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

Doc held the limp form erect. An ominous blue swelling showed back of the senseless man's left ear. His eyelids began to flutter. The unconscious man's face was pinch-lipped, angular. But the startling thing about him was his skin; it was surprisingly youthful, almost boyish. Yet his rumpled thatch of graying hair went with advanced years. His eyes were still glazed, but his lips began moving.
"Whereas, the parties of the first part and second part, having with malicious intent—" The man's dazed, mumbling words became unintelligible.
Monk said, "Sounds like shyster lingo to me."
Doc Savage shook the gray-haired man gently, and, after a bit, the fellow's eyes began to lose their glazed look. He straightened and, when Doc released him, managed to stand, weaving only a little. He blinked at them.
"Doc Savage!" he said, hoarsely. "I've seen—your—pictures!"
The bronze man nodded slightly. "And you?"
"Montgomery Medwig Pelt is my name," said the man.
"Blazes!" Monk exploded. "This is the guy who wired us to come to Los Angeles!"
"What was behind this attack on you?" Doc Savage asked Montgomery Medwig Pelt.
"I do not know," the man with the old hair and the young skin answered.
"Who were the attackers?"
"I never saw them before," said Pelt. The tall, thin, stooped barrister waved in the general direction of the upper part of the building. "Why not go to my suite of offices?" he suggested. "Talk will be easier there; maybe safer."
The white-haired attorney led the way to a door in one corner of the basement garage and climbed stairs to the first-floor lobby, where a lone elevator took them upward.
LAWYER Montgomery Medwig Pell's offices strove hard for an effect of spaciousness. The two rooms were large; but they had hardly enough furniture to keep from seeming bare. Cheap desks, cheap chairs. The set-up was not impressive. The inner sanctum contained a case full of legal tomes that looked as if they had been picked up secondhand.
Pell, looking seedy, sank weakly into a chair behind a large desk. There was dust on the unused parts of the desk.
Doc Savage waited for Pell to begin speaking. When the attorney showed no sign of doing so, the bronze man asked a question.
"You summoned us from New York?" Doc queried.
Montgomery Medwig Pell promptly got down to brass tacks.
"Here are the facts," he said. "A week ago, I received a package and a letter. This is the letter."
He sorted through some papers, and handed over a typewritten sheet:
MONTGOMERY M. PELL,
Suite 720, Western Bldg.,
Los Angeles, Cal.
DEAR SIR:
I am seeking your services in a rather unusual matter. Enclosed is the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a retainer. I hope the amount will be satisfactory.
My life is in danger. The lives of several other persons are also in danger. In fact, we are about to become the victims of an incredible terrible thing. But this letter is not one of explanation.
You probably think by now that I am perhaps insane. The five thousand is to persuade you otherwise.
At present, I can think of only one man capable of aiding myself and the others. He is a man who makes a business of getting people out of trouble. His name is Doc Savage.
Arrange to secure the help of Doc Savage, please.
Hold the enclosed package for instructions. Do not open.
I will telephone you later.
Sincerely,
C. WRAITH
"That," said Monk, "don't tell us a heck of a lot."
Pell sighed. "Nor me."
"Know anything else?" Doc asked.
"A little," said Pell. "The next day, the fellow who wrote the letter telephoned and wanted to know if you were coming. I said you were. I was instructed to rent a safe-deposit box in the Cinema Trust Company and place the package in it."
"Had you opened it?"
"Oh, no! The letter said not to open it."
"Where is the package now?"
"I obeyed instructions and put it in a safe-deposit box in the Cinema Trust Company."
"What disposition were you to make finally of the package?"
"I was getting to that. I was to turn it over to you, when you arrived. And that, gentlemen, is everything I know about this mysterious affair. Why those men a while ago tried to kill me, I do not know. They neglected to explain."
Doc asked, "Did this C. Wraith happen to mention his full name?"
Pell frowned. "Oh, yes. Camphor Wraith."
"What?" Monk howled.
"Camphor Wraith. Strange, eh? Obviously a faked name."
"Doc!" Monk roared. "That stuff at the airport—the stuff that got on your flying suit—it had a camphor smell!"
"Camphor Wraith," Doc Savage repeated, slowly. "The name might have significance."
"It is all utterly baffling to me," Montgomery Medwig Pell murmured, weakly.