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

"The door does not fit tightly," Doc called. "You had better get out in the open air."
His voice was a perfect imitation of the fellow who had gone to get the hydrocyanic.
It fooled the torturers. They scuttled out into the open court of the penthouse castle, which was a perfectly natural thing to do.
Monk ran over, slammed the door through which they had stepped, and locked it. They would have become alarmed outside in a moment, anyway.
"This way!" Doc rapped.
The bronze man whipped to a niche in the entrance hall. It resembled a closet. In the days of chivalry, it had probably been used by the knights to park the heavier parts of their armor. There were some pieces of armor in it now, along with a senseless man.
The unconscious one was Viscount Herschel Penroff.
"Blazes!" Monk gasped, and stared at Doc. "So you nailed him on his way out?"
The bronze man did not answer. It was obvious what he had done, anyway. He hauled the viscount out, tossed him to Monk.
"Take care of him," Doc suggested quietly.
"With pleasure!" Monk growled, and all but yanked one of the viscount's ears off to see if he was conscious. He wasn't.
The man who had gone after the hydrocyanic was also in the place, minus his clothing. They left him. He was only a minor rogue in this thing.
The men locked out in the court began shooting.
"QUICK!" Doc said. His voice did not sound as if he were in a hurry.
There was only one modern touch in the entry hall. An elevator button. Doc put a metallic finger against it. When the cage arrived in response, it came so silently that only Doc heard it. The doors were opened. The bronze man flashed inside.
"Hey!" the amazed voice of the operator said. "Who are you?"
There was a grunt, a falling noise.
"Come on in," Doc suggested.
Ham and Long Tom dived into the cage. Monk followed, with the viscount. The operator was senseless on the floor. Doc grasped the control and sank the cage.
Monk inflated his chest and grinned. "Simple. This elevator probably lets us out in the lobby." He bent over and searched the elevator operator, straightened with a gun. "This helps. We can charge out of the lobby, then cover the doors from the street until the cops get there."
Ham sneered, "You make it sound easy, you ape."
The descending elevator was making a faint sighing.
"Well," Monk demanded, "is there anything wrong with my logic?"
The elevator stopped with a grinding shock. Bells rang. A faint hissing started.
"Well," Ham jeered, "what do you think now, Monk?"
Monk opened his mouth. Then he shut his eyes, grabbed his throat.
"Tear gas!" Doc said crisply. "Close your eyes! Don't breathe! Get down on the floor!"
He said it so fast that the words were a rattle. Then he jumped. The cage had a grilled top. But it was a fake grille, covered by a steel plating. He smashed against the doors.
They were heavy steel.
They had a minute at the most. As soon as they opened their eyes or breathed, the tear gas would get them.
The bronze man's sensitive finger tips explored along the junction of the two sliding halves of the elevator doors. There is invariably a small round hole there, its purpose being to afford a method of opening the doors with a key rod, from the outside, should they close accidentally.
Doc found the hole. Into it he dropped one of the tiny, high-explosive grenades which he invariably carried. The grenade was not half an inch in diameter, but it was probably as powerful a thing for its size as man had yet been able to create.
The explosion that followed deafened them and tore the doors apart. They were halfway between floors. They could climb out.
DOC helped his men out into a corridor which was like any other, except for the richness of the carpeting. They ran clear of the tear gas.
"They sure prepared things around here!" Monk exploded. "Fixin' that elevator for a gas trap!"
"That is a common precaution in banks which keep sums of money on their upper floors," Doc said.
The group turned into a room furnished with a long table, straight, uncomfortable chairs, and a water cooler. No one was there. A telephone stood on a tabouret in a corner, almost hidden.
Monk dumped Viscount Herschel Penroff on the table.
Doc looked out a window.
"Stay here with the prisoner," the bronze man directed.
He whipped out of the room, for it offered nothing that would aid them. He ran through the corridor toward the rear. His flake gold eyes were busy. The other elevators seemed not to be running. There was a fire hydrant and its rack of hose in the hall. Doc turned the electric light on. That seemed strange.
The rear windows were frosted. Doc snapped the sash of one up. On a level with the window, fully thirty feet away, was a rooftop. It was evidently the back of a theater, because there was not a window.
There were no ventilators. There was only a water tank, situated near the middle of the roof, high on stilts, supported by iron guy wires which ran to steel rods set in the walls.
Feet rattled on the stairway. Men coming up from below. Two men, the sounds indicated.
"They'll be in the elevator!" one gasped. "Be careful!"
"Don't worry," grunted the second. "The tear gas will discourage 'em some."
Doc was waiting. The men came out of the stairway much too carelessly. The bronze man's fist floored the first. The second aimed his gun, but Doc got hold of gun and hand. The weapon spouted three times, its bullets tore three pits in the ceiling, and the bronze man had the weapon.
The man had glittering black eyes and big white teeth. He showed them both.
"This thing is too much for you ever to stop!" he snarled.
His jawbone must have been brittle because of some affliction. It broke when Doc hit. The bronze man hadn't expected that.