"037 (B072) - The Metal Master (1936-03) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Start the bloody kicker!" yelled Tops'l. Hertz.
By the kicker, of course, he meant the motor, which was hardly a fitting name for that piece of machinery. It was a Diesel powerful enough for a destroyer, and less than a year old. It had been painstakingly pitted with acid, so that it looked, outwardly, rusted and practically worthless.
The schooner Innocent came up on the plane, which was afloat like a crippled duck.
Tops'l Hertz leaned over the rail amidships, a pistol in hand, to finish things. Punning Parker was beside him, likewise with a pistol. Punning was assisting as a matter of professional courtesy. They took a good look at the plane.
"Who're you?" yelled Tops'l Hertz at the man on the plane.
"Louis Tester!" shouted the latter. "What're you trying to do to me?"
"You might say we have planes for you," said Punning Parker, punning a bit more badly than usual.
Chapter V. THE CROSS THAT IS DOUBLE
Louis TESTER stood on the cabin of the plane. He was lean, fit, red-headed. He looked as if he wanted to fight, which was not surprising. One hand was behind him.
He braced against the lively pitching of the plane. There was gasoline leaking from the tanks. The craft was soaked with it. Gasoline was running onto the water.
"'Eave 'im a line!" ordered Tops'l.
Punning Parker himself did this. He heaved a line that looked as heavy as he was, and, marvelously, it didn't cause him to collapse.
The red-headed Tester caught the line and hitched it over a cleat which was on the seaplane for mooring purpose. A moment later, the plane was bobbing alongside the Innocent.
Tester took his hand from behind his back. He had hitched the line without showing that hand.
"I hope you get the idea," he said.
A Very pistol was in his hand. One of those things with a barrel having the bore of a shotgun, used to shoot rockets. He pointed it at the plane, which was leaking gasoline.
Tops'l Hertz and the others got the idea. The rocket in the Very could not very well help igniting the gasoline, and the plane would then blow up, and it was pretty certain the Innocent would be set afire.
"Now," said the red-headed man, when the idea of the situation had soaked in. "Lower your boats, get into them, and row away. Otherwise, I'm going to pull the trigger of this Very, I'm just mad enough to do it!"
"You'll kill your bloomin' self!" gritted Tops'l.
"I don't think I've got much of a chance of going living, if I come aboard," said the redhead. "I think I know whom you're working for."
"Who're we workin' for?" asked Tops'l, who really would have liked to know.
"You're mixed up with the Metal Master!" snapped Louis Tester.
This was new to Tops'l. He had never heard of the Metal Master.
"Eh?" he muttered. "Who's the Metal Master, bloke?"
The redhead snorted.
"Get in your life boats or I'm going to shoot!" he snapped.
Punning Parker moved away from the rail to comply, although Tops'l was still hesitating.
"Are our ears marooned," he murmured.
Punning Parker helped lower a life-boat, and they put it down on the opposite side of the ship. Punning Parker and several others slid down the davit falls to the craft.
"You next!" ordered Louis Tester, looking at Tops'l.
Tops'l Hertz's neck was red. He glared. He made grinding noises with his teeth.
"I won't!" he choked.
"Don't be a fool," said the twin of Nan Tester. "I'll give you a tow in the small boats. Maybe let you back on board, after I figure out a way of keeping you quiet."
"I won't!" screamed Tops'l.
Louis Tester cocked his Very pistol.
A shot cracked. The Very pistol flew from Louis Tester's hand into the sea.
PUNNING PARKER was in the water, clinging to the after end of one of the plane's pontoons. He had, in diving under the schooner and coming up unobserved to shoot the Very pistol out of the redheaded man's hand, executed a nice strategy. The flash of his gun had not been enough to ignite the gas fumes.
Modern pistol cartridges are, of course, not affected by temporary submersion, so Punning had been able to take his gun under the keel of the schooner.
Tops'l Hertz was not a mental sloth, although he had been caught flatfooted in the present instance. The moment the shot sounded and the Very pistol flew into the sea, he gave a froglike leap, sailing clear over the rail and landing on a wing of the plane.
His yelled orders caused his scared crew to produce guns and join the fight Tops'l was having with the red-headed Tester. Tops'l only lost two teeth, some skin and hair, before they rescued him.
The moment they were on deck, Tops'l seized a gun and aimed at the red-headed man. He was in a temper and had killing ideas.
But Punning Parker rushed up and shoved the gun aside.
"'Act in haste and repent at leisure,' they say," he warned.
Ordinarily, Tops'l took orders from no one, and was inclined to resent them. But Punning Parker had just raked his chestnuts out of the fire by that dive under the keel.
Tops'l thought it over, and handed the gun back to the man from whom he had taken it. He took a good wind-up and knocked the redhead down, also removing most of the skin from his own knuckles.
"Thanks," he told Punning. "I 'ave a bad temper."
"Look here," said Punning. "Do you know why this mysterious fellow in New York wants this Louis Tester held?"
"No, I don't," said Tops'l.
"Hm-m-m," murmured Punning. "What say we search that plane?"
"Can do," admitted Tops'l.