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

"I shall speak to Duchess Portia Montanye-Norwich at once," Prince Albert said emphatically. "Where can I find her?"
China said, "I'll take you there."
The man made a business of considering that, then shook his head pleasantly.
"It would be better," he said, "if you told me where she can be found. I will send some of Doc Savage's men after her."
"ButЧ"
"You may be in danger," Prince Albert interrupted. "If I were you, I would stay here until we find out what this is about. You said the duchess was scared, didn't you? If she is scared, obviously there is danger."
China thought that over.
"O. K.," she said. "The duchessЧPortiaЧis at my apartment. 476 North Avenue, Apartment 12."
Prince Albert went to the telephone, dialed a number, and said, "I've got the dame located." He gave the address China Janes had just furnished. "Get her out of there and where she can't talk."
Prince Albert then listened a moment.
"Yeah," he told the party at the other end of the wire, "I've got another dame here that we'll have to keep quiet, too."
He put down the phone, turned, took a gun out of his coat pocket, pointed it at China Janes.
"Tough break, kid," Prince Albert said. "I'm afraid you're goin' to be out of circulation from now on."
China Janes's eyes got very wide. She seemed to try to stand on tiptoes.
"I don'tЧwhatЧ"
"Turn around!" the man said.
Something in Prince Albert's eyes made the girl scream. She screamed as if trying to get out every bit of noise possible.
"My understandin'," the man said, "is that this place is soundproof." His voice went guttural. "Turn around!"
China Janes hesitated, her teeth nearly making holes in her lips. Very slowly, she wheeled around and put her back to the man.
Prince Albert got a long needle out of his clothing and took a step toward the girl.
Then he jumped as high into the air as he could. He also screamed as loud as he could.
Just before Prince Albert jumped, a swarm of blue sparks buzzed up around his feet. After he came back to the floor, the sparks appeared again, sizzling, snapping.
Chapter VI. LOST RACES
PRINCE ALBERT had presence of mind. Electricity was smashing through his body, convulsing his muscles and swiping colored lights across his eyes. But he still controlled himself enough to look down, realize the carpet had become electrified, twist wildly out of his raincoat and fling it to the floor. There was enough rubber in the coat to make an insulator. When he jumped upon it, no more sparks flew.
The girl stood wide-eyed. There was no electric fire around her feet.
Prince Albert had dropped his gun. Trying to get it, he sprang out on the carpet. Sparks grew around his feet like hot blue animals snarling and gnashing.
When he took hold of his gun, he got as much blue electric fire as gun. He could not hold the weapon. He screamed in spite of himself. He tried again. He could not make his fingers take the gun.
Prince Albert gave it up, did a kangaroo jump to the insulating raincoat. Agony was turning his face the purple of a man choking. Bawling noises he made were probably his best at swearing.
From the coat, he sprang to the door. With both hands, he clutched the knob. But he let go of the knob instantly, peered at his hands. He saw pricked spots, as if there had been a thorn or two on the doorknob.
Prince Albert got his face close enough to the doorknob to see the little steel needles which had projected and stung him, and he could also see that they were hollow, and that drops of a syrupy, yellow substance had oozed from the steel fangs.
He frog-jumped backward from the door, making mewing noises of agitation, and hit the library door. It was locked. The electricity on the rugЧit was obvious now that wires were cleverly woven into the rug design to carry high-frequency currentЧshook him with paralytic violence. Back to the coat, he floundered.
Deadness was coming into his hands, crawling up his arms. He'd soon be helpless. He realized that.
Trade threat on the girl's life for his release? Who was there to trade with? There might be nobody; all this could be a wholly mechanical burglar trap.
Kill the girl? That had been orders, as a last resort.
Prince Albert got his knife out of his clothing and made for the girlЧtook two steps and mashed his out-thrust face against something hard and cold. Glass. Incredibly transparent plate.
He struck at it, hit it with his shoulder and all his weight. The stuff had come down from the ceiling. His own yelling must have covered the sound it made.
Because of the glass, he could not reach the girl.
Prince Albert was trapped! Certainty of that closed in on him like ice. He couldn't escape. There was nothing, then, but do what they were supposed to do when about to be taken. Every man of his gang carried the pills. The pills were issued fresh every two weeks.
He snatched the stick pin out of his necktie, twisted out the large, yellowish, cheap-looking artificial pearl with his teeth, crushed it and swallowed it.
Prince Albert was still swallowing parts of the pill when the bronze man came in through the library door.
DOC SAVAGE had been taken by surprise to a certain extentЧhe had not expected the stick pin to turn out to be some kind of doseЧand the bronze man was a bit disconcerted.
One of the main purposes of his lifetime of scientific training had been to equip his mind to foresee every contingency in any given situation. It was very necessary that his mind should be keen enough to overlook no bets at all. Otherwise, he could become a remarkably poor insurance risk. And just now he had overlooked a bet: the pearl-pill.
High-voltage, high-frequency current was out of the cleverly wired rug. Doc had thrown a switch. With faint-whispering sounds of electric motors, the bulletproof glass emergency partitions were lifted into the ceiling.
Doc Savage reached the man who called himself Prince Albert. The fellow evidently had confidence in his own strength, for he stepped in swinging. He swung four times, blows almost too fast for the eye. He made a perfect score. All misses. His eyes popped.
He said, "Uhn!" foolishly after the last miss.
Prince Albert was seeing dazzling speed such as he would not have believed human muscles could contrive. He tried a fifth blow. At the bronze man's midriff, this time.
But the fist went through space where the target had been. And in return, he was knocked down. After that, bronze hands handled him as if he had no strength whatever.
Doc Savage clamped Prince Albert down, got the fellow's jaws distended with pressure, yanked the man's belt off, and tried, by forcing the end of the belt down the fellow's throat, to force him to bring up the pills he had swallowed. That didn't work.
Carrying the man into the laboratory, Doc used a stomach pump. That took time. Enough time so that the man had become unconscious from the effects of the pill.
In the laboratory was a device for making quick chemical analysis by spectrascopic methods. The pill, this contrivance showed, contained ingredients which gave the nervous system such a shock that complete unconsciousness for days was certain.