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

THE unexpected, even at its mildest, is startling. A man who almost steps on a mouse may jump only a little less mildly than if he had stepped on a jungle lion.
Johnny leaped as high as his chair. When he came down, he had in one hand a weapon which resembled an oversized automatic pistol, but which was really a supermachine pistol of Doc's development. A Western bad man of the '80s could not have drawn his shooting iron quicker.
Lupp yelled, "I'm in the center of the room, guys! Be careful!"
Johnny leaped to the door into the inner room, waited there, his machine pistol ready. He seemed surprised when Doc Savage shoved him on into the room with Long Tom and Renny and slammed the door.
Lupp was now shut off from them in the next room. And the guns were crashing in the corridor. Blasting the lock out, no doubt.
Johnny exploded, "But, Doc! When they come through the door, with this pistol and mercy bullets, I can—"
"You might," Doc Savage said quietly. "But that would not find Ben Brasken."
"Oh," Johnny said, understanding.
"Keep them from getting in here," Doc warned.
Renny and Long Tom had likewise produced machine pistols.
"Fat chance!" Renny rumbled.
The shooting in the other room abruptly ceased. The men in the hallway kicked the door in.
The round Oriental, Two-bit, led the raiders. His associates were tough-looking fellows.
THEY ran to Lupp. Since he was handcuffed to the chair, and the chair was stout, they could not get him loose. They picked him up chair and all.
"Get Ben Brasken!" Lupp yelled. "He's in the next room!"
"That Doc Savage fella tell you stoly," explained Two-bit.
"What?"
"We still got Ben Brasken."
Lupp understood then that he had been tricked. He was too shocked to get mad.
"Beat it!" he ordered.
Two-bit and the others showed willingness to do that. They carried Lupp and the chair into the hall, popped into the elevator. The elevator operator sat in one corner of the cage, mouth open, jaw skinned, breathing.
The cage went down.
"How'd you find me?" Lupp wanted to know.
"Velly simple." Two-bit shook his shoulders. "Me lait till men take you away. I follow."
"Oh." Lupp grimaced. "Damn Savage anyhow. But he still don't know what it's all about yet."
Two-bit looked as calm as ever. "We listen," he sing-songed. "We note stlange words coming from you."
Lupp swore and looked fierce. "Don't get the wrong idea, pigtail! I was getting ready to save my neck, maybe set a trap for Savage. I thought he had you and Ben Brasken, and that you talked."
After that there was silence.
The cage reached the lobby. Several persons were staring curiously, and there was a crowd of small proportions out in the street. The shots upstairs, of course, had been heard.
The raiders calmly shot part of the bulbs out of the chandeliers, shot some of the glass out of the front windows, and the spectators all used good judgment: They dived into the handiest shelter.
Two-bit and the others carried Lupp to two cars parked on the street. They divided their number between the machines, and the cars got going.
A police siren was howling in the distance.
Big-fisted Renny, leaning out of a hotel window, heard the siren. From the window, he could not see the street, but he could hear the cars going away.
On the inner side of the window sill was a deep nick. The tine of a grappling hook had made it. To the end of the grapple was attached a long, thin very stout silk line. Doc Savage had gone down this.
Renny squinted into the darkness. He could not see Doc. For that matter, the bronze man had been gone for some moments.
Renny snorted and went out to make explanations to the police, who had by now arrived. This would not be too difficult. Doc Savage and his men held a special commission from the California governor designating them as special investigators with police authority, which took in a lot of territory.
Long Tom, the electrical wizard, opened a metal case—Doc Savage's equipment was transported in metal containers which looked very much alike except for painted numbers—and brought out a short-wave radio transmitting and receiving apparatus. The antenna which this used was hardly larger than a walking stick, and telescoped. He switched it on, adjusted the dials, and left it on.
Soft crackles of static and nothing else came from the loud-speaker for almost half an hour.
"Long Tom," Doc Savage's, voice said from the speaker.
"Coast Avenue and Tuna Street," the bronze man said, when Long Tom answered. "Better hurry."
COAST AVENUE meant water-front dives. Tuna Street was wholesale fish. There was plenty of darkness. The wad of clouds above had started leaking fine rain.
Johnny stood in a dark alley and jumped a foot at least when Doc Savage spoke beside him.
"The pier to which the Benny Boston is tied is at the end of this street," Doc Savage said. "The trail led to a waterfront rooming house near by. The proprietor of the rooming house advised me, when he was questioned, that a man answering the description of Ben Brasken had taken a room, along with some other men."
"We're gettin' close to the end of the trail," Renny rumbled softly.
"The rooming house is a labyrinth of a place," Doc continued. "There are at least three entrances and exits. That means each of you will have one to guard, while I go up and flush the game."
"Let's go," Long Tom said grimly.
One entrance to the rooming establishment—by stretching a little it might have been called a hotel—was through a gloomy drinking place which had sawdust and wooden sand box garboons on the floor. Another entrance was a blowsy door with a sign, "Beds 15c, 25c, 50c." The third gave into an alley and was probably as much used as any of the others. Doc stationed his men.
The bartender in the drinking place also ran the rooms, collecting for them at least. When Doc entered, he sidled over and spoke.
"Some of them fellers you was askin' about just left," he said.
Doc described Ben Brasken quickly.