"050 (B033) - The Terror in the Navy (1937-04) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

HamЧerstwhile ShadeЧsaid loudly and impressively. "You men are trapped! Throw your weapons down, give yourselves up and it will go easier with you!"
"Kick his face in!" Fuzzy directed. "He's bluffing!"
Ham was soundly drubbed while they held him. Ham had a high forehead, piercing eyes, and a large orator's mouth. The piercing eyes were blacked and the orator's mouth was split in three places.
During this excitement, bony Johnny lay flat on his back, his hands behind him and under him, with two men seated on his chest. He writhed about in a peculiar fashion.
Johnny asked suddenly and loudly, "Did I hear something said about disaster menacing a squadron of planes under the command of Captain Blackstone Toy?"
"Kick his face in!" Fuzzy yelled, pointing at Johnny.
In the midst of the drubbing being given to Johnny, hairy Fuzzy heard something. His serpentine aspect was enhanced, now that he was excited. He made a wild series of hissing noises, and finally got silence.
"Somebody comin'!" he croaked. "This bird Ham outfoxed us and has probably been keeping Doc Savage posted! This must be Doc Savage comin'!"
An automobile moaned up and slid to a stop in the driveway, tires squealing. Fuzzy and his men put their guns and their heads out of windows and examined the car.
The car held the man who had been watchman at Lieber Von Zidney's residence. Also in the car was Lieber Von Zidney himself, the sweet looking girl, India Allison, and a prisoner.
The prisoner was apelike Monk.
"Well, I hope to be buried at sea!" Fuzzy gulped. "Monk! Say, we've got three of Doc Savage's men! Not a bad score!"
Then Fuzzy must have thought of something. He made a series of hissing noises in his wild haste to speak.
"This place is dangerous!" he squawled. "This bird Ham has outfoxed us and has probably been keeping Doc Savage posted! Savage may have the place surrounded now! Come on! We'll blow!"
They charged out, hauling their prisoners, and got into their cars and drove wildly out of the grounds, their guns ready. They were agreeably surprised when nothing happened to deter their flight.
"What're we gonna do?" a man asked Fuzzy.
"Contact the chief," Fuzzy growled, "then lie low until Captain Blackstone Toy's flight of planes is taken care of."
"But what about Doc Savage?"
"He'll never catch up with us now!"
Chapter 9. DOOMED FLIGHT
DOC SAVAGE approached the white bungalow with the green shutters unobtrusively in his convertible roadster. The radio transmitter and receiver in the machine was turned on, and Renny's bull-like voice was coming out of the receiver speaker.
"We'll be with you in a minute, Doc," Renny was saying.
Doc parked and waited a bit, eyes roving, then got out and crossed the landscaped grounds. He walked slowly, and there was nothing in his manner to show that he was more than ordinarily alert.
He wore gloves. He came to the door, opened it and went in. His sensitive ears and remarkably trained nostrils had told him there was no one in the house.
The bronze man went over the room rapidly, then went to other rooms.
A car drove up outside and a voice called, "Doc!"
It was Renny's thumping tone, and a moment later, Renny came in behind the ready snout of a supermachine pistol. He was trailed by Long Tom, who looked infinitely more unhealthy by daylight than he had at night.
"Holy cow!" Renny said, looking around. "Who lives here?"
Long Tom grunted, "I thought Monk and Ham would be around!"
Then both of them began glancing over their shoulders.
Doc saw the glances.
"Out with it," he directed.
Renny opened and shut a pair of hands large enough to crack cocoanuts.
"It'sЧwell, we know it's too dangerous to have anybodyЧ"
A voice interrupted from outside, "Where is everybody? Look what I found!"
Pat, golden eyes alight, every slender inch of her alive and vibrant and on the trail of excitement, came in. She saw Doc Savage and stopped.
"Oh!" she said. "The big bronze day of reckoning again!"
Renny jabbed a hand at Pat. "That's it!" he said.
If Doc Savage heard, he gave no sign.
PAT SAVAGE said again, "Look what I found!" and snapped her fingers, as if she were calling a dog.
An animal waddled into view. It was a remarkable animal in appearance. If the missing apish chemist, Monk, had been subjected to a reducing process, and shrunk to the height of his own knees, he would have looked remarkably like the animal which now waddled into their presence.
"Chemistry!" Long Tom exploded. "Ham's pet what-is-it!"
"I found Chemistry tied to a bush out where nobody could be expected to find him," Pat explained.
"Where's Ham?" big-fisted Renny demanded. "He probably tied his pet to the bush while he played the part of Shade. But where is he now?"
Doc Savage said nothing. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation, and was moving toward the door. He went to the car and came back shortly with a device which might be mistaken for a small old-fashioned magic lantern.
"Pull the shades," he requested.
The shades were pulled. It became gloomy in the house. Doc Savage pressed a button on the side of the lanternlike device which he carried. Nothing visible happened.
Doc Savage turned the ultra-violet lantern on the floor. Nothing happened in that room. But in the room where Johnny had lain on the floor and squirmed, writing sprang out in an unearthly fluorescent series of lines.
"That's the hen tracks Johnny calls handwriting," Long Tom offered.
It read: