"064 (B063) - The Submarine Mystery (1938-06) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The back of the van closed up tightly.
The truck lurched into motion.
Doc Savage dived out of his car. He was much taller than an average man, but so balanced in development that the fact was not evident until he stood close to some object to which his size could be compared.
Tropic suns had given his skin a pronounced bronze coloration, and his hair was straight, of a bronze color only slightly darker than his skin, and fitted remarkably like a metal skullcap.
Doc's eyes searched the van. His eyes were probably the bronze man's most unusual feature. They were like pools of flake gold, never inactive, always stirring, and possessing a compelling power that was distinctly hypnotic.
The van was sheathedЧfloor, walls and ceilingЧwith armor-plate steel. Getting out of a jail would be simple compared to getting out of this.
Doc Savage made a small sound which was an unconscious thing he did in reaction to moments of intense mental effort, or puzzled surprise.
The sound was a trilling; low, exotic, as fantastic as the night wind around the eaves of a haunted house. It was made somehow in the bronze man's throat. Its strangest quality was the fact that it seemed to come from everywhere in the van.
DOC SAVAGE sat down on the running board of his car to reflect. Also to eliminate possible explanations for what had just happened.
In five minutes, he was mystified, and after ten minutes had passed, he was completely at a loss. He had no idea why he'd been kidnaped, or where his captors might be taking him.
Doc Savage was not unaware that he had been for some time acquiring a world-wide reputation as a modern scientific Galahad who went about the globe righting wrongs and punishing evil-doers. He did not work for pay. He had a source of fabulous wealth, gained in one of his early adventures.
Since he did not have to make a living out of his strange profession, he could select any crime that interested him, the result being that any criminal was likely to find the man of bronze on his trail.
Doc had better than a sprinkling of potential enemies, and they had a habit of trying to dispose of him unexpectedly. Possibly a potential enemy was trying something now.
The big van rolled along fast, exhaust throbbing, tires wailing on concrete pavement.
Doc got a hammer out of his tool kit and began to beat on the front of the van. Sparks flew. Finally a tiny barred window opened in the front of the van.
A hand displayed a small cylindrical metal object. The article was equipped with a spout similar to a perfume atomizer, but without the squeeze bulb.
A voice said, "Know'st thou what this be?"
Two things immediately interested the bronze man: The first was the manner in which the words were spoken. The speaker used the delivery and pronunciation of an actor doing a bit of Shakespeare.
The second thing of interest was the device which the man was displaying. Doc recognized it as a type of tear-gas gun which was sold in novelty stores and could be bought by anybody with fifteen dollars to spend for such a thing. He did not care to have it start spouting.
"The idea," Doc said, "seems to be that you are in a position to make it disagreeable for me."
A second voice spoke from the driver's seat.
"You got it right, pal," this man said. "Cut out the racket, or Henry will squirt tear gas in there with you."
Doc Savage decided there was certainly nothing Shakespearean about the speech of the second man. Doc stooped and looked through the aperture to determine how many men were in the driver's compartment of the truck.
There were only two men.
THE man holding the tear-gas gun had been called Henry by the other man.
Henry was a very long, lean article, chiefly notable for his ample ears and the expression of a fellow who has just taken a bite of apple which he suddenly suspects may contain a worm.
This expression of finding life a bitter pill to taste was apparently a habitual one with Henry. Additionally, Henry had very red hair which looked as if it had no life, like the hair in a very old wig. Henry was about forty.
"'Tis best thee be peaceable!" Henry said gloomily.
Doc Savage then gave his attention to the second of his two captors.
He saw a man who had a warped nose, snaggly teeth, black hair as curly as bedsprings, and a skin that would have been appropriate on a rhinoceros. In his necktie, this man wore a stick pin containing a pearl that was large, yellowish and obviously artificial. He had a very red face. His age might be thirty, but it was hard to tell about such a man. He was very wide for his height.
"Have you got a name?" Doc asked him.
"Pipe down and get your schnozzle out of that hole!" the wide man said.
He had a deep and coarse voice; when he spoke, it was about equivalent to hearing a canary croak like a frog.
"I do not understand this," Doc said.
The man said, "Curiosity is good for you!" Then he slammed the window shut, and the truck continued on its way.
Doc Savage climbed into his car, apparently not greatly concerned. He felt under the dashboard until he located a hidden switch, which he turned on, and the result was a hum of a radio warming up. It was not a conventional car radio; this one was a short-wave transmitter and receiver.
"Hello, Monk!" Doc said into the microphone.
Almost at once, a voice replied, "Yes, Doc?"
It was a very small voice; it might have belonged to a boy, or a midget.
"Monk," Doc Savage said, "an unusual thing has happened. I have just encountered two gentlemen, and one of them seems to insist on talking like Shakespeare."
"Like what?"
"Shakespeare."
"I don't get you, Doc."
"It is a strange story, ending with a slight predicament," the bronze man explained.
Chapter III. THE FISH AND THE BAIT
"MONK," otherwise known as Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, was a man who was somewhat ridiculous in two or three waysЧbeing amazing in appearance, shorter than many men, wider than most men, and more hairy than almost any man; and he had a face that was something to start babies laughing, the little tikes probably not thinking it human, but something funny made for their amusement.
As "Ham" frequently remarked: if worst came to worst, Monk might get a job posing for Halloween funny-face masks. "Ham" was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, lawyer and sartorial artist.
Ham and Monk had three things in common: they both belonged to Doc Savage's crew of five; they both had unusual animals for pets, and each one liked to quarrel with the other. They quarreled interminably. It went on when they ate, fought, or made love. Nothing seemed to interfere with their squabbling.
As for Monk, it was not likely he would ever have to pose for Halloween funny-faces to make a living. Monk was world-renowned as a chemist. Whenever a big corporation hired him as a consulting chemist, they usually paid him a fee as large as the salary of the president of the United States. That was the most ridiculous thing about Monk. His head did not look as if it had room for a spoonful of brains.
Monk leaned back lazily, put his feet on the inlaid table in the reception room of Doc Savage's skyscraper headquarters in New York City, and spoke into the microphone. His mind was at peace, for he had made a mistakeЧby "predicament," he supposed Doc meant something minor.