"028 (B088) - The Roar Devil (1935-06) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"This seems to be a continued story," he said, and pointed.
Glowing letters came out under the ultra-violet lamp:
ROAR DEVL OVERHEARD SAYING HE USED TELEPHONE RECORD WITH -
That must have been interrupted, for it was unfinished.
"What could he have been trying to say?" Johnny pondered aloud.
"Probably he was trying to tell me he had overheard enough to know that the Roar Devil employed a telephone record with Renny's voice on it when he called me to offer Renny in exchange for Dove Zachies," Doc Savage said.
Johnny started as if he had been kicked.
"I'll be super - you knew that?" he exploded.
"You have heard phonographic transcriptions played over the radio," Doc told him. "There is a certain unmistakable scratching made by the needle. Probably the Roar Devil did not think it would be strong enough to detect over the telephone."
On the other side of the garage was the last word from Monk:
ZACHIES ESCAPED.
ROAR DEVIL TAKING US.
INVESTIGATE V. VENABLE MEAR.
Johnny commented on the situation when they were running toward their car to go back to New York City.
"It does not seem that Dove Zachies is the Roar Devil, after all, does it?"
Doc Savage did not voice any answer.
THE telephone directory had it:
MEAR, V. VENABLE, cml pscyt, 1 Merving
Alley, NOrth 8-4001.
Johnny absently passed his monocle over the printed line. The monocle was unwearable, being a magnifying glass of no small power. Johnny used a glass often in his profession of archeologist, and carried it as a monocle for convenience.
"That abbreviation 'cml pscyt' must mean - "
"Criminal psychologist," Doc Savage completed for him. "That sounds interesting."
"Number One Merving Alley," Johnny said. "Five minutes should see us in that section of the metropolis."
An outsider might have mistaken Merving Alley for just what its name implied, a dump. It looked the part, except possibly that the buildings were too clean, being whitewashed, and the pavement was very sanitary. No native New Yorker would have made the error, however.
Merving Allay was "class." Three of the world's leading artists lived there, some painters of equal importance, and a famous international banker. Those old buildings had once been stables, but the interiors had long since been remodeled at the expenditure of several million dollars. The residents were persons who found themselves bored by the ordinary, and who had money enough to go in for the extraordinary.
Number One was a whitewashed box of bricks which was absolutely windowless. As far as could be seen there was only one small door, and that of heavy timbers. It was a barn door.
"How do we conduct our camisado," Johnny queried. "Rush the place?"
"The gentleman might not know we are interested in him," the bronze man reminded. "Why add the information to his worries. The Chinese have a proverb: 'When there is rain without clouds meeting the eye, the wisest man may get wet'"
"I see," said Johnny. "We rain on him, but we don't cloud up."
It was not yet dawn. The corner street lamp was furnishing them enough light to study the square house.
"An alley at the back," Doc reminded.
In the alley, the bronze man drew a silk cord, a grappling hook attached to the end, and tossed it upward after a moment of careful calculation. The grappling hook was collapsible, and covered with soft rubber, so that the noise it made scarcely reached their ears. It must have hung over the edge of the roof. Doc pulled, testing. It hung.
He went up.
Johnny mounted next. He found the bronze man looking down through an enormous turret of a skylight. Johnny hurried over. He looked down.
At first it seemed that he was peering into a pool of soft flame, then his eyes accustomed themselves and he could make out a room, done in red from top to bottom. There was nothing but red in the room. Even the paper which lay on the great desk in the middle of the fantastic study was red.
Johnny drew back. A peculiar expression was on his long, bony face. He blinked his eyes slowly.
"Strange place," he mumbled. "Sort of a phantasmagoria in erubescence - " He trailed his voice off and scratched his head. He smiled slightly. He was not a man who smiled often. Suddenly, he threw back his head.
He emitted a deafening peal of laughter and fell flat on his face.
The next instant, Doc Savage did almost exactly the same thing.
Neither man moved after he had fallen.

Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE

THE man looked ageless. Rather, he looked as if he had gotten old to a point where he no longer showed the years. His skin was like sandpaper from which hard rubbing had erased the sand. His eyes had no particular color. They might have been little cellophane bags with unclear water in them.
He opened his mouth when he breathed, and the teeth that showed were so strong and white-looking that they were obviously artificial. Yet he was not stooped very much. Nor was his step feeble.
He had a head of amazing bigness above the ears. It was white and hairless and somehow made one think of a tremendous skull. When he came into the red room, the red light somehow gave him the look of a devil.
He said, "You two have been unconscious about half an hour, if that interests you."
His voice was a thing of unusual beauty. It was an operatic voice.
"Thank you immeasurably," said the bony Johnny.
Doc Savage said nothing.