"Doc Savage Adventure 1935-05 Secret in the Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

Its brick walls gave the appearance of having not been washed in generations, being almost black with soot and city grime. The steps were grooved deep by treading feet, and the stone paving of the entry into which the dead wagons ran was rutted by tires. Rusting iron bars, very heavy, were over the windows; for just what reason, no one probably could have told.

"This joint gives me the creeps and I don't creep easy," Monk imparted, as they got out of Doc Savage's roadster before the morgue.

The roadster was deceptively long. Its color was somber. The fact that its body was of armor plate, its windows - specially built in the roadster doors of buller-proof glass - was not readily apparent.

Monk carried Habeas Corpus by an ear and grumbled, "I wonder why anybody should kill Willard Spanner? Or grab him, either? Spanner was an all-right guy. He didn't have any enemies."

Doc listened at the entrance. There was silence, and no attendant was behind the reception desk where one should have been. They stepped inside.

"Hello, somebody!" Monk called.

Silence answered.

There was an odor in the air, a rather peculiar tang. Monk sniffed.

"Say, I knew they used formaldehyde around these places," he muttered. "But there's something besides - "

Doc Savage moved with such suddenness that he seemed to explode. But it was a silent explosion, and he was little more than a noiseless bronze blur as he crossed to the nearest door. He did not try to pass through the door, but flattened beside it.

Monk, bewildered, began, "Say, what the blazes? First I smell - "

A man came through the door, holding a big single-action six-gun. He said, "Start your settin' up exercises, boys!" Then his eyes bulged, for he had apparently expected to see two men and Doc Savage, beside the door, escaped his notice.

The man with the six-shooter was bony and looked as if he had been under bright suns much of his life. He wore a new suit, but his shirt was a coarse blue work garment, faded from washing. The tie was blue and looked as if it had been put on and taken off many times, without untying the knot. The knot was a very long one.

Doc Savage struck silently and with blinding speed. The gun wielder saw him, but could not move in time. and the bronze man's fist took him on the temple. The six-gun evidently had a hair trigger. It went off. The bullet made a hole, round and neat, in the wall behind Monk.

Monk began howling and charged for the door.

"Now ain't this somethin'!" he bellowed.


DOC SAVAGE had gone on with a continuation of the dive which he had made at the six-gun wielder, and was already through the door. The room beyond was an office with four desks and four swivel chairs.

Five persons were arrayed on the floor. The morgue attendants, obviously. They were neither bound nor gagged, but they lay very still. The odor of chloroform was heavy in the air.

Two men were on their feet. One was tall, the other short, and the short one wore overall pants and his legs were bowed. Both were weather-beaten.

The tall one held in one hand a blue revolver and in the other a bandanna handkerchief, which gave off chloroform stench. The short man had an automatic rifle from which barrel and stock had been bobbed off short.

A bundle of clothing lay in the middle of the floor.

The automatic rifle smacked loudly as Doc came through the door. But the marksman did not lead his target quite enough. He shot again. The cartridge stuck in the ejector.

"Damn it!" the rifleman bawled.

"Throw it away!" gritted the tall man. "I told you that gun wouldn't work if you bobtailed it!"