"064 (B063) - The Submarine Mystery (1938-06) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

China shivered again. "The heck I'll forget it. My old friend Portia swims ashore from a mysterious submarine that blew up, and she wants to talk to you; then a funny gang of ancient Englishmen grab her, and you, and me, and your two friends, all to hush the thing up. Forget it? Not as long as I live, I won't! It's too cockeyed!"
They came to a rough street, and Doc Savage drove on the street car tracks, where it was smoother.
"Everything may come out all right," he said.
"All right for who?" China asked grimly. "Two to one this bozo is taking us to more bozos just like him. Do you know what they'll do to us? If you don't, I do. They'll put us in those sacks I was telling you about."
The street got smooth again, and Doc steered the automobile off the street car tracks.
China sighed and ran her fingers through her honey-colored hair. "I hate being puzzled," she complained. "If it's the last thing that happens, I hope I learn what this is about. I'd hate to die puzzled."
One of the banes of any man's existence was a young woman who talked too much. Doc restrained himself from telling her so.
China seemed to be doing some thinking. As a result of this, she put her jaw up emphatically.
"Whatever happens," she said, "I'm going down fighting. When the funeral is over, they'll know they buried somebody."
It occurred to Doc Savage that, while the young lady did have some aggravating traits, she did undoubtedly have a pleasant supply of courage.
IT developed that their captor knew where he was going. He directed them to an enormous solid wooden gate in a very high and very grimy brick wall near the water front. A sign along the top of this wall said:
MODERN MARINE CONSTRUCTION CO.
A gatekeeper opened the gate, then came forward to investigate the car. The gatekeeper had a thumb hooked in his belt, and just below this thumb swung a large military-looking automatic pistol in a holster.
The armed flunky looked in at China and Doc Savage, and seemed unimpressed. But when he glanced at the man sitting in the rear seat holding the horse pistol, he was much impressed.
"Great snakes!" he exploded.
"Pass us, vassal!" ordered the man with the horse pistol.
They were passed, and Doc followed directions and drove between large buildings, huge piles of steel plates, steel pipes, and steel girders. They passed under huge traveling cranes and circled tall derricks. They were deafened by the rat-tat-tat of riveting machines, and welding arcs threw blue-white light into the car.
"I think," China said, "that this is a—a—"
"Shipyard?"
"That's it. A place where they build ships."
Doc Savage adjusted the rear-view mirror to get a look at their shepherd. The fellow was holding the horse pistol in plain sight of any one who cared to look. Several persons in the shipyard must have seen the gun, but none of them did anything about it.
China decided to see what she could do to spur their chivalry.
"Help!" she screamed suddenly and piercingly. "Help! Murder! Get me out of here!"
At least a dozen men heard her shriek. They stopped working and looked at the car.
"Help!" China screeched, putting plenty of terror into it. "This man is going to kill us!"
The men who had stopped working went back to work as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
China sank back on the seat and shook.
"What—what kind of place is this?" she asked wildly.
"An unusual place, I should say," Doc Savage admitted.
"But—but—" China swallowed several times. "But—it's in Brooklyn! Right here in New York City. It's in—well, in Brooklyn!"
Under the circumstances, it did not make much difference whether it was in Brooklyn or where it was. Being in Brooklyn only made it a trifle more fantastic.
"Ho!" said the man in the back seat. "Stop, prithee!"
Doc Savage halted the car.
"Look!" China gasped. "A whole litter of submarines!"
Chapter IX. THE BREAKS
IT was apparent that while the shipyard might build other things, its main output was submarines. The iron fish lay in a row, four of them, side by side. The nearest was nearly done; the next had only half its hull plates; the third had no plates at all, and the fourth was not much more than a keel. The subs were being built on cradles which could be rolled down tracks into the water.
"Submarines!" China said. She looked at Doc Savage. "They should suggest something, but they don't."
The submarines were on the right. On the left stood the granddaddy of all boathouses. It lacked the height of the dirigible hangar at Lakehurst, but it appeared to have almost as much floor space. It was of brick, and had no windows. There were doors, however.
A door opened. Doc drove inside, as he was commanded. While several men were closing the door behind the car, he leaned out to look around.
Except for one thing, there was nothing particularly remarkable about the inside of the big boathouse. The one remarkable thing was the fact that a swarm of men seemed to be working at frantic speed putting a submarine together.
All the parts of this submarine seemed to be ready-made. Plates were the exact size, rivet holes were drilled, and everything was prepared for quick assembling.
It seemed a rather unusual way to build a submarine. And this sub appeared an exact twin of one that was being built outdoors.
"Here comes our old friend," China said grimly.
Doc had seen him. It was Prince Albert, and he was in a wheel chair. A laprobe was bundled around him to his chin, and he looked as if he was still very ill from the pill he had swallowed. He could, it seemed, barely wriggle his fingers and whisper, but this was enough to allow him to issue orders.
He issued some, and an astounding number of guns appeared in the hands of the men in the boathouse as they surrounded the car. Henry strolled sadly out of the belligerent mob, and opened the car door.
"Wouldst get out?" Henry asked.
Doc got out peaceably.
"And thee, as well," Henry told China.
The young woman also got out, but not peaceably. She stared about as if looking for some one to bite.
"I'm about ready," she said, "to do something desperate."