"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 037 - The Metal Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"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 SavageтАЩs 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