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

He had nearly asked who Doc Savage was, but he caught himself in time. And now, probing in his mind, he decided who Doc Savage must be. He had heard of a rather mysterious man with headquarters in New York by that name. For some reason or other, Rotary recalled, many men in the oil fields had heard of Savage, but he did not know exactly why. He did remember that crooks were supposed to be afraid of Savage, if that meant anything.

Rotary listened to the prisoner talk. The man was getting sickly worried as he watched the hard look on Rotary's face.

He was really a small fry, the prisoner explained. Just a hired hand. He had been dishonorably discharged from the army for assaulting an officer, had served a term in Leavenworth, and had lately been released from prison. He was under bond in a theft case in Missouri, and had sought to pick himself up a bit of lawyer money by taking on this job. A friend, another crook, had recommended him for the job. He had been ordered to seize Rotary and Sis, and hold or kill them, whichever was convenient.

"I don't even know who the head guys are," he insisted.

"But you know some of the small fry?"

"Yes. That Butch, and three or four others."

Rotary asked ominously, "What about Doc Savage?"

The man knew something about that. Evidently he and Butch, or someone else, had talked about it.

"They have a big scheme whereby Doc Savage is going to be made to take the blame for the whole thing," the prisoner explained.

"Why pick on Savage?"

The man said, "That's the first question that occurred to me, too. But Savage is made for the part. He is a mysterious figure. Then, there's all these brain operations he has performed, and the men who disappear after he gets his hands on them."

"Men who disappear when Savage gets hold of them?" Rotary echoed, and his surprise got in his voice.

"Crooks."


THE thing as a whole did not make much sense to Rotary Harrison.

He didn't have the real explanation behind it all, he felt.

He was convinced, though, that this hireling he had captured did not know the real answer.

Rotary sank in the seat beside Sis. He told her, pretty much as the prisoner had given it, what he had learned. "Make sense to you?" he finished.

Sis was thoughtful. "Looks to me as if our trouble is just part and parcel of a great mess of trouble that's cooking for a lot of folks," she decided.

"Sis," said Rotary, "this makes me look at our own trouble in a new light."

"Just how?"

"This is our situation: Six months ago we borrowed a mess of money from a New York outfit owned by a man named Montague Ogden. But Ogden himself didn't handle the deal. It was handled by Sam Joseph, who was Ogden's office manager, and seemed to run everything for Ogden."

Rotary Harrison made a grim jaw for a moment.

"Our deal with Sam Joseph was witnessed by Duster Jones," he continued. "The deal included an agreement that the loan was to be renewed on our request in six months, and it was a written agreement. Duster Jones witnessed it. We had a copy, and Sam Joseph had a copy."

His scowl darkened.