"063 (B064) - The Motion Menace (1938-05) - Ryerson Johnson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The man clubbing Monk stopped, gasped, "He's deadЧby now!"
"Then why don't he close his eyes?"
"Hell, a corpse don'tЧ"
Monk hit his torturer in the mouth. Hit him awfully. The man bounced back into the arms of a fellow, doubled over, and gargled up teeth and blood.
The rest of the men fell on Monk and managed to get two pair of handcuffs on his wrists.
"He may be some help to us if the bronze guy gets away," one growled.
Two of them ran to the door from which Monk had started his charge. They came back carrying two senseless forms. That of Ky Halloc and Doc's prisoner.
"Into the cars with 'em!" the leader ordered. "And see if there's a stairway to the roof in the store where you found Halloc."
A man limped into the store. He came hopping out an instant afterward, carrying the pig, Habeas, by one ear.
"There's no stair," he said. "What in thunder is this thing?"
Habeas kicked and squealed feebly.
"Don't you hurt that hog!" Monk squawled.
"So it's a hog, eh?" grunted the leader. "Bring it along." He looked knowing. "Maybe we can use it."
THE fake cops flocked back into the street where the car and motor cycles stood. They had some difficulty climbing through the wrecked taxi.
The uproar had been under way long enough now for curious persons to begin to arrive. The raiders fired some shots which hit no one, but made the spectators run.
Monk and Halloc were flung into a car along with the shote. The senseless detective was placed in another automobile.
"Hold them there!" the chief snapped. "We'll go make sure that SavageЧ"
He stopped. His eyes came out a little. He opened and shut his mouth. Monk craned his neck to see what had so affected the rascal.
The cause of the shock seemed to be a stranger who had approached. This individual was tall, rather skinny, and very neatly dressed in dark garments. But he had a hat yanked down, wore dark glasses, had his coat collar turned up, and a handkerchief covered the lower part of his face as far up as his nose.
"Something wrong?" he asked, and the handkerchief changed his voice. Then he added: "I followed you in case of trouble."
"Savage is on the roof!" gulped the other. "We think he's dead, but we ain't sureЧ"
The tall man with the hidden features smiled quietly. It was the same kind of smile a fisherman would bestow on a landed bass just before he knocked it over the head.
"Take the three prisoners to Preparation Area Headquarters," he said. "I will handle Savage."
Without another word, he turned and walked down the street. He saw some spectators staring timidly out a window and called to them.
"The police have cornered a dangerous criminal," he said. "Keep out of sight, or you may get shot. Cover your faces against tear gas."
Monk was somewhat stunned by the change which now occurred in his captors. They exchanged glances, stared after the tall stranger, looked at each other again. There was no mistaking what had come over them: They were scared.
They ran to their motor cycles. Others jumped into the car. The machines moved. The sirens whined at first, making an uproar.
"Better shut them off," a man suggested.
The sirens became silent. Twice, they passed patrolmen. When they saluted, the patrolmen did the same. The motor cycles and the cars moved at no more than twenty miles an hour. They went north, then east, then back south again, doubling and turning. They soon came to the water front. It was out toward Gravesend Bay.
They drove into a weedy lot with a sign supported on leaning posts:
SUNRISE BOATYARD
THERE were some boats hauled out around the place, but they were not the kind any one with a normal mind would venture to sea in. They were small boats. No one was in sight. The one big shed was not quite falling down, thanks to the braces propped against one side.
The gang drove into the shed.
THE tall, masked man who had said he would take care of Doc Savage was already there. He must have taken a shortcut.
"You will not be troubled by Savage," he said.
"Yes, Viscount Penroff," a man said inanely.
The men lined the car up before two timbers that formed a runway up onto more timbers laid across the cradle of a marine railway. They drove the car up on the railway. The motor cycles were placed beside it.
A man cut a restraining rope, and the cradle coasted down the rails and disappeared into the water. It was harbor water, full of trash, and dark enough so that the sunken machines would never be seen.
A man rolled an old oil barrel into the water, letting it spill oil as it rolled. That was to take care of any oil that floated to the top from the car motors. Another man went down the rails with a tumbler of acid and a brush, treating the rails so that they would shortly rust as if they had not been used in months.
The men changed their clothes, donning garments which they took out of very swanky town cars. The cars had been hidden behind some old pieces of canvas. There were three of the town cars altogether. Three of the men became dapper chauffeurs.
Ky Halloc was still senseless. It seemed to worry them.
"It looks," one of them said, examining Halloc's jaw, "as if he had been kicked by a donkey."
"I resent that!" growled Monk, who right then was resenting everything.
The men tied Monk, gagged him and tossed him in one of the town cars. They tossed his pig, Habeas, in on top of him. Halloc was put in another car.
The three town cars took separate ways.
After a time, they blindfolded Monk.
Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
THE town cars had prepared Monk a little. They had not stuffed his ears, either, and after they had carried him out of what was a private garage into a house which opened off a street that was probably residential and lined with high buildingsЧthe traffic had been light and had boomed and echoed as it would from big structuresЧMonk had heard the telegraph sounders, the tickers, the telephones and the tiny whistling of radios receiving code.
They had said something about taking him to their Preparation Area Headquarters, Monk remembered. He hadn't thought much about that when he heard it.
A flunky removed Monk's blindfold and gag. At least, he bowed and clicked his heels as if he were a flunky. His kowowing was directed at the man behind the desk.