"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 009 - The Czar of Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Prosper City is around three hundred miles from here," she said hoarsely. "It's not likely the Green Bell
was tolling for us -- that time!"

"I suppose -- not," blond Alice shuddered violently. "But that sound was the Green Bell, and it always
means death!"

Jim made his voice harsh to hide a quaver. "Let's get out of here!"

They paid a puzzled, curious proprietor for their lunch, and also for the broken cup. He watched them
leave, then shrugged, winked at his cook, and tapped his forehead. He had decided his three late
customers had been slightly touched with insanity.

A somewhat ancient touring car stood at the curb, forlorn in the rain. The side curtains were up, but the
windows were cracked, some entirely gone, and the car interior was almost as damp as the drizzling
dusk.

"Got plenty of gas, son?" Aunt Nora asked with gruff kindness.

Jim roved his fear-ridden eyes alertly. "Sure. You remember we had her filled at the last town. The gauge
isn't working, but the tank should be nearly full."

Starter gears gritted worn teeth. Sobbing, the motor pulled the old car away in the streaming gloom, in
the direction of New York.

A few seconds after the elderly machine had gone, a blot stirred under the trees which lined the village
street. In the dripping murk, it seemed to possess neither substance nor form.

Down the street, a lighted window made pale luminance across the walk. The moving black blotch
entered this glow. It suddenly became a thing of grisly reality.

There was, however, little of a human being about its appearance.

It was tall, tubular, and black. It might have been a flexible cylinder of black rubber standing on end, had
an observer chanced to glimpse it in the fitful light.

On the front of the thing, standing out lividly, was the likeness of a bell. The design was done in a vile
green.

Close against the sepia form hung a tin pail of ten gallons capacity. It was full to the brim with gasoline.
Gripped in the same indistinguishable black tentacles which held the pail was a long rubber siphon hose
of the type used to draw fuel from automobile tanks.

The dusk and the rain sucked the eerie figure into a wet black maw.

A moment later, a moist slosh denoted the bucket being emptied. Smell of gasoline seeped along the
street, arising from the gutters where the stuff was flowing away.

Silence now enwrapped the small town, broken only by the sound of the rain and the occasional moan of
a car down the main street, which was traversed by one of the main highways leading to New York.