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

"Better find another way."

"What other way is there?" Kettler rasped. "He talked to that fool we shot, didn't he? And the fool was talking his head off, wasn't he? This guy is sure to have heard plenty, wasn't he? Now ask me, what can we do but butter him up and put him away?"

"Aw, 0. K.," said the voice.

"Whew!" gulped the man with the gun. "Whew!"

"What's eating you?" gritted Kettler.

"This guy - " The rifleman jabbed his gun muzzle at Johnny. "This pile of bones - "

"An uncomplaisant appellative," snapped Johnny.

"That's it!" exploded the rifleman. "That's what I remembered. I mean, I thought there was something familiar about this pile of bones, on account of me having seen his picture somewhere. Then he sprung that word, that jawbreaker, and I remembered."

"Remembered what?" yelled Kettler.

"This guy is William Harper Littlejohn," said the other.

That apparently meant nothing to Kettler.

"And who," he queried, "might William Harper Littlejohn be?"

"One of Doc Savage's five right-hand men," announced the other. "Glory be! And I almost shot him!"


JOHNNY, WHO really had no slightest idea of capitalizing on the suggestion, ventured, "Now, perhaps you will turn me loose."

"Sure!" grated Kettler. "I'll turn you loose from this earth!"

He hooked a bony hand down inside the waistband of his trousers, got a revolver, pointed it at Johnny's stomach.

Johnny shifted an eye at the machine gun. He was wearing a bulletproof vest which would protect him momentarily, and there was a bare chance that he might reach the rapid-firer. It was one of the big, heavy, old-fashioned type developed and manufactured during the Great War.

"Wait!" a man exploded.

"And why should I?" Kettler rasped.

More than ever, Kettler's voice reminded Johnny of a resined cord on a drumhead. He seemed to recall that in radio sound effects men used such a device to imitate roaring lions and such.

"This guy!" The objector jerked a frantic thumb at Johnny. "This guy - how'd he get up here? How'd he find the guy we bumped for letting that yellow-haired dame blow? I think we might ask the guy some questions."

Kettler mulled that over. He uncocked his revolver.

"Yeah," he said. "I've heard of this Doc Savage. If he's on the job, it might help if we knew about it."

"Help!" exploded a man in the background. "When Doc Savage comes in, I go out!"