STRANGE ATTACKERS
The train was still driving its way westward, excitement and tragedy hovering over it.
Girl-faced El Rabanos waved his arms and screamed: “This man Savage is the murderer!”
Renny shook fists that were larger than brickbats, rumbling: “Say that again, sissy-faced squirt, and I’ll hit you so hard you’ll turn into a grease spot!”
Monk’s pig, Habeas Corpus, squealed violently.
Señor Corto Oveja glared and shrilled: “I, too, think Señor Savage is the murderer.”
Pretty Señorita Oveja put hands over her mouth to crowd back sobs. She made no accusations either way.
The train was in a general uproar—it had been thus for more than two hours.
The dead form of Wilkie, the conductor, was still sprawled in its crimson puddle on the Pullman washroom floor. His murderer was as yet uncaught.
With the noisy violence of Latin temperaments, Señor Oveja and El Rabanos had shouted the length of the train that Doc Savage was the killer. They were still shouting insistently. The very noisiness of their assertion was producing an effect.
“This man Savage suggested the mission on which the conductor was killed!” El Rabanos repeated for probably the dozenth time.
“That mission was ridiculous in the first place!” snapped Señor Oveja. “It was to summon and question all Spanish people on this train.”
“I notice there’s a lot of them,” Renny said pointedly.
“You have heard their story!” El Rabanos snapped. “They are going to a convention of a Spanish society being held on the Pacific coast.”
This was true. On the train were about a dozen individuals of Spanish ancestry. Without exception, they declared they were going to the meeting of the society. The news butcher on the train had found a story in one of his papers which proved there actually was such a meeting scheduled.
Doc was not under arrest. But that was simply because there happened to be no officers on the train.
The most unpleasant of recent developments, from Doc’s standpoint, was the work of Señor Oveja. The señor had dispatched a telegram to the Mounted Police at the train’s next stop, asking that officers be on hand to arrest Doc. This was a through train. It had not paused since the discovery of Wilkie’s body. Señor Oveja had dropped his message at a small depot as the tram had flashed past it.
Renny sidled close to Doc.
“This is beginning to look bad!” he said in a low voice. “There is not the slightest clue to show who murdered Wilkie.”
Girl-faced El Rabanos sprang forward, shouting: “These men should not be allowed to talk together! They may plot an escape!”
Doc Savage shrugged wearily and sat down.
“Would you mind bringing a glass of water, Renny?” he asked.
“Glad to!” said Renny.
There was a long glass cylinder mounted in a corner of the coach. This held paper cups which dropped out when one inserted a penny. Renny ignored these. He wandered off to the regions of the diner.
After a bit, Renny was back, carrying a plain glass beaker, brimful of cold water.
Doc drank the water. Holding the empty glass in both hands, he toyed with it as he addressed entrancingly pretty Señorita Oveja.
“I wonder if you would do me a favor?” he asked.
“What?” the young woman inquired shortly.
“Tell me why you think I am your enemy.”
El Rabanos put in wrathfully: “That is information which we shall give to the Mounted Police!”
“Would I like to smear that face of yours!” Renny thundered at El Rabanos.
“Here,” Doc said, and handed Renny the glass.
Renny took the beaker. There was a strange expression on his long, puritanical face.
Renny departed as if he were returning the water glass to where he had gotten it.
Seemingly with no particular purpose in mind, gaunt Johnny and pale Long Tom sauntered off together.
Twirling his sword cane, Ham was next to leave the group. The pig Habeas Corpus under an arm, Monk trailed after the dapper lawyer. Ham was inviting Monk to quit following him around as they passed out of hearing.
“We should keep an eye on those men!” El Rabanos declared.
“Fat chance they’ve got of getting off the train!” somebody told him. “We’re hitting all of sixty miles an hour.”
Doc Savage went to a writing desk and selected a book of telegram blanks. He addressed a message to the Mounted Police at the metropolis where the train next stopped.
ADVISE YOU HAVE STATION AND VICINITY BRILLIANTLY LIGHTED WHEN OUR TRAIN ARRIVES STOP ALSO HAVE ENOUGH TROOPERS ON HAND TO SEE THAT NO ONE ESCAPES STOP CONFIDENT SOMETHING CRIMINAL UNDERFOOT.
DOC SAVAGE
Doc tied the telegram in his handkerchief, first weighting it with two silver dollars. Then he opened the window. He did this in plain view, not wishing to have somebody get excited and take a shot at him. He consulted his watch, then waited. He had studied the timetable earlier, and knew they were due to pass through a small town in a few moments.
The train whistle moaned. A pinpoint eye of light opened in the distance. This approached with a rush. It was the illuminated window of a railway station. The little depot looked like a match box in the headlight glare.
Standing in front of the station was a man who wore a green eyeshade, and had black dust protectors over his shirt sleeves. The accoutrements stamped him as the telegraph operator.
Doc threw his message as the train hooted past. Considering the terrific speed, his aim was uncanny. The handkerchief, the telegram inside, all but bounced into the operator’s hands.
In the act of closing the window, Doc noted something from the corner of an eye.
Señor Oveja was bending over the desk where the telegram had been written. He hastily sauntered away from the desk when he saw Doc observing him.
Doc gave no sign of having noticed. He knew what Señor Oveja was doing at the desk. There had been a sheet of carbon paper in the pad upon which Doc had written his message. Señor Oveja had read this carbon copy of Doc’s wire.
It was possible the señor imagined he had done a neat bit of detecting. As a matter of fact, Doc had left the carbon copy deliberately uncovered, and had been careful that the señor saw it. Doc wanted to see what Señor Oveja’s reaction would be. He learned little. The señor kept his thoughts well concealed.
* * * *
Throughout the next half hour, Doc Savage remained within sight of the writing desk. He wanted to observe any others who might seek to get a look at the carbon copy.
No one else went near the desk.
The train charged recklessly through the night, swooping across bridges with a thunderous moan, and panting noisily over grades.
Some sage once wrote that the presence of death makes people silent. He should have been on that train. He would have heard more conversation than at a chamber-of-commerce luncheon. In smokers, diners, Pullmans, day coaches, discussion waged. A number of uninformed persons had never heard of Doc Savage. These were speedily enlightened by their neighbors.
One man spoke steadily for five minutes, reciting the remarkable ability of Doc Savage, and the things he had accomplished. He finished with: “This man Savage is a person of mystery. Not much is known about him.”
“Oh, yeah!” snorted his listener. “A mystery, eh? And you just told me more about him than you can tell me about the Prince of Wales.”
“What I mean is—Savage don’t parade his feats around in public,” the other explained. “He don’t brag. For instance, take his five helpers. There’s an engineer, a chemist, a lawyer, a geologist, and an electrical expert. What do you know about them?”
“I have heard this: in their respective lines, they are among the most learned men in the world,” was the reply.
“That’s right,” declared the first man. “Yet Doc Savage is a greater expert in these lines—engineering, chemistry, law, archæology, and electricity—than his aides, and he’s just as proficient in many other lines. They say he is, beyond a doubt in the least, the greatest living surgeon.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale.”
“Sure it does!” agreed the other. “Just the same, I don’t think this bronze man murdered the conductor, and I’d hate to be the fellow who did. Savage will get him, sure.”
Heedless of this discussion, and many others along similar lines, Doc Savage returned to his drawing-room. Hardly had he entered when his sharp eyes noted something amiss. A folded newspaper reposed in the wastebasket. He had not placed it there.
His movements unhurried, the bronze man locked the drawing-room door. Then he went to the basket and investigated.
The newspaper was one published in the large town they had passed through some hours before—the division point where unfortunate Wilkie had gone on duty. It was at this town that Señor and Señorita Oveja and El Rabanos had boarded the train.
The newspaper was folded so as to enwrap a knife. The long blade of this was still smeared with gore.
Doc’s practiced eye measured the width of the blade. He decided it would exactly fit the wound which had caused Wilkie’s death.
Opening one of his many hand bags stacked in the compartment, Doc drew out a powerful magnifying glass. He used it on the knife hilt. Finger prints had been wiped off.
Doc opened the window and threw the knife out into the night, far from the plunging train.
* * * *
Glancing at his watch, Doc saw they would soon reach the next stop—within thirteen minutes, to be exact.
Precisely nine minutes later, the holocaust broke.
From beneath the train came a sudden scream of steel on steel! It was like the wail of a demented monster. The cars rocked in sickening fashion!
Doc Savage plunged the length of the drawing-room, but brought up lightly against the bulkhead.
In the coaches, passengers were hurled against seats. Parcels and suitcases fell off the overhead racks. In the diners, dishes hit the floors as if tossed by invisible scoop shovels. In the mail cars, clerks brought up in tangles with their sacks.
Doc Savage unlocked the drawing-room door, wrenched it open, and whipped out. The steely screeching underfoot died slowly; the train was coming to an unbelievably quick stop.
Doc leaned from a window. With a final squeal of brakes, the train became entirely stationary.
It was no mean feat of agility which Doc performed now. He managed to stand erect outside on the narrow ledge of the train window. One of his hands stretched up, groped, and found a projection on the roof. The practiced swing of a gymnast put him atop the coach.
From this vantage point he could see, as far as darkness permitted, what was occurring. Somewhat more than a quarter of a mile ahead of the rest of the train, the locomotive was just coming to a standstill. In some manner the engine had become detached. No doubt the air brakes were adjusted to stop the coaches instantly in such an emergency.
Doc Savage ran forward along coach tops. It was his guess that some one, possibly traveling over the tops of the coaches as he was doing, had severed the connection between the engine and cars. Doc hoped to glimpse the malefactor.
At the forward end of the train, Doc dropped to the side of the tracks and conducted a brief examination. There was a film of grease and dust on the connecting mechanism. This was smudged where a hand had grasped it.
From his pocket, Doc produced a small flashlight. It gave an intense white beam, no thicker than a pencil. Whoever had caused the locomotive to separate from the train, had worn gloves. There were no finger prints.
The engine was backing slowly to rejoin its lost string of coaches.
With an ease that would have amazed an onlooker, Doc regained the top of the train. He ran rearward. He was taking no chances. It seemed he had violent enemies on the train. They might chance a shot at him.
Swinging down, he reëntered his drawing-room. No one was there. Plucking a hand bag out of his luggage heap, Doc opened it.
He lifted out a metal contraption which resembled a pocket-size magic lantern. The lens of this was almost black. Doc turned a switch on the side of the contraption. Apparently, nothing happened.
Then Doc went to a shelf over the washbowl and picked up a large water glass. The glass had not been on the shelf when he departed. It was the same beaker in which Renny had brought Doc the drink of water.
Doc held the glass in front of the lens of the thing that looked like a magic lantern. What happened was startling.
To the naked eye there was nothing unusual about the glass. Certainly no writing was visible. But the instant Doc held the beaker before the magic lantern, written letters sprang out in a dazzling, electric blue. The writing at the top was in a script so perfect that it might have been done by an engraver. It was Doc’s own handwriting. It read:
All five of you shadow Señor Oveja, his daughter and El Rabanos.
* * * *
Below this was another communication, done in a more scrawling hand. This one read:
The three of them prepared to leave the train just before it stopped, Doc. It looks suspicious, although they might have intended to get off at the next station. Señor Oveja is wearing a big white panama hat that you can’t mistake. We’re trailing them.
There was no more. Doc dropped the glass and crushed it to fragments under a heel. Then he switched off the lantern contrivance, pocketed it, and stepped out in the corridor.
Moving swiftly, he began a search of the train.
* * * *
Doc Savage did many things which to the layman were puzzling and sometimes inexplicable. Always he had a reason for what he did. His method of communicating with his friends by leaving writing on glass—writing quite invisible to the naked eye—was something to amaze one unfamiliar with the bronze giant.
When Doc had asked for water, the big-fisted Renny had understood that what his bronze chief wanted was a tablet on which to write some orders.
The writing was done with a bit of strange chalk. Its markings were almost undetectable—until exposed to ultra-violet light. Then it would fluoresce, showing in blue. The lantern contrivance Doc had used was an ultra-violet projector.
Passengers stood in aisles in the coaches, feeling tenderly of spots which had been bruised when the tram stopped so suddenly. A few had clambered out and stood beside the track. Not many had done this. There is something which makes the average man reluctant to leave his train when it stops, a subtle fear that he will get left behind when the train starts again.
Doc Savage walked all the way to the baggage cars, and back again to the observation coach. His giant stature, the remarkable bronze hue of his skin, drew much attention. Passengers stared. Without exception, they had heard the gossip concerning this giant man with the golden eyes.
Everyone knew the bronze man had been accused of stabbing Wilkie to death. But no one showed an inclination to stop Doc. The metallic giant did not look like a safe fellow to meddle with.
Doc reflected that events must have occurred swiftly while he was forward making his unsuccessful hunt for whoever had separated the engine from the train.
Nowhere on the train could be seen Señor Corto Oveja, his attractive daughter, or the girl-faced El Rabanos. They had vanished.
From the group of swarthy passengers who claimed they were en route to the meeting of a Spanish society, four were missing.
Doc’s five men were also not to be found. Even the pig, Habeas Corpus, was gone.
Doc came out on the observation platform at the conclusion of his search. He noted a man with a red lantern standing some distance down the track. That would be a flagman sent back to guard against a rear-end collision.
From forward came a low crash. This traveled the length of the train, like a rock bouncing downstairs. The locomotive had hooked on. The whistle blared. The man with the lantern came running back. The train was preparing to go on.
Doc Savage vaulted over the observation platform rail, landing lightly on cinders and gravel. The brakeman, running with his head down, did not see Doc Savage. The passengers who had stepped off the train were too busy climbing back on to notice the departure of the bronze man.
The locomotive whistled again, then began to chug mightily and spew steam. The train moved, slowly at first, but gathering speed. The tail lights went past. They looked like little eyes on a monster snake which was crawling backwards. The serpent monster lost itself and its roaring in the distance.
The blacker gloom in the lee of a large rock seemed to detach itself and scud along the track. Doc Savage had become a soundless phantom. From a coat pocket, he drew the rather bulky black metal box which was his ultra-violet lantern. He switched this on and played its invisible beam before him.
Shortly a tiny, arrow-shaped mark sprang out in dazzling, electric blue. It was drawn on top of a rock with the chalk which Doc and his men employed to exchange secret communications.
Doc glided in the direction which the arrow indicated. Two rods, and he found a second pointer.
From a pocket, Doc extracted his small flashlight. His men—trailing their enemies, no doubt—had left these arrows to indicate the direction they had taken. Doc intended to inspect the track, and find just how many individuals his friends were following. He thumbed the flash on.
To his left a machine-gun opened up! Its deadly cackle was like the sound of a gigantic cricket!
Doc Savage seemed to melt down before the hideous gabble of noise and the moaning stream of jacketed lead.