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

"They?"
"A Chinaman driving her car. He came the nearest to being a full moon as anybody I ever saw. And there was some kind of a swarthy, athletic-lookin' guy in the car with her. I never saw either him or the Chinaman before."
Doc Savage said nothing more. But he picked up the report on Ben Brasken, tapped it with a metallic forefinger, and glanced at gaunt Johnny.
"A plenary chronographical recapitulation," Johnny said.
"Eh?" Monk said.
"He said that report on Ben Brasken was complete, stupid!" Ham told Monk.
"I wish he'd learn English," Monk growled. "And who are you calling stupid, you mud dauber?"
DOC SAVAGE began to speak without emotion.
"It looks as if this Ben Brasken matter was something that could stand a little of our particular type of attention," he stated. "What do you gentlemen think?"
The expectant grins gave him his answer.
Doc Savage continued. "Your first move might be to get a line on Kit Merrimore and her two associates, the Chinaman and the dark man. Find out whatever you can. You know the best methods to use. One of you had better remain here to take the reports and assemble them, so that they will be available when I call in."
Monk demanded, "What are you going to do?"
Doc did not seem to hear the question.
The bronze man had an aggravating habit of not seeming to hear queries which, for one reason or another, he did not desire to answer. This had a connection with his custom of not letting his aids know what he was doing, frequently, when he worked alone.
The idea was that if one of them should be seized, and perhaps tortured into talking, there would be no information available which would imperil the bronze man or the others.
Renny walked over, calmly drew back, and practically demolished the wooden panel of the library door with one of his huge fists.
"Holy cow!" he said. "This affair kind of interests me already."
He looked very gloomy. It was peculiar with him that he looked the saddest when he was the happiest.
Chapter III. THE SAILOR WHO COULD NOT SWIM
POOR Ben Brasken was still in the wing for mental cases in the San Francisco hospital, and there did not seem to be much chance of his getting out soon.
A number of more or less eminent psychologists, psychopaths, psychophysicists, and a plain M. D. or two had examined Ben Brasken. As was to be expected, they came up with different ideas.
Being puzzled, they expressed themselves with five-dollar words which were not only unintelligible to an average man, but more or less confusing to each other. The truth was that they hadn't been able to quite figure out Ben Brasken.
The hospital was modern, the food good, the nurses easy on the eyes, and the patients had the use of a croquet court, swimming pool, short golf course—all surrounded by a high man-tight, woven-wire fence—so there was no reason why a poor sailor man with nowhere else to go should want to leave.
Ben Brasken seemed to have resigned himself. He sat in his chair on the lawn beside the swimming pool, his favorite spot, most of the time. It was as if, being a seafaring man, he liked to be near a bit of water.
It was there that Ben Brasken received the large, swarthy sailor who came to visit him. At least, the big visitor had a little white sailor hat perched on the back of his thatch of dark, curly hair.
There was one striking thing in particular about the visitor: He had one bad eye. It looked exactly like a large pigeon egg, pink and quite awful. The other eye was protected by a pair of colored spectacles which were minus the lens over the bad eye.
"Hello, Ben, you old swab," said the visitor, when the nurse brought him up.
The nurse, convinced he knew Ben Brasken, departed.
Ben Brasken then muttered, "Look here, I don't know you!"
"Sure you don't," said the other, and took a seat cross-legged on the edge of the swimming pool beside which Ben Brasken's chair was situated. "I wanted to talk to you."
"Whatcha want?"
"Look here," grunted the other. "Suppose I knew a sailor, and he was on a boat makin' the run from Frisco to Melbourne, and he reached Frisco one time and talked some when he was drunk about seein' a town of some kind in the ocean. Mind you, the town wasn't there. Then, on the next voyage, supposin' he disappeared off the ship."
"Why are you interested?"
"Supposin' this other sailor was my brother."
"I ain't your brother! I ain't got a brother."
"Nobody said you were or had."
"Oh!" Ben Brasken thought that over. "You mean that you had a brother and that's what happened to 'im?"
"Maybe."
"You got a heck of a hindforemost way of sayin' so."
The other shrugged. "Did you see any sign of my brother?"
Ben Brasken leaned forward eagerly. "Say, do you really believe I'm not crazy?"
"Maybe my brother wasn't crazy," the other said.
"What was his name?"
"Gulliver Smith."
"I didn't see him," sighed Ben Brasken. "The only white people I saw were the man named Martin Space and the woman."
BEN BRASKEN had been under an intense strain for days. He had known he was considered insane, and that was enough to worry any man. Now that he had a chance to talk, he literally overflowed conversation. In spite of the latter's undeniably hideous appearance. Indeed, the guests' very ugliness was something that inspired pity, and therefore a certain amount of kindness.
The story Ben Brasken told was almost word for word the same one he had told Captain Smooth, the hard-boiled master of the ancient hooker Benny Boston. When he came to the mention of the "great horror" he had seen, he did not go deeper into details than that.
"Hold on!" interjected the visitor. "What was this horror?"
Ben Brasken leaned back and closed his eyes. He seemed to be thinking. He shuddered.
"To tell the truth, that is what is worrying me," he said. "The strain of that long swim back from Ost carrying the two iron keys must have been too much for me. The doctors here said I was nearly dead from exhaustion and lack of food.