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

"Get out of here!" Ham roared, and flourished his cane as he made a rush for Ogden and his lawyers.

Ogden and his attorneys took flight.

As he ran, Ogden shouted, "You can't shut us up this way! We're going to get at the truth about your strange brain operations! We'll unmask your devilish scheme!"

Then they ran for their lives from Ham, got into the elevator and escaped.

"Doc," Ham said, "something isn't up-and-up about this."


THE fight on the speaker's platform at the big Army Relief rally at Madison Square Garden got a great deal more publicity.

It was not much of a fight. Montague Ogden merely popped out of the crowd, dashed across the speaker's platform in full view of the audience of many thousands and tried to assault Doc Savage with his fists.

The police soon hauled Ogden away.

But everyone in the audience heard the words Montague Ogden shrieked at the bronze man. The public-address microphones picked them up and made them loud in the great auditorium.

"There's something devilish behind your brain operations!"* Ogden screamed. "What are you doing to those men? You're a monster!"

The thing got in the newspapers. Montague Ogden was reputedly one of the rich men of the nation, and Doc Savage had a worldwide name. So it could hardly have kept out of the newspapers.

Also, Doc Savage was not a man who sought publicity, and items about him were scarce, so, accordingly, their news value was greater.

Doc Savage, as a matter of fact, had antagonized some of the newspapers at various times by refusing to give out information concerning his activities. One paper in particular, the Morning Blade, a blaring tabloid which featured a stable of columnists who were unreliable sensationalists, did not have a great love for Doc Savage.

It was the Morning Blade in which the black-type editorial said:

We know all about the laws of libel and
slander. Sometimes we wonder if these laws
don't protect people who shouldn't be protected.

Is it libel and slander to ask some questions?

Question one: Why is this fellow Doc Savage
so secretive about himself that he is known
as the Man of Mystery? What has he to hide?

Question two: What does Doc Savage do with the
men he seizes, the men he says are criminals.
(He alone says they are criminals; isn't it the
right of our courts to judge those things?)
What happens to these men? They disappear.
Their old friends never see them again.

Question three: What is this mysterious "college"
which Doc Savage maintains, of which rumors
are sometimes heard? Has it horrors to hide?