"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 155 - Measures For a Coffin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

тАЬI don't see how that could happen. The Coliseum has its own print shop do the tickets, and they
wouldn't slap out any duplicates, unless they made a mistake. I guess that's what happened. Somebody
made a mistake with the numbering machine and got the same number on two tickets.тАЭ

тАЬNo mistake,тАЭ said Mr. Waters firmly.

тАЬWhy not?тАЭ

тАЬTake a look.тАЭ

One ticket was a counterfeit, quite skillfully done. There existed no question on this point, because both
Mr. Waters and Joey had been handling Coliseum tickets for in excess of five years, hence knew
Coliseum tickets better, probably, than they knew their own faces.

тАЬHell's patoot!тАЭ said Joey. тАЬWhy should anybody counterfeit tickets to this shindig. 'Tisn't like as if it was
a big-time show or an opera.тАЭ He jerked his head in the direction of the lobby to indicate he was talking
about the crowd gathered there. тАЬAll of those guys in there are doctors or surgeons here for the big
convention, and to listen to that bigshot sawbones lecture. They didn't pay anything for their tickets. The
tickets were distributed free.тАЭ

тАЬIt is,тАЭ agreed Mr. Waters, тАЬrather strange.тАЭ

тАЬBetter call Old Bubblenose's attention to it, though,тАЭ Joey suggested.

тАЬI will.тАЭ

Old Bubblenose was an unloving term for Mr. Glizer, the Staff Manager, who had a suspicious nature,
and who was immediately seized with the horrible suspicion that the Coliseum was being systematically
defrauded.

Mr. Glizer forced the staff to work overtime, checking all ticket stubs for the performance in search of
more counterfeits. As Joey expressed it, this was a hell of a job, because about twelve hundred doctors
and surgeons had that afternoon attended the convention's feature lecture.

They found seven counterfeits.

Mr. Glizer was quite bothered, but he needn't have been, because only seven counterfeits had been
printed, and none were ever printed again. The seven men using the phonies had already gained
admission. That was their objective.



THE lecturer for the afternoon, to whom Joey had referred to as тАЬthat bigshot sawbones,тАЭ wished
desperately that he had not put his neck out by agreeing to give a talk. He was at the moment in the
throes of a worse-than-mild attack of stage fright. He had a tough audience, a hard subject, for what he
was going to do was get up and try to convince twelve hundred of the country's best physicians and
surgeons that they were, in their present methods of treating epithelioma, as prehistoric as the cave man.

He became aware that Doctor Joseph Benson was addressing him.