"018 (B035) - The Squeaking Goblin (1934-08) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Amazing shooting."
"Right peart," Tige agreed. "'Tain't nohow unusual fer thot varmint, though."
Chelton Raymond ran the tip of his tongue under his waxed, blond mustache, keeping his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the gaunt, knobby mountaineer.
"You ever see it before, Tige?" he asked abruptly.
Tige moved over to the porthole, stood to one side of it and expectorated a noisy, slanting stream of brown fluid through the port, which was open.
"Kain't say as I have," he muttered. "Thot ain't to say as how I'm a stranger to the varmint, 'cause I been a-seein' a lot a' his work back in my mountains."
"I saw something about it in the newspapers," Chelton Raymond said, nodding slowly.
"Them thar level-land newspapers hain't been a-hearin' the half a' it."
"Tige," the other said slowly, "I want your honest opinion."
"You be my cousin. I wouldn't go fer tellin' you no lies."
Chelton Raymond made a grim mouth. "Do you think this fellow in the coonskin cap is actually a ghost? Do you really think he is the Squeaking Goblin?"
"Squeakin' Goblin been dead nigh eighty years or thar'bouts," Tige said slowly.
"I know."
Tige pulled a sigh from deep in his chest. "Tige Raymond Eller ain't never been one to believe in hants, anyhow not a hant of a cuss that's been a-layin' in the grave fer eighty year."
"Don't beat around the bush, Tige," Chelton Raymond said dryly. "Do you think the man in the coonskin cap was human?"
Tige was silent a moment, then took a deep breath and spoke loudly and rapidly, as if desperately resolved to get the words out.
"Thot varmint wur a hant!" he exclaimed. "I'm a-tellin' you it wur a spook, 'cause I shot right at it and thar warn't no sign a' the bullet hittin' nothin'."
SOME moments of silence followed Tige's earnest declaration, both men keeping faces long and sober, as if engaged with thoughts that were gloomy.
"It's silly, of course," Chelton Raymond said at last.
"Yop," agreed Tige. He poked a bony finger thoughtfully into the hole the bullet had made in the head of the chair dummy. "This here ain't so silly, though."
"No." Chelton Raymond, hardening his lips together, was suddenly harsh and wolfish of feature. "Listen, Tige; I'm thinking this is more than you and I can handle."
"A Raymond ain't 'feared a' no man," muttered Tige.
"Hell, no, but this Squeaking Goblin isn't a man. He's been dead more than eighty years, and he was almost a hundred years old when he died, if there's anything to the story about him that my granddad told me."
"We ain't spook fighters, fur a fact," Tige agreed.
"That's the idea. Did you ever hear of Doc Savage, Tige?"
"Who?"
"Doc Savage."
Tige puckered his brows. "Kain't say as I have."
"Your education has been badly neglected, Tige," said Chelton Raymond, and there was no levity in his tone.
Chapter II. THE SAVAGE SUMMONS
CHELTON RAYMOND opened the stateroom door, swung outside and moved along the corridor, the silent and staring detectives making a path for his passage.
The sleuths were curious, but when the tall, expensively dressed blond man made no suggestion that they accompany him, they did not move to do so.
Tige trailed Chelton Raymond. They stepped through bulkhead doors, mounted a companionway and entered a cubicle walled with instrument panelsЧthe radio room. A rather meek young man was handling the instruments.
"I want a shore line," said Chelton Raymond briskly. "Get the Aquatania Hotel in Bar Harbor, hooking up by telephone."
The radio man flicked switches; generators began to hum. After some moments of low-voiced speaking, the operator spun in his swivel chair.
"Your connection, Mr. Raymond," he said. "Radio-land line hookup."
Tige looked on, as his blond and more sophisticated cousin lifted a mouthpiece-receiver set, and there was an almost open-mouthed wonder in the gangling mountaineer's expression. The look told plainly that Tige was awed by the fact that one could converse from the boat to shore with such ease. Radio transmitters were evidently foreign to Tige's environment.
"Aquatania Hotel?" Chelton Raymond asked over the radio-land line hookup. "It is. . . . Has Doc Savage registered there yet?. . . When he does, tell him Chelton Raymond desires his presence at once aboard the yacht."
With a few words, the blond man gave the location of the cove where the yacht was anchored. Then he hung up, nodding at the radio man to break down the connection.
Tige blinked. "You already sent fur this hure feller?"
"I radioed for him this afternoon," Chelton Raymond admitted.
"You 'lowed as how we'd need 'im?"
"Don't we?" the other demanded dryly.
"Yop. We be needin' somebody." Tige knobbed a fist and looked at its flinty hardness. "Mought take a pow'ful lot a' man to put the fritz on this hure Squeakin' Goblin spook."
"This Doc Savage is a 'powerful lot of man,' as you call him."
"How d'you know?"
"I've heard talk, Tige."
"I ain't never heard a' him."
"Talk don't get around the mountains much, Tige."
"Yop, thot's so. This hure Doc SavageЧwhut mought be the trade thot he makes his livin' with?"