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"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 amis. 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 Senor and Senorita 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.
Chapter 7. STRANGE ATTACKERS 37
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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 reentered his drawing-room. No one was there. Plucking a hand bag out of his luggage
heap, Doc opened it.
Chapter 7. STRANGE ATTACKERS 38
 BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF
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 Senor 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. Senor 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
ultraviolet light. Then it would fluoresce, showing in blue. The lantern contrivance Doc had used was an
ultraviolet projector.
Passengers stood in aisles in the coaches, feeling tenderly of spots which had been bruised when the train
stopped so suddenly. A few had clambered out and stood beside the track. Not many had done this. There is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]