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

Ogden spread his hands with the palms up. "Poor Sam has this statue of a devil - "

"Where did he get it?"

"I gave it to him," Montague Ogden said. "I frankly admit that."

"Where did you get the statue?" Doc asked.

"From a Chinaman," Ogden explained. "From an old Chinaman named Chi Sui. Poor Chi Sui was a very elderly Oriental who for a long time had operated a shop in Mott Street dealing in knickknacks, the trash that tourists buy in Chinatown. But old Chi Sui wanted to close up his business and go to China to help Chiang against the Japanese, and he had very little money, but he did have this statue, which was realistic. I bought it from Chi Sui - in spite of the rather hair-lifting story he told me about it."

Doc said, "So the former owner of the devil Statue had a story to tell about it?"

"Yes."

"What was the nature of the story?"

Montague Ogden blinked, smiled sheepishly, said, "A ridiculous story, of course. One in which I placed no stock. Not a bit of belief, not for a minute."

"Suppose you tell it to us, anyway," Doc invited.

Ogden nodded. "It was a rather simple story. It seems that this Chinese statue was molded by Co Suan, a friend of the original Buddha, and that the spirit of. Buddha captured a portion of the spirit of the King of Evil, and imprisoned it in this statuette. That was to give the little statue life, because Co Suan, the sculptor, was a great friend of Buddha, and the All-Mighty One wished to give his friend fame and fortune deserving of such a kind and goodly fellow. Therefore Buddha imprisoned the spirit of the devil in the statue in order to give the little thing of brass a life and realism which no other sculptor could ever equal."

"That is all of the story?"

"Yes. It's ridiculous, of course." Montague Ogden smiled at them. "I want you to understand, of course, that I do not credit for a minute the belief that the statue is actually talking to poor Sam Joseph."

"You have not heard the statue speak?" Doc asked.

"No."

"Anyone but Sam Joseph heard it?"

"No."

"What else do you know?" Doc Savage asked.

"Nothing. Nothing more."

"In that case," Doc Savage said, "we had better see Sam Joseph."


THEY surrounded Sam Joseph where he lay on a bed, a great chromium-and-green bed, in the penthouse on top of the flamboyant Ogden building. The decorating theme of the penthouse was chromium and other colors, broken up with large and vital flowers of bright coloration. The penthouse was not in quite as bad taste as the rest of the building.

"My personal apartment," said Montague Ogden of the penthouse layout. "I had poor Sam brought here."

Sam Joseph was obviously not himself. He was a man large enough to make quite a hump on the bed, under the silken covers. He had gray hair, a not inconsiderable shock of it, and an angelic, peaceful, completely honest-looking face.

Sam Joseph had the kind of a face you would expect a man-angel to have. It was so entirely benign and innocent.