"Doc Savage Adventure 1935-07 Quest of Qui" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

"Holy cow!" he growled. "If you ask me, it couldn't have happened!"


DOC SAVAGE said, "There was apparently no one in the room. Yet the knife was thrown."

"You got secret trapdoors and things in this place," Renny reminded. "Maybe the guy got in and got away through them."

Doc Savage moved about the room. He touched innocent-looking bits of wall, floor and cases, and in the most unexpected places, tiny lids flew up to expose dials. It became evident that his skyscraper aerie was one incredible maze of mechanical devices. He came back and stood by the radio.

The hissing note still came from the radio receiver.

"All of the concealed doors have indicators on them which show when they have been used, and the indicators cannot be put out of commission without evidence of it showing," Doc said. "They show that none of the secret entrances or exits have been used."

"But why the alarm clock?" Renny scratched his head. "Say, that knife maybe - "

Doc Savage picked the knife up, turned it in his hands. He abruptly put it under a magnifying glass.

"Unusual thing, eh?" Renny commented.

Doc Savage lifted a glance. "Have you guessed just how unusual, Renny?"

"I can build a bridge or a skyscraper," Renny said. "I don't know a heck of a lot about knives. The one you've got in your hand looks as if some amateur had hammered it out of a piece of iron. As a knife, it don't look so hot."

"The knife is probably more than a thousand years old, Renny."

Renny showed interest. He knew this was one of the things on which Doc was an authority.

"Yeah," he said.

"It is a genuine old Viking knife," Doc said. "A collector of such things might be willing to pay five hundred dollars for it."

"A Viking knife," Renny said. "Holy cow!"

The telephone buzzer whined.


DOC SAVAGE went over and picked up one of several telephones, each of which was connected, instead of a bell, to a buzzer which had a distinctive note.

"Yes," he said.

The voice which began talking to him was Monk's.

"What goes on, if anything?" Monk asked.

"An alarm clock just rang in my laboratory," Doc told him. "About the same time, a knife struck my back with force enough to make the discomfort of wearing a bulletproof jacket all the time seem a good investment."

Monk was silent a moment. He must have been digesting that and trying to make something out of it. Then he asked, "Who threw the knife?"

"No one, so far as we can find."