"065 (B056) - The Giggling Ghosts (1938-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"It was horrible! Something justЧjust came over me. I seemed to go all to pieces. It frightened me. So I fled from the storehouse."
"And after you fled from the storehouse, then what?"
Miami Davis did not look at Doc Savage. "A policeman told me about you. It just occurred to him you, might be interested. So I came here."
Doc Savage's metallic features gave no indication of what he might be thinking.
"Let us hope," he said unexpectedly, "that you are telling the whole story."
"Oh, but I am."
Chapter III. THE MAN WHO OWNED A STOREHOUSE
WITHOUT speaking, the bronze man took the young woman by the elbow, guided her into a vast room which contained a great deal of laboratory equipment, seated her in a modernistic metal chair and did several things: first, he had her inhale and exhale several times through a tube which led to a complicated-looking contraption; then he examined the young woman, giving particular attention to her eyes. When he finished, he seemed slightly puzzled.
"You're not intoxicated, apparently," he said.
"I like that!" the girl gasped.
"Your eyes indicate that you are not a drug addict, and you seem earnest, although excited."
"Maybe I'm crazy," Miami Davis said dryly.
"We might have a look," Doc Savage said, "at the storehouse where you trailed the giggling ghost."
"Please," the girl said earnestly. "Let's do that."
"Just a moment."
Doc Savage went into the library, picked up the telephone, and spoke for some minutes. The telephone was fitted into a boxlike device which, when pressed against the face, made it possible to use the instrument without being overheard by anyone in the room; the girl did not catch anything that the bronze man said. Doc put down the telephone.
"All right," he said. "We'll go now."
Rain had started to leak out of a sky that was grimy-looking, when Doc Savage, driving one of his cars, headed into the street. The rain came in drops as fine as fog, so it would probably continue for some time. It was rain that obscured vision, and most cars had their headlights turned on.
Doc Savage's car was a coupщ, long, heavy, of expensive make, but with a subdued paint job that did not attract attention. There was little outward indication that the machine was armor-plated and equipped with bulletproof glass. Doc used his car in preference to that of the girl's, which he placed in his garage that lay under the towering skyscraper.
Finally the bronze man said, "This seems to be it," and pulled up before the old brick storehouse with the tin roof.
"You still think I'm a phony?" Miami Davis demanded.
"I still think it is unusual for a woman to follow a ghost."
"Well, IЧ" The girl giggled, although she tried not to do so.
Doc asked, "What did it look likeЧthis ghost?"
"IЧit was just a shadowy figure."
"Did it make a noise walking?"
"I didn't hear any noise."
"If you would tell the truthЧ"
The girl put up her chin indignantly. "I told you everything that happened!"
Without commenting on that, the bronze man wheeled his car over the curb and up to the side door of the storehouse.
When the bronze man went to the storehouse door, he carried a piece of apparatus which he had taken from a compartment in the car.
This device had three principal parts: The first part, which he fastened to the storehouse door with suction cups, was small, and insulated wires ran from this to an electrical amplifier; and from the amplifier other wires ran to a telephonic headset which the bronze man donned. He switched on the contrivance and listened.
The device was a high-powered sonic amplifier which took the smallest sound and increased its volume several hundred thousand times.
Somewhere in the storehouse a rat ran and squealed, and in the amplifier headset it sounded as if an elephant had galloped over a wooden bridge and trumpeted. The girl came close and listened, too.
They had not listened long before they heard the giggling.
THE giggling was inside the storehouse. Three or four gigglings, all going at once, judging from the sounds.
It was fantastic. No other soundЧjust a concert of giggling inside the storehouse.
"Now," the girl said, "what did I tell you?"
"You think that is your giggling ghost?"
"It sounds like more than one."
Doc Savage took the listening device back to the car and replaced it in its compartment.
The bronze man returned to the storehouse carrying a small cylindrical metal container holding anaesthetic gas under pressure. The container was equipped with a nozzle and valve. He inserted the nozzle in a crack at the bottom of the storehouse door and turned the valve.
With a hiss, gas rushed out of the container into the storehouse. Doc waited, depending on the sound of rain on the tin storehouse roof to keep the "ghosts" inside from hearing the gas. Evidently the rain on the roof was the reason they had not heard his car coming.
The girl pointed at the cylinder. "I don't get this."
"Gas. Anaesthetic. Practically no odor or color. There are men inside the storehouse, and the gas will make them unconscious without doing them any lasting harm."
"Oh."
Eventually the bronze man tried the storehouse door. It wasn't fastened; it came open at his shove. Inside, there was a cavern of gloom inhabited by the strange crouching shadow monsters that were the machinery. The place was full of the sound of the rain on the roof.
Doc Savage waited until the gas lost its potencyЧit underwent a chemical reaction with the oxygen of the air and became impotent usually in about a minuteЧthen went into the storehouse. The flashlight which he usedЧhe had taken it from a door pocketЧthrew a beam that was like one long white finger.
There were four unconscious men in the storehouse.
One man was very long, with a body which gave the impression of being a tube filled with round things. He had an Adam's apple like a golf ball, a large melon for a stomach, but not much of anything for a chest. His eyes were closed in senselessness, but it was evident that they must be very large. His nose, his mouth, his ears, were also large. His face had a benevolent expression.