"012 (B043) - The Man Who Shook The Earth (1934-02) - Lester Dent (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Monk made a clicking sound of regret with his tongue and the roof of his mouth.
"Here comes Doc Savage!" an elevator operator said dramatically.

THE exclamation was a bit breathless, and filled with awe. It was as if the
operator were seeing a famous personage for the first time. Yet it was certain
that this attendant saw Doc Savage many times daily.
Monk turned. He understood how they felt. He had himself been closely associated
with Doc Savage for years, yet he still got something of a wallop each time he
saw the metallic giant that was Doc.
Doc Savage, crossing the cavernous lobby, did not look the giant that he was.
Tendons and vast muscles bundled his body like cables, yet they were developed
in such universal fashion that they blended in a strikingly symmetrical whole.
It was only when Doc came close to other men that his huge size became apparent.
Bronze was the color motif on Doc Savage’s skin. Due to the corded hardness of
his muscles, he resembled a statue of the metal. His eyes were weird—flaky
golden pools which seemed always astir, always alive.
Doc lifted a hand in a gesture of greeting to Monk. The hand was muscled until
it looked as if it had been wrapped with steel wire, then painted with bronze.
However, the fingers were long, regardless of their obviously incredible
strength.
"Let’s go up," Doc said. His voice was as remarkable as it had been when Monk
heard it over the phone. Not loud, it nevertheless carried to the recesses of
the lobby.
An express elevator, its progress a hiss of speed, rushed them to the
eighty-sixth floor.
"The guy is gone," Monk explained. "I got that from an elevator operator."
Saying nothing, Doc approached the office door. An uncanny thing happened—the
door opened at his approach.
There was no living thing near it.

MONK hastily peered into the office. He was completely at a loss to understand
the business of the door opening. The room beyond was as he had left it.
Apparently, nothing was disturbed.
Monk squinted at the outer door, seeking to figure out what made it swing ajar
when Doc had approached it. He shook his head. Then he walked around the office,
trying the safe door, the locker, and the doors into the inner rooms. All were
locked.
"It don’t look like the guy bothered anything," he said in his small voice.
"That’s funny. Why should he pay me five hundred dollars, just to get into the
office?"
Doc walked toward the door into the inner chambers.
Monk’s hair threatened to stand on end at what happened. The solidly locked
door—Monk was mortally certain it was locked—quickly opened itself as Doc came
near. After the bronze man had passed through, the door closed.
Rushing over, Monk grasped the knob. He exerted all his strength. Monk could
take a horseshoe in his big hairy hands and bend it into the shape of a pretzel.
This door, however, resisted him.
With a sheepish grin on his homely face, Monk absently fitted the end of his
little finger into the hole in his earlobe. Monk was highly intelligent in spite
of his apish look. He was trying to figure out what made the doors open when Doc