Doc Savage - 017 - The Thousand Headed Man, page 1
017 - The Thousand Headed Man
By Robeson, Kenneth
Table of Contents
Doc Savage 017 - The Thousand Headed Man
by
Kenneth Robeson
Chapter 1 CELEBRITY
Chapter 2 THE BLACK STICK
Chapter 3 THE SECOND BLACK STICK
Chapter 4 SWEET WINE
Chapter 5 A WOMAN'S VOICE
Chapter 6 THE BOBBY TRICK
Chapter 7 CORDON
Chapter 8 THE CLOCK
Chapter 9 THE FAKE MONK
Chapter 11 THE TALKER
Chapter 11 MENACE DOMAIN
Chapter 12 TEMPLE SINISTER
Chapter 13 BONES
Chapter 14 MAGIC FIRE
Chapter 15 MYSTIC JUNGLE
Chapter 16 THE WALL OF THE FEET
Chapter 17 THE NIGHT CRY
Chapter 18 THE HEADS
Chapter 19 WEIRD METROPOLIS
Chapter 20 POWER UNSEEN
Chapter 21 SEN GAT'S OFFER
Chapter 22 PRISONER
Chapter 23 THE TERROR IN BASKETS
Chapter 24 THE JEWELED PAGODA
Chapter 25 BLACK SHIRT
THE END
Doc Savage 017 - The Thousand Headed Man
by
Kenneth Robeson
The Thousand-Headed Man
Chapter 1 CELEBRITY
THERE WERE several reasons why the first of the two shots did not attract attention. One explanation was due to the number of newspaper photographers on hand taking flash light pictures of the crowd. These London journalists were using the old-style flash light powder which made white smoke and noise, as well as flash.
Over in a hangar, a balky motor ran irregularly, backfiring often another reason why the shot was not heard.
"I say, a jolly mean bug!" remarked one scribe, peering upward. Without knowing it, this man had heard the whiz of the glancing bullet.
It was dark, and only the landing lights marking the edge of Croydon Flying Field cut through the usual fog. Later, when the plane every one awaited was heard, flood lamps would be switched on.
Somewhat of a throng was on hand to greet the plane.
The man who had been shot at lay flat on the ground near the field edge, and pawed at his face. The bullet had knocked dirt into his eyes. It had been fired from some distance.
"Sen Gat!" the man groaned.
There was no one else near. Gloom, the wet swirl of fog, enwrapped the vicinity.
"Sen Gat!" the man repeated, snarling this time.
The man was thin of body, long of arms and legs. He made a grotesque shape lying on the ground, a black raincoat flung over himself. He had hoped the dark raincoat, coupled with the darkness, would conceal him. It had failed.
Getting the bullet driven dirt out of his eyes, he scuttled to one side, dragging the raincoat, then got to his feet and ran.
"Damn Sen Gat!" he gritted.
He came close to a border light and it shone on a jaw that was pointed, a nose hooked and somehow remindful of a parrot beak. His skin looked like muslin which had been much in the weather, and there was almost no flesh between the skin and the bones it covered. One of his bony hands was darkly purple in hue. He veered away from the light, and when a hangar loomed ahead he hesitated, then ran to it and crept inside. Thrusting his head out again, he listened for a long time for signs of pursuit, but none came to his ears. Next, he tried to catch some sound of a plane overhead. There was none.
Nervously, he prowled the hangar. In the rear, he found a pair of greasy coveralls draped over a workbench. Fingering these, he began to chuckle. The coveralls fitted fairly well when he tried them on, and he did not remove them.
The man pulled up his sleeve. Held tightly to his upper arm by rubber bands was a small packet. The packet was half an inch thick, possibly four inches long, and wrapped in oiled paper. The rubbers, cutting off circulation, had made his hand purple.
He stripped the bands off and kneaded his arm slowly to restore blood flow.
"Deuced nasty feeling," he muttered. As an afterthought, he added, "Blast Sen Gat!"
He ended up by putting the slender packet in a coverall pocket, instead of fastening it back to his arm with the rubbers.
Then he left the hangar and mingled with the crowd, passing unnoticed among a score or so of mechanics garbed like himself. Anyway, all eyes were watching the southern sky expectantly.
THE BONY man drifted about and finally stopped beside a journalist.
"I say, why all the bloomin' watchful waitin'?" he queried.
The scribe looked shocked. "Jove! Don't you read the sheets?"
"The newspapers? Naw."
The scribbler eyed the other as if observing a freak. The reporter failed to realize that he was being cleverly pumped for information.
"Did you ever hear of the Yankee they call the Man of Mystery?"
"Nope."
"No? He is a giant of a chap, a tremendous fellow. They say no living man has greater muscular strength."
"Never heard of 'im."
"They call him the Man of Bronze! That help your memory?"
"Nope."
The journalist took a full breath and began to spread enlightenment.
"Listen, old chap, this bronze man is known as one of the greatest surgeons. As a chemist, he has made discoveries that your children will some day read about. The bronze man is rated a wizard in the field of electricity. Furthermore, he--"
The thin man in the coveralls put a bony finger against the scribe's chest. "How many blokes are you tellin' me about?"
"One."
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I think you're joshin'."
Disgustedly, the scribe stuffed hands in the pockets of his Landon wrap.
"A few weeks ago," he said, "there was a revolution in the Balkan kingdom of Calbia. This Yankee put a stop to it. He's now on his way back to America. We expect his plane any minute."
The pseudo mechanic's eyes roved over the surrounding crowd. The fellow was a good actor. No twitch of his features betrayed that he had been shot at a few moments before, or that he was now in fear of another bullet.
"What's this bronze man's business?" he asked.
The journalist shrugged. "He's a remarkable character. Goes about the world aiding chaps who need help."
"Charges plenty for that, eh?"
"On the contrary, he does not accept fees. The bronze chap is deuced wealthy, according to reports."
The fake mechanic grew suddenly earnest. "I say-if I was in a jam, and went to the bronze man-he'd help me? That it?"
"Righto. Doc Savage would do just that."
"That's the bronze man's name--Savage?"
"Doc Savage, righto."
DOWN THE field a man yelled. "The Savage plane! She's comin'!"
Excitement swept the throng. Photographers who had been snapping the assemblage hastily charged cameras with new plates and sprinkled flash light powder in gun troughs. The field flood lamps were switched on, and "bobbies" cleared the landing runways of spectators.
Croydon was agog.
The foggy night sky spawned a plane. Engines barely kicking over, air awhistle around struts and wing surfaces, the ship skidded from side to side as the pilot fishtailed away surplus speed. It was an all-metal, tri-motored amphibian, and it settled on the field with the delicacy of a bird.
"Deuced good hand on those controls," a pilot spectator remarked.
The plane's engines blooped, kicking the ship around. Obviously the occupants were seeking to avoid the crowd.
The throng surged forward, however, and in a moment had surrounded the plane. Motors were switched off, so that the propellers would not damage overenthusiastic individuals.
The thin man who had been shot at went with the rest. He kept a sharp lookout as he ran, hence was not among the first to reach the amphibian. Growling, he tugged and elbowed to get through. Others were doing the same thing, He did not make much headway.
"Doc Savage!" the crowd yelled.
The photographers demanded pictures, the reporters interviews. Autograph hounds waved little books.
Bobbies jostled and shouted to bring order. They were ignored. Quieting the uproar seemed beyond human power.
But the crowd suddenly became silent.
The bronze man had appeared, standing in the cabin door.
It was remarkable. So striking was the man that quiet fell. He was a giant--the comparative proportions of the cabin door showed that. Under the bronze skin of his neck and his hands, great tendons reposed. The thews were like bundles of piano wires. They indicated fabulous strength.
Probably the thing which did most to arrest the crowd's attention was the bronze man's eyes. They were weirdly impressive eyes. Their hue was of flake-gold. They caught and reflected tiny lights from the field floodlamps.
"Doc Savage!" some one breathed. "By Jove! He's the first celebrity I ever saw who looked as big as his reputation. "
A photographer boomed a flash light gun. That broke the tension.
Something of a riot ensued. The journalists wanted their pictures and stories. The autograph fans desired Doc Savage's signature. Others wanted merely to look. Doc Savage seemed to wish only to get away from the crowd.
"No interviews," the bronze man told the newspaper representatives. "Our outfit doesn't go in for publicity."
His words did n
Doc Savage stepped out of the plane.
Five men alighted after him. The five made a striking group, although the throng did not get much chance to observe them.
One of the five could almost have passed as a hairy gorilla. This individual had a pig, evidently a pet, tucked under one arm. The shoat had enormous ears and long legs, and was as homely an example of the porker species as his master was of the human race.
Another was a big fellow with fists of unearthly hugeness, while a third was extremely tall and gaunt. Of the re maining pair, one was pale, unhealthy-looking; and the other a nattily clad man carrying a black cane.
"Doc Savage's five aides," somebody offered.
"I say--thought he worked alone!" exclaimed another.
"No. Those five men help 'im. Each of them is a bloomin' famous scientist."
Doc Savage and his five men formed a compact wedge; then they drove through the crowd.
The bony man who had been shot at struggled to reach Doc Savage, but the bronze man's party chanced to take the opposite direction. The thin man cast about frantically; his gaze lighted upon a tractor which was used to move planes in and out of hangars. He hesitated, as if fearful of exposing himself above the crowd, then sprang atop the tractor.
"Doc Savage!" he yelled. But scores of other voices were also shouting, and the bronze man paid no attention.
Diving a fist into his coveralls, the bony man extracted the packet wrapped in oiled paper, then calculated carefully and threw the packet. The flung object hit Doc Savage.
COLLIDING WITH the bronze man's shoulder, the packet bounced. But the bronze man drove a hand up and caught it before it was out of reach--a catch that was executed with such blinding speed that those who saw it blinked unbelievingly, and quite a few failed to even glimpse it.
Doc Savage half wheeled and his strange golden eyes located the thin man. The fellow who had thrown the packet made violent gestures, indicating that Doc should pocket the object.
"Keep it!" he screamed. "Please! I'll come to your hotel and explain!"
It was to be doubted that Doc Savage distinguished the words. Lip movement told him what was said, however, the bronze man being a proficient lip reader. He pocketed the packet, and his flying wedge of men went on, himself in their midst.
The bony man looked after the bronze giant. He seemed happy, since a broad grin was on his wasted face.
The grin suddenly convulsed to a blank, hideous grimace. A shrill squeak; a sound like a hand slap and the cadaverous man, throwing his arms in the air, fell backward off the tractor. His collision with the ground was violent.
Some one helped him to his feet. Both hands clamped tightly to his left shoulder, the man stumbled away.
Red liquid began crawling out through his fingers and trickling down his wrist into his sleeve. He had taken a bullet through the shoulder. Like that other shot some minutes ago, this one had gone unnoticed in the uproar.
The wounded man reached the edge of Croydon Field.
"Damn Sen Gat!" he grated.
The fog and the darkness gobbled him up.
Chapter 2 THE BLACK STICK
SOME TIME later a taxicab stopped in a shabby, gloom-stuffed side street in the Shoreditch section of London. The bony man alighted and paid the fare. The cab rolled on and disappeared.
The man had stripped off the greasy coveralls and had donned his black raincoat. A bulge at the shoulder indicated a bandage over the bullet wound.
The injury evidently was not serious, for the fellow's step was springy, alert, as he moved forward along the grimy street. The shadows harbored him most of the time--care on his part saw to that.
This sector of London was the abode of many foreigners. Orientals had segregated themselves in the immediate locality. Shuffling figures with hands tucked in oversize blouse sleeves, and the occasional tang of incense, made the place seem as remote to London as a street in Hong Kong.
The gaunt man scuttled into an alley which was paved with round cobbles. Crouching, he felt with his hands until he found a loose stone, then worked it free. The rock was as large as his two fists.
The blackness of a rear doorway sheltered him a moment later. He knocked, and after the briefest of pauses there was a stir, and a slant-eyed celestial opened the door.
"Sen Gat," said the thin man.
The oriental was blandly expressionless.
"Velly solly," he singsonged. "No catchee such man this place."
The visitor scowled. "You tell Sen Gat I'm here or you all same catchee hell."
The yellow man grasped the door as if to shut it. "You all same come alongside big mistake. No Sen Gat--"
The bony man struck with his rock. The stone hit the oriental squarely on top of the head, dropping him senseless.
A brief examination brought conviction that the slant-eyed one would be out of commission for some time. The attacker advanced quietly.
Luxurious rugs came under foot; perfumes and incense saturated the air. In one of the rooms lights were on. Tapestries blanketed the walls, rich things replete with flame spouting dragons and grotesque oriental characters, decorations which would appeal only to an oriental's eye.
Cushions were on the floors, images perched atop pedestals, and a tabouret supported a tray which held a tea set and containers of sweetmeats and melon seeds. On either side of the door of this particular room stood a suit of Chinese armor, complete with daggers and short swords.
The man prowled the room, cat-footed. He pulled tapestries aside and looked behind them until he located what he sought.
Behind one of the tapestries was the door of a wall safe. The fellow spun the dial of this several times but had no click.
Going back to the armor he secured a short sword, then stood beside the door and waited.
Deep silence held the aromatic interior of the house, but not for long.
The front door lock clicked as some one came in, then clicked again in shutting. Footsteps shuffled one man. The fellow approached slowly, and eventually came into the room.
The thin man stepped forward, put the tip of his sword against the newcomer's stomach, and invited, "Stand still, Sen Gat!"
SEN GAT was a rangy black crow of a man, with the features of an Asiatic and a skin that was Nubian in its swarthiness. His hands were fantastic, jeweled rings ornamenting nearly every finger. The great thing, though, was his finger nails; possibly six inches long, they were carefully curled inside gold protectors which slipped, thimble-fashion, upon the ends of the fingers.
Sen Gat lifted his grotesque hands as the sword point bit at his midriff.
"Sezaniat datang," he said wryly.
