"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 076 - The Flaming Falcons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"All right, all right," he said. "Have it your own way."

He was seized, dragged into the other room, which had no furniture whatever, but was separated from
the first room by a stout door, and deposited upon the floor. The brown man went out, slamming the
door and locking it.
Hobo Jones was left alone.

He started to think about the affair, then checked himself. He had a hunch he couldnтАЩt make sense out of
it, and would only get himself dizzy. And maybe scared, too. Thinking was the stuff that got you scared,
wasnтАЩt it?тАФat least, Hobo Jones had discovered that when you didnтАЩt stop to think, you didnтАЩt have time
to get scared.

More sensible thing to do was investigate the ropes that secured him. He knew something about ropes,
because he had tied many a knot in halter ropes back on the farm, and he had once sent away for a book
on how the stage magicians escaped from rope bonds and strait jackets, although unluckily he didnтАЩt
recall much that had been in the book. He went to work. He skinned his wrists. He cracked his knuckles.
He made his arms hurt.

Then he heard the squeal in the next room. It was a piping kind of squeal, shrill, like a stepped-on rat.

Following the squeal, something heavy fell on the floor.

Hobo Jones lay very still and listened, but the wham-banging of his own heart was the loudest thing
around there. He began to work with the ropes again. He got them off. He untied his ankles, then he
stood up. The circulation was dead in his feet, so that they felt as if they might be cut off at the ankles. He
did a species of clog dance, wincing. Then he went to the door.

The door was locked.

"Open!" said Hobo Jones loudly.

This got no results. He beat on the door, with no better satisfaction.

Backing to the far side of the room he took a running jump and landed with both feet on the door. It
ripped open. He alighted on his back on the floor in the other roomтАФand wished he hadnтАЩt done it just
that way. It had looked all right one time when heтАЩd seen it in the movies. But heтАЩd nearly broken his
neck.

The brown man sat in a chair. He did not look up. A splintered fragment of the door fell across his bare
feet, and he did not move. His head was tilted forward as if he was dozing, only it wasnтАЩt likely that he
was dozing.

"Hey!" said Hobo Jones.

Getting no response, he walked over and peered closely at the brown man. The fellow didnтАЩt look right.
Distinctly not.

Hobo Jones picked up the brown manтАЩs wrist and held it, and pretty soon it dawned on him that the
brown man was dead.