"Doc Savage Adventure 1945-01 The Hate Genius" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

The clerk wrote an address. "I would suggest that you not mention our firm, because it might irritate the distributor."

"Thank you. I won't."

When they were out on the street, Pat said, "Doc, was that a code deal, or not?"

"It was," he told her. He consulted the address the clerk had given him. "The spot seems to be north of Black Horse Square."

It wasn't too far, because Black Horse Square was the name the British used for the Praca do Cornmercio, which was also the Terreiro do Paco. They passed the triumphal arch on the north side, moved along Rua Augusta, and turned into an office building.

There they bought some more wine-bottles paint -- marked blue and yellow -- from a slick-haired, insultmg young man.

"This is getting monotonous," Pat complained.

"You will pay upstairs," said the insulting young man.

The man they went to pay proved to be a red- faced, worried looking man who seized Doc Savage's hand, pumped it, and said, "1 say, we're glad to see you, Savage. We've been in a hit of a wind lest you not make it"

Pat nudged Ham, said, "Hey, I've seen red-face before somewhere."

Ham said, "Good God!" in a low, impressed voice. Pat stared at him in surprise, because Ham was not easily impressed. She wondered who the dickens the red-faced man could be, but they were introduced before she could ask Ham. The red-faced man was presented as Mr. Dilling, but Pat didn't feel that his name was Mr. Dilling.

"Who is he?" Pat whispered, nudging Ham, after the introductions.

Ham told her. He told her as if he wasn't quite ready to believe a man so important would be out of England, or at least in Portugal, which was a neutral country and infested with foreign agents, hence somewhat dangerous.

"Hold your hat!" Ham whispered. "I don't think Doc was fooling when he said this thing was out of the ordinary."

Pat was plagued by a feeling of unreality. The red-faced man was no less an individual than the head of combined Allied intelligence.

They were taken into a comfortable room where there were some other men waiting. There was some hand-shaking, but it was without much feeling, as if no one was in a mood to waste time being social, or polite.


MR. DILLING -- which wasn't his name -- got down to business by saying, "As I understand it, Mr. Savage, you prefer to work alone in this matter?"

"Not alone," Doc corrected him. "With my associates, here." He nodded at Monk, Ham and Pat.

"Are you planning for us to suspend efforts while you tackle the matter?"

"Not at all. That is just what I don't want I put out no claim of being infallible. Suppose you fellows laid off, and we flopped?"

Mr. Dilling looked relieved' "That's sensible."

"1 hope you can give me some information,,' Doc told him. "All I know about the situation is what you cabled me, and that was pretty general stuff."

Mr. Dilling nodded. He indicated one of the other men and said, "This is Festus, of Munich, and this is Melless, our Paris man."

Doc Savage listened to Mr. Dilling name the men who were present, and all of their names were familiar, and of some of them he had heard a great deal. It gave him a feeling of smallness, of inadequacy, to be in a room with so many men who were so capable along a special line.