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

The officers consulted in whispers. "You saw no excitement around here, my man?" one of them asked.

"Velly solly," said the wrinkled one. "Mebbeso you buy nuts, sweetmeats? Velly good."

The bobbies declined; their car rolled on. Sen Gat's spy had taken them in.

Doc Savage crept forward, making no noise, and a moment later was sure that the wizened one was watching Sen Gat's house. The intensity of the fellow's gaze aided Doc in advancing silently until he stood in the glow of a street lamp less than six feet distant.

"Business good?" he asked.

The hawker started violently. He whirled, saw the bronze man, and registered a stark horror which proved conclusively that he feared Doc, and hence must be one of Sen Gat's henchmen.

"Wrinkles put on with plastic makeup," Doc decided aloud, studying him intently. "Not a bad job. What's the idea?"

The answer was a snatch which the other made at one of his voluminous sleeves, a snatch which brought out a long knife with a crooked blade and a carved handle - a creese.

The peddler was squatting on the walk. Jutting the blade out in front of him with both hands, he leaped forward and upward, and had the bronze man stood still he would have been sliced wide open.

But he did not remain stationary. A twist, half a spin, got him clear.

Missing, the attacker sprawled froglike in mid-air, until Doc slammed both hands against his back and drove him down flat on the cobbles, so forcibly that air blew from the man's mouth and nostrils and he lost his knife.

Doc gathered him up and bundled him under one arm, exerting such pressure that the fellow could not cry out. Then Doc picked up the creese, dropped it on the tray of wares and carried the tray as he moved toward Sen Gat's house.

Inside the door, he deposited the tray. Then, with the prisoner helpless in his clutch, he conducted a rapid search.


DOC SAVAGE saw the evidence in the shape of knife-sliced tyings that told him Sen Gat and the other truth serum victims had been liberated. The empty cartridges from from Johnny's superfirer proved that Doc's men had been here and had engaged in a fight.

"What happened?" Doc demanded of his prize.

"Kurang pereksa," the fellow snarled in Malayan.

"Don't know, eh? You'll change that tune!"

Doc bound the fellow, employing more strips ripped from the silken hangings of Sen Gat's house. Then he picked up the bottle of sweet wine, watching the prisoner as he did so.

Frightened lights in the fellow's eyes indicated that he knew what had happened to Sen Gat and the others after they had imbibed from this bottle.

For effect, Doc Savage held the bottle before the man's eyes, saying, "You know what happened to Sen Gat and the others after they drank from this."

The other said a beady-eyed nothing, but it was obvious that he did know.

Doc moved the bottle slightly. "You have a choice - Either talk now, or I'll feed you some of this."

The prisoner thought it over at great length, rolling his eyes and making angry faces. The bottle, swaying in front of him, was a great, impelling force, and soon he muttered reluctantly, "What do you want to know?"

"What is behind this business of The Thousand-headed Man?" Doc demanded.

"Me not know."