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

The man Doc had been following whirled at the shout. He saw the big bronze figure bearing down on him. The significance of the situation struck him instantly. He could not reach the coupй before Doc cut him off!
The thug emitted one sharp squeak of fear, gave up all ideas of reaching the coupй, and fled. He drew a revolver and began to fire backward over his shoulder in a manner so reckless that only rank luck could have let him hit anything.
The hybrid-faced driver of the coupй also got a gun in action. He showed no such carelessness with his marksmanship. Orange flame and gun roar came out of the coupй window with measured precision.
Doc felt cold air stir, and the snap of a bullet almost against his face. He veered, seeking shadows. The gun in the coupй roared five times—evidently all of the shells it held, because silence followed.
The man whose lower face was rubbery leaned out of the coupй window and shouted at the fleeing one.
"Know where to head for?" he squalled.
"Where?" screeched the fleeing man, without slackening his pace.
"The place I signaled you with the dome light!" howled the man in the coupй.
After that, the car got in motion. It left the scene completely in the space of seconds.
Doc Savage's quarry reached an alley. As he entered it, the man turned to see how far behind was his bronze nemesis.
Turning to look over a shoulder while running is a feat which requires coordination and agility. This man lacked one or the other, for his rather large feet became entangled and he hit the alley paving with a squawk and a thud. The man was up again almost instantly, and continued running down the alley.
Doc reached the alley mouth. He went in quickly, but warily, resorting to the gait known to football players as a change of pace. His rate of speed was not the same from one instant to another, and made him a difficult target for a gun.
Then he caught the odor.
It was faint, so faint that attempting to ascertain its actual existence only worried the nostrils. A moment or two was required for Doc's olfactory sense even to identify it.
Camphor—or moth balls! That described it as accurately as any description could, although there was a vague difference which led to the suspicion it was neither of these.
DOC slowed almost to a stop, his movements very wary. The only light in the alley was yellow overflow from a night lamp burning in the back of some store.
Then came a sound that jerked the bronze man into swift motion. It was a quivering sound, and made one think of razor blades gritting on glass. A man's scream. Utter terror it held, and it came from ahead.
There were foot noises ahead—not sounds which might be made by a man walking or even running. They were frenzied foot-slappings and scrapings, a struggle.
The screams came again and again. They were not nice to listen to. The shrill screams suddenly became fainter. The victim must have ducked into one of the buildings which lined the alley.
It took Doc Savage only split-seconds to find the door through which the cries still came. The door was closed. The bronze man found fastenings. The portal remained closed; it was wrenched. Barred on the inside. The door was thick—a slab of wood. Doc jarred it with his shoulder. It held.
Then, muffled by the thick panel, the screaming voice began to make words. The victim must have heard Doc at the door.
"Who's there?" he squalled.
There were, perhaps, a number of reasons why Doc Savage should not reveal his identity; but the bronze man, appraising them all swiftly in his mind, found none worth considering.
"Doc Savage!" he identified himself through the door. If the bronze man expected the victim within to be frightened or become silent at the news, he got a surprise.
"Savage!" squalled the fellow. "The damn thing is tryin' to kill me!"
The weird odor, like moth balls, yet different, was very strong.
"The Agate Devil!" the man inside screamed suddenly. "It's been killing—all over the world—gonna kill—plan under way—go to Solar Seven—"
He broke off and bawled out in utter horror. There was the stamping of feet, as if he struggled madly.
Doc hit the door again. It resisted.
"The Agate Devil!" the man inside screamed. "Savage! Get to Solar Seven—Solar Seven—"
That was all he said. While Doc Savage hit the door with a force which only alloy-hard muscles could withstand, the cries of the man within trailed away, as if something had dragged him into a deep hole.
Then the fantastic light appeared.
THE lurid yellow glow, the same unholy luminance which Doc had seen at the airport—it was, if anything, now more unnatural.
Only around the edges of the door was the unearthly light visible. Doc Savage sought to get an eye to these cracks to peer inside, but the apertures were situated so that this was impossible.
Then the mystifying ocherous glow disappeared. There was no noise, no commotion. The eerie luminance simply faded, and complete darkness took its place. There was silence.
The alley began to echo with the sound of running feet. These noises approached Doc, coming from the direction of the street: Three men racing furiously, judging from the sound.
A moment later, the newcomers appeared—Monk and Ham, trailed by lawyer Pell.
"Doc!" Monk howled. "That you?"
"Here," Doc Savage called.
"What in blazes happened?" demanded Monk. "That screaming! We heard it back in Pell's office building! Man, it sounded like somebody was plenty scared!"
Doc Savage did not make explanations.
"We must get this door open," he said.
The bronze man now took from a pocket a small affair of folded leather that might have suggested a needle case. The contents of this somewhat resembled needles, except that they were longer and curved in various strange shapes. It was the lock-picking outfit which the bronze man always carried. He employed the little probes on the door.
The door seemed to be secured by a stout spring lock, which, no doubt, had sprung when the fleeing man slammed the panel. There ensued some minutes, when only the slight clicking of Doc's instrument could be heard. Then the door came open.
So intense was the darkness within that it seemed to flow out of the opening. No flicker of emotion showed on Doc's metallic features, as he stepped through.
The place became brilliantly white with light as Doc found an electric switch. Monk, Ham, and Pell sidled gingerly through the door.
It was a shabby room, apparently long unused. The instant they were inside, Monk and Ham stopped short. Pell also seemed to freeze in his tracks.
"Blazes!" Monk gulped, hoarsely.
They all looked at what was on the floor.
It was a man, a corpse. The dead visage was that of the thick-bodied fellow whom Doc had trailed after catching the man eavesdropping outside Montgomery Medwig Pell's law office.