"Doc Savage Adventure 1933-10 The Sargasso Ogre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

They entered. The car rolled along the narrow streets, the booq hooting loudly to clear the hodgepodge of humanity out of the way.

Long Tom settled back luxuriously on the cushions, entirely unaware that he was riding to a death trap.



Chapter II

CAVES OF BONES


IN the Hotel Londoner, Homar hurried to get the note from Long Tom's room. as he had been hidden to do. In Egyptian, Homar's name meant "donkey." The fact that he seemed always half asleep had earned him the cognomen. He was neither slow-moving nor stupid, however. He was a sharp fiend, or he would not have been in Pasha Bey's crew.

He had very little difficulty picking the lock of Long Tom's room. Entering, he seized the note. He drew a kabrit from a pocket, with the idea of burning the paper. Then, on second thought, he put the match away and stuffed the missive inside his burnoose. Pasha Bey might find use for it, for there was such a thing as blackmail in Egypt.

He turned to depart.

The door had opened and closed while Homar was getting the paper, but he had not been aware of this. The thing had happened with great silence.

Nor did Homar, upon leaving the room, notice that the window at the end of the corridor was open. He scuttled down the stairs, anxious to join Pasha Bey in the killing.

A moment after Homar vanished, the giant bronze form of Doc Savage appeared in the open window. He had been outside, hanging to the ledge by his fingers. Furthermore, it was he who had opened and shut the door of Lang Tom's room so silently. Doc had come upstairs in time to witness the undeniably suspicious act of Homar in picking the door lock.

He followed Homar. Doc knew all the signs. Trouble was once more seeking out him and his men, as it had a habit of doing. He was intent on finding out what it could be this time.

Homar engaged a ramshackle cab near the hotel. Doc got into another, commanding his driver to trail the first machine.

They progressed to the region of the city where stood Pompey's Pillar, in the highest part of Alexandria.

The red granite shaft of Pompey's Pillar, exquisitely polished, glistened faintly in the moonlight. From there, the course led southwest.

Homar dismissed his hack.

The pilot of Doc Savage's vehicle drove on at a soft order from the rear. Several score qasabs he traveled, then suddenly discovered a gold fifty-piastres coin on the cushions beside him. He looked around. Much to his astonishment, his fare was gone.

Doc Savage had quitted the cab some distance back, silent as a phantom for all his great size. He lurked in the shadow of a heap of ancient masonry, watching Homar's alert progress.

Doc had a fair knowledge of this section of Alexandria, just as he had, stored in his retentive memory, what amounted to a map of every large city on the globe. This was part of an amazing course of training which Doc had administered to himself -- a training to fit himself for this strange life work of helping those in need of help, and punishing those who deserved it.

This part of Alexandria held the ancient catacombs -- vast underground caverns, possibly dating back to the day of Cleopatra -- which held the bones of Egyptians long dead. Parts of the catacombs had been seen by no living man, Doc knew.

Homar moved to a ramshackle stone hut. Doc haunted him like a bronze ghost

A gritty rasp came from within the stone hut. Doc glanced in. Using a flashlight, Homar was tilting a slab of rock from the floor. He dropped into the cavity, closing the stone plate after him.


A FLASHLIGHT came out of Doc Savage's clothing. It cast a beam like a glowing white-hot wire, the thin luminance switching back and forth over the hut floor.

A drop or two of wet crimson glistened in the ray. Near the trapdoor edge was a group of slightly larger smears. Five! Red finger prints!