"038 (B045) - The Man Who Smiled No More (1936-04) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

For the other man was the multi-millionaire whose shoes Tony had shined less than an hour before. And this man of wealth was as much noted for his jollity and his laughter in his own circles, as was Tony for his ready smile among his customers.
Doc Savage was now giving Smiling Tony's countenance a more thorough reading. Just as his keenly trained vision could read words on lips at a greater distance than other men, so he could also interpret emotion. Smiling Tony's face lacked all emotions.
And this same vacuous expression had replaced the usual hearty humor on the face of Simon Stevens, shipping line president.
THE long string of the elevated train roared closer. The motorman peered straight ahead. His eye ran along the platform and took in all of the jostling crowd. Passengers were jockeying for positions from which to rush the doors when they slid open. Perhaps the first persons in would find seats.
Sam Gallivanti kept on talking. Though his friend's face was possibly frightening to others, Sam had known him for years. Now Sam dug an elbow roughly into Smiling Tony's ribs. It was a violently delivered blow, though it was meant only as a jest.
"Snap outta da dream!" joked Sam. "You look-a like-a da funeral, Tony!"
Smiling Tony's expression did not change. His eyes only turned slowly upon Sam Gallivanti. His right hand reached to the strap attached to his heavy shoeshine box. The box was hung over his shoulder.
Smiling Tony uttered not a single word. His movement was as if he were merely acting to return in kind the poke in the ribs Sam had given him.
Sam screamed once.
"Tony! You no hit-aЧyouЧ"
The words of the scream were lost in the wilder crescendo of a shriek. The higher scream echoed and communicated itself to the tongues of a hundred women. The motorman of the elevated train jammed on the air brakes with such force he hurled passengers in the cars from their feet.
The motorman was too late.
Smiling Tony's shoeshine box flew over and downward. Its arc caught the skull of Sam Gallivanti. Probably it was merciful that the screaming of many women and the hoarse oaths and shouts of many men submerged the horrible grinding of bones and flesh under the wheels of the train.
GUARDS slapped open the doors of the train. Several hundred passengers had heard the screaming. Men and women thrust themselves onto the platform, adding to the bedlam. Those who a minute before had been eager to catch a train, now were rushing back toward the stairs.
Two men had seized Smiling Tony. The shoe shiner still held his box by the strap. Polishing rags dribbled out of it. The men dragged Smiling Tony roughly back into the crowd.
A uniformed traffic policeman from under the elevated was the first cop to lay hands on Smiling Tony. Others were arriving. Already the elevated employees were at work trying to recover the body of Sam Gallivanti.
Of all the persons the arriving police pushed back to form a ring around Smiling Tony Talliano, none was as unexcited as Smiling Tony himself.
"What happened?" demanded a copper. "Why'd you give that other guy the works?"
"I no geeve 'im the works," said Smiling Tony calmly. "Sam, he's my friend. He push-a me in da ribs. I smack 'im with the box. It is all good-a fun maybe."
Smiling Tony was grinning at the policemen. That death's-head grin. He did not shrug his shoulders or gesture with his hands. His black eyes looked straight ahead. His lips were thinned to a leer over his white teeth.
"Holy saints!" exclaimed one of the policemen. "He knocks the guy under a train because he got a poke in the ribs! An' he calls it good fun!"
"Something's wrong," said the copper who served as traffic policeman at this intersection. "I know this fella, Tony Talliano. He ain't ever been in trouble, an' he's worked that one spot for years. Everybody likes the guy.
"Tony, listen! Why'd you smack Sam like that?"
Smiling Tony looked at the copper calmly, fixedly.
"He push-a me in da ribs," he repeated. "So I push-a 'im back!"
"Good grief!" ejaculated the traffic man. "Just like that! It looks like he's gone off his nut!"
"Smiling Tony looked at him and said, "I'm not-a crazy in the head. I know all about it. I'm all-a right!"
The shoe shiner meant every word of it. He was all right, as he felt about it. He must have been feeling no emotion whatever. The horrible death of his friend, the certainty he would be accused of murder, left him wholly unaffected.
Chapter II. A MILLIONAIRE QUITS LAUGHING
SIMON STEVENS was a hearty, roaring, rollicking man. His many millions had never made him smug or dignified. When he laughed, his big body rocked with his humor. And he nearly always was laughing.
Not that he wasn't shrewd. No man, regardless of how often or heartily he laughed, could have acquired Simon Stevens's fortune without being canny and shrewd. Nor could any man without a full supply of the keenest brains have been head of the World Waterways Shipping Corporation.
Simon Stevens had been president and controlling stockholder of the World Waterways line for more than twenty-five years.
And no matter how serious the directors' meeting, Simon Stevens could, and did, take time out to regale his associates with the latest in funny stories. The World Waterways directors could afford to listen to these stories, for the past years had not affected the shipping line's splendid profits.
Today, Simon Stevens had not told a single story. When the directors convened, their president was less hearty, less good-humored than usual. He was smoking one of the fat cigars which had been so adroitly changed in his upper pocket. One of the directors quickly noted the millionaire's apparent absent-mindedness.
Simon Stevens's deep voice had not roared once with laughter since he had entered the third floor room where the directors met. For once, the shipping line president appeared to be somewhat preoccupied.
When he entered the board room, he sat down immediately in a big chair at the side. He stared reflectively at his feet. They were, like all of Simon Stevens, ample.
And the millionaire's shoes had been newly shined. For it had been Simon Stevens who had sat on the white stone coping of the park fence. It was he who had left the generous cigar in the grimy hand of Smiling Tony Talliano.
THIS directors' meeting was more important than usual. Recently, the affairs of the World Waterways line had reached somewhat of a crisis. Some Oriental freight contracts had been cancelled because of trouble in China. European affairs had disturbed shipments to the Mediterranean.
Simon Stevens sat, rather somberly for him, looking at his newly polished shoes. It was disturbing. The eleven other directors, or at least ten of them, felt that the crisis might be more serious than they imagined. If so, why hadn't Simon Stevens roared his way into the room as customary?
The eleventh director observed the president of the board more closely than the others.
For this director was Doc Savage. The man of bronze held some stock in the World Waterways, as he did in many other enterprises. This was especially useful to the noted adventurer. For the World Waterways line owned a small group of islands in the South Pacific.
These were the Domyn Islands. Doc Savage's interest, as usual, was humanitarian. In his many encounters with criminals, the man of bronze caused them to be treated at his sanitarium in up-State New York. Doc's vast surgical knowledge had developed a minor operation on the brain which caused criminally warped minds to heal.
After becoming good citizens, with their criminal careers forgotten, many of these former criminals were left without homes or occupations. The Domyn Islands had become a haven of refuge for the rehabilitation of these men. There they had been given well paid employment in the nitrate mines.
DOC SAVAGE did not often attend meetings of directors. His time was nearly always engaged in some enterprise of much more excitement and danger. Yet in this apparently prosaic meeting of shipping line directors was to arise a situation of the most astounding consequences.
Doc Savage must have felt this, for he took up his position beside an open window. From this place, he could look directly down upon the tracks and platform of an elevated railway station.
One of the lesser directors coughed apologetically.
"Mr. President," he offered, "I expect we ought to get underway and have it over with. All of us know why we are here."
"Yes," replied Simon Stevens, "we know why we are here."
His voice fell oddly flat, without expression. Indeed, one might have said he was merely a curious bystander without great interest in the proceedings.
The one who had spoken prefaced his next remarks with another cough.