"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 011 - Brand of the Werewolf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

game of chess in another drawing-room.

"A good idea," Doc agreed. "We'll tell them." Doc and Renny went to a drawing-room door. Doc's
hand, drifting toward the knob, came to a rigid stop.

"Look!" He pointed at the door.

The panel bore a weirdly shaped smudge. Faintly imprinted, discernible only after a close glance, the
thing was more than a foot high, and about half as wide.

Renny stepped around so that he got a better view with the light on it

"Holy cowl" he gasped. "The thing is shaped like a wolf head, Doc - a wolf with hideous, humanlike
features!"

Doc nodded slowly. His bronze lineaments, his strange golden eyes, had not changed expression.

"Werewolf," he said.

"What?" Renny was puzzled. "There ain't no such critter. It's just a legend of these Canadian trappers and
natives."

"A legend of human beings who, thirsting for the blood of their fellow men, turn into wolves that they may
satisfy their vampire lust," .Doc said quietly. "Most unsavory creatures, even for ghost stories."

Renny hesitated, then stroked a finger through the design on the door. His enormous digit left a clean path
in its wake.

"Just dust!" he muttered. "But it's strange it'd settle there in that kind of a shape."

Doc tried the door. It resisted, He showed no surprise. "Locked," he said.

"Blazes! Something's wrong!" Without hesitating, Renny blocked one huge hand into a fist. He swung it.

The door panel was of metal, but it gave as if it were a kicked tin can. With a loud crack' the lock broke.
The panel jumped open.

Doc and Renny shouldered in.

Four men lay sprawled about a table. Their positions were grotesque; they lay exactly as they had fallen
from their chairs.

The men were Doc Savage's four aides.
"They're dead!" Renny walled.

At that instant, a small depot flashed by the speeding train. It was the station at which Wilkie planned to
drop Doc Savage's telegram.

Wilkie got rid of the message successfully, and before the train was out of sight, he saw the station
telegrapher, carrying the missive, enter his office.