"017 (B002) - The Thousand-Headed Man (1934-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THE THOUSAND-HEADED MAN


A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

(Originally published in "Doc Savage" magazine July 1934. Bantam Books reprint October 1964)



Chapter 1

CELEBRITY


THERE WERE several reasons why the first of the two shots did not attract attention. One explanation was due to the number of newspaper photographers on hand taking flash light pictures of the crowd. These London journalists were using the old-style flash light powder which made white smoke and noise, as well as flash.

Over in a hangar, a balky motor ran irregularly, backfiring often another reason why the shot was not heard.

"I say, a jolly mean bug!" remarked one scribe, peering upward. Without knowing it, this man had heard the whiz of the glancing bullet.

It was dark, and only the landing lights marking the edge of Croydon Flying Field cut through the usual fog. Later, when the plane every one awaited was heard, flood lamps would be switched on.

Somewhat of a throng was on hand to greet the plane.

The man who had been shot at lay flat on the ground near the field edge, and pawed at his face. The bullet had knocked dirt into his eyes. It had been fired from some distance.

"Sen Gat!" the man groaned.

There was no one else near. Gloom, the wet swirl of fog, enwrapped the vicinity.

"Sen Gat!" the man repeated, snarling this time.

The man was thin of body, long of arms and legs. He made a grotesque shape lying on the ground, a black raincoat flung over himself. He had hoped the dark raincoat, coupled with the darkness, would conceal him. It had failed.

Getting the bullet driven dirt out of his eyes, he scuttled to one side, dragging the raincoat, then got to his feet and ran.

"Damn Sen Gat!" he gritted.

He came close to a border light and it shone on a jaw that was pointed, a nose hooked and somehow remindful of a parrot beak. His skin looked like muslin which had been much in the weather, and there was almost no flesh between the skin and the bones it covered. One of his bony hands was darkly purple in hue. He veered away from the light, and when a hangar loomed ahead he hesitated, then ran to it and crept inside. Thrusting his head out again, he listened for a long time for signs of pursuit, but none came to his ears. Next, he tried to catch some sound of a plane overhead. There was none.

Nervously, he prowled the hangar. In the rear, he found a pair of greasy coveralls draped over a workbench. Fingering these, he began to chuckle. The coveralls fitted fairly well when he tried them on, and he did not remove them.

The man pulled up his sleeve. Held tightly to his upper arm by rubber bands was a small packet. The packet was half an inch thick, possibly four inches long, and wrapped in oiled paper. The rubbers, cutting off circulation, had made his hand purple.

He stripped the bands off and kneaded his arm slowly to restore blood flow.

"Deuced nasty feeling," he muttered. As an afterthought, he added, "Blast Sen Gat!"

He ended up by putting the slender packet in a coverall pocket, instead of fastening it back to his arm with the rubbers.