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

Footprints, as well, appeared on the corridor floor.
Doc Savage entered his own private high-speed elevator and rode down to the street level. There were three other elevators in operation at this time of night. He asked the attendants questions.
"Who came and went from my floor within the last few minutes?"
"Why, an old man and a girl went up," said one elevator operator. "The girl was a peach for looks, what I mean. And some men went up, too. Four."
"Before or after the man and the girl?"
"After. They came down later, with the old man. They said he had been seized with a dizzy spell."
"Thank you," said Doc Savage, and went out on the street.
He turned his lantern on again. It was, in reality, s compact and powerful projector of invisible ultra-violet light Ultra-violet light has the strange property of causing certain substances to fluoresce, or glow. Ordinary vaseline has this quality.
The man in front of the elevators on Doc Savage's floor was soaked with a chemical mixture which was sticky and glowed with an extraordinary brightness under the ultraviolet light. It would stick to the shoe soles of any one who walked on it, and tracks would be left for some time.
Doc Savage followed glowing tracks down the street. They led around a corner. He had a little difficulty, because the chemical footprints did not register well on the sleety sidewalk.
The trail, however, was not long. It led into an alley. It was a dark alley. Doc produced a flashlight which spouted a lean, utterly white beam.
On the alley pavement was a weird blob of metal.
THE metal blob had a length of perhaps a dozen feel, and a width of half that. It appeared that a molten mixture of steel and brass had been dumped in the alley to harden.
But there were many queer aspects to the metal mass. For one thing, had molten metal been dumped there, the pavement around about would have shown some evidence of the terrific heat. There was none.
Yet it certainly looked as if the metal had been put there in a molten state. Little streams of it had run out at the sides, just as liquid metal would do. It had filled cracks in the alley pavement.
Most fantastic of all, pieces of wood stuck out of the mass, along with bits of cloth and leather. Doc Savage examined the leather.
Automobile cushions! Not the slightest doubt of it. This molten mass had been an automobile. He saw the tires, four of which had been on the wheels, and a spare. Fire. And the wooden wheel spokes were intact.
The bronze man moved about, using his flashlight. Then he did something that was rare with him. He had trained his nerves for shocks. He rarely showed emotion.
Yet he started violently.
For the next few seconds, he stood perfectly still. And there came into being a small, weird sound. It was a trilling. It ran up and down the musical scale, adhering to no definite tune, yet definitely melodious. Much about the strange trilling defied description. It might have been the song of some exotic feathered creature, or the note of a wind filtering through a denuded forest.
A small, absent thing which the bronze man did in moments of mental stress, was this trilling. It had a quality of ventriloquism, seeming to come from everywhere, yet from no definite spot. The reason for the trilling stuck up stark and horrible in the flashlight glow.
A bony, wrinkled human hand! Projecting from the wad of metal on the alley pavement!
Doc Savage worked furiously at the mass of metal. It was solid, as if molten and poured there. The body was imbedded in it. Some other parts of it were exposed, he found after a moment's search. There was part of a leg. An elbow. The tail of the man's coat.
Strangest of all, the man's garments were not even scorched. Yet he was imbedded solidly in the mass of metal.
Doc Savage returned his attention to the hand which projected so horribly. On one of the fingers was a ring. He removed it. Identification, perhaps.
He used the ultra-violet lantern. The footprints ended here. There were marks on the sleet which indicated a car had gone away. There must have been two cars. OneЧsomething fantastic had happened to it. The other had taken away the remaining men.
There seemed to be nothing more to do. It would take hours, perhaps days, with hacksaws to free the body. Doc went back toward the skyscraper which housed his headquarters.
He carried the ring.
An elevator operator told him, "Some men went up to your floor, then came back down. I guess they found you weren't there."
"Know them?" Doc asked.
"They were the same men who took the old man down."
Doc Savage said nothing. But he lost no time getting in the private express elevator to ride up. A moment later, he stepped out in the eighty-sixth floor corridor.
The armor-plate door of his headquarters suite was gone.
NOT gone, exactly. It was a puddle on the floor. To all appearances, it had simply melted. Yet nothing was burned.
Doc Savage studied the incredible scene. Some of the metal casing of the door had also dripped down on the floor. He touched the wad of metal. Cold.
He entered. Nothing was disturbed to any extent. But the place had been searched. A few cabinets were open. They were large enough to have held a person.
He went to the secret panel and unlocked it by operating the thermostatic combination.
The girl smiled at him. She was still weak. But her nerve was all right.
"I'm glad you're back," she said.
"Hear any one a few minutes ago?"
"Faint sounds," she admitted. "You told me to keep quiet. I did."
Doc Savage showed her the ring. There was nothing unusual about it. It was cheap; worn.
"Ever see it before?" he asked.
The girl nodded. "Yes. It belonged to Seevers. He always wore it."
Doc Savage nodded, sat down, and gave her some of the stimulant to drink.
"Now," he said. "Tell me the story."
Her voice was firm enough.
"There's not much of it," she said. "Seevers telephoned me. He was worried. Wanted me to meet him and come to talk with you. He said something about a Metal Master, and something terrible about it. But he didn't go into details. I thought he wasЧwell, balmy. That is, until he got the cablegram from my brother. And my brotherЧhis name is LouisЧseemed to think there was something wrong, too."
"Who is your brother?" Doc asked.
"Louis Tester," the girl replied. "I am Nan Tester. We are twins. My brother is an expert on electricity as applied to chemistry. Or at least, he used to be"