The Metal Master: A Doc Savage Adventure Read online

  Doc Savage’s tranquillity and submissiveness should have warned Decitez and his men. Unfortunately for them, it didn’t.

  The spectacle of the bronze man clad only in underwear shorts had the effect of making his captors more uneasy, instead of relieving their minds. Somehow, just looking at the metallic giant’s incredible muscles had a tendency to make their hair stand on end.

  Decitez gave orders, and they forced the bronze man into another room on the same floor as the garage level.

  “Now what the heck we gonna do with ’im?” a man wanted to know.

  “We’ll wireless Tops’l for instructions,” said Decitez. “Tops’l will be mighty glad to know we’ve got Doc Savage. Tops’l has been keeping that man Renny alive, so as to have a club to use over Doc Savage, if necessary. But now that we’ve got Doc Savage, Tops’l will probably want both him and Renny ‘ge-e-e-eked!’ as he calls it.”

  Doc Savage spoke for the first time. He addressed Decitez.

  “That story you told me about financing Louis Tester in a treasure hunt was a lie, was it not?” Doc asked.

  “Yes,” said Decitez. “It was.”

  “And you have heard of Nan Tester?” Doc queried.

  “Yep.”

  “Where is she?”

  “How in the devil would I know?”

  “You have heard of Seevers?”

  “You betcha!”

  “And the Metal Master?” Doc demanded.

  “You go chase a duck,” said Decitez. “I ain’t answerin’ no more of your questions.”

  There came a loud, imperative knock on the door.

  * * *

  The interruption had an explosive effect. Every one jumped. Decitez seemed to sink some inches in stature, and he did not have much height to spare.

  “Quick!” wailed a man. “We better blow!”

  “Quiet, you fool!” snarled Decitez.

  Decitez went to a window and peered furtively from it. He drew back and broke into a peal of laughter. He sneered at his followers.

  “A telegraph messenger,” he said.

  He went to the door and opened it. Two men kept guns jabbed against Doc’s face, to shoot him if he made a noise. He did not. Decitez came strutting back with a cablegram.

  “From Tops’l,” he said, after opening the missive.

  The cable was evidently in code, for he did not read the contents immediately, but went into another room, where there was a writing desk and paper, and went to work. Doc Savage was standing some distance away, but he watched Decitez’s pencil closely as it wrote.

  Doc Savage knew a great deal about ciphers and codes. He used them frequently, and often had occasion to decipher some tough ones. And a pencil moves in such a manner that one who has practiced watching can get a good idea of what letters the pencil is writing.

  Doc got a general key to the cipher in which the cablegram was couched.

  Decitez finished with his translating. He read the result, then grinned widely, went to a washbasin, burned the cablegram and the sheet on which he had translated it and washed the ashes down the drain, a bit at a time, where no magic of modern science would ever restore them.

  “It was from my partner, Tops’l,” he told his men. “Tops’l has been putting the screws to this Louis Tester. They have gotten the whole story out of Louis Tester. Everything is jake with our plans. All we have to do now is grab a man named Gorham Gage Gettian.”

  “Who’s he?” asked a man.

  Decitez frowned.

  “Tops’l neglected to say in the cable,” he explained.

  The man who had asked the question scowled.

  “We’re doin’ too much in the dark,” he said. “If Tops’l has the whole story, I’m in favor of us having it, too. Me, I want to know what I’m doin’, when I tackle things.”

  Decitez’s expression showed that he thought the same thing. Then he remembered that, as boss of the gang, he should not allow any arguments. He put out his jaw.

  “You dry up!” he directed. “Tops’l is an all right guy! I’ve handled the New York end of his narcotic smuggling racket for a long time and got along fine. Now that he wants my help on something else, I’m going to string along with him.”

  “I’ll shut up,” agreed the other sourly. “But I hope the pay-off in this is worth the risk we’re taking.”

  “It is,” said Decitez. “This is the biggest thing you or anybody else ever saw!”

  “But I don’t see it yet,” said the man.

  * * *

  This was only leading back to a continuation of the argument, so Decitez assumed a forbidding look, something like that of his namesake, Napoleon. He held this ominous expression, until the other man squirmed uneasily.

  “I’m with you,” said the other grouchily.

  “You bet you are!” Decitez told him. “We’re in too deep to back out.”

  Doc Savage had kept his face expressionless throughout the exchange. If he was feeling any emotions, it did not show on his bronze features.

  Decitez eyed his men.

  “You birds stay here and watch the bronze guy,” he directed. “I’ll get some of the rest of the boys for this other job.”

  His four men did not look as if they felt like throwing their hats in the air and cheering.

  “You won’t have any trouble,” Decitez comforted them. “Don’t look so gloomy.”

  The one who had done most of the grousing frowned darkly and moistened his lips.

  “If the bronze guy makes a move, I ain’t gonna fool none,” he said. “I’ll give him a lead treatment.”

  “That’s O. K. with me,” Decitez said airily.

  Decitez then walked to the door and opened it. About to pass through, he paused, leered at his men, then made a gesture which he must have learned from Tops’l Hertz, since it was one of Tops’l’s favorite gestures.

  He drew a finger across his throat, simultaneously making a “ge-e-e-ek!” of a noise.

  “Tops’l said in his cablegram that Doc Savage’s man, Renny, would be ‘ge-e-e-eked!’ as he expressed it, as soon as we got hold of Doc Savage. I’m going to wire him we’ve got Savage. Then he’ll probably radio us to ge-e-e-ek! Savage, too.”

  He looked very bloodthirsty and fierce for a moment. Then he went out. There was something about his manner, though, that showed he had been “grandstanding” to impress his followers. He wanted to show them they had a very tough man for their chief.

  Although Decitez had assured his followers that guarding Doc Savage was a task no more perilous than picking violets, they took no chances. Every one kept a steady stare on the bronze man. They even seemed afraid to blink. Two of them did sit down, only to leap erect nervously when Doc Savage drew in a deep breath.

  “One move, big guy, and you’re done!” one snarled.

  Doc Savage said nothing. He might have been a man stunned by his misfortune. He eyed his captors. His lips parted a little. He seemed to be holding his breath.

  His captors began falling to the floor. All four went down. They scarcely stirred after they collapsed.

  Chapter IX

  THE SQUABBLERS

  More than one foe who had tackled Doc Savage had come to the pained conclusion that the bronze man actually could work miracles. But probably no demonstration of the bronze man’s had ever come nearer to seeming a miracle.

  He had been searched to the skin. None of his clothes had been returned. The nearest of his foes was distant ten feet. Doc had apparently done nothing. Yet they had all fallen over senseless.

  The explanation was simple. In his mouth, the bronze man had been carrying a pair of flat, flexible capsules containing his odorless, colorless anæsthetic gas. He had simply broken the capsules.

  It was remarkable, that gas. If one inhaled it, instant unconsciousness came. And after mingling with the air for perhaps a minute, the vapor became ineffective.

  Doc had been prepared for capture. The reason for his being prepared would have surprised Napoleon M
urphy Decitez. Doc had known from the first that Decitez was lying. Examination of the burglar alarm recorders in Doc’s laboratory had shown the bronze man that no assailant had been on the stairway in the skyscraper, as Decitez had claimed. There was an alarm attached to the stairway. It had showed that no one had come up or gone down the stairs.

  The reason for Doc Savage pretending to be taken in would have surprised Decitez, too. Doc had desired to see what could be learned. So he had taken the risk of becoming a prisoner. Doc often did things in unusual ways.

  Doc Savage now began breathing. The minute had elapsed, and the anæsthetic gas had become harmless, having mixed with the oxygen and hydrogen in the air. Doc relieved the four senseless men of their guns.

  The effects of the anæsthetic would last for hours. But, in a phial in a pocket in his remarkable vest, Doc Savage carried an antidote which would bring a victim back to his senses almost at once.

  Doc searched and found the vest and his clothing. He administered some of the antidote. As his subject, he chose the man who had done most of the grumbling. To begin with, this fellow was worried.

  While the man was reviving, Doc donned his clothing. There was a telephone and directories on a stand in the room. Doc looked in a directory for the name, Gorham Gage Gettian.

  There was only the one listed in the directory:

  GETTIAN, Gorham Gage . . fn’c’r

  7220 Drive . . . . . SEaway 7-6990

  The antidote revived the man whom the anæsthetic had overcome. The fellow was able to speak almost immediately.

  “Well, they can’t say I didn’t warn ’em,” the fellow growled. “I told ’em you were bad medicine.”

  Doc Savage said nothing. He was using the power of silence, coupled with the threat which he was able to put in his remarkable flake-gold eyes. He kept looking at the prisoner intently. The fellow did not take long to become uneasy.

  “For the love of mud!” he exploded, “Whatcha gonna do with me?”

  Doc Savage said calmly, “There are various ways of making a man tell what he knows.”

  His calmness probably affected the other more than would have an angry yell.

  “I’ll take your word for it!” the man gulped. “Whatcha wanta know?”

  “You will talk?”

  “Sure!” wailed the man. “I’ve heard plenty about you! When you say you can make me spill, I’ll take your word for it. I wouldn’t get any fun out of being worked over.”

  Which proved he was a sensible rogue.

  “Where can I get in touch with Tops’l, as you call him,” Doc Savage asked.

  The man hesitated. He shuddered.

  “They’ll croak me for this,” he groaned. “Tops’l is skipper of the schooner Innocent, somewhere in the Caribbean, bound north.”

  * * *

  “The Innocent is bound north?” Doc queried.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re heading for Alligator Island.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Why are they going to Alligator Island?”

  “Don’t know that,” said the frightened prisoner.

  “Tell me what you do know,” Doc Savage directed shortly.

  The prisoner wet his lips, then spoke rapidly.

  “I work for Decitez, and he and Tops’l Hertz are partners in various crooked rackets,” he said. “Tops’l was hired to grab a man named Louis Tester down in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Who did the hiring?”

  “A party we call ‘CX.’ ”

  “Who is CX?” Doc demanded.

  “None of us know,” said the man. “Anyway, Tops’l grabbed Louis Tester, and from some papers Tester had on his plane, Tops’l learned that this CX was after something worth millions! They talked billions, but I’m discounting some. Tops’l got in touch with Decitez, and now they’re trying to haze this CX out of the jackpot. They want to glom the whole thing.”

  Doc Savage asked, “And what is the whole thing?”

  The scared man said, “Here’s where you think I’m a liar.”

  “Let me judge that.”

  “I don’t know what we are after.”

  Doc Savage’s flake-gold eyes bore steadily upon the man. The fellow sighed. He made a gesture desperately, pleading for belief.

  “Tops’l and Decitez kept the pig in a poke,” he wailed. “They don’t trust anybody!”

  “What about Gorham Gage Gettian, who is to be seized?” Doc questioned.

  “You know as much as I do about him. I never heard him mentioned, before the cablegram came.”

  Doc Savage was silent, as if cataloguing the information mentally. He had received answers to all his questions. But the total information was not as much as might have been expected. If he was disappointed, he did not show it.

  “Where is the girl, Nan Tester?” he asked.

  “I have never heard anything about any girl,” said the man.

  Doc Savage extracted a small red pill from a pocket in his vest.

  “Take this,” he said.

  The prisoner became pale.

  “What are you gonna do with me?” the man wailed. “What’s that pill?”

  “Take it,” Doc Savage directed.

  “No!” cried the man desperately. “The devil with you!”

  Doc Savage grabbed the man. The fellow tried to dodge, but he had no luck at all. Doc clutched the man’s throat. The fellow’s mouth flew open. Doc popped the pill in, then closed the man’s jaws and held them shut. The man had to swallow, because Doc stroked his neck expertly.

  After he had swallowed the red pill, the man fell over senseless. Doc Savage laid him beside the other three.

  * * *

  Doc went to the telephone, picked up the receiver and called the cable company. He dictated a cablegram. It read:

  CAPTAIN HERTZ

  VIA RADIO SCHOONER INNOCENT SAILED FROM HAVANA KINDLY EXTEND EARLIEST POSSIBLE REPORT ENDEAVORING NOT WORK IN CUBAN KRONFELD ANGLE NOR DAILY TRADE EXPANSION STOP TAKE EASTERN ROUTE AND LEARN INDEPENDENT’S VIEWS ESPECIALLY ABOUT TREND AND LOWEST LEVEL COSTS OFFERED STOP TRADING SLOW

  Doc Savage did not sign it, for two reasons. Cablegrams are frequently not signed. And Doc was not aware of how Decitez signed the cablegrams which he sent to Tops’l Hertz.

  It sounded as innocent and about as clear as the average commercial telegram. But it was in a code. The simple code which these men were using, and which Doc Savage had deciphered by watching the actions of Decitez’s pencil as he translated.

  You simply took the first letter of each word, and that spelled out the message:

  KEEP RENWICK AND TESTER ALIVE AT ALL COSTS

  It was a gesture to keep Renny and Tester alive until Doc Savage had his hands on enough information to make a gesture at saving them.

  Doc Savage carried the four prisoners to a closet. He was working hurriedly now. He made sure the closet door would admit enough air for them to breathe, then closed and locked it. He went to the garage. His coupe was still there. He drove it out and headed for Drive Street, which was in the north end of Manhattan Island, near Riverside Drive.

  Gorham Gage Gettian lived on Drive Street, according to the telephone directory. Just what his connection with the affair might be, was not as yet apparent. But Decitez had gone to seize Gettian. Quick action, therefore, was necessary.

  Doc Savage adjusted the short-wave radio transmitter-and-receiver concealed in the body of the coupe. He picked up the microphone and spoke into it.

  “Calling Monk or Ham,” he said.

  Almost immediately, a voice came out of the loud-speaker. The voice was a wisplike thing, that might have belonged to a small and cranky child.

  “What is it, Doc?” the tiny voice asked.

  “Monk,” Doc Savage said, “can you get hold of Ham?”

  “If I do,” said small-voiced “Monk,” “I’ll pull his left arm off and club him to death with it!” r />
  The important thing about this remark was that Monk, who was actually Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, world-renowned chemist and one of Doc Savage’s aids, was actually capable of pulling a man’s arm off and beating him to death with it.

  Whether he could pull “Ham’s” arm off or not, was another question, however, Ham being capable of taking care of himself.

  Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, admittedly one of the most astute lawyers Harvard had ever turned out.

  If Monk’s bloody promise worried Doc Savage, the bronze man failed to show it.

  “Get hold of Ham,” Doc Savage said. He gave the address of Decitez’s Greenwich Village house. “Go there. You will find four gentlemen who are to be sent to our up-State institution.”

  “Oh,” said Monk. “You’ve gotten into a mess, eh?”

  “So far, it is a question as to who is in a mess,” Doc replied. “Get Ham and take care of those four men.”

  “I’ll take care of them,” Monk said. “If I get hold of Ham, I’ll take care of him, too!”

  “What is wrong?” Doc Savage asked.

  Monk squeaked, “It’s a very complicated story. It’ll probably come out when I go on trial for killing Ham.”

  Doc Savage said, “Hurry with this.”

  “Sure,” said Monk. “The massacre will take place as soon as I find him.”

  Monk was squeaking uncomplimentary things about Ham, when Doc clicked the microphone out of circuit. Doc left the transmitter turned on, however, as was the habit of himself and his aids.

  * * *

  Doc Savage had not given Monk any elaborate instructions about what to do with the four prisoners, because Monk already knew. The usual thing. Doc handled all of the crooks that he caught in the same way.

  Doc stopped his coupe at the curb around the corner from Drive Street. He got out. It was quite dark. The streets were deserted, due to the lateness of the hour. It was colder than it had been the night before, but it was not sleeting. It had been cold all through the day. Some of the sleet, frozen, still glassed the pavement in spots.