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

An uproar came from the street outside. Revolvers banged, superfirer pistols hooted; men shrieked. Curses volleyed Malayan.

Renny and Monk thundered demands for a surrender.

Johnny sprinted through the rooms, dived out of the front door and saw the fray was over. It had been surprisingly brief. Two of the spurious bobbies were down, overcome by the mercy slugs. The others had dropped their weapons an elevated hands.

The bobby trick had failed.


MONK GRINNED widely at the gangling Johnny as the latter approached.

"Daggone!" he chuckled. "What put you wise?"

The celestial purveyor of dubious delectables had migrated," Johnny imparted, returning to his large words.

"You think the slanteyed peddler was a spy?" Monk questioned.

"A not unwarranted conjecture."

"Blazes!" Renny thumped. "Then these mugs must be some of Sen Gat's gang."

"A scheme to grab us," Long Tom surmised.

The fight had been anything but silent. No curious person had appeared in the street, however, and no windows had lighted up. The orientals who dwelled here in Shoreditch evidently were no different from those in other parts of the globe. An inscrutable race, they believed in keeping clear of the other man's trouble.

Monk collared the fake officer who bore a vague likeness to himself. "You workin' for Sen Gat?"

The other glowered. "Take your dukes off my bloke, o' I'll bust your face in!"

Monk flexed his arms. Some of the muscles which bulged up might conceivably have served as footballs, if detached. "Whenever you're ready, cull!" he growled.

"Cut it out!" Renny rumbled.

"Let 'em fight," Ham suggested hopefully. "Monk might get his block knocked off. It would teach him a lesson."

"Nix!" Renny insisted. "We'll take 'em back to Sen Gat's house. We want to know what became of Sen Gat"

"And there's the little question of a thousand-headed man and three black keys," Long Tom added.

"To say nothing of explorers named Copeland and a man called Maples," furthered Renny.

They started back for Sen Gat's habitation; but there was an interruption. Feet pounded the fog-smeared cobbles. A running figure plunged out of the mist, a grotesque shape in the nebulous void of vapor. It was a man in the uniform of a bobby.

"He heard the shots," Monk hazarded.

The newcomer tilted his helmet back on his head. "I say, what's goin' on here?" he asked.

"A surprise party," Renny boomed. "It goes like this - they surprise us, then we surprise them."