"Curtis Steele - Operator 5 - 3409 - Master of Broken Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Curtis)

warily:
"Yes. It's appalling. A month ago, he was an
entirely different man-strong, quick, as able as
anyone in Washington. None of the worn-out
jokes about vice-presidents could apply to that
man. Yet look at him now.
"His hair has turned white almost overnight.
He seems to be on the point of collapsing. His
strength is gone. His mind fumbles. It's not merely
overwork. Something has happened to that
man-something terrible. Whatever it is, it has
almost broken him-destroyed him."
"He seems like a living dead man," Jimmy
Christopher agreed very quietly. "Whatever
happened to him must have been-"
The interruption that cut into Operator 5's
soft words came suddenly. Startling and shrill, it
was the ear-piercing scream of a woman, echoed
by others. Then came silence-the silence of
terror.
Near the broad entrance at the end of the
auditorium, couples had been dancing. Brilliant
gowns and bright uniforms mingled there as
elsewhere. Most striking of the couples near the
doors were Senora Ferrero Sadiz, wife of the
Ambassador from Spain, dancing in the arms of
Rear Admiral Maddock of the United States Navy.
Senora Sadiz had seen one of the swinging
doors open slowly, and a face look through. The
sight of the face had brought a startled light into
the snapping black eyes of the Spanish woman;
then she had laughed softly. "Is it possible," she
had asked without a trace of an accent, "that
someone has come here believing this to be a
masquerade ball?"
"Let us hope not," Maddock had answered
with a chuckle. "But what do you mean?"
"I mean that strange face looking in through
the door. Surely someone has made a mistake-
or is it a joke? Entertainers, perhaps?"
The rear admiral swung the senora so that
he could glimpse the door. He saw the face and
his own expression became startled as hers. It
was such a face as one might never expect to see
at a formal function; a ghastly, hideous mask that
leered at them from the outer darkness.
Huge, square and coarsely modeled-black,
yet smeared with vari-colored paint, the head was
covered with inky, close-curling hair. The nose
was broad and flat, the mouth excessively fulllipped.