"035 (B071) - Murder Mirage (1936-01) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Doc knew then the Bedouin would never talk through fear. He had resigned himself to his fate. With him, the end had been reached. He had failed in his mission. Though of a murderous band, he would be faithful to the All-Wise One.
Doc's hands moved swiftly. It was hardly a touch on the Bedouin's shoulder. But the needle of the hypo had penetrated.
The syringe contained a special truth serum which had been devised by the man of bronze. Now, Doc's flaky gold eyes stirred with greater force. At last they were compelling the black ones. The Bedouin stared at him.
The Bedouin was coming under the hypnotizing influence of Doc. The truth serum was bringing about an irresistible inertia. The serum was effective mostly because it numbed the victim's resistance. The power of his will was crumbling.
THE Bedouin began mumbling in Arabic. Doc's gaze held him.
Johnny was standing close. His bony figure bent over.
"He says his name is Fussein," repeated Johnny. "He's saying they came on a black boat. Mentions some one he calls the All-Wise OneЧListen, Doc! Monk and Ham! He says the money man and the sworn man are on the black boat! Now he's mumbling about AllahЧLook out, Doc!"
The Bedouin suddenly screamed, "Bismillah, el Raizhim!
"
None had seen the furtive movement of the Bedouin's hand under his coat. The ancient Himyarite stone plunked to the floor. The cry of the man in the chair was his death scream.
Unnoticed, the Bedouin had palmed a dagger from his sleeve. He had jerked his arm upward and pushed his body sidewise. There was a squashy, ripping sound.
Bright red blood from the heart spouted through the Bedouin's shirt and trickled scarlet over the hand that had held the knife. He had thrust the blade under his coat directly up under his ribs.
The encarmined blade came out and its handle rang metallically on the floor. The Bedouin drooped forward. He was dead.
"One of the few who ever beat Doc," muttered big Renny.
The engineer, who had been guarding the other Bedouin, forgot his prisoner for the moment. With Johnny and Long Tom, Renny stared at the slumped figure of the dead man. Blood still dripped on the floor.
The other Bedouin had not been secured by cords. His eyes were cold as black ice. They resembled those of a snake about to strike. He gathered his legs beneath him until only the toes touched the floor. From this position, he sprang.
"I deeply regret the inadvertence of this," stated Doc, all his attention apparently upon the corpse in the chair.
The Bedouin's figure shot toward him. A straight dagger had come from his sleeve. The Arabs had been well equipped with spare, hidden weapons. The broad, corded shoulders of the man of bronze afforded a wide target that could hardly be missed.
The Bedouin hissed an Asiatic curse. The needlelike point of his weapon struck squarely between Doc's shoulders. The dagger was driven by all of the Bedouin's weight. Long Tom's sallow, unhealthy face became the color of chalk.
"Doc, look out!" he exploded. "Renny! Grab him!"
Doc's head snapped forward and down. The bronze man seemed to move only slightly. His powerful legs bent at the knees, as if he had been mortally hit and was sagging to the floor. The Bedouin's arm quivered with the force of the knife blow.
Doc's right hand came back over one shoulder. The tendons of his wrist, powerful and pliant as piano wires sheathed in bronze, played under the skin. His fingers hooked the Bedouin's neck just under the base of the skull. The man of bronze was on one knee.
The Bedouin squawked. His cry trailed through the air. For he was whirling over and over, like a club flipped by one end. His body turned two complete somersaults as it flew through the library doorway.
When the other Bedouin had knifed his own heart, Long Tom had cut off the electrical current forming the blue-flamed barrier.
"Well, I'll be superamalgamated!" cried Johnny, hoarsely. "Doc, are you hurt!"
Doc's hand flicked toward the Bedouin's knife on the floor. The needlelike point had been bent as if it had struck granite. The man of bronze shrugged his wide shoulders. There might be a slight bruise where the knife had struck.
"Holy cow!" thundered Renny. "Just for a second, I forgot the vest!"
Doc was wearing the thin undervest of woven metal. Bullets could not penetrate this. The force of the knife blow had been negligible.
The Bedouin rolled to his feet in the outer office. His dark face wore a dazed expression. He stared unbelievingly at Doc Savage. But he did not halt more than two seconds. With a curse, he twisted and pivoted toward the corridor door.
RENNY'S bulky body was shoving through the library door. The engineer was stopped as abruptly as if he had encountered a rigid bar of steel. This was the bronze man's extended arm.
"Permit him to go," Doc said softly. "It fits in with my plans."
One glance at the elevator doors and the Bedouin whipped toward the stairway at the end of the corridor. He did not care to encounter any of the operators. The story of what had happened on the eighty-sixth floor would have been spread by this time. The Bedouin glided down the stairs.
"Be sure you have everything, brothers," counseled Doc Savage. "We will give him one minute. It is a long way down by the stairways."
The man of bronze picked up the knife with which Fussein had kept his faith with his murder chief, the All-Wise One.
"More than a hundred years are in that blade," stated Doc. "Its harvest probably has been extensive."
The knife was a straight, thick eight-inch blade set deep in a solid metal hilt. On one side was stamped a rough crescent, with the date of origin and forgingЧ"MEDINA, IN THE YEAR 1243 OF THE MOSLEM CALENDAR." In the Christian accounting of time, that would be the year 1825. On the other side, almost obscured by the film of blood and oil, was an inscription.
It was the ancient battle cry of the Jehad:
" THISHAHUM, BISM ER RASSOUL!"
It was the cry heard by Doc in the alley, the same cry resounding when Monk and Ham were taken.
"Kill in the name of the Prophet!"
Doc glided toward the high-speed elevator. His three companions followed. They descended. Doc, Johnny and Long Tom stood in the black fog as the Bedouin slipped into a closed car parked around a corner.
Another sedan of ordinary appearance swung to the curb. Renny was at the wheel. He had gotten the car from the basement garage. Doc swung to a place on the running board.
Chapter IX. CHASE THROUGH THE FOG
THE morning's black fog paralyzed motor traffic. The few venturesome drivers abroad in the earlier hours moved their cars slowly.
In the lower harbor, ferries and tugboats hooted constantly. They proceeded with excessive caution. Water craft not engaged on scheduled trips remained safely at anchor or beside their wharves.
On Northern Boulevard, the highway forming the main artery of travel along the upper North Shore of Long Island, one driver seemed to be disregarding all the rules of safety. Persons who observed the flashing speed of the shadowy automobile in the dense fog gasped with profound amazement.
Twice the speeder was picked up. Once it was a motorcycle cop. After the policeman had narrowly missed climbing the hood of a juggernaut truck, he gave up the chase profanely. The second time it was a radio patrol car. The driver swore vehemently when the lightless car bored away from him with uncanny skill.
"Bet we've got those cops thinkin' we're some kind of a ghost!" chuckled Renny, at the wheel of the apparent phantom car. "They'll probably swear they didn't see us!"
"The report will be worse than that," suggested Long Tom. "They couldn't miss seeing Doc outside."
The man of bronze was erect on the running board of the speeding sedan. The wet mist of the black fog slapped in his face. Drops of water slid off the smooth bronze hair, as if it were waterproof.