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

Its brick walls gave the appearance of having not been washed in generations, being almost black with soot and city grime. The steps were grooved deep by treading feet, and the stone paving of the entry into which the dead wagons ran was rutted by tires. Rusting iron bars, very heavy, were over the windows; for just what reason, no one probably could have told.



"This joint gives me the creeps and I don't creep easy," Monk imparted, as they got out of Doc Savage's roadster before the morgue.



The roadster was deceptively long. Its color was somber. The fact that its body was of armor plate, its windows - specially built in the roadster doors of buller-proof glass - was not readily apparent.



Monk carried Habeas Corpus by an ear and grumbled, "I wonder why anybody should kill Willard Spanner? Or grab him, either? Spanner was an all-right guy. He didn't have any enemies."



Doc listened at the entrance. There was silence, and no attendant was behind the reception desk where one should have been. They stepped inside.



"Hello, somebody!" Monk called.



Silence answered.



There was an odor in the air, a rather peculiar tang. Monk sniffed.



"Say, I knew they used formaldehyde around these places," he muttered. "But there's something besides - "



Doc Savage moved with such suddenness that he seemed to explode. But it was a silent explosion, and he was little more than a noiseless bronze blur as he crossed to the nearest door. He did not try to pass through the door, but flattened beside it.



Monk, bewildered, began, "Say, what the blazes? First I smell - "



A man came through the door, holding a big single-action six-gun. He said, "Start your settin' up exercises, boys!" Then his eyes bulged, for he had apparently expected to see two men and Doc Savage, beside the door, escaped his notice.