"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 037 - The Metal Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

about the strange trilling defied description. It might have been the song of some exotic feathered creature, or
the note of a wind filtering through a denuded forest.

A small, absent thing which the bronze man did in moments of mental stress, was this trilling. It had a quality
of ventriloquism, seeming to come from everywhere, yet from no definite spot. The reason for the trilling stuck
up stark and horrible in the flashlight glow.

A bony, wrinkled human hand! Projecting from the wad of metal on the alley pavement!

Doc Savage worked furiously at the mass of metal. It was solid, as if molten and poured there. The body was
imbedded in it. Some other parts of it were exposed, he found after a momentтАЩs search. There was part of a
leg. An elbow. The tail of the manтАЩs coat.

Strangest of all, the manтАЩs garments were not even scorched. Yet he was imbedded solidly in the mass of
metal.

Doc Savage returned his attention to the hand which projected so horribly. On one of the fingers was a ring.
He removed it. Identification, perhaps.

He used the ultra-violet lantern. The footprints ended here. There were marks on the sleet which indicated a
car had gone away. There must have been two cars. OneтАФsomething fantastic had happened to it. The other
had taken away the remaining men.

There seemed to be nothing more to do. It would take hours, perhaps days, with hacksaws to free the body.
Doc went back toward the skyscraper which housed his headquarters.

He carried the ring.

An elevator operator told him, "Some men went up to your floor, then came back down. I guess they found
you werenтАЩt there."

"Know them?" Doc asked.

"They were the same men who took the old man down."

Doc Savage said nothing. But he lost no time getting in the private express elevator to ride up. A moment
later, he stepped out in the eighty-sixth floor corridor.

The armor-plate door of his headquarters suite was gone.



NOT gone, exactly. It was a puddle on the floor. To all appearances, it had simply melted. Yet nothing was
burned.

Doc Savage studied the incredible scene. Some of the metal casing of the door had also dripped down on the
floor. He touched the wad of metal. Cold.

He entered. Nothing was disturbed to any extent. But the place had been searched. A few cabinets were
open. They were large enough to have held a person.