"046 (B052) - The Vanisher (1936-12) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Doc caught him. The man was a bit pale, a bit overfat. His suit looked medium-priced and did not fit too well. Doc flung the man toward Monk.
"Hold him!"
"Aw-w, heck!" Monk complained, and gathered the captive in a bear hug.
The girl, craning, saw the captive, but none of them noticed her. They were too rushed. The girl shut her eyes, seemed about to faint.
Doc went on. He discovered a wide stairway, leading down. To the wine cellars, naturally. He descended.
The instant Doc was out of sight, Monk told the captive, "If you think I'm gonna stand around here and hold you and miss out on this fight, you'd better change your ideas!"
Monk belted the man senseless with a hairy fist to the jaw, let the fellow fall, and leaped after Doc.
REACHING the stairs, Monk started down, only to come flying back, propelled by Doc. The two of them got clear of the steps barely in time to let a fistful of bullets come up.
Ham, who had veered to the left to make sure no foes were lurking in the rear of the shed, galloped up. He watched slugs knock holes in the roof to the accompaniment of much noise.
"It appears they are in the basement," he said needlessly, "with what the newspapers call a Tommy gun."
Doc did not reply. He inserted a finger in one of the many pockets of a special vest which he wore and produced one of the tiny, high-explosive grenades which he frequently used. He released the firing mechanism and flipped it down the steps.
There was a roar, a gushing storm of dust and concrete fragments. The grenade had not exploded at the bottom, which made it unlikely that the gunman had been killed. But the concussion must have disturbed them, judging from the crackling profanity.
"The next one will come all the way down!" Doc called. "To save a good deal of discomfort, you men had best come out one at a time, without your weapons."
The swearing underground came to a stop. There was a voice. The voice was predominant, was giving orders. It seemed that the men below moved away.
Then came the tinkling that sounded like a music box.
Doc said sharply, "Monk! Ham! Watch the outside! There may be a tunnel from the wine cellars!"
Monk and Ham rushed for the door and vanished into the outer sunlight. They had supermachine pistols ready in their hands. This section of Norwalk was by no means thinly populated, and the noise had attracted attention. Curious persons were approaching from every direction.
Monk and Ham boosted and hauled each other atop the winery roof, in order to see better.
Sandy Yell called to Doc, "Your two shadows are wasting their time watching the outside!"
"Think so?" Doc asked, dryly.
"Big fellow, I know what you're up against, and you don't!" snapped Sandy Yell. "You hear that tinkling noise?"
"What about it?" Doc countered.
"Nothing much that I'm going to tell you," the young woman replied. "Only you'll never get your hands on the mob below! Not this time, you won't!"
MINUTES passed. The eerie tinkling continued, a sound somewhat as if mice were running over the strings of a metallic harp.
Outside, Monk howled, "I don't see no sign of no tunnel!"
Ham added, "In five minutes, we're going to have a bigger crowd than a circus!"
Doc began easing down the steps. The dust stirred up by his grenade had settled by now. It was dark farther down, and he got out his generator-operated flashlight, used it.
Wreckage lay everywhere.
The mysterious musical tinkling stopped.
At the foot of the steps—the stairs had been mangled badly by the explosion—an open underground room of some size, but with a low ceiling. Dust was thick in the air. At the opposite end was a door.
Doc went to the door and found it heavy, sheathed on his side with what appeared to be rather thick steel plates. Certain wines are valuable, and this one chamber had evidently been equipped for the maximum in safety. A test showed the door very solid.
Stepping back, Doc tossed one of the grenades. He was braced when it went off, but the impact upset him even then. Getting up from his knees, he saw the roof sagging. But it did not come down.
The metal door had caved in.
Doc went to it, but did not go through. The room inside did not have great dimensions—was, in fact, about the scale of a bedroom in a New York apartment. The floor, like the other flooring in the wine cellars, was of concrete.
But the concrete floor had been covered carefully with a coating of thick glass.
On the glass, to a depth of perhaps two inches, was a vile-looking liquid.
Doc drew a handkerchief out of a pocket and, leaning forward, let it dangle into the liquid. The immersed part of the handkerchief was consumed almost instantly.
There was no sign of any men. And there was no exit from the small underground chamber. Somehow, mysteriously, the men had disappeared without leaving any trace of their former presence.
Doc studied the room quietly with his flake gold eyes. Then into being came his eerie whistle, this time denoting puzzlement. He left the room and went back up the stairs, heaved the prisoner into the sedan alongside the girl, got behind the wheel, found the sedan would run, and backed out of the building, after some difficulty.
Monk and Ham sprang down off the roof and got into the sedan.
There was a crowd about. Doc spotted a policeman, leaned out and said, "Be extremely careful when you examine that wine cellar. Do not step into the liquid on the floor."
"Wait a minute!" the cop barked. "What's been going on here?"
Without replying, Doc started to drive off. The policeman sprang on the running board, hung on with one hand and put his other hand on the grip of his pistol. Then he recognized Doc Savage.
"Oh!" he said, and got off the running board and let them go.
THE bronze man took to the roads on which there was almost no traffic. They drove in silence for a while.
"What happened to them guys?" Monk demanded suddenly.
"They vanished," Doc explained.
Monk snorted. "There must have been secret tunnels or something! Ain't we makin' a mistake not hangin' around to hunt for 'em?"
"We would not find them," Doc said.
The girl, Sandy Yell, eyed the bronze man sharply.