"009 (B022) - The Czar of Fear (1933-11) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Her jaw had a grim set, as if she expected trouble, and was steeled to meet it. She was not eating, and she was watching the door more intently than the man.



The young man and the girl were obviously brother and sister. The elderly woman was no relative, but they called her Aunt Nora.



"You had better eat, Aunt Nora," said the girl. Her voice was liquid, quiet, with a faint quaver that went with the terror in her eyes. "It is more than an hour's drive to New York. And we may be very busy for several hours, trying to find Doc Savage."



"Eat!" Aunt Nora snorted. "How can I, Alice? The way you and Jim are acting takes a body's appetite away. Bless your Aunt Nora, honey! You children are acting like two rabbits about to be caught!"



The girl forced a faint smile, reached over impulsively, and gripped the older woman's arm.



"You're a brick, Aunt Nora," she said gratefully. "You are just as scared as we are. But you have control enough not to show it."



"Humphk1" Sniffing, Aunt Nora grabbed her sandwich. Squaring both elbows on the white counter, she began to eat.



Rain purred on the lunch-room roof. It crawled like pale jelly down the windows. It fogged the street of the little New Jersey town. The gutters flowed water the color of lead.



The little radio made steady noise. It was picking up canned music from Prosper City, a manufacturing town in the Allegheny Mountains. Aunt Nora had tuned it to the Prosper City station when they first entered the lunch room.



"Good little set," she said, nodding at the instrument. "Prosper City is quite a ways off, and the set brings in -- "



She stood up suddenly, splayed both hands tightly to her cheeks, and screamed.



The young man whipped off his stool and spun to face the radio. His face was distorted; his eyes bulged.



His sister also leaped erect, crying out shrilly. Her coffee cup, knocked to the concrete floor, broke with a hollow crackle.