"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 030 - Spook Hole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Only I didn't do it," corrected the other. "I didn't get a chance to lay aboard this skulker with my little
persuader, here. Something else got him."

Captain Wapp looked interested, "Something?"
"Well, it didn't look human," grumbled the man with the bit of wire hawser. "It was big and black. And I'll
be damned if it made any sound at all. It wasn't none of Braski's crowd."

They were silent. The bell buoy gonged slowly out in the harbor. Thunder cascaded in hollow salvos high
above in the leaking night sky. It sounded muffled in the cabin.

THAT thunder had a more robust quality at the gangplank where the watchman with the rifle was
stationed. The latter was very much alert and somewhat puzzled; from time to time, he looked over his
shoulder, as if expecting some one to come from the direction of Captain Wapp's cabin and tell him what
had gone wrong.

The thunder chased itself away, and almost instantly a fresh burst crashed, accompanied by a flash of
lightning across the whole southwestern part of the sky. Lightning glow showed the wet dock planking,
the puddles, the big raindrops. It also illuminated the watchman faintly, so that he could be seen from the
wharf, but he did not realize that.

"Dang that hog, Braski," the watchman muttered. "Dang old Hezemiah Law and his Spook Hole and the
whole dizzy business. We gotta kill a lot of people, too."

He scowled, hefted his rifle and sighed loudly.

"But, blast it, a million bucks is a million bucks," he added. "And any part of it ain't to be sneezed at."

His own mumbling occupied his attention, and when a voice called from behind him, "Hey, you - look
here a minute!" he gave a start. Wheeling, he peered into the ship. The voice had been strange, very
faint.

"Whatcha want?" he growled.

The faint, strange voice came again.

"Look closely," it requested.

The watchman squinted, straining his eyes. He could see no one. He thought that strange. It was strange,
but not so much so that it could not be explained. The man knew little about ventriloquism, hence did not
dream that the small, weird voice did not come from within the ship, but from outside, on the dock.

Nor was the watchman aware that the author of the deceptive call, a giant form swathed in black, was
gliding silently up the companionway.

The watchman's first inkling of danger was a terrible grasp which fell upon his neck. He tried to cry out.
His vocal cords would not work.

He tried to fire his rifle. But, strangely enough, the weapon fell from his fingers, and was caught by the
dark assailant before it made a noise on the planking.