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

Ham and Long Tom, the other two of Doc's five aides, were at the rear door.

Monk and the two with him neglected to pay the old celestial peddler on the corner the attention he deserved.

The street hawker abruptly gathered up his wares and scuttled away.

"Where'd Doc say Sen Gat and the others were?" rumbled big-fisted Renny.

"Didn't say." Monk produced a flashlight "Doc seemed kinda rushed. Wonder if he was in a jam?"

"He'll get out of it if he was," Renny surmised. They began to search, and came soon to the windowless cubicle in which Doc had left Sen Gat and the others. It was untenanted now. The tyings which Doc had applied to the truth-serum-dazed captives reposed on the floor. Monk examined them.

"Been cut!"

"Then somebody beat us here!" Renny boomed.

"Circumstantial evidence substantiates that assertion," agreed the bony Johnny, who had a horror of small words when he could think of big ones.

Ham, with Long Tom, came in from the rear. Immediately he and Monk fell to scowling at each other.

"You should not drag that infernal pig around with you," Ham offered.

"Yeah?" Monk leered. "He comes in handy sometimes."

"Pipe down," Renny grumbled. "I don't like this. let's look the dump over and see what dirt we can turn up on this thing."

They scattered and gave Sen Gat's establishment a searching which a Scotland Yard investigator would have envied. Then they assembled to exchange notes.

"Papers in a desk show this Sen Gat is an importer," offered Long Tom. "Trades in merchandise from Indochina."

"Keeps quite a gang around here, from the looks of sleep" ing accommodations," added Renny.

"Warlike personalities, if the profusion of firearms and ammunition is a substantial basis for conjecture," said bigworded Johnny.

"But nothing about any thousand-headed man, or three black sticks which are keys," complained Ham.

"Say, you guys, lookit!" Monk exhibited a newspaper clipping which he had unearthed.

They gathered around and read:


EXPLORING PARTY LOST


Some anxiety is being felt over the safety

of Calvin Copeland, who, with his wife and

daughter, departed some months ago on an expedition