"037 (B072) - The Metal Master (1936-03) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"From my brother, Louis!" she gasped. "And he is flying from South America, right now!"
"Exactly!" said old Seevers. "Your brother knows just how horrible this thing is."
They hurried out of the cable office.
HARDLY three minutes later, a stranger walked into the cable office. He was a lean fellow whose clothes looked as if they had been slept in. He wore a rubber apron and a green celluloid eyeshade was over his eyes.
"Jonathan Seevers let his cablegram blow out of the window of his shop," he said. "He can't find it. He wants you to give me a duplicate."
The cable clerk was still in a coma, thinking of the beautiful vision who had just left. He riffled through the sheaf of carbons, came to the one desired, and pulled it out. Then he hesitated.
"It is customary to have identification before we deliver a message to any one other than the person to which it is addressed," he said.
"I work for Seevers," said the man.
The statement was a lie. It had that sound. The clerk frowned.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You'll have to identify yourself. Bring a note from Seevers."
The man made a snarling sound. He reached under his coat, brought out a pistol and aimed deliberately. The pistol went off twice. The clerks fell on the floor, bullet holes through brains.
The killer got the cablegram carbon and ran out of the office.
Chapter II. THE BRONZE MAN
DOC SAVAGE'S profession was trouble. Other people's troubles. He had friends, more friends than enemies by a large score. But there were plenty of enemies, and occasionally they tried to kill Doc Savage, figuring that was their only hope. Some of the enemies had very ingenious ideas about how to accomplish their ends. So Doc Savage had to take precautions.
One of these precautions was a system of sensitive alarms which registered the appearance of any prowlers near his office. A marauder did not need to break in. If he as much as walked near the door, buzzers whined and indicator lights glowed.
One of the buzzers suddenly whined. Its sound had an alarming quality.
The headquartersЧa reception room first, then a library and laboratory covering many thousands of square feet of floor spaceЧwas dark, except for one light over a small germ culture table on which were experimental cultures of a spermatocyte nature. This light revealed nothing but a hand of the individual who was at the table.
It was a remarkable hand. The size did not seem especially striking until compared with surrounding objects, when it became evident that the hand was of no small size. The fingers were long. The skin had a surprisingly fine texture. But the unusual feature was the evidence that the hand possessed incredible strength. The sinews on the back were nearly as large as an ordinary man's fingers.
The hand had a skin of a remarkable bronze hue.
When the buzzer whined, the bronze hand vanished from the glow of the tiny bulb. No lights came on. The owner of the hand moved through the murk with soundless speed that was surprising. A moment later, he opened the door of the reception room.
A tall girl in a mannish coat lay on the corridor floor. A masculine hat had been knocked off her head. Her face was upturned. It was an exquisitely attractive face.
Her mouth was open. A whitish powder was smeared around it.
There was a light in the modernistic corridor, it showed the bronze man who came flinging out of the reception room. He was a Herculean figure. His hand, seen alone in the light, had seemed huge, yet it was not out of proportion. Muscles remindful of big wire hawsers were evident under his clothing.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the bronze man was his eyes. They were of an unusual flake-gold tint, and the gold flakes seemed always in motion, as if stirred by tiny winds. They were strange, compelling eyes. Strangers on the street often looked at those eyes and were so gripped that they found themselves bumping into other pedestrians.
The bronze man's features were regular. His hair, of a bronze hue slightly darker than his skin, fitted his head like a metal skullcap.
The bronze man did some fast moving. A glance whipped over the corridor showed no one else there.
He scooped up the girl and lunged with her into the reception room, through the library and into the laboratory. He did not turn the lights on. He evidently knew the place well.
He planted the girl on a marble-topped table. He felt for her pulse. He listened for her heart.
Her heart was not beating.
MANY a famous doctor and surgeon would have liked to have been present in that laboratory during the course of the next five minutes. What happened was an example of what skill and medical knowledge can do.
Chemicals were mixed with flashing rapidity. They were administered to the girl, both as a draught and with hypos. Then she was shoved into a complicated device that was designed to start her breathing. Adrenalin was administered.
Twenty minutes of that, and the girl had her eyes open. She looked at the bronze man.
"You're Doc Savage," she said faintly. "I've seen your pictures."
"You were attacked in the corridor?" Doc Savage asked.
The bronze man's voice was as unusual as his appearance. It was deep, cultured, full of controlled power.
"Yes," breathed the young woman. "What happened to Seevers?"
Doc did not answer that.
"Was any one beside Seevers with you?" he asked.
"No."
He carried her to the rear of the laboratory room, to what resembled a solid wall. He put a palm to the wall, held it there, took it away, put it there again. He did this three times. A perfectly concealed panel opened. It had a lock that was actuated by a sensitive thermostatic combination concealed in the wall. Heat of the hand, applied in the proper combination, was enough to open the lock. It could be opened in no other manner.
The niche inside had a narrow couch. Doc put the girl there.
"Be back later," he said crisply. "You are too weak to talk now."
He brought stuff in a glass.
"If you get to feeling dizzy, drink this," he directed. "It's a stimulant. Do not make any noise."
"O. K.," she managed to say. It was a wisp of a whisper.
Doc Savage closed the hidden panel behind him. Only a very good magnifying glass would have detected the crack around it. Due to the clever construction of the place, the extra thickness of the walls could not be determined without measuring them with surveying instruments.
DOC SAVAGE went back through laboratory, library and reception room and out into the corridor. The corridor door was of armor steel and had no locks or knobs or other visible means of being opened. It closed mysteriously behind the bronze man.
Doc Savage had scooped up, in passing through the laboratory, a rather unusual-looking metal box. It had a lense, and might have been an old-fashioned magic lantern, except that this lense was almost black in color. There was a switch on the side of the box. Doc flicked this.
A strange thing happened in the corridor. Along the floor in front of the elevators was a mat. It looked as if it we made of gray sponge rubber. It was wide enough that any one getting out of the elevators would be likely to step on it. In fact, only a spry jump would take a person over it without touching it.
This mat, when the eye of the strange lantern was turned on it, began to glow with an eerie blue luminance.