, and I'll venture it is connected with those telegrams."
"
I had been expecting something of that character," spoke the quiet but penetrating voice of Doc Savage from the doorway. "Brothers, this is Lady Sathyra Fotheran, the sister of Denton Cartheris; and Carson Dernall, until recently the explorer's aid in Syria."
They had just arrived from the alleyway where Doc had found Lady Sathyra.
SEEN in the bright lights of the laboratory, the face of Lady Fotheran was even more beautiful. Her wide golden eyes seemed to reflect the luminance.
Carson Dernall's thin countenance looked more sallow and unhealthy. The gray eyes, however, were alert in a cold way. He exclaimed, as he took in the multitude of scientific devices in the bronze man's laboratory.
"I had imagined the stories of your investigations were slightly exaggerated, Mr. Savage," said Dernall, slowly. "But I must apologize for having had such a thought. I have never had the good fortune to see such a completeЧwhat is this?"
In the midst of his fulsome words, Carson Dernall paused for the abrupt question. His cold gray eyes were fixed on the flat stone which Johnny had replaced on the table.
"Ancient Himyarite, Mr. Dernall," said Johnny. "From the Syrian desert, I would say."
Without touching the stone, Carson Dernall leaned closer.
"You understand the symbolism?" said Doc Savage.
"Why, yes, of course," admitted Carson Dernall. "I would interpret it to mean
' keep out of our business if you want to live.'"