"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 043 - Cold Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

It was DocтАЩs principle to avoid public encounter unless the circumstance was compelling. He
contented himself with a secondтАЩs glimpse of the man who had touched him. He saw the
back of a head.

The hair was scraggly, unshorn. This strung from under the frayed brim of a disreputable hat.
The neck was scrawny. Little more than a bony upper spine with skin wrapped around it.

Doc Savage removed the card from his pocket. He did not slacken his speed. He had been
moving through the Wall Street crowd with the easy movement of a jungle animal. Though
there was a press on the sidewalk, it being five oтАЩclock, it was amazing how this
bronze-skinned man avoided contact with others.
Doc was careful to hold the card by its edges. The hands of the scraggly man had been
bare. There should be fingerprints.
Doc cupped the card. His eyes flicked across it. DocтАЩs eyes were like flaky gold with stirring
whirlwinds in their depths. The whirlwinds seemed to move more rapidly now.

For a few seconds there was a haunting, trilling note. Those who might have been watching
the smooth, bronze face of Doc would have detected no movement of his lips. There were
many thus watching, for the man of bronze was a marked figure.
The trilling seemed to emanate from all of his huge, symmetrical body. It was a sound of
which Doc himself was hardly conscious. It might presage danger, or that the man of bronze
was upon the eve of a discovery.

The message on the card in his hand was brief, but explicit:
TO CLARK SAVAGE, JR:тАФIF YOU WOULD PREVENT DEATH, DANGER TO
THOUSANDS, CALL UNION 0-1214 TO-NIGHT AT EIGHT.

The words had been printed with a leaky pen. There was no signature. But the back of a
manтАЩs head was all the signature Doc would need. Intuitively, he knew he would see the man
again. Perhaps many times.


DOC SAVAGE continued through the Wall Street crowd. Now he moved with greater
speed, but still he touched no one.

The man of bronze had an errand in Wall Street. He completed his brief business before
returning to his headquarters. But his mind was busy with the problem the card in his pocket
might represent.

Because of his amazing adventures, his world-wide assistance to those in trouble and his
punishment of crooks, Doc Savage was always besieged with appeals. A few merited his
attention.
And he was likewise a target for many who feared him. Even this small card in his pocket
might be the bait for a trap.

When he had returned to his laboratory, Doc set about reading what he considered vastly
more important than the mere printed words on the white card. This laboratory, on the
eighty-sixth floor of ManhattanтАЩs most impressive skyscraper, was most amazing in its
equipment.
Not even the latest equipment of the police or the Federal department of justice equalled the