"027 (B020) - The Secret in the Sky (1935-05) - Lester Dent.XT" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The buzzer whirred three times, with lengthy pauses between whirs, which allowed time for any one present to have answered. Then an automatic answering device, art ingenious arrangement of dictaphone voice recorder and phonographic speaker - a creation of Doc Savage's scientific skill - was cut in automatically. The phonograph record turned under the needle and sent words over the telephone wire.



"This is a mechanical robot speaking from Doc Savage's headquarters and advising you that Doc Savage is not present, but that any message you care to speak will be recorded on a dictaphone and will came to Doc Savage's attention later," spoke the mechanical contrivance. "You may proceed. with whatever you wish to say, if anything."



"Doc!" gasped a voice, which had that strange quality lent by long-distance telephonic amplifiers. "This is Willard Spanner! I am in San Francisco. I have just learned something too horrible for me to believe!"



Several violent grunts came over the wire. There were thumps. Glass seemed to break at the San Francisco end. Then came silence, followed by a click as the receiver was placed on the hook at the San Francisco terminus of the wire.



The mechanical device in Doc Savage's New York office ran on for some moments, and a stamp clock automatically recorded the exact time of the message on a paper roll; then the apparatus stopped and set itself for another call, should one come.



The time recorded was two minutes past twelve, noon.



Thirty minutes later, approximately, the newspaper press association wires hummed with the story of the mysterious seizure of Willard Kipring Parker Spanner in San Francisco. Willard Kipring Parker Spanner was a nabob, a somebody, a big shot. Anything unusual that happened to him was big news.



The newspapers did not know the half of it. The biggest was yet to come.



Financially, Willard Kipring Parker Spanner did not amount to much. A post-mortem examination of his assets showed less than five thousand dollars, an insignificant sum for a man who was known over most of the world.



Willard Kipring Parker Spanner called himself simply, "a guy who likes to fiddle around with microscopes." It was said that he knew as much about disease germs, and methods of combating them, as any living man. He had won one Nobel prize. He was less than thirty years old. Scientists and physicians who knew him considered him a genius.



When Willard Spanner was found dead, many a scientist and physician actually shed tears, realizing what the world had lost.



When Willard Spanner was found dead, the newspapers began to have fits. And with good reason.



For Willard Spanner's body was found on a New York street - less than three hours after he had been seized in San Francisco! Seized in Frisco at noon; Eastern Standard Time. Dead in New York at ten minutes to three, Eastern Standard Time.