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

Monk continued, musingly, "What I mean, it's queer! The whole thing is queer! It's a dag-gone mystery, and I hate mysteries!"
Instead of replying, Doc Savage said, "Wait here. I'll look after the baggage. In the excitement, some of it might not be unloaded."
A moment later, he was gone.
Monk had a pleasant homely face, which bore out his resemblance to an ape. He turned the document case in his hands, looking puzzled.
"Do not strain your one brain cell over it," the other man of the trio that had departed the airship, advised.
This individual was slender, dapper, with a high forehead, intelligent eyes and the flexible mouth of an orator. He still held his thin black cane.
"The great Ham speaking!" Monk sneered. "Knows all, sees all, says all!"
The two glared at each other.
An old acquaintance of the two would not have been surprised. No one could remember either of the pair having addressed a civil word to the other. Contrarily enough, each had found past occasions to risk his life to aid the other.
Monk was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, the chemist of Doc Savage's group of five aids. "Ham" was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, and one of the smartest lawyers ever turned out of Harvard.
Doc's three other aids were not accompanying him on this adventure, for they were practicing their various professions in other parts of the world. They were "Renny"ЧColonel John RenwickЧfamous for his engineering accomplishments; "Johnny"ЧWilliam Harper LittlejohnЧone of the greatest living experts of geology and archaeology; and "Long Tom"ЧMajor Thomas J. RobertsЧa wizard with electricity.
Unexpectedly, Monk's hand which held the document case made a flicking gesture.
Ham, staring at the hand, was puzzled; but only for an instant. Ham did not turn around. Instead, he whipped a hand inside his stratosphere suit to an armpit where was holstered a machine pistol of Doc's own design.
"Leave it there!"
The voice came from behind Ham, and sounded as if the speaker were delivering the words entirely through his nose.
Ham raised his hands, not too briskly, then came around to face the door. The stranger was standing half across the sill of the door, one foot in and one foot out, as if ready to go in either direction. His gun was a small cannon, the kind of weapon with which Mr. Colt had cornered the frontier trade when men liked their hardware substantial to the eye. The gun did not waver.
The man behind the weapon had the face of a beet and the neck of a turkey. So far as could be seen; there were only two teeth in his mouth; one was in the upper jaw, the other directly below it, and they were tobacco-stained until they resembled a pair of mahogany pegs.
"They've got it!" this strange-looking individual said to some one out of sight behind him. "You can come in and get it!"
The one who had been spoken to was a womanЧa girl, in her early twenties. She was very beautiful.
It was not her clothing that made her such. She wore carelessly a nondescript felt hat, leather jacket, and one of those rough and ready tweed skirts which look as if they wrap around.
Evidently she had definite ideas about what she wanted. She walked soundlessly in tennis shoes, reached Monk, and snatched the leather document case from under his arm.
"Here's a tip!" she snapped. "Clear out, see? Get back on that airship and go around the world, or something!"
She had a nice enough voice.
Monk growled, "Just what's the big idea?"
The girl eyed him intently. "You know what you're mixing into?"
"No!" Monk exclaimed heartily.
"Fine!" said the girl. "Maybe you won't be killed."
"Haw!" Monk jeered. "Am I scared!"
"You would be," the girl snapped, "if you knew just what you are running up againstЧ"
"Get movin'!" advised the man with the beet face and turkey neck.
Carrying the document case, the girl began to back toward the door.
Then the red-faced, turkey-necked individual holding the gun got a surprise of his own. A voice gritted behind him.
"Just let go of that cannon!"
THE scrawny-necked man let his arm bend down, and the gun fell out of his hand.
Ham darted to the dropped revolver, scooped it up, and used it to gesture its discomfited owner inside the room.
Monk's pleasantly unlovely features were now wearing a smirk of supreme satisfaction.
"Boy, was my ventriloquism good!" he chortled. "If I had a stuffed doll to sit on my knee, I'd join a circus!"
The turkey-necked man and the attractive girl registered surprise. They stared at the door, as if loath to believe that no one was there, and that the voice had merely been a ventriloquial effort on Monk's part.
Then Monk proceeded to spoil everything. He reached for the leather document folder, which the girl still held. She extended it toward him, as if glad to get rid of it.
What happened next gave the homely chemist one of the genuine shocks of his career.
The girl dropped the leather folder. And before Monk could stiffen, resist in any way, she had seized his arm and the arm had become a lever by which he was yanked toward her, twisted, and sent spinning across the room. It was beautiful jujutsu.
Monk's bulk crashed Ham. The big revolver filled the room with noise, and its bullet dug plaster out of the ceiling.
The girl had lost her hair. In the sudden exertion, the wig which she wore had been dislodged. The girl's head was absolutely bald.
She started forward, as if to seize the document case.
"No!" barked her companion. "The dude'll use the gun before you can get it!"
The girl surrendered ideas of securing the case, spun, sprinted out of the room. Her companion followed, and they made quite a clatter running down the corridor leading to the outside.
MONK and Ham were as tangled on the floor as a pair of quarreling octopuses. Their separation was delayed somewhat by the tendency each displayed to be as rough with the other as possible. Finally they separated, stood erect, and ran in pursuit of their two assailants.
"She was bald-headed," Monk gulped. "Notice that?"
Ham stared at Monk, and a quick succession of emotions swept his faceЧrage, utter scorn, superior contempt. ThenЧmost galling of all to MonkЧderisive mirth. Ham emitted a roar of laughter.
"He flies through the air with the greatest of ease," he jeered. "When the lady his arm does seizeЧ"