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

The desk was as an impressive mahogany affair as Monk had ever seen. The gentleman with the neatly waxed white mustache and the dab of a snowy Vandyke was almost hidden by the desk.
Another flunky came in. Young and neat. He saluted, popped his heels together like tiny gunshots, and addressed the elderly gentleman.
"Berlin Preparation Area Headquarters reports four thousand sixty-three men on assigned positions. No trace of suspicion."
"Excellent!" replied the elderly gentleman.
"Tokyo Preparation Area reports fourteen submarines have our men aboard in strategic positions. One man captured. He confessed to being a foreign spy. He was shot. No suspicion as to his real identity."
The old gentleman bowed his head a moment.
"An example of the supreme loyalty inspired by the Elders," he said. "See that his name is placed on the honor rolls, and see, also, that his family is placed on the List of Extra Privilege."
"Yes, sir. It will be done. There is one thing more."
"Well?"
"His Highness radios congratulations to you, Viscount Herschel Penroff, for your quick disposal of the Doc Savage menace."
The elderly gentlemanЧViscount Herschel PenroffЧ bowed again, humbly.
"Reply to His Highness that I have taken steps to completely dispose of the Savage affair. The other members of Savage's group of aids who happen to be in New York have been seized and are being brought here."
"How many of them?" the flunky queried, after hesitating a moment.
The old man smiled.
"Savage has five assistants, all told. We have one of them here in the room." He glanced at the pop-eyed Monk. "Of Savage's group, two are now abroad and know nothing of this matter. Those two are Colonel John Renwick, who is on an engineering project in South Africa, and William Harper Littlejohn, the archaeologist, who is in the South Seas conducting research into the historical past of certain mystifying stone statues on some remote island.
"That leaves only three here in New York. We have Monk. The remaining pair, Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the lawyer, and Major Thomas J. Roberts, a fellow who knows something of electricity, are being brought here."
"Yes, sir," said the flunky. "I shall radio His Highness to that effect."
He popped his heels, saluted and minced out.
The elderly Viscount Herschel Penroff looked at Monk, and acted as if he had just discovered him there. He bowed as politely as if Monk were a pretty girl.
"My apologies for not putting myself at your service earlier," he said.
"NUTS!" Monk said, which was neither an original nor a witty crack, but the best he could think of. "You're that guy in the mask!"
Monk was flabbergasted by what he had been hearing. If he had not known better, he would have thought he had awakened on the stage of a comic opera. Talk of thousands of men, submarines, and self-sacrifice! The kind of hokum comedies are made of! But the same kind of stuff that sent innumerable thousands of men to their death, in great wars, when one stopped to think.
Monk looked around. The telegraph instruments, tickers and radios were in another room, but he could hear them. Monk could read both the telegraph and radio code. He had been picking up snatches of the stuff the wires were handling. It sounded innocent enough.
Messages about the prices on foreign exchanges. Quotations on the franc, the lire, the yen. Orders to buy and sell. Orders to transfer bullion, instructions about earmarkingЧ
Monk gave a violent start. He had remembered something. He knew who Viscount Herschel Penroff was!
The international banker! Not a famous name. International bankers seem to be retiring souls where publicity is concerned. Monk was no dabbler in international finance, but he did happen to know the House of Penroff had a name, and it was big.
New York headquarters of the House of Penroff was an unostentatious, massive, dignified building on Park Avenue, and the name of the firm was not even on the door. The House of Penroff did not do business with the man on the street. Monk mentally laid a bet with himself that he was in the bank building now. He strained, but the cuffs on his ankles and wrists held.
"Well," Monk growled, "what's the dizzy idea?"
Viscount Herschel Penroff opened a drawer and took out two ritzy-looking cigars, each of which was sealed in an air-tight, transparent container.
"Smoke, sir?" he queried.
Monk started to shake his head, then nodded instead. An Idea had hit him. Penroff came over, clipped the end of one cigar, inserted it between Monk's teeth, and bent forward to hold a jeweled lighter to the weed. Monk hurriedly puffed the cigar hot.
As soon as it was very hot, Monk lunged forward, trying to stick the heated end in one of his captor's eyes. Monk had no idea what he would do next, if it worked. But it didn't work. The old gentleman dodged aside easily.
Without saying anything, Penroff stepped back and inspected Monk. He smiled slightly.
"It is strange that a reputation can kill a man," he said.
"Huh?" That was over Monk's head.
"I refer to Doc Savage," Penroff said. "Had he been an ordinary fellow, we would simply have gone to him and warned him not to mingle in this matter if he heard of it. We might even have paid him a sum of money, perhaps a small fortune if he were capable of making us enough trouble, to refrain from becoming involved."
The old gentleman bowed his head solemnly.
"Savage was a remarkable man, an amazing man. He had dedicated his life to helping mankind, and it is unfortunate that such an illustrious career had to end because he interfered with our plans. Especially sad because the end came before this surprising man of bronze had even reached his prime. The remarkable training that made up his youth had given him the wisdom of a sage, but, after all, he was but a young man. It is very sad."
He sounded very sad. He was probably acting.
Monk was not acting. Veins stood out on the homely chemist's forehead, and he looked as if something terrible inside him was about to burst out. The hoarse, inarticulate sounds he made were not speech.
Viscount Herschel Penroff waited, head bowed. It was close to five minutes before Monk spoke. He did not rave, because it would have done no good.
"What kind of dang scheme were you afraid Doc would spoil?" Monk asked thickly.
The old man smiled suddenly, brightly. "It pleases me to have you say that."
"You old bat!" Monk gritted.
"Just how much do you know about the Great Plan of the Elders?"
"Nothing!"
"Certain?"
"We didn't have time to find out anything!" Monk snapped.
The old fellow laughed. "You would probably lie. As a matter of fact, we brought you here to learn if Doc Savage left any written or other information about us. Did he?"
"Not that I know of," Monk said thickly.