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

"Who is Montague Ogden?"

"He hasn't any connection at all with the devil, or so he claims," said Renny Renwick. "But he is the employer of Sam Joseph, the man who has been hearing the devil speak."


THE impressive Ogden building was new, just barely prewar, and the lobby was all black and gold and apparently designed by an architect who had fallen on his head when small. But it was utterly expensive. The elevators were gold and black and also utterly expensive, and the elevator operators were girls with shapes that also looked expensive.

"I would like to have the money it cost to think about building this place," said Renny Renwick, who was an engineer and knew what it had cost.

"I would rather have the elevator operators," said Monk Mayfair. Monk was a remarkably homely fellow with a remarkable eye for a well-turned ankle.

The elevator let them out in a corridor which was ankle-deep in rich carpet. Office building halls are ordinarily not even carpeted.

"What kind of a place is this?" remarked Monk.

"Wait," said Renny Renwick, "until you see the master of the establishment."

They walked into a reception room that might have been lifted from a spectacular motion picture. The carpet was even deeper, the colors even richer, the furniture more extreme. The blonde at the desk looked as if she had been manufactured with a magazine cover in mind.

"Mr. Ogden," she told them, bells in her voice, "is expecting you.

Then they walked into a log cabin. Or so it would have seemed, had not the big glass windows offered views of some of the financial district's more impressive buildings. Everything was rustic, extremely rustic, even to the logs blazing in the fieldstone fireplace and the two large dogs lying on the hearth. The dogs lifted their heads and barked.

"I am Montague Ogden," the man behind the desk said. He sounded as if he was accustomed to the name meaning something.

He was smooth. That was the first impression you got of him. As smooth as a polished rock. He was forty-five or fifty years old, well-preserved, and he was dressed in country tweeds and moccasins, so that he blended with his log-cabin inner office.

The general effect of Montague Ogden was a little ridiculous. Unless, of course, you were impressed by the obvious evidences of money.

There were conversational preliminaries, introductions mostly. Then Montague Ogden got around to making what he evidently intended to be the outstanding statement of the conference.

"I am a very wealthy man," he said.


DOC Savage, with just a trace of the general feeling of distaste that the overly flamboyant office building, this office suite and the spectacle effect of the man himself had aroused, said, "At the moment we are more interested in a man named Sam Joseph, who is said to be hearing a small statue of the devil speak aloud to him."

"Exactly," said Montague Ogden. "Exactly."

"I understand you can supply details."

"Exactly,"said Montague Ogden. "I am a very wealthy man, and I want nothing spared to straighten out poor Sam. Poor Sam is my office manager, my trusted employee. He is even, I may say, more than that. He is the real working head, the manager, of my rather wide enterprises. I owe Sam a great deal. Sam is paid an excellent salary, it is true, but his value to me extends far beyond that. Sam is. . . is. . . " He groped for words, found them. "Sam is like a part of my own heart," he finished.

Doc Savage asked quietly, "What do you mean by straightening out poor Sam?"

Montague Ogden blinked. He had blue eyes, very pale-blue eyes.

"Why, find out his trouble," he said.

"Just what has happened?" Doc Savage asked patiently.