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

Monk, Ham and Long Tom came charging up, stopped, and looked disappointed.
"We thought you might be able to use a little coЎperation," Long Tom explained.
Doc said quietly and sharply, "Stay with Penroff! He is our key to this wild affair!"
"Blazes!" Monk gulped. "I left 'im lyin' on that table!"
The homely chemist spun, raced down the corridor.
The electric light went out. It was the one Doc had turned on. Simultaneously, the air seemed to become quieter.
"Monk!" the bronze man rapped. "Stop!"
Monk halted, half wheeled. "Huh?"
The lean, gentlemanlyЧhe still looked gentlemanly in spite of his manhandlingЧfigure of Viscount Herschel Penroff appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall.
He stepped out boldly. A queer, sneering smile rode his features. He opened the window at that end of the hall. It was obvious he was going to shout down to some one in the street.
"Stop that!" Monk bawled. He drew the revolver which he had secured from the elevator operator. "Stay away from that window!"
Penroff ignored him and leaned out the window.
"For that, you'll walk on one leg for a while!" Monk gritted.
He fired. Then he looked, grunted, "This dang thing must not shoot straight," and fired again. Then he stared, and his small eyes came bulging out of their little gristle pits.
Both his bullets had stopped about halfway down the room, in mid-air. They had hung there for a moment. Now, they were falling, with an incredibly exaggerated slow motion, to the floor.
Penroff seemed to be shouting. They could see his chest pump the yells outЧbut they could not hear a word.
"He's telling his men exactly where to locate us," Doc said. "We'll have to move fast, but carefully."
MONK, his big mouth open, his little eyes still popping a little, was beyond saying anything. He kept glancing at the gun in his hand, then at the bullets down the corridor. By now, the lead pellets had fallen to the carpet.
"It must be that lick they gave my head!" he muttered once. "That would make anybody go nuts and see things that couldn't happen. That's it. The lick jarred my imagination loose."
Ham and Long Tom were not much less baffled.
Doc Savage moved down the corridor. He went in a strange way, holding a fountain pen out ahead of himself and moving it about continually, as if trying to feel something. He progressed thus until he reached the rack of hose. He unscrewed the connection and came back quickly with the coil of hose. He tossed it to Long Tom.
"Loop in the end," he said crisply.
Then Doc picked the revolver out of Monk's limp fingers. He aimed briefly through the rear window, and the gun exploded.
The bullet parted the guy wire which was one of the tank supports. The separation was just above the rod to which it was attached.
"Here's the loop," Long Tom said.
It was no place from which to throw a lasso, and the heavy fire hose had never been intended for rodeo stunts. Doc leaned out the window, and began having his difficulties. The distance was fully thirty feet, more than any man could broadjump from a window take-off. Three times he missed. Then he ringed the upright rod.
The window had a steel sash. The bronze man knocked the glass out and tied the end of the hose.
"Monk," he said quietly.
He held the sash end of the hose while Monk swung across.
Viscount Herschel Penroff had turned, and was watching them. He looked surprised, cheated. He wheeled and began to shout further instructions from the window.
Ham went over. He wore only a rag of his trousers, and they fell off during the gyrations of his legs. He cut a grotesque figure in his shorts. Long Tom scampered across with the agility of a monkey. That seemed to remind Monk of something.
"Habeas Corpus!" he yelled, and Ham echoed, "Chemistry!"
Doc Savage whipped across the swaying hose.
"The pets will probably be safe in the penthouse where we left them," he said.
The group then ran across the roof. Behind them, the fire hose was swaying from the last kick which Doc had given it.
Mysteriously, the hose stopped swaying. The stoppage was abrupt, as if an invisible hand had arrested it.
Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
THE room in which Doc Savage sat was light enough, but it had the smell of a cave. Concrete floor, walls and ceiling were damp and cavernish-looking. From one spot in the ceiling, a drop of water fell occasionally. The place was full of electrical gadgets. The sole light came from electric bulbs.
It had been an old wine cellar, but Long Tom had bought it cheap and turned it into his experimental laboratory.
Doc held a cablegram. It was from Leningrad, U.S.S.R., and said:
INDIVIDUAL ABOUT WHOM YOU HAVE CABLED US IS NOT MEMBER OF OGPU STOP PENROFF WAS NOBLEMAN IN DAYS OF CZAR GOVERNMENT STOP WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE REST
OGPU CHIEF
Doc burned the cablegram carefully.
Ham sat on an uncomfortable iron stool, and was just finishing explaining how he had been captured. "Two of them stepped up and prodded my ribs with a gun as I left my hotel. They took me directly to the penthouse. I think we are up against some kind of gigantic organization which is planning some huge crime. They were afraid we would interfere with their plans."
There was a stir at the door and a stooped old man with a mustache, a scar on his cheek, dark-colored glasses, and an "I Am Blind" sign around his neck hobbled in, struggling with two very large suitcases.
He pulled off his false mustache, plucked the scar loose, removed his glasses and became Long Tom, the electrical genius. He glanced around.
"Where's Monk?" he asked.
"He should be back shortly," Doc replied. "He is out getting some information for us."
Ham spoke up, "Sure you were not followed here, Long Tom?"
Long Tom glanced at him, sniffed, and said, "I did my best." He opened the large suitcases, adding, "I got Monk's hog and your what-is-it."