"123 (B113a) - The Talking Devil (1943-05) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"From a Chinaman," Ogden explained. "From an old Chinaman named Chi Sui. Poor Chi Sui was a very elderly Oriental who for a long time had operated a shop in Mott Street dealing in knickknacks, the trash that tourists buy in Chinatown. But old Chi Sui wanted to close up his business and go to China to help Chiang against the Japanese, and he had very little money, but he did have this statue, which was realistic. I bought it from Chi Sui - in spite of the rather hair-lifting story he told me about it."
Doc said, "So the former owner of the devil Statue had a story to tell about it?"
"Yes."
"What was the nature of the story?"
Montague Ogden blinked, smiled sheepishly, said, "A ridiculous story, of course. One in which I placed no stock. Not a bit of belief, not for a minute."
"Suppose you tell it to us, anyway," Doc invited.
Ogden nodded. "It was a rather simple story. It seems that this Chinese statue was molded by Co Suan, a friend of the original Buddha, and that the spirit of. Buddha captured a portion of the spirit of the King of Evil, and imprisoned it in this statuette. That was to give the little statue life, because Co Suan, the sculptor, was a great friend of Buddha, and the All-Mighty One wished to give his friend fame and fortune deserving of such a kind and goodly fellow. Therefore Buddha imprisoned the spirit of the devil in the statue in order to give the little thing of brass a life and realism which no other sculptor could ever equal."
"That is all of the story?"
"Yes. It's ridiculous, of course." Montague Ogden smiled at them. "I want you to understand, of course, that I do not credit for a minute the belief that the statue is actually talking to poor Sam Joseph."
"You have not heard the statue speak?" Doc asked.
"No."
"Anyone but Sam Joseph heard it?"
"No."
"What else do you know?" Doc Savage asked.
"Nothing. Nothing more."
"In that case," Doc Savage said, "we had better see Sam Joseph."
THEY surrounded Sam Joseph where he lay on a bed, a great chromium-and-green bed, in the penthouse on top of the flamboyant Ogden building. The decorating theme of the penthouse was chromium and other colors, broken up with large and vital flowers of bright coloration. The penthouse was not in quite as bad taste as the rest of the building.
"My personal apartment," said Montague Ogden of the penthouse layout. "I had poor Sam brought here."
Sam Joseph was obviously not himself. He was a man large enough to make quite a hump on the bed, under the silken covers. He had gray hair, a not inconsiderable shock of it, and an angelic, peaceful, completely honest-looking face.
Sam Joseph had the kind of a face you would expect a man-angel to have. It was so entirely benign and innocent.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Or, rather, good afternoon. It is afternoon, isn't it?"
"Don't you know whether or not it is afternoon?" Doc Savage asked.
Sam Joseph seemed somewhat confused. "I guess so," he said. "That is, I was watching the snow, and the bluebirds singing in the snow. It only snows in the afternoon, does it not, or is it only on Wednesday, the first of June?"
Doc Savage asked Montague Ogden, "How long has he been talking like that?"
"Gracious, I never heard him speak like that before," Montague Ogden said. "I really haven't."
"His conversation hitherto has been rational?"
"Oh, yes. It really has."
Sam Joseph said, "I came out of the hill and it was very dark, but there was the fish in the sand, with the ice all around it. We sat down there, the fish and I, and we had fine steaks and caviar, but the fish wouldn't eat the caviar because he was not a cannibal, he told me. When the fish said he was not a cannibal he had a very deep voice."
Monk Mayfair, Doc Savage's assistant, looked at Doc thoughtfully. Monk put the end of a forefinger against his own right temple and made a motion as if he was winding up something.
"Like the things you pull corks with," Monk said.
Doc Savage studied Sam Joseph for a while. The man was smiling, but it was a vacantly empty smile, a smile without intelligence or even much feeling behind it.
Doc turned back to Montague Ogden again.
"The devil statue," Doc said. "Where is it?"
Montague Ogden seemed startled. "Oh, the devil. It is around somewhere, I suppose."
"Get it."
"But now you can see that poor Sam Joseph is - "
"The devil," Doc said. "The devil that talked. We want to see it.',
Montague Ogden now seemed distressed, and also his brow wrinkled as if he was trying to think where the statue was, and he scratched his head.
"Oh, how silly of me," he said. "How really silly. Of course, I remember now. In my den. I'll get it. I placed the statue in my den and I will get it now."
He turned away.
Doc said, "Monk, go with him."
"Me?" Monk was surprised.
"Yes, you," Doc said.
"But - "
Monk stopped, and turned and followed Montague Ogden. Monk had remembered that when you argued with Doc you usually found yourself exceedingly in the wrong.
THEY walked down corridors, Monk and Montague Ogden. And Ogden examined Monk out of the corner of his eye, as if amazed at Monk's homeliness, and amused by it.
Monk's homeliness had amazed and amused many people, but he was not ashamed of it. There was a pleasantness about his homeliness and a fascination. Monk would not have to be seen in a very thick fog to be mistaken for something just out of the ape house in the zoo. His arms were as long as his legs, and he was coated with reddish hair that was close cousin to rusted shingle nails. Monk was even rather pleased with his clock-stopping looks because he had found that they exerted a hypnotic power over girls, and the prettier the girl, the greater the hypnotic capacity.
Montague Ogden opened a door, said, "This is my den, Mr. Mayfair."
The den was inhabited by the stuffed heads of animals, at least half a hundred of them, which hung on the walls and leered, stared, snarled, or showed gap-fanged jaws at anyone in the den.
There was a man already in the den.