"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 032 - Dust of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

after a moment, strings of crimson leaked from the corners of his mouth, a string from each corner at almost
the same time. Then the army officer, in a slow, horrible way, got down on his hands and knees and lay on
the knife hilt so that the point was shoved on through, and the point came out of the back of his neat khaki
uniform.

He kicked as he died.



THE KILLER was a thrifty soul. He got his knife. Then he got the papers. After which he scampered away
through the brush, making as little noise as he could.

Beyond the flying field was jungle, where there was rainfall down here on the coast where sat Alcala, capital
city of Santa Amoza. Once in the jungle, the slayer ran as if his shadow were a devil. After a time, he came
to a house, a very miserable looking hovel and apparently untenanted, but which held a modern telephone.

The telephone set-up was remarkable. Not the instrument itself, which was ordinary, but the box of apparatus
through which its circuit ran. The device was what is known as a "scrambler" and it was ordinarily employed
by telephone companies on government lines where eavesdroppers were not wanted. Only the proper
unscrambler at the other end would make intelligible what went over the wire.

"Word must be got to the Inca in Gray," said the killer. "The thing we feared has happened."

"What do you mean?" demanded a coarse voice.

They were speaking Spanish.

"Major Thomas J. Roberts just arrived at military field," snapped the slayer. "I thought I recognized him. I
used my knife on a fool officer, and got diplomatic passes which prove the man is indeed Major Thomas J.
Roberts."

"And who might Major Thomas J. Roberts be?" the voice over the wire demanded.

"Who was your father, my friend?" asked the killer.

"He was a man of Inca blood, of which I am proud," rapped the other. "And what has that to doтАФ"

"I thought he must have been an ox," sneered the slayer, "for naught but an ox could sire a son so dumb.
This man Roberts is more commonly known as Long Tom."

"And so what, insulting dog?" demanded the other. "Is this Long Tom Se├▒or Diablo himself?"
"He is worse," declared the ragamuffin. "He is the assistant, one of the five assistants rather, of the one man
our master, the Inca in Gray, fears."

"Continue, man of many words and little information," directed the voice on the wire.

"Doc Savage!" said the killer. "Long Tom is the assistant of Doc Savage."

There was silence. It was a long silence, as if the man on the other end of the wire had been hit a hard blow
and was recovering. Then he began to swear, and his profanity was like the explosions of bundles of