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

Doc did not sound excited.
"Here's a good one, Doc," Monk chuckled. "Chemistry, that blasted runt ape pet of Ham's, has been devilin' my pet pig, Habeas Corpus, for weeks. But the worm finally turned. Habeas got hold of Chemistry and blamed near ate a leg off him, and the ape has been roostin' on the chandelier all day, afraid toЧ"
"I've been kidnaped!" Doc advised.
Monk's feet fell off the desk. "What?"
Doc Savage could hardly have been as calm mentally as he was physically. He was a prisoner in the van, which meant trouble. Serious trouble, conceivably. If it was not serious, the captors probably wouldn't have gone to such elaborate pains to get him.
The bronze man had been speaking in a low voice. His captors might discover at any moment that he was talking over a radio from inside the van. Or the van might reach its destination. Haste seemed advisable.
"You and Ham," Doc said, "might sort of trail along."
Monk's voice was an astonished squeak over the radio. "Trail where? What's goin' on?"
DOC explained with small words that he had been bumped, car and all, into a big van, and that the van was now taking him to an unknown destination.
"And the way one of them talks," the bronze man finished, "is the queerest thing of all."
"Way he talks?"
"He uses Sixteenth-Century English."
"He what?"
"He sounds like Shakespeare."
"Just what kind of gag," Monk demanded, "is this?"
"It does sound queer," the bronze man admitted. "This man talks Sixteenth-Century English, but I do not know why or anything else about it. It is very strange. But you might get on our trail. Have you got a radio direction-finder handy?"
"Sure. There's one in a car downstairs."
"I will leave this transmitter turned on," Doc explained. "They may not notice it. I will also lay the microphone on the transmitter so it will pick up generator hum. You trace us with the direction-finder."
"Then what?"
"You might have to use your own judgment."
"On my way!" Monk said. Then as an afterthought he added. "How many of them Shakespeares is there?"
"Two men are in the van, but only one is a Shakespeare, as you term it. At least one or two more men were in the car that bumped my machine up into the van."
"As long as they ain't over a dozen," Monk said confidently, "I can handle 'em."
"Bring Ham."
"OhЧO. K.," Monk grumbled.
DOC switched off the receiver portion of the radio, so that static noises would not draw attention. Then he got out and leaned against the car to wait. All his menЧhe had five assistantsЧmade it a practice to have instant two-way radio communication available at all possible times.
The bronze man had radios everywhereЧin cars, planes, boats, apartments, and even portable short-range sets which could be carried around in pockets. Sometimes the devices were not used for weeks, and they began to seem like useless gimmicks. But when they were needed, it was usually no fooling.
Then the truck stopped. The back of the van opened. Two men with guns got in.
One was the wide man with the incredibly homely face and the imitation pearl tie pin. The other was bitter-looking Henry. Under their topcoats, both fellows wore breastplates of steel armor which looked rather ancient.
"Perchance thou can touch the roof!" suggested Henry gloomily.
Doc demonstrated that he could.
Henry walked around and handcuffed the bronze man.
Henry's wide companion went over and peered under the dashboard of the car. He chuckled.
"Yep!" he said. "He's had the radio workin'!"
Henry asked, "You think, sire, perchance his friends may locate the transmitter with another device?"
"Good bet."
"Aye, then 'tis well," Henry said, wearing, however, the expression of a boy who had lately learned there was no Santa Claus.
Doc Savage said, "You knew that was on?" He pointed at the radio.
"Aye, we knew." Henry sighed. "We ourselves do have a short-wave radio. We heard thee converse with one addressed as Monk."
"You are leading Monk and Ham into a trap?" Doc demanded sharply.
"Aye."
MONK, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, was a man who was easily satisfied; but nothing that Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks did would ever satisfy him.
"Somethin' must be wrong with you!" Monk complained.
"Why?" Ham snapped.
"Well, you ain't drivin' in the center of the road for a change."
Ham, who was driving the big limousine, turned around to give the homely Monk a bilious eye. Ham was a lean-waisted man who was known in the higher spheres of civilization as the best-dressed man of the day. However, he was also a lawyer, and he had practiced putting a bilious eye on witnesses in court. He wielded a very bilious eye.
"One more crack out of you," Ham said, "and I'll tap you on top of that wart you call a head so hard that you'll think the eyelets in your shoes are windows!"
Monk ignored that. He gave attention to the little portable radio direction-finder which he was manipulating.
"Head more to the south," he ordered. Then he added, "I wonder if Doc could have gone wacky?"
"Wacky?"