"039 (B073) - The Seven Agate Devils (1936-05) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Monk's ears got red.
Then came the sound of a car. It was a machine leaving the parking lot in a hurry. Monk and Ham raced toward the sound.
It was hopeless, of course. The car got away into the night. As it passed under a distant floodlight at the entrance arch, Monk got a glimpse of the occupants—the woman, and the man with the scrawny neck. Monk endeavored furiously to find a car which was unlocked, but failed.
He was still at the task, when Doc Savage and Ham came up. Ham had dropped back to find Doc. Ham was still chuckling.
"Monk was going to join the circus," he smirked. "He's a ventriloquist. And you should have seen him rehearse an acrobatic act with the bald-headed girl!"
The miserable sound that came out of Monk's throat made Ham look very happy.
Doc Savage asked, "What were they after?"
"That document case," Ham declared.
They worked back toward the operations office and, wishing to avoid the throng, made for the rear door.
Doc Savage stopped suddenly. "Wait!"
Monk and Ham halted. Anxious peering into the surrounding darkness showed them nothing.
"What is it?" Monk demanded.
"Detect that odor?" Doc queried.
Monk sniffed. Ham did likewise. They both caught the scent.
"Moth balls," Monk grunted.
"Camphor," Ham corrected.
"That does somewhat describe the odor," Doc said. "But it probably is neither. It has a distinctly different quality of its own. See if you can detect the stuff on your persons."
Monk and Ham sniffed.
"Not on us," they declared.
"It is distinctly noticeable on my stratosphere suit," Doc told them.
The bronze man finally moved forward again toward the operations office.
"Queer business," Ham murmured. "First, the attempt to seize the document case. Second, that odor."
"I told you it was all a dag-gone mystery!" Monk grunted.
THEY entered through the rear of the brightly lighted main operations office, and Doc Savage removed his stratosphere suit. He made a bundle of the garments and hailed an airport attendant. Doc handed him the suit.
"In my baggage you will find an unlocked duffle bag," he told the attendant. "Put this suit there, please."
The attendant took the suit and walked off.
Monk squinted curiously at Doc Savage. "What was the idea?"
"That odor," Doc told him. "So far, we have experienced no symptoms of toxic action; so, presumably, it was not a poison gas. Yet the odor was strange, quite different. An analysis of it, during spare time, might be interesting."
"I see," Monk said, vaguely.
Ham flourished his black cane, caught it, then untwisted the handle in a manner that showed the innocent-looking thing was, in reality, a sword cane.
"That pair wanted the document case!" he snapped.
The homely chemist, Monk, still carried the document case. He tapped it with a finger.
"Let's look the things in here over again," he said, "and see if we can figure out—"
The words seemed to freeze in his throat—freeze because of a sound that came through the door from the hallway outside. It carried a quality utterly blood-curdling. The product of a human throat, a cry with agony in its every pulsation.
Doc Savage was already diving into the hall. The other two followed him. They headed for the shrieks, running down a dark hall.
The light!
They saw it, quite unexpectedly. It must have been a tremendous light, because it was reflected down corridors; and even then, its intensity blinded. It had a reddish quality—or was it yellowish? It lasted only a moment, and then vanished.
They ran on. Doc Savage produced a small flashlight and sprayed light over two lumps on the hall floor.
One of the lumps was the stratosphere suit which Doc had given to the attendant to place in the duffle bag.
The other lump was a human body, contorted in a manner that was utterly grisly.
The shouts had attracted the throng. People began to run up, many of them to take a look at the thing in the flashlight glow, then regret their impulsiveness.
Most hideous was the hole in the center of the dead man's chest. A cannon ball going through might have left such a path.
The dead man was the attendant to whom Doc Savage had given the suit.
"Blaze!" the homely Monk choked. "Lookit!"
A miniature devil carved from agate stood on the floor near the corpse.
The floor was of concrete, and the little devil stood perfectly upright on it. The height of the thing could be more than spanned by a man's hand; but the workmanship of it, the proportioning, the carving, was perfect.
It was a rather glassy red in color.
Monk leaned over to pick the thing up. He touched it, howled and wrenched his hand back.
"It's hot!" he squalled.
Chapter II. ACCIDENT CASE