"039 (B073) - The Seven Agate Devils (1936-05) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THE SEVEN AGATE DEVILS
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Chapter I. THE CAMPHOR WRAITH
SOME ONE who made his living with words once said that drama is everywhere. Presumably, this was intended to mean that many persons contact adventure and fail to recognize it.
This was undoubtedly the case at the Los Angeles airport on one particular Monday evening. There was something sinister underway. But no one was sharp-eyed enough to realize it.
This was explained by the fact that the two men in the black coupщ were good actors. There was nothing furtive or suspicious about the manner in which the car drove into the parking lot, where hundreds of other machines were already stationed.
The two did not leave their car immediately. They might have been just two more spectators.
It was an inspiring scene over which their eyes roved. The airport administration building, around which the milling throng was most dense, was washed with brilliant light. Beacons cut great swaths through the darkness, and out on the field ground lights were rows of colored dots. Every available source of illumination at the airport appeared to have been tapped.
Somewhere among the parked cars, a pint-size newsboy with a barrel-size voice was shouting: "World-girdling airship to touch Los Angeles! Read about it!"
The two in the coupщ listened icily to the boy's shouting.
"Doc Savage and two aids aboard airship!" yelled the news-vending urchin.
The two men in the coupщ looked as if a hornet had suddenly blown into the car.
The newsboy howled, "Doc Savage making mystery trip!"
"Mystery trip!" one snarled. "Savage ain't kiddin' nobody! He's found out about them agate devils! He's maybe got a line on our wholeЧ"
"Shut up, you nut!" gritted the other. "Somebody might overhear!"
The other put out his jaw angrily. "Who you gettin' tough with?"
"You, you dope! Talking about agate satans! Next thing you'll be broadcasting to the world that in China and Germany and England andЧ" The man stopped and swallowed. "This is too big to take any chances with."
HE was a large man, who had the look of one who made his living with his muscles. There was little intelligence perceptible in his heavy-featured, brutal face. He was the type who did what he was told, and probably was not too particular about what it was. His clothes were flashy and in bad taste.
The second man began to speak.
"That airship came from Europe, and is a new type, making an experimental flight around the world," he said. "Doc Savage joined the crew unexpectedly in New York. He is not going on around the world, but is getting off here; so there's not much doubt about what he's coming for."
This man was rather slender, remarkably well dressed, and would have been handsome had it not been for the lower part of his face. He had a hybrid visage. His eyes, his forehead, were fine and delicate. The rest of his countenance was rather terrible. Something had happened to it in the past, making the skin and flesh below loose and rubbery. The folds of tissue lay in gullied lines.
The lower part of this man's face had a somewhat hair-raising way of retaining whatever expression was on it. It seemed incapable of changing expression voluntarily. The man had a discomfiting habit of fingering his countenance.
He would push up the corners of his mouth with his fingers, giving his face a grim smile, and the smile would stay there.
The other man, the one with the muscles, growled. "I've heard things about this bronze guy. He's arsenic to some."
"We'll stop him," grunted the hybrid-faced man.
"Yeah?"
"A little agate devil will take care of that."
All the muscles of the other seemed to swell and harden. His voice whispered, "You mean we're gonna kill Doc Savage?"
The first man absently touched his lips, straightening them. They remained straight, due to the weird condition of his facial muscles.
"There is too much at stake to take chances," he said, "Sure, we'll have to kill him!"
A new sound came into the night air. It might have been a big swarm of metal bumble-bees in the distance. The crowd by the administration building milled more violently, surging toward the confining rail. Faces turned upward. The distant buzz became louder, a deep-throated drone.
The airport searchlights darted up like great rapiers, probing the black belly of the night. The tip of one of these beams picked up a silvery glint. Play of all the searchlights concentrated on that point. A huge strange shape began to take on form and outline.
It was the world-circling dirigible.
The airship descended. A ground crew laid hold of its dangling hand lines, and it was snugged down to a temporary mooring. Pandemonium broke loose. The crowd surged through perspiring police lines.
It became evident that many of the spectators were interested in more than a mere glimpse of the airship. They wanted to see some one else, an individual of whom they had heard a great deal. The throng surrounded the dirigible passengers as they began to alight. These latter wore ordinary business garments, for the dirigible accommodations were the height of comfort and luxury.
Whenever a passenger of more than ordinary size appeared, a roar went up from the crowd.
"There's Doc Savage!"
A moment later, they would find they were mistaken.
Men garbed as the dirigible crew got little attention. It was easy to sort these men out. They wore rather unusual cover-all suitsЧa special stratosphere garment, with attached hood.
Thus it happened that the crowd overlooked a little group of three figures, clad in the stratosphere suits, that moved across the field to the operations office. One of the trio was short, immensely broad, with long simian arms which dangled hairy hands below his knees. The other figure was slender, of medium height, and carried one article oddly at variance with his aыrial garb: a thin, black cane.
The third member was far the most dominating of the trio. His size was remarkable. The stratosphere suit hood was over his head, and there was a flap with goggle attachment down over his features, concealing them completely.
It was possible that, among the spectators, only one individual recognized the trio. This was the fellow with the unlovely hybrid face.
"There goes Doc Savage and his two aids!" he hissed at his stupid-looking assistant. "Let's get our job done!"
Doc Savage entered the airport operations office and lifted the goggle flap of the stratosphere suit and chucked back the hood. Perhaps the most striking thing about the features thus revealed was their bronze hue and the fine texture of the skin. The modeling of the faceЧthe wide forehead, straight nose, firm mouthЧbespoke rigidly directed force. Sinews of the neck, almost startling in size, indicated tremendous physical strength.
The bronze man's eyes lent a touch of weirdness to his countenance. They were like pools of flake gold, swirled by hidden current. The bronze man spoke and his voice, clear and resonant, perfectly modulated, was as attention-arresting as a police siren.
"Take care of this, Monk," he requested, and handed his aid a pouchlike bag.
"Monk" pursed a tremendous mouth and handled the pouch gingerly. "I don't like the dang thing that's inside this."
Doc made no reply.