"Gruber, Frank - The Silver Owl (Avenger 4105)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gruber Frank)

wrists. He jerked suddenly and pulled the man forward.

The move was his undoing. He had counted on the man's being a fair fighter. He
wasn't! As he collided with Steele, the man kicked upward with his knee and hit
Steele in the groin. Flashing pain shot through Steele's body. He cried out in
pain and fell to the floor.


He did not go out; but he lay on the wet tiles, gasping in great lung-fulls of
pine-tar steam. He saw a flash of light and knew that his assailant had darted
out through the door; but he could not move.

More than thirty seconds went by before he was able to climb to his knees. Then
he brushed against the body of the man who had fainted and was reminded that he
should get him out of this room.

Still gritting his teeth from pain, he scooped up the unconscious man and pushed
through the swinging door. The cold air of the pool room cleared the pain from
his body. He put the man down on the tiles, then waved to an attendant.

"Here," he said, "this man's fainted--" And then he stopped.

The man had not fainted. He was dead! His broken neck was twisted queerly to one
side.

The attendant padded up; then he gasped: "Mr. Bishop--what's happened to him?"

"He's dead!" Steele said. "Where's the man who came charging out of the pine room
a minute ago?"

The attendant shook his head, bewildered. "I didn't see anyone. I was over at the
rubbing tables."

Steele swore under his breath. He grabbed a sheet from a neatly folded pile, swung
it around his nude body and rushed for a door at the other side of the pool.

Steele burst into a narrow, tiled corridor that led to the locker rooms. The place
was full of beds, standing in two rows with a three-foot partition between each bed.
On four or five of them lay men, some of them completely nude, some covered with a
sheet.

"Where's the man that just came in here?" Steele cried.

A man on a nearby cot, lifted up his head lazily. "What man?"

Steele scowled. He had been in too many Turkish baths himself not to know that most
of these men were pleasantly dozing after the refreshing steam baths in the other
room. They wouldn't pay much attention to a man who came in.

He pushed through the locker room to the office beyond. A middle-aged man, wearing