"071 (B066) - Mad Mesa (1939-01) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Ham scowled and suggestively fingered a sword cane which he always carried.
"Listen, you missing link," he said, "you start anything with me today, and I'll take this sword and sculpture you into something that bears some resemblance to a man!"
Monk glared. "Start any old time! I'll thread you on that sword cane like a fishin' worm on a hook!"
In the past they had risked their lives for each other, and would doubtless do so again.
Doc Savage entered the control cockpit of a large twin-engined, streamlined monoplane. He had scarcely spoken, but that was not unusual since he never did any pointless talking solely to make conversation. As Monk frequently put it, words only came out of Doc when they were jarred out.
Yet it was an undeniable fact that the big bronze man completely dominated any group and every situation. It was not necessary for him to tell anyone who he was to make an impression, and he never appeared to issue an order directly. Yet his quiet presence carried complete power.
They landedЧDoc Savage, Monk, Ham and RennyЧin a meadow near Columbus, Ohio, less than three hours later. Alighting from the plane, they crossed to the roadside dining room at which Nona Idle had last been seen.
Doc Savage questioned the waitress who had been on duty.
"I remember the girl you mean," the waitress said. "She fainted, or something, and Dr. Joiner took her to a hospital."
"Do you know this Dr. Joiner?" Doc asked.
"Why, no. I never saw him before that night, nor since. But he said his name was Dr. Joiner."
"And the hospital?"
"Why, he never said what hospital."
Doc looked meaningly at Monk, Ham and Renny, who at once got busy on telephones.
"There is no Dr. Joiner," they reported later.
Which was what Doc had expected.
Monk scowled. "This guy turned up and drugged the girl and carried her off."
Ham said, "That was to keep Doc from learning anything about Tom Idle. The fake Dr. Joiner didn't know she'd mailed the letter."
Big-fisted Renny rumbled, "Holy cow! There's somethin' blasted queer behind this."
Doc said quietly, "We will have to do some detective work."
Shortly after this, the bronze man disappeared.
THE vanishing of Doc Savage startled his assistants, but it did not surprise them. Doc had a habit of dropping out of sight when he wished to pursue a private investigation, and he usually turned up again with something accomplished.
The three aids, waiting at the roadside dining room, marked time. Monk and Ham went into a competition, to see who could date up the waitress. The waitress was not good-looking and did not seem overly bright, and neither man really wanted a date.
What they did want was something to quarrel about. Renny got in a corner with a pencil and paper and sketched out a bridge which he was supposed to construct soon across a tide rip between two Florida cays.
They did not discuss the mystery of Tom Idle and his sister Nona, because they had not yet found out enough to make sense.
Two hours later, Johnny and Long Tom turned up. These were the remaining members of Doc's group of five associates.
Johnny was William Harper Littlejohn, one of the tallest and thinnest men aliveЧyou wondered how such a bony man could stay aliveЧand was also a famous archaeologist and geologist. He could read an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic as freely as his afternoon newspaper. He could say, without hesitating, what kind of rock was ten thousand feet under Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
Johnny at once went into discussion with Renny, for he was to help on the Florida bridge. He began using big words. "I'll be superamalgamated," he said. "An enigmatical verbal summation precipitated our eventuation."
Big words were Johnny's bad habit. He could have said merely that they were here because they had gotten a call from Doc.
Long Tom was Major Thomas J. Roberts, a scrawny fellow who looked as if he had spent his early life in a mushroom cellar. He was an electrical wizard who knew more about the innards of an electron than the average citizen knows about the construction of his fountain pen.
Long Tom and Johnny had come by plane, and they had brought along Habeas Corpus and Chemistry. Habeas Corpus was a runt pig which was Monk's pet; and Chemistry was, according to his owner Ham, a thoroughbred South American jungle chimpanzee, although Monk had other opinions. Chemistry looked distressingly like Monk.
The five men looked at each other and wondered what Doc Savage was doing. They fell into a discussion.
The waitress, neglected for the moment, made her way to a back room, where there was a telephone.
The waitress put in a call.
"Listen, Dr. Joiner," she said, "do I get that fifty dollars you promised me for information?"
The answer she received evidently reassured her about the fifty.
"Well, you better be sure you mail it to me," she said. "Here's the information: Doc Savage's five assistants are right in this place now. And Doc Savage is out roaming around somewhere."
After she had listened to Dr. Joiner swear for a while, the waitress hung up.
Doc's men had made a mistake about both the moral level and the deceitfulness of that waitress.
Chapter VI. HELL IN OHIO
DOC SAVAGE had been doing some routine detective work, and had finally unearthed a clue. He was talking to a man who wore overalls and had greasy hands.
"And this so-called Dr. Joiner seems to wear black gloves all the time," Doc finished a description.
"That's the guy," said the man, wiping his hands on cotton waste.
Outside the garage, it was late afternoon. Cars were passing at high speed on the highway, making long, windy screaming sounds. In a field nearby, a boy with a stick was chasing a dog which in turn had been chasing some cows. It was a peaceful highway crossroads scene.
"You rented this Dr. Joiner a car?" Doc Savage inquired.
The garage man nodded. "Sure. We rented him the heap right after he landed in his plane."
"The man came by plane?"
"Yep. Left by plane, too."
"Alone?"
"He had a girl when he left. Right pretty, too. One of them kind of long girls. He carried her and put her in the plane. Said she was sick, and he was takin' her to a hospital."