"051 (B034) - Mad Eyes (1937-05) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Might as well have a look," he murmured, and started twisting under the wall-like door.
Something happened. It was noiseless. Only the agonized yell of the yard bull hit the ears of the railroad men beside the watchman's body. Two men ran through the rain around the side of the building.
The yard bull had screamed only once. What the two railroad men saw was worse than the body of the watchman. The door over the tracks had dropped.
The yard bull had been part of the way under it.
THERE were two cases awaiting for the county police and the deputy coroner. That of the yard bull was the most horrible. But the brakemen, still beside the watchman's body, had quit looking at the twisted face.
"I'm signin' off this yard after to-night," muttered one of the men.
The twin lights of a motor car showed on the highway just below where the body of the watchman lay. The car stopped. Apparently the driver had been attracted by the railroad men's lanterns near the track above.
The man who got out of the automobile was a bulky figure. Yet he moved up the embankment with the easy, soundless steps of a cat. A slicker over his other clothes protected him from the rain.
"What's happened here?" said the new arrival. "One of your men get hit?"
"No," said one brakeman. "It's the old guy who had the job of watchman at that nutty building without the windows. Acted like he'd been hit by the D. T.'s an' run right into theЧ"
The brakeman stopped speaking abruptly. His mouth hung open.
The big man from the car on the highway had thrown back his slicker. He had dropped on one knee beside the dead John Corbin. One big hand was passing softly over the dead watchman's face.
The stranger was making a swift examination. The light from the brakemen's lanterns were shining on him. It was this that had caused the brakeman to quit talking so suddenly.
For the driver's hands were the color of bright bronze. The skin of his face and his thickly corded neck was of the same golden hue. The rain slid off his hair as if it were a waterproof mask.
The hair, also, was bronze in color. It was only slightly different from the skin.
The brakeman found his voice again after his survey.
"You must be Doc Savage himself," he said. "Then maybe you know more about this guy than we do. Say! One of the bulls got hurt over there! A couple of the boys have gone over!"
The big bronze man rubbed the tips of his fingers across the forehead of the dead watchman. He straightened to his feet. Once more the slicker was around his body. But his eyes were fixed on the brakemen.
These orbs seemed now to be shining like flakes of polished copper.
"You say one of your men was hurt over by the building?" asked the bronze man. "I shall see about it."
The bronze man walked around the corner of the building. The men there could do nothing for the yard bull. The door on his body weighed tons. The bronze man stood behind them.
Perhaps the others thought the bronze man only looked at the great door over the house tracks. One hand was under his slicker. Suddenly, the great door started upward.
"Remove the man," stated the bronze giant. "Have the police been called?"
"Ye-yes, Mr. Savage," stammered one of the railroad men. "IЧI guess all this trouble's over that watchman hittin' the hooch."
The body of the yard bull was then removed. The bronze man said nothing. When the railroad men looked where he had been, he was no longer visible.
POLICE INSPECTOR HIGGINS had an Adam's apple which seemed to make him mad. When he talked, this lump slid up and down his thin neck. Inspector Higgins talked most of the time.
"Well! Well! Well!" jerked out Inspector Higgins, walking around the bodies of John Corbin, the watchman, and the yard bull. "Whyntcha stop 'im from runnin' head-on into that express? An' where's the engine that hit 'im? Why'd this bull crawl under the door, an' how'd he get out? Answer me that?"
The railroad men attempted to reply to all of these several inquiries at once. One said, "Well, the watchman was crazy with too much booze an' he got away from us."
The deputy coroner who was also the medical examiner shook his head mildly.
"You're all wrong about the liquor," he stated. "This man shows no evidence of having been drinking. It must have been something else."
The railroad men stared at each other.
"Then it must be that crazy building where Doc Savage makes machinery for war or something," one man volunteered. "When the watchman came out of there, he was nuts an' runnin' in circles. An' when the bull tried to crawl in, the door come down on him."
Inspector Higgins hopped around the building on his skinny legs. He took in the railroad door with a jumping Adam's apple and a gleam in his eyes.
"Well! Well! Well!" he snapped. "Somebody open these doors, an' we'll have a look at what started this!"
"You have to know how to look at them doors to make them open," grinned a railroad man. "I guess it's done with mirrors or something."
"Don't try bein' funny!" snapped Inspector Higgins. "You fellas in the yard know how to get cars in and out! Where's the yardmaster?"
"He don't know no more than the rest of us," said another railroad man. "That dump's Doc Savage's own plant, an' none of the crews ever get inside."
"That's a good story!" yapped Inspector Higgins. "Then how in time didja get the bull's body out from under that door? Will you answer me that?"
"Sure," said a railroad man. "Doc Savage himself just stood there an' looked at the door. It opened and closed."
"DOC SAVAGE?" barked Inspector Higgins. "Well, where is this Doc Savage? This is his trouble! Where'd he go? Why didn't you hold him here until duly constituted authority arrived?"
A chunky brakeman scratched his head.
"You mean you think we should've grabbed Doc Savage himself?" he said. "Say, from what I've heard of that big bronze guy I wouldn't try grabbin' him if he was already tied up with barbed wire!"
"I guess you fellas are just dumb because you're shackies on a railroad, or maybe it's the other way around!" sneered Inspector Higgins. "Me, I'm gettin' into that dump an' seein' what's been goin' on! Come on, boys, bust down that little door!"
Inspector Higgins was accompanied by half a dozen of his men. If he said break down a door, it was their job to do it. They failed, however, to carry out this laudable intention.
"Well! Well! Well!" snapped Inspector Higgins. "Jam it in with the end of a railroad tie!"
But though he added his bony weight to the tie, the improvised door-buster might as well have been rammed into the two-foot thickness of the concrete itself.
"I would suggest calling Professor Spargrove, the fellow who runs this joint," said one of the railroad men. "He'll just look at that door and it'll open up."
Chapter II. VANISHED TRAIN
WHILE Inspector Higgins was making his useless and profane effort to break down one small steel door, a closed car was smashing several speed records. This car slewed and skidded alarmingly in the rain.
"Listen, you misfit of nature, you either slow down or I'm getting out of this bus and walking the rest of the way!" rasped a stridently sharp voice. "You might bounce that solid skull of yours off the concrete without any damage, but I've got something inside mine I'd like to keep there!"