"032 (B032) - Dust of Death (1935-10) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Long Tom was somewhat surprised when Seёor Junio Serrato took it graciously.
"It is no indignity to be handled roughly by a man who belongs to one of the most famous little groups in the world," he murmured, "I have heard much of Doc Savage and his five aides."
Long Tom was trying to think of something equally polite when there was an uproar out on the hospital grounds. They hurried to the windows and saw the squad of soldiers who had been searching the ground had made two seizures. They were bringing the prisoners in.
The captives were a Jett and Mutt pair in stature. Both were well dressed.
"The soldados have made a mistake," war minister Serrato murmured at Long Tom's elbow.
"You know the prisoners?" Long Tom queried.
"Oh, yes," minister Serrato nodded.
"Count Hoffe is the tall one," minister Serrato explained. "He is the representative of the European munitions concern which supplies our needs in arms and ammunitions."
"The short one?" Long Tom suggested.
"Don Kurrell is his name," advised minister Serrato.
"Another munitions salesman?"
"Oh, no." The war minister smiled again. "Don Kurrell represents the company which holds the Santa Amoza oil concessions. He is interested in seeing the war ended. His oil wells, I regret to say, are in the battle zone. Unless our nation wins, his concern stands to lose its investment."
The prisoners were ushered in shortly. The soldiers explained they had been acting suspiciously when caught.
Tall Count Hoffe removed his hat, displaying a close-cropped bullet head, and explained: "We were seeking shelter. We heard the excitement and feared there might be shooting."
"Just why were you here?" Long Tom asked them.
The two looked at each other, then eyed minister Serrato, and they all glanced at Ace Jackson.
Ace Jackson said: "I think everybody has the same idea."
"What is it?" Long Tom demanded.
"The thing I started to tell you," Ace Jackson grunted.
"Shoot," Long Tom invited.
"We want Doc Savage down here," Ace Jackson said. "We want him to smash this devil, the Inca in Gray."
THERE WAS talk after that, explanations of what was known of the Inca in Gray. But all of it added up to little more than Long Tom had already heard. The Inca in Gray was some mysterious power who was managing to keep the slaughter going for some unknown reason of his own.
"I'll see about it," Long Tom told them finally. "I'll cable Doc," and left.
Hardly more than one minute after Long Tom had taken his departure, Count Hoffe clicked his heels, doubled his long body in a smart bow and said: "Believe me, I am truly glad that Doc may come to Santa Amoza. This unending slaughter is a terrible thing."
Then he took his departure.
Ace Jackson stared at the door after Count Hoffe had gone, and closed it. He muttered, "Sometimes I wonder about that guy. He's the only one I can think of who stands to profit by having this war go on and on."
"You mean that he might be the Inca in Gray?" murmured war minister Serrato. "That thought has occurred to me."
"And to me, too," broke in Don Kurrell. "That is why I have been palling up with the blighter. I am checking up on him."
"Learn anything?" asked Ace Jackson.
"No," said Don Kurrell.
Every one left.
Those in the room would have been greatly interested in the actions of a strange figure in a nearby park some moments later. Even a close inspection would not show whether this form was that of man or woman.
An all-enveloping cloak of gray material, with a hood which completely concealed the features, furnished an excellent disguise. This form glided through the shrubbery, keeping out of sight, and stopped under a tree which grew out of the shrubbery. This tree was very large and ancient.
The actions of the mysterious skulker became rather unusual. The figure sank beside the tree, took out a notebook from beneath the cloak, and wrote something in it. The notebook had pages of thin, onionskin paper.
The note was rolled, and one hand, gloved, carried it into a hollow in the bottom of the tree. If the strange individual had made any sound thus far, it was lost in the cooing of pigeons, numbers of which swarmed the ancient park at all hours of the day, picking up scraps, perching in the branches of the trees.
The individual in gray removed his hand from the tree, and slunk away, vanishing from view.
Only a few moments later, a pigeon arose from the top of the tree. It was only one pigeon among many, and there was nothing to indicate to any onlooker that it was a carrier pigeon, which had come up from the hollow trunk of the old tree from a cote concealed in the base. Nor was there anything to show an observer on the ground that the bird carried a note sealed in a quill.
LONG TOM ROBERTS was also encountering pigeons, but they were only of the ordinary mongrel variety which hopped about in the streets and he paid no attention to them. Long Tom was thinking, mulling over in his mind what he was convinced was a fact, two facts rather.
The two facts were the two attempts on his lifeЧthe attempt of the beggar horde, and the strange incident at the hospital. Presumably, both attempts had been made by the Inca in Gray; and the motive was not hard to guess. Doc Savage was not wanted on the Santa Amoza scene.
This talk of the Inca in Gray was entirely new to Long Tom. But that was not strange. This war between Santa Amoza and Delezon had been going its bloody way for almost four years, yet it was quite possible that any number of people in New York had never heard of it. The newspapers, of course, had carried stories of the bigger battles, but almost nothing of the day-by-day fight. American editorials usually dismissed the affairs as sporadic squabbles over the jungle and desert tract that separated the two republics. Washington had, however, placed an embargo on the export of arms to the belligerents, hoping to stop the conflict.
"I'll bet Count Hoffe liked that," Long Tom muttered.
The electrical wizard turned into a cable office. He took a blank and wrote:
DOC SAVAGE
NEW YORK
EVENT VERY MYSTERIOUS STOP LEARN WAR BEING KEPT GOING BY MYSTERY INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS INCA IN GRAY STOP MIGHT BE GOOD IDEA IF YOU CAME DOWN AND CLEANED UP
LONG TOM
Long Tom left the cable office and blissfully went his way, searching for a suitable hotel.
Some moments after Long Tom had left, when there had been approximately time for him to get out of earshot, a strange thing happened. A man came running wildly down the street with several others pursuing him. He turned into the cable office as if he thought it offered escape. There he picked up a chair and turned, at bay. The pursuers charged in. Promptly there was a mъlщe. Furniture flew about. Desks were upset. The cable office attendants screamed for the police.
The police arrived eventually. But, by that time, the mysterious fighters had taken their departure. They had, in fact, joined the sinister figure which had dispatched the pigeon from the park tree.
"How did it come out?" the cloaked individual asked.