"004 (B004) - The Polar Treasure (1933-06) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Yer about dere."



They came abreast of a darkened doorway. Out in the street, a taxicab had been keeping even with them. This cab held the sinister seafaring man who had sent the small man into the concert hall after Victor Vail.



The musician's guide looked into the murky door. He made sure several men lurked there. He grasped Victor Vail's arm.



"Yer dere now!" he snarled.



Then he smashed a fist against Victor Vail's jaw.



Simultaneously, the gloomy doorway spouted the men it concealed. They pounced upon the famed blind violinist.



Victor Vail fell heavily from the traitorous guide's fist blow. But the sightless musician was more of a man than his assailants had expected. Though he could not get to his feet, he fought from his clumsy position on the sidewalk.



He broke the nose of one attacker with a lucky kick. His hands found the wrist of another. They were artistic hands, graceful and long and very powerful. He twisted the wrist in his grasp.



The man whose arm he held let out a shriek. It blared like a siren over the rumble of New York night traffic. The fellow spun madly to keep his arm from breaking.



The murk of the street aided the blind man, just as it hampered his assailants. The world he lived in was always black.



Blows whistled, thudded. Men hissed, cursed, yelped, groaned. Bodies fell noisily. Laboring feet scuffed the walk.



"Lay aboard 'im, mateys!" howled the seafaring man from his cab. "Make 'im fast with a line! And load 'im aboard this land-goin' scow! Sink 'im with a bullet if you gotta! Keelhaul 'im!"



A bullet wasn't necessary, though. A clubbed pistol reduced the fighting Victor Vail to quivering helplessness. A thin rope looped clumsily about his wrists and ankles. After the fashion of city dwellers, the men were slow with the knots.