"036 (B027) - Mystery Under the Sea (1936-02) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"My mind is not exactly easy," he said.
"What do you mean?" Doc asked him.
"It is a strange thing," Topping mumbled. "Their leader is really a woman. She works for that devil, a gaudy parrot of a person who calls himself Captain Flamingo."
"Holy cow!" was all Renny could manage at that.
Ham, astonished, lipped, "Look here, do I get this right? That girl is really their chief?"
"She is," Topping murmured. "But she has taken great pains to conceal it. With Captain Flamingo's aid, she has even managed to keep it from their own gang."
Doc Savage and the others thought that over. It was food for thought. Indeed, if anything could be called a stark surprise, this was it.
"But what makes you uneasy?" Doc Savage asked at last.
"The woman may come here," Topping said, uneasily. "Or Captain Flamingo may appear."
"The woman is a prisoner," Doc Savage told him. "One of our men, Monk, is holding her at a point down the beach."
Topping did not seem greatly reassured.
"Perhaps it would be better if we left a watchman at the door," he suggested.
"We will do that," Doc agreed. "Ham, you are elected."
Ham said, "Certainly," and took up a position just inside the door.
THE air inside the house was heavy with two odors, one of them quite distinctly that of fish. The other smell was less easy to define, and Doc Savage put a query about it.
"It comes from the special food for my morays," explained Topping.
"Huh?" Renny grunted. "What's a moray?"
"I keep tropical fish and other live specimens," Topping explained. "It's my business, you know. I am a specialist on deep-sea life."
"What's a moray?" Renny repeated. "I'm no ichthyologist."
"A moray is possibly the most ferocious and deadly thing in the sea," Topping informed him. "They are eels."
They were moving along a corridor. Cases on the walls held mounted fish.
"Eels?" Renny sniffed. "An eel don't appeal to me as being a fierce critter."
They entered a room, a large room in which there were many glass aquarium tanks in which fish swam, and in which strings of bubbles rose from aлrating apparatus.
"Morays are fierce," said Topping, dryly. "These I have can a bite a man half in two, and they are of a particular species a great deal more poisonous than rattlesnakes."
They crossed the aquarium room, and Topping unlocked another door. The doors of the house seemed to be made of metal, looked very strong.
"Nice customers," Renny said, referring to the morays.
"Here they are," Topping told him, and turned on the lights in the next room. The chamber was absolutely windowless.
Renny took one look.
"Holy cow!" he exploded.
He was not easily excited or surprised or appalled. The underwater specimens before him lived up to their advance notices. Not that, in repose, they looked particularly terrible. But one moray happened to have its jaws distended, offering an excellent chance to examine the equipment which made it so feared.
In this room were tanks little short of gigantic. The plate glass of their sides seemed to be very thick. They began at the floor, and a man on tiptoe could not touch the top. They held water. There was a grille of slender but stout steel bars over the top.
"One of the morays got out of its tank once," Topping said. "We had a very difficult time with it. Of course, they cannot remain out of water for long. But they are very active."
Renny frowned at the moray which had its jaws distended. Probably, the thing was yawning. Just looking at the jaw equipment caused the back of Renny's neck to feel cool. He held no doubts about the thing being able to remove one of his legs with a single snap.
Doc Savage interposed: "Where is the thing we came to see?"
"There." Topping pointed, indicating the end of the windowless room.
THERE was an aisle before them, with the huge moray tanks on either side. At the end of the room was a shelf, probably for use in making notes during scientific study of the habits of morays. On the shelf stood a case.
"Gold!" exploded Renny, looking at the case.
"Nothing so valuable," Topping corrected. "It is merely brass."
In the somewhat inadequate light, the case did look like gold. Its height was about six inches; its width near a foot. Renny would have had to stretch his arms to span its length. It had a hinged lid, and this was padlocked.
"Is it yours?" Doc Savage asked.
Topping gave a distinct shudder.
"It belongs to that terrible and clever girl," he said. "Captain Flamingo has been keeping it for her."
They advanced between the tanks. Doc Savage studied the morays curiously. He knew a great deal about the things, was fully aware that they were probably the most dangerous denizen of the tropical seas.
It was the first time the bronze man had seen morays, especially tank specimens, act as these did. They seemed particularly ferocious.
The party followed them then, eyes intent, the length of their tanks. Renny was carefully walking in the middle of the aisle and did not look especially comfortable.
"What is in the brass box?" Doc Savage queried.
"A terrible thing," said Topping. "An incredible thing!"
"That is repeating about the same statement you made before," Doc reminded him.
"I brought you here to show you the contents of that case," Topping replied. "I wanted you to see with your own eyes. It would be too much to expect you to believe a verbal recital."
Renny gave a distinct jump, as one of the morays rubbed against the side of its tank.