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

suspicious act of Homar in picking the door lock.

He followed Homar. Doc knew all the signs. Trouble was once more seeking out him and his men, as it
had a habit of doing. He was intent on finding out what it could be this time.

Homar engaged a ramshackle cab near the hotel. Doc got into another, commanding his driver to trail the
first machine.

They progressed to the region of the city where stood Pompey's Pillar, in the highest part of Alexandria.

The red granite shaft of Pompey's Pillar, exquisitely polished, glistened faintly in the moonlight. From
there, the course led southwest.

Homar dismissed his hack.
The pilot of Doc Savage's vehicle drove on at a soft order from the rear. Several score qasabs he
traveled, then suddenly discovered a gold fifty-piastres coin on the cushions beside him. He looked
around. Much to his astonishment, his fare was gone.

Doc Savage had quitted the cab some distance back, silent as a phantom for all his great size. He lurked
in the shadow of a heap of ancient masonry, watching Homar's alert progress.

Doc had a fair knowledge of this section of Alexandria, just as he had, stored in his retentive memory,
what amounted to a map of every large city on the globe. This was part of an amazing course of training
which Doc had administered to himself -- a training to fit himself for this strange life work of helping those
in need of help, and punishing those who deserved it.

This part of Alexandria held the ancient catacombs -- vast underground caverns, possibly dating back to
the day of Cleopatra -- which held the bones of Egyptians long dead. Parts of the catacombs had been
seen by no living man, Doc knew.

Homar moved to a ramshackle stone hut. Doc haunted him like a bronze ghost

A gritty rasp came from within the stone hut. Doc glanced in. Using a flashlight, Homar was tilting a slab
of rock from the floor. He dropped into the cavity, closing the stone plate after him.

A FLASHLIGHT came out of Doc Savage's clothing. It cast a beam like a glowing white-hot wire, the
thin luminance switching back and forth over the hut floor.

A drop or two of wet crimson glistened in the ray. Near the trapdoor edge was a group of slightly larger
smears. Five! Red finger prints!

Bending low, Doc explained them.

Into the sour murk of the hut there abruptly came a strange, exotic sound. It was a low, trilling, mellow
note, which might have been the sound of some weird bird of the jungle, or a wind filtering through the
piled stone of the ancient ruins around about. Although melodious, it had no tune. It had an uncanny
quality, for it seemed to come from no particular spot.

It was part of Doc Savage, this sound -- a small, unconscious thing which he did in moments of stress.