Кеннет Робсон - Death in Silver

They moved outdoors, kept to the shadow-banked side of the house, and moved to the right toward the spot where the body of the murdered taxi driver had fallen. Doc peered around a corner.

For an instant, the bronze man's weird trilling note came into being. Hardly audible, it trailed up-and-down the musical scale, fantastic in its vague similitude to the cadence of an exotic tropical bird. It had been brought forth by surprise.

Over the prone form of the slain cab driver crouched a second silver figure. This individual held a glass bottle. He was sprinkling the contents on the clothing of the corpse.

Doc stepped into view. The silver man looked up, bleated, and threw the bottle. Doc whipped back to let it go past. A few drops of liquid — showering from the bottle as it gyrated — spilled on the bronze man's coat.

Doc promptly wrenched the coat off, lunging for the silver figure as he did so.

The silver man ran. But his pace was wild with haste, his metallic garment slightly clumsy, and he stumbled. Down on all fours, he slapped. Twisting his head over his shoulder, he saw that Doc was almost upon him.

Beside the silver man was a low basement window. Without thought of glass cuts, he rolled into the window, knocked the sash out with head-and-shoulders, and vanished within.

Doc Savage flung his coat aside and rapped at Pace, "Keep away from that coat. Don't touch the body, either!"

Pace barked, "But what … "

" Contact poison!" Doc shouted. "An acid and some sort of toxin in solution. A trick to kill whoever touched the corpse!"

The last words were lost in a crashing noise as Doc kicked the basement sash out and dived inside. He hit the concrete floor lightly and let the rebound carry him to one side.

Flame plunged through the basement murk, a yard-long tongue. Powder bellow accompanied it. The bullet made a hammering sound against the wall!

Seeing darkness with his hands, Doc found a chair with one leg missing. He shied it at the gun flame source but got only the noise of the chair striking. The gunman had shifted position.

Came a dull pat-pat-pat noise and Doc — looking up through the window — saw Rapid Pace's head and shoulders recede in the moonlight. The efficiency expert was living up to his name — he was fleeing across the lawn! The situation had gotten the best of his nerves.

Doc advanced under cover of the sound. He passed the spot where the powder fumes were thickest and made for the opposite side of the basement. The quarry would be over there somewhere.

Bending low, Doc drifted a hand over the concrete floor. Like most basements, this one was covered with a film of gritty dust. The stuff did not grind audibly under Doc's shoe soles because they were of rubber. Not ordinary rubber but the soft sponge variety. But the grit would make sound under ordinary shoes. Even rubber heels of the prosaic type.

As Doc had hoped, the grit gave the silver man away. Doc heard the fellow drift slowly nearer through the gloom. When the man was near, the bronze giant leaped.

Doc did not flail blows or try to hold the man. He simply found the fellow's neck and grasped the back of it with corded fingers.

Doc Savage was skilled in many lines. But easily his greatest knowledge was in the field of surgery and of human anatomy. He knew the location of certain nerve centers on which pressure — properly applied — produced a temporary paralysis .

The silver man went limp under Doc's fingers.

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Doc called through the smashed window, "Pace! Everything is all right!"

It was not a desire for Pace's company that moved Doc to call. The efficiency expert — with his aggravating habit of repeating half of what he said — was as tiresome a companion as Doc could recall encountering. Pace was shy on nerve as well.

But Doc wanted to keep all threads of this weird mystery of the silver man as closely at hand as possible. And Pace might be one of the threads.

Rapid Pace appeared at the basement window after giving the poisoned corpse a wide berth. Another man might have been sheepish over the recent show of cowardice. But not Pace.

"I was looking for another weapon," said Pace. "You know, a club or something."

Doc said nothing but used his flashlight to locate a switch which filled the basement with light. Then he went to the man in silver and stripped off the hooded mask.

A rather square, stupid face was revealed. The eyes were ugly, the mouth twisted in a perpetual sneer.

"A typical crook," said Rapid Pace. "Yes, typical."

Doc searched the fellow but found nothing to indicate the man's name. The fellow — unable to move or speak because of the weird paralysis — could only glare.

Doc turned him over, adjusted the thick neck, and exerted pressure with skilled fingertips. The results were amazing! The victim began to squirm in an endeavor to sit up.

"Lemme go!" he snarled. Fear rasped in his coarse voice and he stared at Doc's hands, at the sinews that were like bundled cables.

"There are 2 things I want to know," Doc told him quietly.

"T'hell wit' yer!" snarled the thug.

"What happened to my aides Monk and Ham? Where are they now?" Doc spoke slowly, and the ominous undertones of his great voice caused the listener on the floor to cringe involuntarily. "That is the first thing I want to know. The second is what is behind all of this melodramatic business of the silver disguises?"

The evil-faced man wet his lip nervously … hesitated … then snarled, "I dunno a t'ing, s'help me!"

"Hit him, Mr. Savage," suggested Rapid Pace. "His type cannot stand physical pain."

"Yer been takin' in de movies," sneered the other. "1 can take all yer got!"

"Hold him, Mr. Savage," Pace urged. "I'll try busting him one on the nose. Hey … what … "

Lashing out an arm, Doc upset Pace. Simultaneously, the basement quaked with gun sound.A shot had been fired from the window. Not at Pace but at Doc himself.

The slug smashed against Doc's bulletproof vest. Despite his great physique, air was driven from his lungs and he was half-turned.

A long lunge carried him to the shelter of a cellar pillar. Rapid Pace was safe where he had been propelled by Doc's shove.

There was movement at the window. A pistol came gyrating through the air and landed on the lap of the man Doc had been questioning. No words were spoken. None were needed. The fellow clutched the gun avidly and wheeled in Doc's direction.

The bronze man seemed for a moment caught between 2 fires. If he left the shelter of the pillar, he would be in range from the window and the marksman would be intelligent enough to shoot at his head this time.

The thug on the floor heaved up for a deliberate aim.

Doc flattened closer to the pillar. His right hand seemed to vanish, so swiftly did it move. It dipped into his coat and came out with the only weapon at hand — the collapsible grappling hook with its silken cord. The cord was wound tightly around the hook, adding weight to it. Doc threw the device … threw it with all the violence he could muster from tremendous thews! The gunman's hand was not a difficult target. Any baseball pitcher of ability should have been able to hit it.