"Doc Savage Adventure 1943-05 The Talking Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

Butch spoke up smugly.

"That will be taken care of," he said. "The thing to do is let this operation have its repercussions."

"Savage may think there is something strange about it."

"It's too late now, if he does."

"All right, but murder isn't something to make mistakes," one of the men said.



Chapter IV

THE INDIGNANT MAN


IT was a bright crisp morning, the sunlight crisp out of an utterly clear sky, and the air a thing like wine which you noticed in a way that you do not ordinarily notice air, when Ham Brooks came into Doc Savage's offices in a midtown skyscraper.

Ham looked concerned. Ham was another Doc Savage assistant, another member of the group of five. He was a man of medium height with good shoulders and a thin waist, and clothing which had made him notable as one of the country's best-dressed men. He was the law expert of the group.

"Doc," Ham said, "I'm worried about something."

"Yes?"

"You know that operation on Sam Joseph?"

"What about it?"

"The news is all over town, in the surgical profession, that you pulled a bloomer. You operated on a man who did not have the slightest trace of what you were operating for."

Doc Savage was not worried. "Just gossip within the profession," he said. "Maybe it is not very nice of us, but it is a very human trait to get a kick out of seeing a big shot make a mistake. We all make them. It just goes to prove he is human, and that we are human to talk about it."

Ham shook his head. "I know. I discounted it at first, thinking it was that kind of talk. But it's more."

"What more?"

"There is some ugly talk about malpractice."

"That is ridiculous - "

"The definition of malpractice," Ham said, "is wrong or injurious treatment. At least that's the way the medical dictionaries give it."

"You need not have gone to the bother of looking it up," Doc told him. "This is just gossip. I have it coming to me because I did make a mistake."

"All right," Ham said. "I just wanted to mention it and tell you that, legally, no one can hang anything on you."

Doc Savage smiled. "That is fine, Ham. But you are making a mountain out of a molehill."

"I hope so," Ham said. "But I don't like the way this malpractice talk is going around through the profession. It looks as if someone might be spreading it."