"Doc Savage Adventure 1934-01 Brand of the Werewolf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

"I've read of the fellow," tapped the station operator. "I'll tell you about him later. He's worth hearing about. But I'm going to wire Wilkie now."

He began to maul out the call letters of a station at which Wilkie's train would soon arrive.

The station door opened furtively behind him. It made no noise. Two men crept in. They were clad in greasespattered coveralls. Both had handkerchiefs tied over their faces, and both carried revolvers.

The telegrapher, absorbed in calling, did not hear them. It was doubtful if he ever knew of their presence.

One of the marauders jammed his revolver to the operator's temple, and pulled the trigger. The report of the shot was deafening.

The operator tumbled from his chair. He had died instantly.

Reaching over, the murderer grasped the telegraph key. "Never mind that stuff about another message," he transmitted. "I was mistaken."

"That lonesome place must be driving you nuts," chided the distant telegrapher, thinking he was still talking to the station man.

The killer gave an ugly laugh. He grabbed the key again. "Nuts, nuts! Ha, ha, ha!" he transmitted erratically. "King George couldn't be crazy. Ha, ha! I'm King George - "

For several minutes he sent crazily, in the manner of a demented man. Then he carefully wiped the finger prints off the murder revolver and placed it in the fingers of the lifeless station telegrapher.

"That fixes it up," he told his companion. "They'll think he went mad and committed suicide. Nobody can trace my gun. The numbers are filed off."

"I don't like this!" gulped the fellow's companion. "We hadda keep 'em from findin' out we tapped the wire and sent that message, didn't we? C'mon! Let's blowl"

The pair departed. Some time later, a somber black monoplane lifted them from a level bit of grassland which lay about three miles from the tiny station.

The plane moaned off in the eye of the evening sun. It was following the railroad westward, as if in pursuit of the passenger train.


WILKIE, the conductor, stood stock-still in the observation car and stared. The colored porter's words, and what he had read of the article in the magazine, had prepared him to a degree for what he was seeing. Yet the personage before him was even more remarkable than he had expected.

Had Wilkie not known better, he would have sworn the individual was a statue sculptured from solid bronze. The effect of the metallic figure was amazing.

The man's unusually high forehead, the muscular and strong mouth, the lean and corded cheeks, denoted a rare power of character. The bronze hair was a shade darker than the bronze skin. It lay straight and smooth.

Only by comparing the bronze man's size to that of the observation car chair in which he sat, were his gigantic proportions evident. The bulk of his great frame was lost in its perfect symmetry. No part of the man seemed overdeveloped.

Wilkie snapped himself out of his trance and advanced, "Doc Savage?" he asked.

The bronze man glanced up.

Wilkie suddenly realized the most striking thing about the fellow was his eyes. They were like pools of flake gold glistening in the afternoon sunlight that reflected through the train windows. Their gaze possessed an almost hypnotic quality, a strange ability to literally convey the owner's desires with their glance.

Undeniably, here was an amazing man.

"Doc Savage," he said. "That is right."

The man's voice impressed Wilkie as being very much in keeping with his appearance. It was vibrant with controlled power.