"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 046 - The Vanisher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"ThereтАЩs a pipe organ in the car," a man volunteered. "Gift of some bird named Sigmund Hoppel."

"That noise must be the pipe organ," hazarded another.
"Nut! Pipe organs donтАЩt play themselves, do they?"

"Well, they have player pianos, donтАЩt they? Maybe this is a player pipe organ."



IN the meantime, the small, fantastic tinkling notes were continuing to come from the freight car. A man went
over and tried the freight car door. It did not give. The man failed to notice that the seat was broken and that
the car door seemed to be fastened from the inside.

"Must be a mouse running over the pipe organ strings or something," some one decided.

This got two or three laughs.

"Well, whatтАЩs wrong?" demanded the fellow with the mouse theory.

"A pipe organ donтАЩt have strings."

Bloodhounds were kept in the prison for the purpose of chasing escaped convicts. This old-fashioned method
of pursuit had managed to hold its own in the age of radios and high-speed automobiles.

The bloodhounds now set up a baying. They came straight to the freight car and stopped. Immediately,
machine guns were trained on the freight car. A squad brought up tear gas. The pups were led in a circle
around the freight car and did not bay another trail. It was evident that the convicts had gone into the freight
car and had not come out.

A deputy warden rapped on the car and called for those inside to come out. He got no response. An ax was
brought. The deputy warden took the ax and his courage in his two hands and chopped the door in. He made
an opening large enough to admit himself. He stepped inside.

Instantly, he screamed as if he had lost his legs. As, indeed, it developed, he almost had. For he fell back
out of the car and shriek after shriek poured from his lips. All the while, he pointed frantically at his legs.

His shoes were gone. So was a great deal of the flesh off his feet. The awful, denuded bones of his feet clung
to the stumps, and as he kicked, these flew off.

Prison guards are hard-boiled babies, but two of the onlookers fainted at the horrible sight.



QUITE naturally, there was a bit of a dither during the next few minutes. The prison officials, who thought the
escaped convicts were in the car and had managed in some way to take all the flesh off the deputy wardenтАЩs
feet, drew back a safe distance and gave some orders that resulted in numerous drums of machine-gun
bullets being poured into the freight car. After the shooting, tear gas bombs were hurled into the car.

Guards charged.