"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 320 - Reign of Terror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

of a pistol. It poked out of his overcoat pocket for a second and then dropped back out of sight.

The doctor sat down.

The other man took something out of his pocket. It was not a gun, although the single lamp in the room
cast highlights on the metal that formed the object. It was heavy and made a dull and ominous sound as it
clumped on the surface of the desk.

"Be with you in a second, Dr. Quack." The man whose eyes were slits moved his hand in his pocket.

The other man tightened a screw on the bottom of the object. Only then did the doctor realize what it
was. A vise. The man was fastening the incongruous object to a corner of the desk.

Three men in an office. A machinist's tool fastened to the corner of a doctor's desk. What could it mean,
the doctor wondered? He was not left in doubt for long.

The man with the gun said, "Put his thumb in it, Larry."

"Yare."

Before the doctor quite knew how it had happened, his right hand thumb was being forced in between
the steel jaws of the vise. A turn of the handle and his thumb was pressed with agonizing force.

The man tightened the turning handle of the vise an extra quarter turn. The blood drained out of the
doctor's face. The other man took his gun out of his pocket and, holding it negligently, said, "One sound
and you get one through the head."

The doctor froze. This was fantastic. Incredible as a nightmare. But the pain in his thumb was real. His
precious thumb. With that injured, he could never operate again...

The two men watched as they saw realization dawn in the doctor's eyes. The one with the gun said, "Get
the picture, Doc? One turn of the vise and your thumb is out of commission... forever. No more
operations. No more high fees. Nobody can operate with a flat thumb. Not even you, the wonder
working Dr. Brandon!"

It was true, the doctor thought, looking down at his thumb. Without that sensitive rotating digit he would
be as helpless as if he were handless.

The doctor forced the words out of his dry throat. "What do you want?"

"This will come as a surprise, Dr. Quack. A big surprise."

The doctor looked up. Were these men after revenge? Were they relatives of someone on whom he had
operated and failed? But that would be absurd. Every doctor had failures... even the best...

The man said, "Yep. Some surprise. We want dough. Money. The long green. That filthy stuff that
greases the wheels and makes them go round."

"Money? Of course. But... I have no money here. Perhaps fifty dollars in my wallet. Will that be
enough?" The doctor's voice was choked, pinched. His thumb hurt even though the pressure from the