"Robeson, Kenneth - Doc Savage 1936 09 - Cold Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

this canal was its exact width. As Doc and his companions made their way along
the sucking marshland, the cut gradually narrowed.
They had proceeded about a fourth of a mile, when Renny grunted, "Doc, would you
look at this!"
A man lay at the edge of the knifed-out ditch. The torso, head and arms were
there. The legs were missing. The man had been sliced in half. It was as if a
giant cleaver had suddenly descended.
A shotgun and a pack showed the victim had been a hunter. Doubtless, he had made
his lonely camp, waiting for dawn and the first flight of fowl. Ashes of a dead
fire were near by.
Doc examined the explosion cut more closely under his generator flashlight. The
character of the clean incision in the soft earth and the phenomenon of the
hunterТs body having been neatly severed in the middle were supplying him with
information.

LONG TOM said, "ThereТs a busted electrical machine back there. Something must
have gone up accidentally. But that would mean tremendous voltage. Giant
generators would be needed to create the energy for a lightning blast like that.
UnlessЧ"
"Unless," said Doc, "the secret of cracking the atom has been coupled up with
transmitted electromagnetic force, or something similar to that."
A short distance from the dead man, possibly a mile from the annihilated house,
the canal cut petered out. It terminated in a rising indentation only a few
inches wide and an inch or two deep.
Doc had placed the warning message card in his pocket. Now he led the others
rapidly toward the site of the greater explosion. In all that mass of scattered
wreckage, the State police had passed up the thought of discovering
fingerprints.
Doc produced his own outfit. He had noticed every detail of the wrecked
electrical machine indicated by Long Tom. A polished copper ball had fallen to
one side. With State police watching curiously, Doc dusted the gleaming surface.
The lines of a forefinger, then of a thumb, took form. Under a powerful glass,
Doc studied the grimy message card, then the convolutions and whorls of the
lines on the copper ball.
Returning the card to his pocket, he said, "One and the same man, a scraggly
little fellow with the prehensile type fingers."
A State police sergeant stared at him.
"YouТre Doc Savage, arenТt you?" he inquired.
"Yes."
"WouldnТt worry any more about those prints then," said the sergeant. "If he was
in there, he isnТt much use to anybody now. Come over here, Mr. Savage."
The man who had been in the house would neither be a menace nor a help to any
one again. Only one foot remained, the leg severed roughly at the top of a
high-laced boot such as a man might be wearing in the marshy ground.
Doc only glanced at it.
"No," he said, "this wasnТt the man. ItТs some other person. I think this may be
the one who was on the phone."

DOCТS final words were addressed in a low tone for his own companions only to
hear. Doc was piecing together the scanty material he had.