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

you get any?"
"No," Doc said. "And I have never heard of John Acre, either."
"The meeting being arranged at Ham’s apartment is the strangest part of the
whole thing," Monk grumbled. "Do you reckon that shyster lawyer is mixed up in
something that he ain’t letting us in on?"
When Monk mentioned "Ham," he used the same tone he would have used to speak of
a horned devil. It gave the idea that Monk would cheerfully have cut Ham’s
throat. Monk and Ham’s association was one long quarrel. Rarely did an hour pass
but that one offered a biting remark to the other. They seemed continually on
the point of slaughtering one another.
But this was only good-natured horseplay. If necessary, one would cheerfully
give his life for the other.
"We’ll go up to Ham’s place and look into this strange meeting," Doc decided.
They walked toward the door—and again Monk’s little eyes threatened to shoot out
of their pits of gristle.
Doc had made no gesture. He had not touched his clothing. The door, however, had
jumped wide open as they drew near.
"How do you do that, Doc?" Monk demanded.
"It’s trained," Doc said.
Monk snorted. He looked back as they went down the corridor. The door closed
itself when they were a few feet distant. Monk snorted again. The thing had him
baffled.
Doc Savage went to the last panel in the long row of elevator doors. To Monk’s
bafflement, this door also opened at Doc’s approach. They stepped into a cage.
The door closed. The floor seemed to drop from under their feet.
The mechanism of this particular elevator had been designed by Doc himself. It
operated at a speed far too uncomfortable for ordinary passenger traffic. For
almost sixty stories, Monk and Doc barely had their feet on the floor. Then the
cage slowed so abruptly that Monk was forced to all fours. Doc, thanks to
tremendous leg muscles, kept his feet.
Monk grinned widely. He always got a kick out of riding this super-speed lift.
They did not step out into the lobby of the skyscraper, but into a narrow,
concrete-walled tunnel. They strode down this. It admitted them to Doc Savage’s
garage in the skyscraper basement.
Half a dozen cars were housed there. These ranged from a thin, underslung
speedster, to a great limousine. All the cars had one point in common—none were
painted with flashy colors.
Doc selected a roadster. It was a long, somber machine, which would attract no
attention out on the street. Monk happened to know the car could do in the
neighborhood of a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The motor was wonderfully
silent. Only by the sudden life in ammeter and oil-pressure gauge, could Monk
tell that it had started.
The exit doors were at the head of an incline. They opened in an eerie way as
Doc drove up to them.
Park Avenue is the swankiest street in the city of New York. The Midas Club was
situated on the most fashionable corner of the avenue. It was not a tall
building, lifting less than twenty stories; but for its size it had undoubtedly
cost more than any other structure in town.
New York City is rumored to have two or three clubs which require that the
candidates for membership possess a bank roll of at least a million dollars. The