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

THE library had been filled with books in neat red and green and blue matched sets. The furniture was mission, the style popular when this type of house was the kind of house to build in the suburbs.
One man was in the library, seated in a wooden mission chair. He had a bright blanket around long, big legs. His tall, large body was encased in a Chinese robe on which a dragon was about to eat a man on a horse.
"Ach!" he exploded irritably. "What is it now? Is it no privacy at all that I get?"
"Things are kinda going wrong, Von Zidney," Fuzzy said.
Von Zidney sat up straight and popped his eyes a little. His eyes were baby blue.
"Is it bad for me?" he demanded sharply.
His hair was reddish, cropped to the skin around the sides. His mouth was very big and filled with small teeth.
Fuzzy grunted, "We need India Allison, your secretary."
"Eh?" snapped Von Zidney. "I do not understand."
"India Allison," said Fuzzy, "is an expert penwoman. We want her to do some forging. Get her."
Von Zidney scowled, then got erect. He was taller by a foot than the tallest man in the room. He banged on a door.
"India!" he called. "Our friend Fuzzy and his men are here!"
"What do they want?" a sleepy feminine voice asked.
"Nothing nice, you may be sure," Von Zidney said, in a dry voice.
The door opened, and a young woman came in.
Johnny, who had been brought inside the house, was not an impressionable gentleman where femininity was concerned. But Johnny now emitted a gasp of admiration worthy of the most susceptible youth.
The young woman was a knock-out! She had Pat Savage's figure, almost, except that she tended a little more to nicely rounded curves, whereas Pat was sinewy. She had soft, brown hair and a tremendous wealth of it. She had the most gorgeous eyes Johnny had ever seen. The bony geologist swallowed twice and felt younger than he had in years.
"What do you want?" "India" Allison asked softly.
Fuzzy did not look at the young woman. None of his men looked at her. Johnny, staring for all he was worth, noted this, and was puzzled.
Fuzzy drew a letter from a pocket and said, "This is a letter written by Bowen Toy to his brother Blackstone. We stole it. It is a sample of Bowen's handwriting."
Fuzzy drew from another pocket a sheet of peculiarly heavy, porous note paper, and grunted, "You'll use this to write a note on, duplicating Bowen Toy's handwriting."
"What shall I write?" asked India Allison.
Fuzzy said, still not looking at her, "Write for any one who reads the note to go to Captain Blackstone Toy for information about any one who might have been an enemy of Lieutenant Bowen Toy. Then write that the note must be burned immediately. Underline that part about the note being burned."
India Allison took the papers, murmured, "I must be alone to do a good job of copying the handwriting," and went out.
Johnny, looking after India Allison, reflected that she had the sweetest eyes he had ever seen, and that hidden deep in them was the light of an incredible fear.
India Allison, who looked like Michelangelo's idea of an angel, was scared stiff of something.
INDIA ALLISON locked the door through which she had passed. She stood there a moment. She was trembling, and she became very white.
She went to a writing desk, turned the light on and examined the note paper closely.
"The old trick for eliminating a spy who was about to be caught!" she gasped.
She glanced about, as if fearful of being observed. Then she pulled the writing-desk light down, so that it bathed only a small area.
Outside, Fuzzy called, "Hey! We haven't a lot of time!"
The girl made no answer, and Fuzzy paced impatiently.
At last, the young woman came out and extended the bit of thick, porous paper, which now bore writing, and the letter with the sample handwriting.
"The chief won't forget this," Fuzzy said, taking them.
The girl said nothing. Fear was in the back of her soft eyes.
They left India Allison and Lieber Von Zidney in the big brick house and drove toward the Parkview Hotel.
The Parkview was an imposing block of masonry in the Bay View section of Brooklyn. The mouth of New York Bay and its parade of ships could be viewed from one side and two ends of the hotel. It was in an apartment district. As a hotel, the Parkview flourished by renting apartments to naval officers and their families, because it was not far from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Fuzzy seemed to know what he was doing. He went to an apartment on the fourth floor, the name plate on the door of which read:
Captain Blackstone Toy, U. S. N.
Fuzzy used what was evidently a skeleton key and let himself into a sitting room which held, in addition to the usual hotel furniture, some fittings purchased by the occupant. The customary French prints were missing from the walls, and in their place hung personal pictures.
Working with speed, Fuzzy lifted down a picture of Lieutenant Bowen Toy. He pulled brads out of the back, and took out the cardboard backing of the picture, disclosing three sheets of typewritten paper. He read these sketchily.
"Hell's bells!" he gulped. "It's lucky we got these before Doc Savage put his hands on them!"
Fuzzy removed from a pocket the sheet of thick, porous note paper on which the girl had written. He placed this where the sheets of typewritten paper had been.
He replaced the cardboard picture backing. He hung the picture back on the wall.
"That," he said grimly, "will fix Doc Savage."
"But I thought we were gonna set a trap to croak the bronze guy?" a man asked.
"We have," Fuzzy told him.
"Huh?"
Fuzzy pointed at the picture.
"The writing on that note says to burn it." He pointed to a fireplace across the room. "There's a convenient place to burn it."