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

"MONK" - Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair - lifted out of the chair. He was not much over five feet tall. He was only slightly less broad than that, and he had a pair of arms which gave the grotesque impression of being nearly as long as he was tall. Red hairs, which looked coarse as match sticks furred his leathery hide. His was the build of a gorilla.



"I read about it in them blasted newspapers," he said, and his small voice was doubly ridiculous, Contrasted with his physique. "Willard Spanner was seized in Frisco at noon. He was found dead here in New York at ten minutes to three. Screw loose somewhere."



Monk wrinkled a fabulously homely face to show puzzlement. He looked amiable, stupid, when, in truth, he was one of the most clever industrial chemists alive.



"Maybe the newspapers got balled up on the difference in time between San Francisco and New York," he added.



"All times given are New York time," Doc Savage said.



"Then the guy seized in San Francisco wasn't Willard Spanner, or the one dead here in New York isn't Spanner," Monk declared. "The bird didn't go from Frisco to New York in a little over two hours. It just isn't being done yet."



Doc Savage asked, "Any messages?"



"Ham phoned, and said he was coming up." replied the homely chemist. "I haven't been here long. Dunno what was recorded before I got here.



The bronze man went into the next room, which was a scientific laboratory, one of the most complete in existence, and crossed that to the vast, white-enameled room which held his laboratory of chemical, electrical and other devices. He lifted the cover on the telephone recorder, switched a loud-speaker and amplifier into circuit with the playback pickup, and started the mechanism.



Monk came in and listened, slackjawed, as the device reproduced the call from San Francisco complete to its violent termination. The pig - Habeas Corpus was the shote's full appendage - trailed at the homely chemist's heels.



Doc Savage examined the time stamped on the recording roll.



"Two minutes past twelve," he said.