"051 (B034) - Mad Eyes (1937-05) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Inspector Higgins swallowed his Adam's apple. His eyes popped at Johnny.
"Either you're tryin' to kid me, or you're nuttier than them others!" he yelped. "What in thunderation are you talkin' about?"
Johnny rubbed his finger along his nose and smiled.
"Let it pass," he suggested. "I fear it wouldn't make any difference if I explained. Did Professor Spargrove happen to have anything in his hands when he mentioned seeing these maybes, as you call 'em?"
"He didn't have nothin' nowhere!" rapped out Inspector Higgins. "He just stood in the middle of this room an' looked around. He was yellin' about two big copper globes an' some ten tons of electrical machinery havin' been grabbed off them concrete foundations. We checked up, an' that stuff must have been taken out of here before to-night. It couldn't have been done!"
Johnny was suddenly silent. He walked over and dipped a bony hand into one of the tanks of green water. Slimy vegetation clung to the hand.
"Big copper globes and generators?" he said, in a musing tone to himself. "So that's why Doc wanted us out here!"
Professor Spargrove danced into the room. He recognized Renny and Johnny instantly.
"They're gone!" he yelled. "The copper globes weighed all of three tons apiece! They were all hooked up, and the generators went with them! Where's Doc Savage?"
"Holy cow!" grunted Renny. "I guess he has got the maybes, or whatever it was you were talkin' about!"
"We came here to meet Doc," stated Johnny. "What was the purpose of the big globes and the generators, professor?"
"I am not at liberty to divulge the nature of this equipment," Spargrove stated, with some dignity. "Only Doc Savage can inform you of that. It was for that purpose, I believe, he summoned you here to-night. Doc Savage and myself alone know the secret. No other person could possibly be informed."
"Well! Well! Well!" yapped Inspector Higgins. "All this yammerin' is gettin' us nowhere! For two cents, I'd lock up all you fellows until we get our hands on Doc Savage! If he knows what drove that one guy nuts an' killed him, he ain't safe runnin' around loose!"
"I fear, inspector," said Johnny, "that Doc Savage knows a great many things that would drive lesser minds nuts, as you call it. Also, I can assure you he must have some good reason for being absent at this time.
"Professor Spargrove, I believe you are wrong. Other persons do know the purpose of the copper globes, if they have disappeared as you say."
"Thunderation!" rumbled Renny.
His sudden bellow was startling. The giant engineer had a pair of lungs like blacksmith's bellows. When he was excited, his voice was a good imitation of a roaring foghorn.
"Now what theЧ" began Inspector Higgins.
"That big truck we passed, Johnny!" shouted Renny. "There was a little car trailin' it! Accordin' to the time it was makin', it was rollin' a heavy load! It was headed upcountry! Come on!"
Renny and Johnny paused only long enough to make sure of the tire treads in the mud near the laboratories.
Inspector Higgins got several of his men into the police car. Professor Spargrove still retained enough of his mind to jump into the seat of his roadster.
LED by the police car, the three motors plunged into the slashing rain. The wind had taken on extra violence. Solid sheets of water whipped across the concrete.
This was no night to be driving more than a safe thirty miles an hour. The police car was doing seventy. Professor Spargrove's roadster bettered that. At one of the first curves, the professor skidded his roadster ahead of the police car.
Red lights suddenly appeared in the rain ahead of the three cars. They were undoubtedly the tail-lights of a truck. Just behind this big, rumbling vehicle a small car was being driven fast. The top lights of the truck showed green and red. The vehicle seemed as big as a house.
"Honest guys don't drive a big bus like that on a night like this," declared Renny. "That truck's doing all of sixty. It's top-heavy an' the way it's takin' them curves, somethin's due to bust."
Renny was undoubtedly correct. For the truck and the car following it had just swung into an S turn. Its lights waved in a manner that indicated the heavy body of the vehicle was doing a roll that threatened to turn it over.
The truck's lights were swinging wide on the S turn. Apparently the driver was giving the big bus all the gas it would take. Also, he must have been taking the wrong track on the road.
"Well, I'll be superamalgamated!" gulped out Johnny.
"Holy cow! It had to happen!" boomed Renny.
Twin headlight beams flashed around the crooked turn. A car was coming fast in the opposite direction. Apparently the driver of the truck lost his head completely.
The top lights of the truck seemed to hover in mid-air. Then they went up and over. The whooping wind was not loud enough to drown out the rumbling, roaring crash. Tons of wood and steel were smashing to bits on the rocks of the hill below the highway.
"There goes the professor's copper globes!" yelled Johnny.
Johnny quit talking. Renny stopped cars much the same way he drove. Suddenly Johnny bumped his bony forehead against the windshield.
Inspector Higgins's car had narrowly avoided piling on top of Professor Spargrove's roadster. The professor had stopped by the simple, if dangerous expedient of skidding off the concrete.
Already Professor Spargrove was out of his car and leaping down the embankment.
"That other little car never stopped," said Renny.
"That's the great help we get from police sirens," commented Johnny. "The fellows in that little car probably won't stop this side of Providence or Boston."
The car that had caused all of the confusion had slid on into the night. It had been traveling fast. Now it was slowing down. Its driver was showing an intention of coming back.
Inspector Higgins and the others did not notice this. They were piling down the hill toward what was left of the big truck. The giant doughnutlike tires of the truck stuck up in the air. They were still spinning.
They looked remarkably like the helpless feet of some monster suddenly turned on his back.
"HEY, you fellas!" yelled Inspector Higgins at his cops. "One guy's busted all to hell on them rocks, but there's somebody inside! Listen to him!"
Acute ears were not required to ascertain some one was inside the splintered body of the big truck. For a human voice was screaming.
"Take 'em off! Take 'em away! They're eatin' me alive! Look! That one's got a thousand eyes! There's heads everywhere!"
"We seem to have an uncanny faculty for arriving at psychological moments," observed Johnny.
"Good grief!" growled Renny. "Maybe the truck's on fire inside!"
The truck had not caught fire. One whole side had been broken open on the rocks. A county copper's flashlight shot a finger of illumination into the wreckage.
"My life's workЧall smashed to bits!" shouted Professor Spargrove. "I'm a ruined man! Doc Savage'll never forgive me!"
"Well! Well! Well!" snapped Inspector Higgins. "If that's your life's work, I know you ought to be in the nuthouse. Good grief! It ain't anythin' but one of them water tanks, an' the glass ain't even cracked!"
Professor Spargrove ceased shouting. The hairy scientist had remarkable moments. One moment he seemed crazy. The next, he acted as if nothing mattered. Now he was staring at what the policeman's flashlight showed.
"One of the amoeba," he said, in a musing tone. "And they didn't take the globes in that truck. Say, there's a man! He'sЧ"