"054 (B089) - Ost (The Magic Island) (1937-08) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Nobody vould."
"I told a string of lies about a visit to a city called Ost."
"Ja,
but suppose somebody questioned your ability to swim mit dot iron you were carrying?"
"That's why I left the one behind. I could swim with one, all right."
"Maybe you could," the visitor said grimly, "but Ben Brasken could not swim."
"Huh?"
"You are not Ben Brasken."
Chapter VI. THE NEW BEN BRASKEN
THE man on the bed really bore only a vague facial resemblance to Ben Brasken. He was almost a foot taller and nearly a hundred pounds heavier.
His hand came out from under the covers. It held a gun.
"Hold everything!" he gritted.
The bearded old gentleman sat very quiet.
"I ain't Ben Brasken, all right!" snarled the man with the gun. "I'm a pal of Ben's. Two or three of Ben's pals got tired of them keepin' 'im in here and makin' out he was a nut, so we took 'im out. I stayed here so that Ben would have time to get clear. Anybody lookin' in would take it for granted that I was Ben."
"And dot story about der magic lantern?" the elderly visitor asked thoughtfully.
"That was straight. It was just a stunt of Ben's. Poor little feller. He didn't know they would put him in the birdhouse."
The man untangled himself from the bed covers and stood erect. He was very muscular, dark, and had a not unhandsome, if rather hard, face.
"Two-bit!" he called softly.
"Allee same on deck, Mis' Lupp," said a perfectly round and big Oriental, hauling himself in through the window, outside which he must have been crouching.
"You rice-eating ape!" said dark, athletic Lupp. "You called out my name!"
"You do same to me," reminded the big Celestial.
Lupp looked angry, but motioned. "Tie up whiskers here, and we'll blow. Our gag didn't go off so good."
The Oriental advanced, picked off a bedsheet, rolled it and made a rope. He evidently did not go to the movies, or he would have made the mistake of tearing the sheet to make it into ropes. A sheet that is torn is much more easily parted.
He came close to the bearded old gentleman, stopped, bent forward, and his slant eyes popped in astonishment.
"This lowly one has many times wondered how Little Led Liding Hood felt when she find wolf in little sheep's clothing," he said.
"What's wrong, you yellow peril?" Lupp growled. "You've got the story cockeyed, anyhow. Red Riding Hood's grandma was the one the wolf pre—"
"This fella all same on Benny Boston," interjected Two-bit.
"What?"
"He fella me tell 'bout. Only now be all same whiskel false!"
Lupp sprang forward with an oath, gritted, "I'll see how false the whiskers are!" and grabbed the whiskers and yanked.
Results were not quite as expected. The whiskers came off readily enough. But Lupp cried out, dropped them with wild haste, and ogled his palm.
A small puncture in his palm oozed a drop of crimson.
"There's a needle or something in them whiskers!" he snarled. "It stuck me! It felt like a spring or something made it drive into my hand!"
"That velly stlange," said Two-bit wonderingly.
"Yeah—yeah—"
Lupp drew in a full breath, shut his eyes and fell heavily on his face.
TWO-BIT, the fat Oriental, had nothing wrong with what is technically called reactions. He whirled, and seemed to be in the air before he was halfway around.
His gigantic leap took him to the window. He sailed through it, headfirst.
The big man who had pretended to be a foreign psychiatrist was only a jump behind. He reached the window, looked out. He ducked back with great haste.
Lightning struck three times outside the window, if noise was any indication. Two-bit's gun was evidently of enormous caliber. Bullets gouged plaster off the ceiling. A patient upstairs emitted an unearthly yell, which was promptly echoed by howls and screams all over the hospital. Two demented persons began to laugh like hyenas.
The big man inside the hospital room seized the mirror which lay on a table, and used it to examine the vicinity outside the window.
But Two-bit was gone by now.
Whipping back to Lupp, the big man picked the unconscious fellow up, went to the window, dropped through, and glided into the handiest patch of darkness.
Over to the right, there was a series of metallic squeaking sounds, then half a dozen sharp twangs. Some one was cutting the wire fence around the rear of the hospital, using a stout cutter, no doubt.
The big man made for the sounds.
Long before he reached them, he heard a low gasp, a squawky Oriental curse, and a blow that was louder than either gasp or curse.
The big man quickened his pace. He heard an automobile engine start, race, and connect with rear wheels with a mighty gear clash. The car left. Its engine had a carbon knock which did not seem to slow it up much.
There was a hole in the high wire fence. The big man boosted the senseless Lupp through—Lupp was still breathing—and followed. It was very dark. He took five paces and his toe touched something that yielded.
The flashlight he had used on the Benny Boston, the one which emitted a white splinter, came into use.
The man on the ground was much taller than necessary, and thinner than it seemed any individual could be and still stay out of a coffin. It was not necessary to pick up his wrist to find a pulse. The regular puffing of the artery in his wrist was visible.