The Man of Bronze by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online

something else, Ham! Those papers are made out to me. Me , mind you! Yet they were executed twenty years ago. I was only a kid then.”
    “You know what I think?” Ham demanded.
    “Same thing I do, I’ll bet!” Doc replied. “These papers are the title to the legacy my father left me. The legacy is something he discovered twenty years ago.”
    “But what is the legacy?” Monk wanted to know. Doc shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea, brothers. But you can bet it’s something well worth while. My father was never mixed up in piker deals. I have heard him treat a million-dollar transaction as casually as though he were buying a cigar.”
    Pausing, Doc looked steadily at each of his men in turn. The flaky gold of his eyes shimmered strange lights. He seemed to read the thoughts of each.
    “I’m going after this heritage my father left,” he said at length. “I don’t need to ask—you fellows are with me!”
    “And how!” grinned Renny. And the others echoed his sentiment.

    PLANTING the papers securely in a chamois money belt about his powerful waist, Doc walked back into the library, thence into the other room.
    “Did the Mayan race hang out in Hidalgo?” Renny asked abruptly, eying his enormous fist.
    Johnny, fiddling with his glasses that had the magnifying lens, took it upon himself to answer.
    “The Mayans were scattered over a large part of Central America,” he said. “But the Itzans, the clan whose dialect our late prisoner spoke, were situated in Yucatan during the height of their civilization. However, the republic of Hidalgo is not far away, being situated among the rugged mountains farther inland.”
    “I’m betting this Mayan and Doc’s heritage are tied up somewhere,” declared Long Tom, the electrical wizard.
    Doc stood facing the window. With his back to the light, his strong bronze face was not sharply outlined except when he turned slightly to the right or left to speak. Then the light play seemed to accentuate its remarkable qualities of character.
    “The thing for us to do now is corner the man who was giving the Mayan orders,” he said slowly.
    “Huh—you think there’s more of your enemies?” Renny demanded.
    “The Mayan showed no signs of understanding the English language,” Doc elaborated. “Whoever left the warning in this room wrote it in English, and was educated enough to understand the ultraviolet apparatus. That man was in the building when the shot was fired, because the elevator operator said no one came in between the time we left and got back. Yes, brothers, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”
    Doc went over to the double-barreled elephant rifle which had been in possession of the Mayan. He inspected the manufacturer’s number. He grasped the telephone.
    “Get me the firearms manufacturing firm of Webley & Scott, Birmingham, England.” he told the phone operator “Yes, of course—England! Where the Prince of Wales lives.”
    To his friends, Doc explained: “Perhaps the firm that made the rifle will know to whom they sold it.”
    “Somebody will cuss over in England when he’s called out of bed by long-distance phone from America,” Renny chuckled.
    “You forget the five hours’ time difference,” clipped waspish Ham. “It is now early morning in England! They’ll just be getting up.”
    Doc was facing the window again, apparently lost in thought. Actually, while standing there a moment before, he had felt vaguely that something was out of place about the window.
    Then he got it! The mortar at one end of the granite slab which formed the window sill was fresher than on the other side. The strip of mortar was no wider than a pencil mark, yet Doc noticed it. He leaned out the window.
    A fine wire, escaping from the room through the mortared crack, ran downward! It entered a window below.
    Doc flashed back into the room. His supple, sensitive, but steel-strong hands explored. He brought to light a tiny microphone of the type radio