"022 (B031) - The Annihilist (1934-12) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THE ANNIHILIST



A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson



(Originally published in "Doc Savage Magazine" for December 1934. Bantam reprint December 1968)





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BACK COVER



The dread ANNIHILIST was slaughtering the criminals of New York in wholesale lots. Hundreds of men were found mysteriously murdered victims of the hideous pop-eyed death. The finger of suspicion pointed directly at one man, Doc Savage himself. Even as THE MAN OF BRONZE scrambled to solve the terrifying enigma, the invisible assassin began to play havoc with one of humanity's most important secret defenses - Doc Savage's legendary crime college.



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Chapter I



THE POP-EYED DEAD





JOHN Henry Cowlton was the first pop-eyed dead one. Cowlton was a young man who had inherited money, and the newspaper reporters, writing his obituary the next morning, called him a Park Avenue playboy. Cowlton was found in his penthouse gymnasium, and because the gym windows were open and it had been a cold night, his body was frozen only slightly less hard than a rock. There was no mark on John Henry Cowlton's athletic body. But there was a very peculiar thing wrong with his eyes.



John Henry Cowlton's eyes were protruding completely from their sockets, and for no good reason that the coroner could find. They were quite horrible, those eyes.