"044 (B077) - The South Pole Terror (1936-10) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The wait was not extensive.
"Get hold of Long Tom and have him fly due south-southeast from Montauk lightship,"
directed the radio man with the slow fist. "instruct him to land when he sights us, and we'll take care of him."
"O. K."
The hook-up with the other station was about to be broken by Ward when the distant operator interrupted with a hurried series of dots.
"Hold it,"
he instructed. "Old Glass Eyes has just thought up another of them really titanic ideas he goes in for."
There followed several moments of earnest instructions. Ward, the self-designed steward, listened intently to the dots and dashes as they came through the interference of static.
"Ha, ha!"
he tapped when they had coded. "O. K."
He now hurriedly changed the wave length of the set, putting it on the frequency which Doc Savage had used to communicate with Long Tom. The man must have eavesdropped and learned the call letters of Doc Savage's New York headquarters station, because he tapped the letters out rapidly, together with the combination of the relay call device.
An anxious expression on the man's face cleared when Long Tom's crisp fist answered. The fellow had been afraid Long Tom had already left.
Long Tom asked over the air, "What is it?"
"Your instructions are changed," tapped the man at the Regis key.
"Hey!"
Long Tom broke in. "You are not Doc!"
"This is Monk," transmitted the self-designated steward. "I fell down on the dang deck and twisted my wrist, so you may not be able to read this."
"Go ahead,"
tapped Long Tom, completely deceived. "What are my altered instructions?"
"Fly south-southeast from Montauk lightship,"
directed the other. "Pick up a searchlight blinking the letters DOC over and over again, and land on the sea to be picked up. Don't be too surprised by the appearance of the vessel from which the signal will be blinked."
"What has happened?"
Long Tom tapped inquisitively.
The other man made several exclamation points with his key.
"Plenty!"
he transmitted. "No time to give the details to you now. We'll tell you when you land. Don't come to the Regis, because Doc and me won't be aboard. If it's any consolation, I think we've about got this mystery cleared up. And now, 73's."
"73's,"
Long Tom replied.
The terminology "73" is used by telegraphers and newspapermen to convey a wish that future good fortune may attend the other. The man who had given himself the name of Ward laughed harshly after he had sent it.
WARD'S work at the key was not done when he had ended his communication with Long Tom. The man shut off the short-wave apparatus, and cut in one of the other sets which operated on the longer wave lengths.
He got ready to send, but did not do so immediately. He sat there wearing a concentrated expression, plotting out what he was to transmit. Then he thumbed the sending "bug" vigorously.
"S O S," he transmitted frantically. "Doc Savage alive, responsible for attack on liner Regis! Is murdering many people!"
The man added the call letters of the liner Regis, and hammered a few more frantic S O S signals. This was to give the effect of utter terror.
"Doc Savage killing people on Regis with strange machine!"
he continued. "Send help! Doc SavageЧ"
He broke it off there with a steady pressure against the "dot" side of the "bug," an expedient which caused a steady stream of dots to go out and end in a closed circuit which transmitted a steady, continuous wave whine. It would sound very much as if the sender had died at his post.
To make the indication of murder more effective, the man who had claimed to be a steward grasped one of the dead radio operators, heaved and got the fellow into a chair before the key.
One of the dead man's fingers was inserted in the upset ink, in which had been left the print of Renny's huge hand. The inked finger described a fragmentary message:
DOC SAVAGE DIDЧ
He smeared the last, as if the printing finger had completely lost its strength before the missive could be completed.
Stepping back, the man surveyed his handiwork. He made a few minor changes in the position of the body, after which he grinned his satisfaction, and left the radio room. He peered upward as he worked along the deck.
Doc Savage's plane, Ham at the controls, was nowhere in sight above. The man listened. He could not pick up the sound of the motor.
"I hope to hell his wings came off, or something!" the man grated.
He found Doc Savage and Monk.
"The wind seems to be dying down," he said.
"That oughta make it simpler for Long Tom to get out here," vouchsafed the homely Monk. "Reckon Long Tom is in the air by now."
AS a matter of fact, Long Tom was not quite in the air, but he was out on the Hudson River in the rather small, low-wing seaplane which he had chosen for the flight.
The craft was a staunch one, and not an amphibian; therefore, it was very stable for descending and arising from the sea. The motor was a huge thing which could literally yank the craft off the top of a wave into the air.
The big engine did its most spectacular work now, and the plane moaned up into the murk above New York City. It headed east.
Long Tom missed, by not more than fifteen minutes, the extra editions of the newspapers which hit the stands announcing that a new S O S had come from the Regis.