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

"Holy cow!" Renny mumbled finally. "It can't be true!"
Johnny put down his knife and fork, got up and stood looking out of a porthole. He spoke over his shoulder.
"The late radio reports say a photographer managed to get a picture of theЧof Doc'sЧofЧDamn photographers!"
They did not finish eating.
"This Thurston H. Wardhouse must have something to do with the mob that did for Doc," Renny mumbled at last.
"Yes," Johnny agreed. "We'll find him."
THEY did not find him. Not immediately, at least. And when they did, it was under incredible circumstances.
There was no Thurston H. Wardhouse on the passenger list. Questioning uncovered no one who knew of such an individual. If the man was aboard, he was obviously under an assumed name.
Renny tried a ruse, hiring a page to go through the ship repeatedly, crying that he had a radiogram for Thurston H. Wardhouse. It did not work.
Johnny and Renny were hampered by the well-meant sympathy of the Regis's passengers, who had heard of Doc Savage, and seemed to think the bronze man's two aides would be eager to recount some of Doc's past exploits.
Eventually, Johnny and Renny found it necessary to shut themselves in their cabins. They did not want to talk about Doc Savage. The subject was too painful.
To the world, Doc Savage was a man of mysteryЧa being about whom incredible legends were told. To Johnny and Renny, who had been associated with the man of bronze for some years, Doc Savage was almost as mysterious a person. They knew him perhaps as well as any mortal. Yet they did not know him.
Doc Savage had been trained scientifically from childhood for the unusual work he had undertaken. It was no ordinary course of training which he had received; the greatest scientists, the most learned men in many professions, had contributed to it, and Doc Savage, product of their combined skill, had been an amazing combination of mental wizardry andЧbecause he had taken two hours of intensive exercise each day since childhoodЧa physical superman.
The bronze man's feats had never ceased to awe even his five aides, who were closest to him.
Three of these five men were supposed to be in New York. Johnny and Renny sent them radiograms, asking for particulars.
No answers came.
"That looks bad!" Renny groaned.
"Preponderantly malignant," Johnny agreed, gloomily.
"The mob that got Doc may have made away with Monk, Ham and Long Tom," added Renny.
FOUR days passed, and the liner Regis neared New YorkЧand then one of the most fantastic things in marine history happened.
There was a fog. The afternoon was chilly, for the North Atlantic, even near the end of Long Island, is never overly warm. Passengers promenaded the decks wearing topcoats.
Then it grew hotter. The passengers began shedding their wraps. They perspired. Below decks, it became unusually warm, so almost every one stepped outside to enjoy the unexpectedly pleasant temperature.
It was not pleasant for long. The heat increased. The shade under the awnings became popular. Fans were turned on, and the bar did a rushing business in cool drinks.
No one was excited as yet. They just thought the ship had entered a belt of unexpectedly balmy temperatures.
Persons who looked toward the sun began to notice spots before their eyes afterward. It was as if they had faced a flame of a welding torch.
There came a time when every one on deck had sought the shade.
Then a steward suddenly emitted a yell, grabbed a fat man and tried to throw him overboard. Sailors seized the steward, after which several persons had a good laugh, it being known that the fat man, a passenger, had been particularly annoying to this steward throughout the voyage. The steward was taken below, mumbling, and locked in the brig.
The incident was discussed as a temporary mental derangement brought on by the abrupt alteration in temperatures.
Then Thurston H. Wardhouse appeared.
Chapter V. THE QUEER SHIP
RENNY and Johnny were standing on the promenade, beneath an awning. Both were in their shirt sleeves, and mopping perspiration. At least, Renny was. Bony Johnny never came much nearer perspiring than would a skeleton.
"This is a danged funny thing," Renny remarked.
"Egregiously enigmatical," agreed Johnny.
"I'm still wondering about that cablegram," grumbled Renny. "Who the blazes sent it? We naturally presumed Doc had sent the thing, but wellЧit must have been some one else."
"An imperspicuosity," Johnny complained.
Then Thurston H. Wardhouse made his advent. He was as handsome a man as a Broadway chorus boy, but his features were distorted with fear. He came charging down the deck.
"Get under cover!" he shrieked. "Get into the hold! You're going to die if you don't!"
It was chance that took him near Renny and Johnny. But the latter two might never have known the man's identity had he not squawled something else.
"They've killed Doc Savage!" Thurston H. Wardhouse squawled. "Now they're trying to kill me!"
Renny and Johnny came to life with a bang. They collared Thurston H. Wardhouse. Renny did the seizing, and his big fists squeezed, and Wardhouse bawled out in agony.
"What was that you just said?" Renny rumbled.
"Get below decks!" screeched the man. "Quick!"
"Who're you?" Renny countered.
"Wardhouse!" the man wailed, beside himself. "You damn fools! Don't you realize what is happening?"
Renny shoved his long, puritanical face closer to the other man's.
"No," he said. "But we'd like to know."
"It's the sun!" gasped Wardhouse. "The solarЧ"
He stopped. Caution had struck through his fog of fright. He wet his lips, trembled, but did not say more.
"Go on," Renny invited.
"Yes, afford aggrandizement," Johnny echoed.