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

"What,"
Monk howled, "is this all about?"
"Let's not be pikers," Prince Albert said. "Make it five dollars. What say? Five bucks I get away with being you."
Monk buzzed. He had to be very mad before he buzzed.
Doc Savage spoke. He used ancient Mayan, an almost unknown language which he and his men employed when it was better that bystanders should not understand.
"Take it easy," the bronze man advised. "As soon as he leaves, we'll start a little campaign of our own."
"Campaign?" Monk muttered.
"Let's hope that describes it."
Prince Albert scowled at them and said, "I don't know what you're sayin', but if you know what's good for you, don't pull any shenanigans."
"We wouldn't think of it," Monk said dryly.
Prince Albert snorted. Then he yelled, "Henry!"
"Aye." The pickled-looking Henry appeared.
"Henry, you take a car and drive to the submarine and see that it is ready for sea as soon as possible," Prince Albert ordered. "I think we've about got our business wound up, so we can vamoose."
"But the prisoners, sire?" Henry ventured.
"I'll leave 'em here under guard. You go to the submarine, Henry."
"Aye," Henry said.
Chapter V. GIRL IN ARMOR
DOC SAVAGE'S headquarters occupied the eighty-sixth floor of one of Manhattan's tallest buildings, and it was an enormous, modernistic Aladdin's cavern consisting of a reception room, a library containing one of the finest collections of scientific tomes in existence, and a laboratory holding instruments which scientists came from all over the world to observe.
There was a pneumatic tube running from the place to Doc Savage's boathouse and airplane hangar on the Hudson water front, and there was also a private high-speed elevator to the private garage in the basement of the skyscraper. However, ordinary visitors came up in the regular elevators.
Prince Albert came up in the ordinary way: in an elevator. He wore a large hat yanked down over his eyes, an enveloping yellow topcoat, and he carried a large traveling bag with holes punched in the end.
The door of Doc Savage's aыrie was bulletproof steel painted bronze, with no knob or keyhole. The door was opened electromechanically by the effect of a radioactive material on an electric eye hidden in the wall.
The "keys" were small coin-shaped pieces of radioactive metal which Doc Savage and his men carried. When a "key" was brought near the electric eye, mechanism did the rest.
Prince Albert had taken Monk's "key," and he seemed to know how the door functioned, because he opened it and entered. Then he took off his hat and long coat and put them out of sight. His next operation was to close all doors and windows and select a brassie from a bag of golf clubs standing in a corner.
Opening his large traveling bag with care, he let the pig Habeas Corpus escape. When the shote showed inclination for hostilities, Prince Albert made a few warning passes with the brassie.
"You're a convenience around here, hog," he said. "And not an absolute essential. Just paste that on your snoot."
Habeas Corpus retreated to a corner, and the homely man picked up one of the several telephones which stood on the inlaid table that, with a huge safe, comprised the principal furniture of the reception room. He dialed a number.
"Hello!" He apparently recognized the voice which answered. "Put Henry on the wire."
There was a delay, and Prince Albert waited patiently.
Then Henry spoke sadly over the telephone.
"How now," Henry inquired, "has aught gone amiss?"
"Nope. So far, it's been slick as silk." Prince Albert chuckled. "How's the new sub comin'? Can we shove off by daylight?"
"They work frantically," Henry said gloomily.
"Hell, they've been workin' frantically all the time! Will they get done in time?"
"Perchance."
"There'd better not be any chance about it. I'm in Doc Savage's headquarters now. Some joint, too!" Prince Albert grinned widely. "I'm all set for the girlЧwhen she shows up."
"Dost thee feel able to seize her alone?" Henry asked dubiously.
"Sure. She won't get away."
"Perchance it will cost us some millions of dollars if she does."
"To say nothin'," added Prince Albert, "of the hangin'-bee that would follow."
"Twould be firing squads," Henry said.
He did not sound as if he was trying to be funny.
That terminated the conversation. Prince Albert sat in a chair, parked his heels on the edge of the table, kept his brassie handy and a wary eye on Habeas Corpus, and waited something over two hours, after which knuckles gave the door a tapping. Prince Albert opened the door.
"Good evenin'," he said. "Somethin' we can do for you?"
THE girl said, "Forsooth, it may'st be thouЧ" She caught herself, changed to, "Brother, you said a mouthful!"
"Do come in," Prince Albert said.
The girl examined him. She was a long, comely girl with well-made rather than delicate features, a large and nice mouth, and an arrogant mass of cornsilk hair. She wasn't the kind of girl you thought of as cuddly.
Rather, you pictured her in a chorus line, or yelling her head off at the races, or balanced on an aquaplane behind a motor boat doing forty an hour. She was a nice athletic-looking girl. And she also looked like a girl who could take care of herself.
"What can I do for you, missЧ"
"Miss China Janes," she said.
"Huh?" Prince Albert said, and looked as if he had been hit with a hammer.