THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH Table of Contents THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH........................................................................................................1 A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson......................................................................................1 Chapter I. THE FAKE NEWSPAPERMAN...........................................................................................1 Chapter II. THE MYSTERIOUS JOHN ACRE......................................................................................8 Chapter III. THE GIRL AFRAID OF EARTHQUAKES....................................................................16 Chapter IV. MISS MAN−SNATCHER.................................................................................................25 Chapter V. THE EARTH−SHAKER’S TRAIL....................................................................................30 Chapter VI. THE MAN WHO COULDN’T TALK..............................................................................39 Chapter VII. MURDER TRICK............................................................................................................46 Chapter VIII. IN TERROR’S SHADOW..............................................................................................51 Chapter IX. MOVER OF MOUNTAINS..............................................................................................58 Chapter X. CUT WIRES CLEW...........................................................................................................67 Chapter XI. SOUTHWARD DASH......................................................................................................75 Chapter XII. DEATH UNMIXED.........................................................................................................82 Chapter XIII. A SUSPECT KILLED.....................................................................................................90 Chapter XIV. MASKS THAT DISSOLVED........................................................................................97 Chapter XV. PRISONERS FOUR.......................................................................................................106 Chapter XVI. A GATHERING SINISTER.........................................................................................112 Chapter XVII. THE DEATH SHAKE.................................................................................................121 i THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online. http://www.blackmask.com • Chapter I. THE FAKE NEWSPAPERMAN • Chapter II. THE MYSTERIOUS JOHN ACRE • Chapter III. THE GIRL AFRAID OF EARTHQUAKES • Chapter IV. MISS MAN−SNATCHER • Chapter V. THE EARTH−SHAKER’S TRAIL • Chapter VI. THE MAN WHO COULDN’T TALK • Chapter VII. MURDER TRICK • Chapter VIII. IN TERROR’S SHADOW • Chapter IX. MOVER OF MOUNTAINS • Chapter X. CUT WIRES CLEW • Chapter XI. SOUTHWARD DASH • Chapter XII. DEATH UNMIXED • Chapter XIII. A SUSPECT KILLED • Chapter XIV. MASKS THAT DISSOLVED • Chapter XV. PRISONERS FOUR • Chapter XVI. A GATHERING SINISTER • Chapter XVII. THE DEATH SHAKE Scanned and proofed by Tom Stephens Chapter I. THE FAKE NEWSPAPERMAN THE man looked as tough as sin. But he was crying. He whimpered. He bubbled at the mouth like a child half crazed with horror and fear. He perspired, although the night was cold. "Hear it?" he moaned. A rumbling was coming out of the innards of the earth. The sidewalk vibrated feebly. There was steady, hollow uproar. "It’s comin’!" the man whined. "Listen, Velvet! It’s gettin’ closer an’ closer—" His ears were tufts of gristle. They looked as if they had been chewed upon in the past. A groove a quarter of an inch deep slanted across his face. It explained itself. Some one had once tried to cut his throat, but he had ducked. The knife that had made the groove had sheared off the end of his nose. His nostrils were two fuzz−rimmed holes opening straight out in his face. THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH 1 THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH He gibbered: "We ain’t got time to get clear before—" Velvet hit the fellow squarely on the blubbering mouth that was bisected by the knife scar. "Maybe you’ll pipe down!" he snarled. Velvet was dressed in evening clothes, but he had tied a large black handkerchief around his neck, so that it hung down and concealed his white collar and white dress−shirt front. He carried himself with the studied squareness of a man proud of his physical strength and looks. The big man, knocked back against the building wall by the blow, dragged finger tips over his crushed mouth. He sobbed: "Can’t you hear the noise it’s makin’ as it comes?" The rumble underground grew louder and louder. Metal gratings on near−by windows jingled in their sockets. Warm, ill−smelling air gushed up through a grille in the sidewalk. Suddenly the innards of the earth seemed to suck the uproar away. It vanished, leaving only sounds of traffic and moan of a cold wind. "A subway train, you dope!" sneered Velvet, and tucked the black handkerchief more securely in his collar. It was night. Enough light reached them from the corner street lamp, however, to show the expression on the big man’s scarred, stupid face. It was utterly blank. He gulped: "The subway!" Velvet laughed harshly. "Even if you ain’t been in New York before, Biff, you should have read of subways. Oh, that’s right, too. You can’t read." "Biff" rolled his eyes, and they grew sullen, ugly. Crouching there, he seemed to become as dangerous and savage as a beast. He hated to be reminded that he could not read. "Some day I’m goin’ to get fed up with you," he told Velvet fiercely. Velvet laughed again. An animal−like ferocity had come into his tone, also. "Any time you feel lucky, cull!" They glared at each other. It was Biff who first twitched his gaze aside. "Never mind," he mumbled. "Let’s talk about Doc Savage." WITH a bestial savagery, the two had snarled at each other. Now, with the swiftness characteristic of animals, they dropped their belligerency. Shoulder to shoulder, they moved over into the gloomy lee of a parked truck. Biff made impatient grumbling noises. "What are we waitin’ on?" he demanded. "It’s on the eighty−sixth floor. Ain’t that what the back−number newspaper you was readin’ said?" THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH 2 THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH "That’s what it said." Velvet scowled in the gloom. "Say, how do you think we’re going to do this?" "Go up and bust in and—" "And get busted!" Velvet finished disgustedly. Biff seemed to have recovered completely from the somewhat uncanny fear which the underground rumbling had caused. He drew a revolver from inside his clothes. The gun was so blue as to be almost invisible in the darkness. He spun the cylinder. It clicked like a clock being wound. A rather gaudy bunch of handkerchief protruded from the breast pocket of Biff’s coat. He picked this out. It proved to be tied around the hilt of a knife which had a blade more than a foot long. It was carried in a concealed holster in his coat lining. He could get it quickly by grabbing the handkerchief. "I won’t bust so easy," he said in a soft tone. Velvet shook his head slowly. His voice was not ugly now. "If you could read, you might not be so sure." Biff replaced gun and knife. "What’s readin’ got to do with it?" "The newspapers," Velvet said, "seem to think this Doc Savage is quite a guy. And I think you can rest assured that he is quite a guy. The boss didn’t send us no five thousand miles to watch a second−rater." An automobile passed. Its headlights flashed briefly on Biff’s face. Shadows on the bottom of the scar across his face gave it the aspect of a short black snake. He growled: "I ain’t afraid of any damn man—" "Them has been the last words of more than one cluck," Velvet assured him. "I’m running this show. You stay here, see? Stand around and think what a tough guy you are. Do anything. Just keep away from that skyscraper, and give a man with brains a chance to work." Biff thought that over, then rumbled: "I don’t like your lip!" Velvet ignored the remark and passed out a second dig. "Don’t run when you hear the next subway train." Biff made an ugly sound deep in his chest. "You know what I thought it was! I had reason to be scared!" Velvet reached out and gave him a not unfriendly shove. "Sure, big boy, I know," he said. "If I hadn’t have known what it was, I’d have been more scared than you were." The street gloom swallowed him. THERE are two skyscraper sections in the city of New York. One is on the lower end of Manhattan Island, centering around Wall Street. The other is a few miles to the north, in the midtown district. In the latter area was a structure which was probably the finest in the city. THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH 3 THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH This building was a spike of steel and brick which jutted up nearly a hundred stories. Its exterior was smooth stone and bright metal. Its architecture was modernistic, plain, dignified. It gleamed richly in lights reflected from the Great White Way, not very many blocks distant. The lobby of this skyscraper was impressive. The elevators which served the upper floors numbered in the scores. The lobby itself was remindful of the interior of a cathedral. Velvet, walking across the gigantic vestibule, felt as insignificant as a fly on the floor of an ordinary room. He shrugged off the sensation and threw out his chest. At this hour of the