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

"You're taking too long to make up your mind." The deformed prowler then made a move as if to close the cell door on McGinnis.
"Wait!" McGinnis exploded. "I'll do it! Hell, yes!"
"Help me get the others," directed the humpback. "There are exactly twenty men here, including yourself, whom I want. They have all been framed by the same men who sent you here."
McGinnis looked utterly dumfounded. "Twenty! You mean there's that many here—in this penitentiary alone? That many of their victims?"
"Twenty, exactly," said the other.
McGinnis made croaking, stunned sounds in his effort to speak.
"I didn't dream the system was that—large!" he gulped finally.
"The system, as you call it, has become a billion-dollar industry," said the hunchback. "It has become a Juggernaut."
There was a gritting, metallic intensity about the strange figure's remark. A radio actor would have called it a registration of utter hate.
McGinnis peered closely at his strange benefactor.
"Good love!" he muttered. "You're just about the homeliest hag I ever saw!"
THE humpbacked creature seemed to mind the insult not at all. Low, businesslike orders were issued. Cell after cell was opened. Prisoners were questioned as to their identity and then propositioned.
The human male is by nature a suspicious cuss. This was proved by the fact that not a single cell inmate agreed instantly to being freed. Two even flatly refused after hearing it explained that they were to be freed to fight a common enemy.
The humpback calmly blackjacked the two who refused to leave their cells.
"Carry them along," the creature ordered, harshly. "If they do not want to go willingly, we will draft them."
Most of the freed prisoners had by this time gotten a fair look at their benefactor. Several had shivered. A movie director would have made up such a monster as this humpback to haunt a spooky castle.
"Who in blazes are you?" asked one of the rescued cell inmates.
"I am your brain for the next year," said the camel-backed person.
Which was an answer that was something to think about.
A bit later, another of the criminals, after staring for some length at the humpback, said, "I don't think you're a woman after all."
The camel-backed one did not reply.
"Sure, it's a woman," said McGinnis. But he sounded unsure.
The last crook on the list was taken from his cell.
The twenty convicts and their remarkable rescuer filed out of the cell block. The convicts saw the limp guards, and they began to get scared.
"We're in a hell of a jam!" one groaned. "We can't get outside the walls!"
Another echoed, "We'll get solitary for this!"
The humpback spoke with brittle calmness.
"Shut up! Walk to that freight car and get inside!"
The convicts stared incredulously.
"Listen," one growled, "there ain't no way of that car gettin' outside the walls. They even got it fixed so a railroad engine can't be used to smash down the walls."
The humpback produced a big revolver. "Get in that freight car!"
THE twenty men got in the freight car. They did it very carefully, making no appreciable noise, and when they were inside, the weird figure with the distorted torso produced a flashlight which exuded a tiny beam. This light roved over the box car floor, illuminating a number of objects in succession.
Jules R. McGinnis goggled at what the light was revealing. He was speechless.
"G-g-good love!" he choked. "Why these—what—what - why are the men here?"
The camel-backed individual replied in a violent, fanatical whisper, "They are to be placed in the cells which you men just left."
Stunned silence held the freed convicts.
Jules R. McGinnis started a laugh; something almost mad was in his mirth. He did not get far with the laugh, because the humpback grabbed his mouth with rough fierceness. "You fool! Be quiet!"
McGinnis had recovered his composure when he was released.
"I don't understand this," he said, hoarsely.
"You don't need to," rasped the humpback. "This is the first move in a strange campaign."
Chapter 2. THE AMAZED MEN
IT must have been half an hour later when John Winer, the penitentiary guard in the wall tower nearest the box car, heard a small sound. He peered over the tower side. At first, he saw nothing: then, near the box car, he perceived a skulking figure.
The tower was equipped with a searchlight. John Winer turned this on, pointed the thin beam, and saw a weird figure, a humpback. The humpback drew a gun; the gun banged, and the searchlight went out. It was a good shot.
John Winer knew something was wrong. He seized his rifle, leaned out and began shooting. He could discern the camel-backed figure in the gloom of the prison yard.
John Winer did not realize he himself was outlined against the moon, which was behind the tower, and furnished an excellent target. A bullet fired by the hunchback, hit John Winer almost exactly in the middle of the chest. Then it was too late to think about being a target.
Guards came running and found Winer a broken, dying heap. He was lying in a grotesque position, so they hastily straightened him out.
Words came from Winer's lips. As a dying man sometimes will, he mouthed fragments of speech about something which had lately come to his attention.
"Doc Savage!" mumbled John Winer. "Man of bronze— trouble—"
"Eh?" exploded one of the guards "Who shot you, Winey?"
John Winer never heard that question. His incoherent mumblings simply continued.