"031 (B060) - The Majii (1935-09) - Lester Dent.palmdoc.pdbTXT" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Doc waited. The gunman was shooting at what, in the moonlight, seemed to be a boathouse. A moment later, a replying shot came from the structure. Doc waited a bit longer. There were no more shots. He reared up and advanced.
His advance was remarkably silentЧuntil he encountered the unexpected. A bush to the left gave a noisy shake. Doc knew instantly that the gunman had been canny enough to tie a string from one shrub to another by way of guaranteeing a warning should any one try to stalk him from the rear.
The gunman heaved up. He looked thin and gigantic in the moonlight. He had a rifle. It let out noise and fire without coming to his shoulder.
DOC SAVAGE got down in time to let the bullet pass. While the shot echoes still whooped, he rolled, got the string into which he had moved, and broke it, retaining one end. Then he crawled rapidly to the left.
Silence fell. A gun smashed from the boathouse. That commotion died. Waves made noise on the nearby beach.
Doc jerked the string. It fluttered the bush. The gunman, excited, cut loose with three shots. Doc jerked the string and the bush made much noise, and the gunman cut loose again, after which he could be heard clicking the magazine out of his rifle. He was reloading.
Doc thumbed on his flashlight, hurtling forward as he did so.
The beam disclosed a lean brown man who had been one of Rama Tura's assistants at the jewel-making sщance earlier in the night.
He goggled briefly into the light, let out a squawk, spun, and tried to run and reload his rifle at the same time. It was the wisest thing he could have done under the circumstances.
He might even have succeeded, except that a single shot smacked from the boathouse, after which the man gave a rabbit hop, hit squarely on his head and went on over in a somersault an acrobat would have envied, ran a dozen paces, then fell flat on the wet grass and did not move afterward.
Doc made only the briefest of examinations. The man in the boathouse had killed the fellow.
There was noise of a door being unbarred over at the boathouse. A rather small man came out.
"Careful!" Doc called.
"There were only three of them," said the small man. "I got the other two."
He came up.
"I," he added, "am Kadir Lingh, a Nizam, although I may not look it."
Chapter VIII. THE NIZAM'S STORY
"A NIZAM," Doc Savage said, "is the equivalent of a king."
The small man showed white teeth in the moonlight.
"The equivalent of more than a king, with the king business what it is today," he replied cheerfully. "But I trust that will not embarrass you."
Doc turned the light on him. He was attired in a business suit which must have cost several hundred dollars. Even the sartorially perfect Ham had never worn anything to exceed it.
The man had shoved a turban inside his coat and now he drew this out and pulled it on. On the front of the turban was an emerald which looked as if it might be as valuable as a diamond of equivalent size.
"Just how did you come to call me," Doc asked dryly.
"Ten days ago, in Jondore, I got a cable from the Ranee, widow of my dead brother, the Son of the Tiger, former Nizam of Jondore," the man said. "The contents of that cable caused me to make what you must admit was a remarkably quick trip to New York.
"Arriving tonight, I was met with a rather violent reception. I had much trouble, and my bodyguards were all killed. I ended up in that boathouse, after having wrecked a car which I appropriated. There was a telephone. I had heard of you."
"Heard of me where?" Doc demanded.
"Jondore," said the other. "You have quite a reputation."
The man was highly educated. He spoke English easily, rather than in the bookish, stilted manner common to educated foreigners.
Doc asked him, "Where are the men who pursued you?"
"Their bodies?" The other gestured. "Over here."
They were two of Rama Tura's satellites, and they were quite dead, one behind a tree, the other back of a bush. Both had been shot.
"I am not a bad marksman," said the small man in the turban.
Doc Savage replied nothing, but thought of the running man who had been shot. The bullet was in the fellow's brain, and some peculiarity of reflex had kept him going for a bit after he was struck.
The turbaned man queried anxiously, "Do you think I shall have trouble with the American police over this?"
Doc seemed to consider.
"It might not be necessary that they know," he said.
"I see," smiled the other. "What they do not know will not hurt them. Thank you."
"Do you," Doc demanded, "know what this is all about?"
The small man nodded. "Everything."
Doc said, "Mind telling me?"
"I," said the small man, "am supposed to be the richest individual in the world. You have heard, of course, that the richest man in the world is not Rockefeller, Ford or Mellon, but is theЧ"
"Nizam of Jondore," Doc said.
"So you knew it."
"It has been in the newspapers. It has been mentioned in magazine articles."
"Did the reading matter state in what form the wealth was kept?" the turbaned man demanded.
"Gold and jewels," Doc replied. "Mostly jewels."
"Very accurate," the other agreed. "The fortune is something of a ruling family affair, inherited from one generation to the next. My brother, the dead Nizam, known as the Son of the Tiger, was the last possessor. Mind you, I say the last."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that the fortune, some billions of dollars, has vanished into thin air."
DOC SAVAGE was silent. He might have been digesting the information; he might have been studying the character of the other.