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

"S O S,"
he transmitted. "L-i-n-e-r R-e-g-i-s i-n s-t-r-a-n-g-e h-e-a-t z-o-n-e. E-x-p-l-o-s-i-o-n. T-h-o-s-e a-b-o-a-r-d d-y-i-n-gЧ"
Renny ended his sending there, because a man had staggered into the shack. He could hardly stand. He was holding his head with both hands.
It was Thurston H. Wardhouse. He looked at Renny.
"I made a hell of a mistake!" he croaked. "I didn't know you were Doc Savage's men! I thoughtЧthoughtЧit was a trickЧ"
He fell over senseless and did not move.
Renny held his own head, keeping his elbow over his eyes. His brain seemed afire. He turned slowly and grasped the radio key. To get help was imperative.
"S O S,"
he sent. "L-i-n-e-r R-e-g-i-s h-i-t b-y w-e-i-r-dЧ"
Renny interrupted his sending there again. Not willingly. He wanted to go on, felt confident he could.
But he slid to the floor unconscious.
Chapter VI. THE DEATH TRICK
THE fragmentary message which Colonel John Renwick transmitted from the stricken liner Regis was not the first word to reach the world. Radio operators are an amiable clan, and frequently carry on a conversation over the air.
One radio man on the Regis had been gossiping with the operator of another liner, and had remarked on the heat. He had given some details of what had happened, even advising of the explosion, before he passed out.
New York newspapers, of course, broke out extra editions immediately. Newsboys were pacing the streets, crying them within not much more than thirty minutes.
One of these vending urchins was hailed by, and sold a paper to, a person he did not even see. The transaction was conducted through the crack of a partially opened door, in a section of the city devoted to rooming houses.
The newsboy did not wonder about it unduly, because he supposed the other fellow did not have his pants on or something.
The man who had bought the paper was clothed properly enough. Just why he had used such secrecy was a mystery, although it was true that his physical appearance was enough to scare any one who met him in a gloomy alley.
The man was a little over five feet in height, approximately that wide, it seemed; his long, gristled arms dangled well below his knees; his face was incredibly homely, and all of him was covered with bristles which resembled rusty shingle nails. He bore more of a likeness to a big ape than to a human.
"Monk!" No other name could fit him!
He was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, but he had heard the name so seldom he had forgotten what it sounded like.
Monk's looks were deceiving. Actually, he was in a way of being the most widely known chemist in America. He was a Houdini of the test tubes.
Monk read the headlines, the bulletins below.
"Ham!" he yelled in a squeaky voice that might have belonged to a small boy.
"What is it, Monk, you beautiful little cupid?" queried a sarcastic, oratorical voice from the adjacent room.
"Ar-r-r!" gritted Monk. "Cut out that wisenheimer stuff, you overdressed shyster! Something serious has happened!"
The occupant of the adjacent room appeared. He was a slender man, thin at the waist, with a large mouth and a high forehead. Striking thing about him, however, was his clothing.
His afternoon garb was sartorial perfection. The presser must have spent hours over the crease in his striped trousers and dark coat; his linen was crisp, and his barber a master.
"Ham," formally known as Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, looked what he wasЧa quick thinker and possibly the most astute lawyer Harvard ever turned out. He never went anywhere without a plain black cane. This was, among other things, a sword caneЧone whose tip contained a chemical that put its punctured victims to sleep.
The two men were now exchanging the kind of looks which usually come before a fight, after which Monk passed over the newspaper.
"Hm-m-m," said the perfectly attired Ham, after reading it. "This means Renny and Johnny are probably up against what might be called a predicament."
"We better do something about it," Monk muttered.
"But we have orders to stay here, where no one knows our address, until we get orders to the contrary," reminded Ham. "If we show ourselves, the newspaper reporters will run us wild wanting interviews on what we, as Doc Savage's aides, thought of him."
Monk waved his arms.
"Heck with that!" he squeaked. "The Regis being in trouble is a heck of a lot more important!"
The argument continued while both donned long coats and hats which helped conceal their faces. It was not interrupted as they entered a vehicle which appeared to be an ordinary taxicab, kept in a garage attached to the house.
They squabbled over who was to drive, and who was to ride in the rear as passenger. They exchanged awful insults throughout the ride.
They stopped the car in a miserable street down near the water front and both got out, bristling as if ready to fight. Instead, they walked through a door, down a murky passageway, and through another door, Ham carrying his sword cane which had been behind the door, holding it as if he would like to stick Monk with it.
"Quiet, please," an expressionless voice said. "And no lights."
MONK and Ham fell silent. There was not a great deal of traffic in this section of the city, hence it was comparatively quiet. In this stillness, they could hear small sounds. Voices! But they were very faint, and strangely piping. It might have been the conversation of tiny gnomes over toward the far end of the room.
The Liliputian conversation ceased after a time.
"All right," said the expressionless voice. "What is it?"
"Something has happened to the liner Regis, according to the newspapers," Monk grunted. "Here's a late edition."
It was very dark in the room, but the newspaper was taken from his hand, after which a tiny light appeared. This glow was a beam from a flashlight, and it illuminated nothing but a portion of the headlines. The point of light traveled rapidly over the story.
"What's the idea of not having any light in here?" Monk wanted to know. He kept his voice down.
"There may be cracks between the boards covering the windows," the expressionless voice explained. "The mob in the next house might happen to see a light."
Monk chuckled softly.
"They suspect anything?" he queried.
"If they do, they have concealed it very well."
"Have they brought Derek Flammen back yet?" asked Monk.