THE
STEEL HAMMER: A DOC SAVAGE STORY by Dave
Taggart
CHAPTER 6: THE HAMMER FALLS
AGAIN
The morning papers had hit the streets in Pittsburgh by the time Doc and
Renny landed. Long Tom had put down the big tri-motor plane on the Ohio River,
about three miles from downtown Pittsburgh, where there was a long stretch of
water without a bridge to block and amphibian landing.
The headlines blared:
POISON GAS ATTACK!!!
DEATH IN THE STREETS!!!
There was more:
DOWNTOWN BANK ROBBED
DURING GAS ATTACK;
CROOKS GRAB $50,000
None of the newspapers mentioned the ransom note to America for a hundred
million dollars.
“We decided not to release that information,” said the Pittsburgh police
commissioner. Doc and Ham were meeting with a group of local civic leaders in
his office. “For one thing, such news would cause a tremendous panic among our
citizens.”
“Are you sure the note is genuine?” Doc asked.
“What do you mean?” the commissioner responded, puzzled.
“We have a series of events,” Doc explained. “We have the gas attack, the
source of which is still unknown. We have the robbery in the bank. And we have
the ransom note. What we need to find out is if all of these events are in fact
connected.”
“We’re determined not to head up a blind alley chasing a false lead,” Ham
added. “Right now, all we have is circumstantial evidence.”
There was a low murmuring among the men sitting in the commissioner’s office.
“A steel hammer was left at the scene of the bank robbery,” the commissioner
said sternly. “That’s hardly circumstantial.”
“The hammer is a piece of evidence,” Ham said, in his best talking-to-the-jury
voice. Ham received two-hundred-dollars-an-hour during his courtroom
appearances, when he made them. But they were rare; he preferred adventure with
the Man of Bronze. “But did the note come from the gang that pulled the
robbery?”
There was a louder murmuring now.
“What the...”
“Huh...”
“Well, who else...”
“Who else?” Ham finished. “Someone who wanted to try and cash in on this thing.
Someone who trying to create confusion, and have us looking in the wrong
place..."
The murmuring quieted.
“You see, gentlemen.” Ham said, and he commanded there attention, “there is an
obvious discrepancy in this affair. On the one hand we have what seems to be a
well organized band of bank robbers making off with $50,000. And on the other
hand, we have a cryptic note demanding $100,000,000 in gold.
“What is going on here? If the gang is intent on getting a hundred-million in
gold as a ransom, why take the risks in robbing banks for a mere fifty grand?
And why was ransom note addressed to “America” delivered to the mayor of
Pittsburgh? A responsible official, to be sure, but hardly one able to pay off
in gold.”
A quiet came over the room. Ham’s analysis of the problem had dashed their
hopes for an easy solution.
The mayor of Pittsburgh spoke to his police commissioner, “Clearly this is
beyond our capabilities. We will need to concentrate our efforts on protecting
our population, and searching for these diabolical fiends here in the city. But
the investigation will require more than your department can provide.”
The mayor turned to the Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, who had flown in overnight from Washington, D. C. to head the
investigation. “What is the FBI doing?” he asked the G-man.
The FBI man detailed what his office had done with the physical evidence. It
wasn’t much help. The ransom note had been typed by an inexperienced typist on
ordinary, bond paper, on a Royal typewriter manufactured sometime between four
and ten years ago. The steel hammer from the bank was of a cheap type, made in
Japan, usually sold in a cocktail set with an ice pick. The cocktail sets were
imported by at least four different companies, and sold in stores all across
America.
From there, the discussion went to the mayor’s request for the Pennsylvania
National Guard to provide the city with gas masks. Doc said quietly to Ham,
“There’s nothing more to be learned here. Let’s get back to the tri-motor and
see if the others have turned up any clues.”
Despite his great size, Doc had the ability to move quietly. He and Ham had
been gone from the meeting for five minutes before their absence was noticed.
Doc and Ham took a cab to the Point Bridge. This edifice crossed the Allegheny
River at the point where in merged with the Monongahela River to form the
mighty Ohio River. Waiting there, at its base were two men with a motorboat.
One man looked like he was in the final stages of some terminal disease. His
coloring was distinctly unhealthy, and he might have weighed 130 pounds soaking
wet. An insurance agent might have looked at him in horror; an undertaker
seeing him would have rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
But “Long Tom” Roberts had never been sick a day of his life, and could whip
nine out of ten men. Having landed the huge tri-motor downriver, he had rented
the motorboat to allow the crew to reach the downtown area conveniently. When
the speed plane had landed, Long Tom had brought Doc and Ham back to the city,
while Monk and Renny worked in the tri-motor’s laboratory. He had waited with
the boat during the meeting.
Long Tom introduced his companion, “This is Harvey Grace, an old friend of
mine. He’s the chief engineer for a big radio station here.”
“The biggest,” said Harvey Grace. “Pleased to meet you, Doc.” Doc Savage shook
the man’s hand.
“Harvey thinks he’s got a clue for us,” Long Tom said.
“What is it?” Doc asked.
“Our station is right downtown on Liberty Avenue,” the radio man explained. “We
were working out in front of the station, doing our ‘Man in the Street’ radio
program when the attack came. Well, let me tell you, we were scared. As soon as
we heard that noise and gas that gas, we were all inside, hiding in the...”
“It’s a recording show, Doc,” Long Tom broke in. “They ask the questions, and
record the answers right out on the street. Then they broadcast the record
later.”
“And we recorded the whole thing,” said Harvey Grace. “When I ran inside I left
the machine on. When I came back out, it was still running. So we’ve got a
recording of the entire attack.”
“I figure I can separate the sounds out, and see what exactly the crackling
noise and screaming noises were,” said Long Tom.
“You won’t be able to do that with equipment in the tri-motor lab,” Doc said.
“I know,” Long Tom replied, “but Harvey here will lend me a studio at the
biggest radio station in Pittsburgh, right?”
Harvey Grace nodded, and Long Tom continued, “And I can borrow some stuff from
another buddy I have over at Westinghouse Labs. I ought to be able to put it
together by this afternoon.
“The sound is one of the most puzzling aspects of this whole thing,” Doc said.
“I have my suspicions, but I don’t want them to influence your analysis. Go
ahead and start on this right now, Long Tom.”
The electrical wizard and his friend hurried off for the radio station.
“Hopefully we have some more good news back at the tri-motor,” Doc said to Ham.
They cast off and headed downriver in the motorboat.
The city of Cleveland, Ohio sits on the southern shore of Lake Erie. The city
grew up around the Cuyahoga River, which flows into Lake Erie here. The river
now separates the eastern and western halves of the city.
The river runs through the industrial portion of the city. The river is very
wide here, artificially widened so that it is capable of handling the giant six
hundred foot long freighters which ply the Great Lakes.
The Tecumseh was no giant freighter. Rather, she was a old, hundred foot rust
bucket. Very few of her year and class were still active in the Great Lakes
trade. The Tecumseh stayed in business because of the experience, savvy, and
business contacts of her owner, who was also her captain.
Captain Aaron Andrews had sailed the Great Lakes for nearly six decades. He
knew the ins and the outs, the indicators of weather, the dangers the waters
held. He also knew the cargo managers and dispatchers. Even these days, there
were always small cargo loads to be had by a man who was on the spot and knew
the business.
Right now, Captain Andrews was off-loading a load of iron ore pellets at the
Cleveland dock of the Washington Steel Company. If he could finish in the next
two hours, he had the chance to move a mile down the river and pick up a cargo
of steel bridge girders bound for Green Bay, Wisconsin. The girder cargo wasn’t
large enough to require a large ship, but the speed of delivery was important
to the company, and the Tecumseh was the only freighter in port ready to head
west right away.
The captain was on deck supervising the unloading. That was more properly the
job of the deck officer, but the Tecumseh did not carry the normal freighter’s
complement of officers and hands. In fact, the only other ship’s officer, as
such, was Captain Andrew’s twenty year old grandson, Jimmy, who was asleep in
his berth, having piloted the Tecumseh into port that morning.
Captain Andrews was looking towards the shore, watching the cargo boom maneuver
over a rail gondola car, when he suddenly became aware of the crackling noise.
Years of working in the proximity of loud machinery had left Andrews partly
deaf, so he knew that the noise had to be pretty loud before he had heard it.
He turned, and saw the yellow-green fog come up off the river and roll over the
Tecumseh. The fog bank grew and grew, and the crackling continued.
“What’s this!” came a shout right into his ear. It was Jimmy Andrews, up on
deck.
“Weirdest thing I ever seen!” Captain Andrews shouted back. “Yellerish and
greenish! Never seen the like!”
“Lord, this was on the radio news!” shouted Jimmy in reply. He grabbed the old
man’s shoulder to push him down below deck. “It’s the death cloud!”
That’s when the screaming noise started.
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