Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (3 page)

The clerk struggled with the excitement that was firing his eyes. “They say if you have trouble that no one else can handle, Doc Savage is the gent to see.”

“It was Doc Savage who solved that wave of mysterious pop-eyed killings last month. And before that, he and his men brought that missing aviator everyone thought was dead back to civilization.”

The clerk nodded soberly. “Doc Savage is big stuff. They don’t come any bigger.”

A dreamy look came into the telephone girl’s eyes. “I saw him once. Doc Savage stood almost seven feet tall. And so bronze he didn’t even look human. And those eyes! It was as if they were solid gold. Can you imagine that? He’s one of the richest men in the world and his eyes are solid gold.”

Snapping out of his spell, the desk clerk suddenly got back to business.

“They are not really gold, Mabel,” he scolded her. “They just seem that way.”

“Well, they looked golden to me,” pouted Mabel.

Their gossipy conference was broken by the rattle of footsteps tramping down the main stairwell.

“Get back on duty!” the clerk said quickly. “Here he comes.”

The supposed Harry Baldwin dropped into the lobby, and bolted through without looking right or left. At the sidewalk curbing, he hailed a cab, there being no doorman to perform that civilized function.

A yellow cab soon pulled over, and admitted him.

The machine whisked the bald man away. Staring through the glass front door, the desk clerk’s eyes followed the departing hack as it disappeared into traffic.

“What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when that fellow sits down with Doc Savage!”

With that, the desk clerk returned to his boring and humdrum job, wondering if he would ever learn the truth about his new guest. He had no inkling what was coming. No one did.

THE ADDRESS that Ned Gamble gave his driver was undoubtedly the most famous in New York City. It was a skyscraper, the tallest in the metropolis, a modern marvel of limestone and steel that shot up one hundred stories over midtown Manhattan.

Only a few years old, the structure had already become a symbol of the great city and its engineering accomplishments. But the imposing edifice possessed another distinction. For several years now, it had served as the headquarters of Doc Savage.

As the cab conveyed Ned Gamble through noisy concrete canyons, the gleaming spire came into view in the afternoon sunlight.

Most tourists are struck dumb by its sheer magnificence. Not Ned Gamble. To him, the building was more like a beacon of hope. As the cab rolled northward, he could not take his eyes off it.

The taxi driver seemed unimpressed by his destination, which was a great office building housing numerous enterprises, not only Doc Savage. Many visited it every day, for business as well as sightseeing.

When the cab deposited him at his destination, Ned Gamble paid off the driver and alighted.

A newsboy was hawking the afternoon editions at the curb.

“Extry! Read all about it! Prominent Chicago inventor struck down!”

Hearing this, Gamble broke stride, and went over to the newsboy.

“Let me have one, son,” he said, slipping the boy a dime.

There he stood rooted, reading the headline, and the columns of type that followed.His features gathered into a worried knot that pulled his forehead into wrinkles of corrugation, tightening his hairless scalp.

Tucking the paper under one arm, Gamble fished out a pack of cigarettes, shook it until a single tube of paper stuck up. He took this between severe lips.

His serious blue eyes looked worried, stricken.

Sets of revolving doors stood in front of the great skyscraper and many persons were coming and going, so the turnstiles of brass and glass were constantly in motion.

Eyes narrowed, lost in thought, Ned Gamble made for one of the turnstiles.

Evidently, another person had the same idea. Both endeavored to enter simultaneously.

They became jammed up with one another, and Gamble lost his cigarette.

“Pardon me!” the other man said hastily.

Gamble backed out, and tried to see where his cigarette had gone.

“Looking for this?” the other inquired in a friendly manner.

To Ned’s mild surprise, the man he had bumped into was holding an unlit cigarette. The other wore a battered Trilby hat of olive green hue.

“It practically fell into my open hand,” the fellow explained.

Accepting this, Gamble gruffed out a curt, “Thank you.”

Both men held back, expecting the other to go first.

Finally, the other man gestured magnanimously and said, “You first, pal.”

Nodding his bald head silently, Ned Gamble inserted himself into the wedge of glass and pushed his way into the lobby.

So intent was he on his business, that the bald man failed to notice that the man in the Trilby hat had not followed him inside. Instead, the other walked around the corner, for the great building had more than one entrance, and entered surreptitiously. He was grinning, as if he had put something over on someone. It was not a pleasant grin. In fact, it was rather crooked.

Had Ned Gamble observed that grin, he might have become suspicious and thrown his cigarette away.

The lobby was a modernistic marvel of marble and chromium. Church services could have been held in it, the place was so spacious.

Ned Gamble had no time to absorb the impressive architecture. Spying a bank of elevators, he made for the handiest cage.

The elevator starter directed him to a cage that was just settling onto the lobby level.

“This way, sir. Next car up.”

The door stood open and Gamble stepped on board. The uniformed operator asked, “Which floor?”

“Eighty-six.”

The elevator operator no doubt took many persons up to the eighty-sixth floor, but even so, he looked silently impressed.

“That’s Doc Savage’s floor. Is that who you’re going to see?”

“What business is it of yours?” returned Ned tartly.

“I’m paid to ask questions. Doc Savage doesn’t see just anybody.”

“I have an appointment with Mr. Savage, I will have you know.”

The firmness of Ned Gamble’s voice was enough to satisfy the fellow, who rotated the control causing the cage to commence lifting.

Fumbling into his pockets for a cigarette lighter, Gamble prepared to light the recovered cigarette.

“Very sorry, sir,” the elevator boy interrupted. “No smoking allowed in the cars.”

Frowning, Ned stuffed the lighter back into his pocket and, holding the unlit cigarette, patiently waited for the elevator to cease its prolonged climb.

Eighty-six floors up, the cage eased to a halt, the door rolled open, and the operator announced, “This is your floor. Good luck.”

Stepping off into a sumptuously furnished corridor, Gamble looked up and down until he saw a plain bronze door with a name upon it:

CLARK SAVAGE, JR.

The raised legend was in darker bronze, the letters modest.

The waxed marble floor felt reassuringly substantial under his feet as he strolled toward the impressive panel.

As he walked, Ned fiddled with his cigarette as if uncertain whether to light it or not. Nervousness took hold. Taking out his lighter, he snapped the flint wheel, and applied the tiny flame to the cigarette’s end.

It was burning red hot by the time he reached the door.

There was a push-button next to the door and Gamble depressed it.

As he waited, he took rapid puffs of the cigarette, exhaling clouds of roiling smoke.

Under one arm, Ned still toted the folded newspaper that had so agitated him.

When the door opened, a waspish man in elegant attire showed his sharp-featured face and asked, “Good day. What is your business here?”

Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, the visitor spoke up.

“My name is—”

“Yes?”

The visitor appeared to hesitate, his eyes blinking rapidly.

A vagueness came into his serious blue orbs. They shifted around, as if he was looking for something he had misplaced.

“What is it, my good fellow?” pressed the waspish man.

“I—” Ned said falteringly.

Seeing that the man appeared distressed, the well-dressed fellow threw the door open wide and invited, “Why don’t you step in?”

Ned Gamble seemed not to understand the invitation. His eyes lost focus, and his head began to move back and forth as if he were no longer certain of his surroundings.

Suddenly, he dropped his cigarette and clapped his hands over his ears as if to block out an unpleasant sound.

“What is wrong?” snapped the other.

“Ringing,” Gamble said vaguely.

Whatever was wrong with the caller, alarm began to register on his features. One hand fumbled about in an aimless way.

Suddenly, Gamble lifted the folded newspaper and began stabbing the front page with a forefinger that seemed clumsy and uncertain.

Eyes rolling up in the back of his head, he keeled over.

No outward alarm roosted on the face of the sharp-featured man, who nevertheless began walking rapidly backward, then turned and found a button on an ornate table that sat by two high windows.

Employing a dark cane, he depressed this. From the ceiling dropped a great curtain of glass, so transparent it could only be detected by reflections of the ceiling lights.

The great pane came to rest on the rug, bisecting the reception room.

Stabbing another button on the great desk, the man called sharply, “Doc! Your visitor just arrived. But the chap appears to have fainted.”

The remarkable voice of Doc Savage said, “Take all precautions. I will be there directly.”

“Precautions already taken,” returned the well-dressed man, snapping another switch, which caused fans in the ceiling to commence revolving.

Chapter III

THE GIANT IN BRONZE

THE TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD girl at the disreputable Bowery rooming house had insisted that Doc Savage stood seven feet tall.

The big bronze man who stepped into the reception room from an adjoining chamber was not seven feet tall, but he gave that distinct impression.

Framed in the doorway, his head nearly grazed the transom. When he stepped away, Doc seemed to dwindle slightly, and assume the proportions of an ordinary man, not a veritable giant.

His stature was not the only thing about the bronze giant that was rather impressive. Doc Savage seemed to be molded out of some substance that possessed the hardness of bronze, combined with the flexibility of human flesh.

Innumerable tropical suns had baked his skin to the semblance of metal. His hair, lying like a metallic skullcap atop his fine-featured head, was a shade darker than that of his skin. Tendons on the back of his hands bespoke of tremendous physical development.

The bronze giant’s eyes were arresting also. They seemed alive in an uncanny way that was difficult to describe. Like pools of flake-gold, they were. Vital, continually in motion, the restless golden flakes seemed stirred by inner winds, glittering hypnotically.

Striding over to the well-dressed man at the massive inlaid table that evidently served as a desk, Doc directed, “Ham, what did you observe?”

“Ham” replied, “The caller appeared perfectly ordinary until I asked his name. He began to tell me, then appeared to grow confused. His confusion turned into agitation, as if he had momentarily forgotten his own name. I asked him what was the matter, but the poor chap couldn’t seem to articulate anything understandable. In his distress, he showed me an afternoon newspaper and began stabbing at the front page. That was when he collapsed. There seemed to be no reason for this, but I took the usual precautions. I shut the door and engaged the bulletproof sheet of glass which separates this portion of the reception room from the corridor door.”

“You did the right thing,” replied Doc. “What else did you observe?”

“Only that he was smoking a cigarette.”

Doc nodded. He stabbed various inlays carved into the tabletop—in reality electrical push-buttons, and the overhead fans ceased whirring.

At the press of another button, the great sheet of bulletproof glass began toiling upward, to disappear into a cleverly concealed recess in the ceiling.

By this time, Doc Savage had donned a gas mask taken from a metal cabinet, after passing a second mask to Ham, who drew on the contrivance.

After taking that precaution, the big bronze man touched an inlay, and a telephoto device displayed the corridor on a frosted panel set flush onto the tabletop. The device was designed to show who might be standing outside the door. The screen displayed no one. The angle of the contrivance did not pick up on the visitor who had fallen to the hallway floor.

A tendril of smoke was wafting into view, indicating that the caller’s cigarette continued to burn.

Together, Doc and Ham advanced on the closed door.

“I did not like to leave a stricken man lying out in the corridor like that,” Ham said through his protective mask.

“One can never tell in what form death might arrive,” cautioned Doc.

“Especially in our business,” agreed Ham. With those words, he gripped his slim black cane. Separating handle from barrel revealed a slim rapier of immaculate steel.

Doc grasped the doorknob and prepared to fling the panel open.

That instant there came a mushy sound that was difficult to describe. Outlined by the well-fitting door appeared a brief flash of vivid green.

Ham blurted, “Grenade!”

If it was a grenade, the thing produced very little in the way of violent reaction. The portal remained firmly on its hinges.

Doc Savage held back. It was rare that the big bronze fellow ever hesitated, but neither was he rash when confronting an unknown danger.

Instead of passing through the door, the bronze giant reversed direction and made for the adjoining room. This proved to be a great scientific library crammed with shelved tomes. He moved through the profusion of bookcases until he came to a wall where one bookcase loomed narrow and tall.

Feeling for a concealed catch, Doc pulled this open, disclosing the secret passage into the outside hallway.