"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 005 - Pirate of the Pacific" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

castle architecture was carried out in a water-filled stone moat which surrounded the walls. A replica of a
drawbridge, large enough for heavy automobiles to be driven across, spanned the moat.

Doc Savage arrived alone, driving a roadster which had the top entirely removed. The car was a
reserved gray in color, but expensive, sixteen-cylindered. On a straight road, the machine could better a
hundred and fifty an hour.

Doc alighted, crossed the drawbridge, and rang the bell.

No answer. An electric fixture cast pale light on the drawbridge.

He thumbed the bell again, received no response. The vast castle of a building was quiet as a tomb. The
gatelike door was locked.

Doc returned to his roadster. got a black box somewhat larger than a good-sized suitcase, and carried it
into the shrubbery near the drawbridge. On one end. the mysterious box had a cameralike lens. He
pointed this at the drawbridge entrance, then silently plucked enough branches from near-by hushes to
cover the box, hiding it thoroughly.

The moon shadows in the shrubbery swallowed his big bronze form. He made practically no sound, no
stirring of leaves.

He reappeared again near one 'vail of the castle. The masonry was rough. He climbed to the top as easily
as an ordinary man would walk a flat surface, although only the narrowest of ledges offered purchase to
his tempered fingers.

For a moment, he poised at the top and reconnoitered. The same deathly silence gripped the mansion.

On either side were long, two-story buildings, their outer walls formed by the castle walls. In the center
was a tiled court, a fountain, shrubbery, flowers. None of the windows were lighted.

Directly below Doc was a sheer drop of perhaps twenty five feet. He sprang down - and so
tremendously powerful were his leg muscles that the great leap hardly jarred him.

Moving swiftly, Doc tried a door. Locked. He sought another, then the rest, in quick succession.

Every door facing the court was secured.

Doc glided noiselessly into the shadows of the fountain. His fingers touched a box of an affair strapped
under his coat. This was a bit greater in size than a cigar box. A switch on it clicked at his touch.
Doc plucked back his left coat sleeve. The object thus revealed looked at first glance like an enormous
wrist watch. Closer scrutiny would have revealed a startling fact about the crystal of this watch. It
mirrored a very pale moving picture!

The scene was the drawbridge outside the castlelike dwelling of Scott S. Osborn, friend of Juan
Mindoro. A shadowy figure stood on the drawbridge. His arms windmilled, gesturing orders to other
vague forms.

The castle was being surrounded!