Лестер Дент - Death in Silver

"You get scared too easy," said Lorna. "You go off half-cocked."

"I can't help it," Pace groaned.

"And you talk too much," Lorna continued. "You say everything twice. You could get along with half as much conversation."

"I'm trying to stop that, too," Pace assured her.

"Well, we'll see how you improve," Lorna told him.

They strained their ears but did not hear Doc Savage. The bronze man was moving with an uncanny quiet through the upper floors of the building. He swung down a corridor, angled right, and found the building was much larger than it had seemed. There were numerous hallways. In fact, the place was a labyrinth!

Doc came unexpectedly to a room which was very large.

There were rows of desks, many — judging from the lack of wastebaskets and absence of other paraphernalia — not at present in use. Others were seeing service. Evidently the Winthrop Shipyards had once done more business than at present.

Across the room was a safe — huge and battered — with flakes of the black paint scaled off by long usage. But there was more wrong with the safe than scuffed paint.

The door of the strong box was off and reposed on the floor. Papers — the former contents of the safe — were scattered about. A bilious-looking cloud of smoke eddied above the wreckage, and there was the itching tang of burned nitro in the air.

The safe being blown open was undoubtedly what they had heard downstairs.

Doc Savage did not expend time examining the safe but whipped to the left, found a door open, and went through. The hallway beyond led him several yards and turned, conveying him back the way he had come, toward the stairs and the front door.

An excited, staccato yell sounded. Rapid Pace's voice! A gun made an ugly roar. Lorna Zane shrilled something unintelligible.

Doc changed his course, found a window, and got it up as silently as was consistent with slashing speed. More than a dozen feet was that drop below. He made it easily. Tremendous leg muscles cushioned his landing.

An instant later, he was at a corner — it chanced to be the one nearest the gate.

Lorna Zane and Rapid Pace were running across the shipyard, striving to reach the shelter of a pile of steel ship frames. Neither looked back but gave all attention to sprinting.

A gun whacked .

"I'm hit!" Pace grabbed his arm. "I'm hit!"

But he did not glance back, and both he and the girl dived behind the frames. Another shot slammed, the lead made a belling noise on the steel frames.

"Get that damned girl!" yelled the voice of the Silver Death's-Head member called 'UII'.

Feet pounded. Doc stepped from his concealment. The group in the weird silver garments and masks — which he had followed here — were running for the frame pile, guns ready.

Over the thin cloth of woven alloy metal which protected his body, Doc Savage wore a most unusual vest. A garment of many pockets — compartments, rather — padded so that they were unnoticeable. From one of these, he extracted a metal vial — the padded interior of which held metallic objects about the size of cherries. He flung one of these ahead of the charging silver killers.

It struck. There was a blinding flashand a terrific crack of a noise which left ears ringing! 2 silver men were upset by the blast.

UII — he was prudently not leading the charge — yelled, "The girl must have grenades! Get her!"

In the gloom, it was impossible to tell from where the thrown object had come. They renewed the charge.

There was a second flashand a rapping crash! This one knocked fully half of the group down. Even Ull was upset. A bundle that he was carrying flipped from his arms.

The bundle was long, round, azure-tinted at the edges, tied with cord, and sealed with wax. A bundle of blueprints, undoubtedly.

Ull scrambled after the prints as if they meant his very life. Their merely getting out of his hands seemed to change his whole plan.

"Let the girl go!" he howled. "The Big Boss said to get these prints and that's our job. We do not want to lose them after all the trouble we had getting them out of that safe. Back, men! We'll leave here before someone calls the police!"

The silver men retreated, firing freely at the pile of massive steel frames. Scrambling over the keel of a partially completed small vessel, they made for the gate, working around a tractor, a mobile derrick and other machinery. One produced a flashlight and employed it to aid their flight.

They reached the gate. It was locked.

"Hell!" snarled UII and glared at the watchman who was still unconscious. "I thought we left this unlocked!"

The fastening of the solid metal sheet was a bar affair. And this was jammed very tightly. But they got it back and shoved out into the waterfront street. With frantic haste, they piled into their blue sedan.

"We'll go to Gardner's home next!" barked UlI.

The car engine backfired … came to life … and the machine wailed its tires on the fog-damp pavement, then rocketed away.

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

There were shadows close to the wall outside the gate. Very dark shadows . And the men in the silver regalia had neglected to examine them. Thereby, they had missed an important discovery.

The layer of damp murk seemed to swell … then condense and materialize into a bronze figure of giantsize. This occurred at a point no more than 15 feet from where the sedan had been parked.

Taking advantage of the night and the fog, Doc had beaten the silver men to the gate, gotten through, jammed the lock by the handle outside, and concealed himself.

UII's bark "We'll go to Gardner's home next" had reached his ears.

Doc had taken a good deal of trouble to avoid showing himself, for it was well that the silver men continue thinking they had killed him at the apartment of the unfortunate flier, Gilbert Stiles.

Finding his men Monk and Ham — rescuing them if they were still alive; punishing their murderers if they were dead — was Doc's immediate task. Eventually these silver men probably would lead him to his objective.

Once again, he could follow them by the radio-directional device.

Doc did not take up the chase immediately. He ran back into the shipyard.

Lorna Zane came cautiously from behind the steel pile. Rapid Pace — once sure the coast was clear — bounded out like an excited cricket. He waved his arms and began to talk like a phonograph which had lost its governor, indicating a mere scratch on his shoulder.

"An outrage!" he yelled. "Yes sir, an outrage! A mystery, too. A very black mystery! A most confounding affair!"

Doc ignored him and asked the girl, "Do you know what was in that large safe upstairs?"

"I should know," she replied. "I am the only one who has the combination."

Doc gestured, "Come on!"

As they ran into the brick office building, Lorna Zane said angrily, "I do not understand this! Why should those men try to kill me?"

"What position do you hold here?" Doc asked her.

"I really manage the shipyard," she explained, "although I am only secretary to Paine L. Winthrop."

"That might explain it," said Doc.

The young woman glanced sharply at the bronze man, a strange light in her entrancing eyes.