"042 (B046) - The Midas Man (1936-08) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Yes," William Harper Littlejohn admitted. "But what—"
"Johnny, you just shut up and lay there!"
One of the men left the black room. It was fully half an hour before the fellow reappeared. During this interval, "Johnny" made several attempts to leave the mummy case, but was knocked back into the sarcophagus. All he could do was to lie there and glare indignantly.
The returning man bore a newspaper.
"I see Jethro Mandebran had a son who was in Europe," he declared.
"So what?" asked one of his fellows.
"So the son is tearing home to try to help find his old man," announced the fellow with the paper. "It says here that he chartered a plane and flew out five hundred miles in the Atlantic to catch a transatlantic steamer. It says his plane landed on the ocean and was hauled aboard the ship. It also says that the son is gonna leave the ship in his plane as soon as he's within five hundred miles of New York. In fact, the son is probably in the air again right now."
"I'll see if the chief has any orders about this," one of the three captors said, and left the room.
JOHNNY strained against the handcuffs, but they were too strong. He indignantly tried to push the sides out of the mummy case, but had no luck. He tried to get out of the case, but they hit him on the head with a revolver barrel.
He lay back, pain making his eyes water. He was caring less and less for the inside of the mummy case. Possibly it was only imagination, but he thought he could smell traces of its original occupant.
Johnny yelled, "Was there any trunk full of archaeological relics?"
"No!" grinned the man who had practiced that deception.
"Shut up, you fool!" snapped the other. "You should have told him there was!"
"He won't dream what it's all about," retorted the first. "And, say, pal, don't be so free about who you call a fool."
Johnny addressed the fellow who had objected to being insulted. "You haven't much pride, letting him call you a fool and get away with it. Shows you're short on nerve."
The man grinned widely.
"You ain't kidding anybody, you bag of bones," he chuckled. "You're trying to start a fight. Not a chance! This guy and me are great pals, even if he does have a face built for nibbling cheese."
The other man, whose features did have something of a mousey look, shoved out his jaw, made fists with his hands, and it seemed for a moment as if there was going to be a fight after all.
The man who had gone out of the room—to get orders from the mysterious "chief," he had said—came back. He looked very cheerful.
He said, "Doc Savage really don't know a thing about this business. We made a mistake when we grabbed this bag of bones."
Johnny swallowed several times. This was the truth. But how had they learned it?
The man looked at Johnny. "We can't turn you loose, because you would tell Doc Savage what has happened and he would meddle. So we gotta figure what to do."
There was a silence. It did not look to Johnny as if they were doing much thinking. It looked as if they already knew what they would do with him, and it would not be pleasant.
A man demanded, "Is the Happy Skeleton business going through okay?"
"The Happy Skeleton business? Sure! No slips there."
"You fools had better quit talkin' so much," the third man told the rest.
They fell silent.
All of this conversation made not the slightest sense to Johnny.
"What do you fellows want with me?" the gaunt geologist demanded, angrily.
"Nothing now," said one of the men. "We're through with you, brother!"
"You haven't done anything with me!" Johnny looked bewildered. "I mean—nothing that made sense."
"It makes plenty of sense, if you only knew!" the other assured him.
"Then turn me loose!" Johnny ordered.
The other seemed to consider this at length.
"As soon as Jethro Mandebran's son lands in his airplane," the man said, "I think we shall shoot you."
Chapter III. THE MANDEBRAN SCION
ALEXANDER CROMWELL MANDEBRAN was, as was natural under the circumstances, a public figure for the time being, a celebrity. Alex Mandebran had been interviewed aboard the transatlantic liner and had named the airport at which he expected to land in the United States. As a result, reporters and cameramen were on hand to greet Mandebran's plane.
The airport selected was one on the outskirts of the city of Philadelphia, the metropolis from which the missing Jethro Mandebran had disappeared.
The plane was a small English amphibian, sturdily built. An English pilot employed by Alex Mandebran was at the controls, and, fairly early in the morning, he made an excellent landing. He taxied up to the hangar of the airport, and immediately the ship was surrounded by a crowd.
Alex Mandebran proved to be a large man, with an especially good pair of shoulders. He had full lips, a square jaw, and his general appearance indicated considerable physical strength. His hair was smeared with gray at the temples, despite the fact that his age had been reported in the newspapers at twenty-eight.
"Really, now, I cawn't be expected to waste much time, can I?" he said, when asked to answer questions. "Nawsty thing, you know. Fair takes my breath. I'm in rawther a hurry to get to Philadelphia and investigate the beastly mess."
Despite the affected English accent, Alex Mandebran seemed a nice enough young man.
"What do you think has happened to your father?" he was asked.
"Really, I cawn't say yet," he replied.
"What do you think has happened to the twenty million dollars?" was the next question.
"Really, I'd rawther not say as to that either," the young man murmured.
"Do you know anything at all about the case?"
"I am sure that the name of my father will be cleared in the end, oh, definitely! I am going to Philadelphia at once. I trust I shall have more to say, after I am there a short time."
A reporter inquired, "How long have you been abroad?"
"Most of my life, to tell the truth," said young Mandebran.