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

"You're right up to form then," Ham sniffed. "You never did know anything."
"You've got a tongue that's fast in the middle and loose at both ends!" Monk snarled. "First chance, I'm gonna take you by the neck and shake you so hard your legs'll tie knots!"
Long Tom put in grimly, "Where's Doc?"
Monk stiffened, opened his mouth, shut it, and looked at the stone floor.
"Look here!" Long Tom yelled. "DocЧheЧhe ain'tЧ"
A new voice spoke helpfully from the door.
"Savage is dead, if that is what you mean," the speaker offered.
The courtly old gentleman, Viscount Herschel Penroff, had come up to the tower dungeon. He stood just inside the door, absently buttoning his dark feltish-looking frock coat, which he had apparently unbuttoned for the climb.
"Word has come from His Highness," he said slowly. "All is in readiness for our operations."
Ham and Long Tom apparently had not seen Viscount Herschel Penroff before.
"Who's this old goat?" Long Tom asked.
"Penroff, the international banker, and one of the straw bosses in the organization," Monk growled.
Viscount Herschel Penroff finished buttoning his frock coat. He adjusted his tie and cleared his throat.
"I was listening outside for a moment," he said. "I do not think, from what the prisoners said, that they have the slightest idea of what kind of organization we are."
"Now you're gettin' some sense!" Monk squeaked angrily. "I told you we didn't know the first thing!"
"Excellent!" Viscount Herschel Penroff brushed his palms together briskly. "In that case, there is no reason why you should not be executed immediately."
THE prisoners failed for a moment to credit what they had heard, it being hardly an ordinary thing for a man to order other men shot in the highly civilized center of New York City.
"Hey!" Monk exploded. "You can't do that toЧ"
"Give them hydrocyanic," the elderly viscount ordered, "then lower the bodies in the acid vat we ordinarily use for the disposal of cancelled bonds."
"With pleasure, sir," said a man who had lost two teeth.
"Then prepare to board the Munchen."
"The Munchen? Yes, sir."
Everybody saluted everybody else, and Viscount Penroff left, unbuttoning his coat again before he started down the steep stairs.
The men looked at each other.
"I'll get the hydrocyanic," one said.
The fellow was gone some time. Long enough for the men to become impatient. One of the pine-knot torches burned out, and they had to nurse the other.
Flickering red light finally appeared deep in the winding stairway, and footsteps clumped upward. When the fellow appeared on the steps, he was holding his torch downward so that his upper portions were bathed in reddish gloom. He made a devil figure.
"You guys better get out," he said. "I'll dump the hydrocyanic on them and follow you. The stuff may fix you up if it gets in your lungs. I don't know."
The menЧthey were sobered by the imminence of death, but tried not to show itЧcrowded to the stair opening. The fellow with the hydrocyanic stepped to one side to let them pass. When the last was out, he tugged the ponderous wooden door around until it was almost closed.
"Want it ready to shut in a hurry when I come out," he growled in explanation.
He came over to Monk and Ham and Long Tom. A blue bottle reflected the torchlight from his hand. He bent over Monk in the indistinct light.
He untied Monk's hands.
"Easy does it," he said softly. "We are far from being out of this."
Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
MONK had never been struck by lightning. But if he ever was in the future, he would already know how it felt. He made gurgling sounds and would have yelled in spite of himself. But an amazingly muscular hand clamped his mouth. The other muscular hand freed his ankles. Then, when Monk had time to compose himself, his mouth was released.
"Doc!" Monk breathed. "But how in theЧ"
"Trick on the house roof," Doc Savage breathed quietly. "Got off the roof after I was left for dead. Picked the lock on a parked car. Followed you here."
Cryptic, that. Made it sound easy. Monk, knowing Doc, understood there was a lot of clever work between the lines. Of course, thinking Doc was dead, the men had been easier to trail. They had not bothered to look behind much.
Ham and Long Tom were free now. They stood up, then did squatting exercises and windmilled their arms, getting ready for action.
"This is that bank, the House of Penroff, ain't it?" Monk whispered.
"Right," agreed the bronze man.
"Can we get out the way you got in?"
"It's hardly feasible."
"Why?"
"It entailed some wall climbing."
Monk swallowed. The House of Penroff was in a building with sides discreetly bare of the ornamentation that makes the work of a human fly simple, sometimes.
"We will have to fight for it," the bronze man said. "Once we take this place, we will have to stop the Munchen."
"Munchen!" Ham exclaimed softly. "So you heard that old bird, Penroff, mention the Munchen?"
"The steps are stone and did not creak," the bronze man replied dryly. "And sounds carry well in this place. Come. We are going to have our hands full."
The bronze man led them down the stone steps. He wore no shoes, and was quiet. In the lighted room at the bottomЧlighted from windows, this roomЧthe torturers stood waiting.