"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 008 - The Sargasso Ogre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"To this: I shall converse with this man who hired us, before I slip my garrote cord over his evil neck. It
may be that he knows something of the diamonds."

"A thought worthy of Allah, himself! With Doc Savage entombed in the catacombs, we might easily get
the bright stones."

The speaker would have been no little shocked to know that, at this instant, Doc Savage and Long Tom
were watching him from a corner near the Place Mehemet Ali.

He would have been more shocked had he seen Doc and Long Tom whip forward silently the instant
Pasha Bey and his companions entered the darkened tunnel where the meeting was to take place.
Without showing themselves, Doc and Long Tom were lurking outside the passage in time to hear all that
was said.

Pasha Bey pressed his skinny face to the barred hole in the door and called softly.

"Well?" growled the voice of the man who had hired them.

"Your humble servant begs to report a failure. We failed to kill Long Tom!"

This, as far as Pasha Bey was concerned, was an untruth. He thought Doc and Long Tom were fast in
the catacombs, where they would eventually starve to death.

"What?" roared the man behind the barred door. "You fell down on the job?"

"It was not our fault," Pasha Bey murmured meekly. "You, oh master, should have told us Long Tom
Roberts was a friend of this man of mystery and power -- Doc Savage. Then we could have prepared
more carefully."

"Savage gummed the works, did he?"

"Aye. He thwarted our plans."

The man back of the bars cursed violently for some moments. To the listening Pasha Bey -- and to Doc
Savage and Long Tom, concealed in the murky street -- a notable fact was disclosed by the man's
swearing. The fellow's coarse voice was disguised in tone. Probably the slangy way of talking was
assumed, also.

The unseen man had actually a powerful, ringing voice, and was capable of speaking good English.

"YOU'VE got to get Doc Savage's friend, Long Tom!" the man snarled, when his profanity was
expended. "Or you can get one of the other four who belong to his crew! Any one will do!"

"It is very difficult -- this thing you ask us to do," Pasha Bey temporized. "Four thousand piastres is not
enough payment."

"I'll put up more jack for the job."
Pasha Bey now got around to the thing he was angling for. "It might be that our ends would best be
served if we were to go into partnership," he suggested.