"077 (B041) - Merchants of Disaster (1939-07) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The army felt it knew better than that. Autopsies showed clearly the cause of death. That was what made it all so unbelievable.



Stern-faced men met that night in the war department. Lights burned late.



They knew nothing of the deaths either of Hobo Joe or of Les Quinan. Nor did they have an inkling that Quinan had made a horrible discovery.



But they did reach the same conclusion that the patent attorney had reached.



They decided to call Doc Savage.



"Our own intelligence services will go to work at once, naturally," one declared. "But we should use every precaution, make available the services of everyone who might possibly be able to help us."



"It still might have been an accident," a second mused. "Remember, there have been instances in France where scores have been overcome mysteriously, some dying, in circumstances almost similar."



A bemedaled general snorted. "Nothing mysterious about those events. Fog merely forced poisonous fumes from factories close to the ground. The people breathed the fumes and collapsed. These men today were not poisoned." The war secretary nodded. "I agree, And we will get Doc Savage to aid us."



He reached for a telephone, gave a number.



In New York, on the eighty-sixth floor of a giant skyscraper, a man answered that call.



At first sight, that man did not seem so tall or so unusual. But there was something about him that always drew a second glance, and that second look proved how erroneous the first impression had been.



He was tall, but so perfectly put together that his height was not noticeable. His skin was a distinctive bronze, while his hair, combed close to his scalp, was only a slightly darker hue.



But his eyes were his most impressive features. Those eyes were like pools of flake gold, impelling, magnetic, almost hypnotic.