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

Doc Savage leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Take a deep breath, then hold it."
The girl had enough presence of mind not to show surprise, and she started drawing in her breath.
At that moment, there began climbing out of the submarine a group of men who were clad in what could pass for the very modern ski suits which girls wear, providing the suits were equipped with hoods of flexible, transparent stuff that looked like Cellophane. They carried rifles.
"Never mind holding your breath," Doc said. He sounded faintly disgusted.
China frowned. "First hold my breath, then don't." She made an angry shape with her rather attractive mouth. "I wonder who's slightly wacky around here?"
Doc Savage did not explain that he had been about to use his anaesthetic bombs—effects of which they could escape by holding their breath—but that the appearance of the group of men wearing gasproof suits had made that plan useless.
The bronze man began to have a vague suspicion that getting out of here might be quite a considerable job.
DOC and China were seized. Almost as many men got hold of them as could lay hands on them.
Prince Albert ordered his chair wheeled close, then said, "Give the girl a bathin' suit and put her in one of those big boxes, and give her five minutes to come out with the bathin' suit on."
China snapped, "If you think I'm taking your orders, you're crazy!"
"Maybe," Prince Albert said, "you'd like us to search you instead?"
China subsided, took the bathing suit they threw her, and got into a huge box which lay on its side with the open part toward the wall.
Prince Albert pointed at Doc Savage and said, "Frisk him, boys. I understand he wears a vest full of gadgets. Get that."
The men stripped the bronze man of coat, vest, shirt, and removed the alloy-mesh bulletproof vest which he wore. Then they went through his pockets.
They did a thorough job with their search, prying off his shoe heels and slapping under his arms and along the insides of his legs for any kind of weapon that might have been fastened there with adhesive tape. After that Doc received all his clothes back—minus his carry-all vest.
"Now," Prince Albert said, "let's see you get away."
China came out of her box, her very cute figure attired in a bathing suit which left absolutely no doubt about a number of things, including the fact that she could not possibly have concealed weapons. She had enough of effect to cause several moments of silent, profound admiration, which she didn't appreciate.
"Monkeys," she said, "seem to take to limbs."
Prince Albert mustered enough life to grasp the arms of his wheel chair and roll himself over to the girl. The effort so exhausted him that he glared at Doc Savage.
"Your fault I'm in this fix!" he complained. "If you hadn't been about to question me, I wouldn't have had to take that stuff to knock me out."
China told Prince Albert, "And if you hadn't been making trouble for people, you wouldn't have been in Doc Savage's office in the first place."
The incredibly homely fellow frowned at her.
"How," he asked China, "would you like to be a lady's maid?"
"I wouldn't like it," China said promptly.
"That's too bad," Prince Albert retorted, "because that's what you're goin' to be. Portia isn't satisfied. She needs someone—"
"I wouldn't think," China interrupted, "that she'd be satisfied around cutthroats. Portia has better taste."
"She needs a lady's maid," continued Prince Albert, ignoring the interruption, "and you're it. Old friend of hers, aren't you? That's swell. Take her away, boys."
Considerably over half the men shouted, "Yea, sire!" and attempted to appropriate the escort job; Prince Albert did some feeble, but violent swearing before he got it straightened out. Then Prince Albert leveled a finger at Doc Savage.
"We may need an out!" Prince Albert said dramatically.
"A what?" Doc inquired.
"Out. We've had to stir up things. Had to seize that girl. Had some trouble with you. The police are probably lookin' for us. If they find us, we'll need the out."
Doc asked, "Just what do you mean by an out?"
"You've got a lot of influence with the police."
"And so?"
"And so if you told 'em you had investigated us, and we were O. K., the cops would let us alone."
Doc Savage asked dryly, "And you think I would mislead the police?"
"I know you would," Prince Albert said with certainty. "We've got ways of makin' you."
This concluded that part of the conversation. Prince Albert issued orders, and a number of men fell upon Doc Savage. He did not resist them. The men led him up a long flight of movable steps to the deck of the submarine, thence down into the innards of the submersible. A door was unlocked. Doc was propelled through the door into intense darkness.
WITH great promptness, a voice said, "You take that side, Ham. I'll take this side." The voice was small and squeaky.
A deeper voice, an orator's voice, said, "We'll feel him over, Monk, and if he don't feel right, we'll let him have it."
Doc Savage said, "Let who have it?"
"Doc!" Monk squeaked.
"Of all people!" Ham whooped.
"Monk! Ham!" Doc Savage exclaimed. "Are you all right?"
It was obvious they were. They sounded too enthusiastic to be otherwise.
"Doc," Monk said, "don't tell me you're a prisoner, too? We were just telling each other how lucky it was you weren't in here. We figured one of 'em had come in to talk to us, and we were gonna give 'im the works."
Doc Savage asked, "What have you learned?"
Monk made a disgusted noise. "Well, we were back in that farmhouse, you know, where you left us to question them scamps. At first, they just called us Old English names. By the way, you'd be surprised at the names they can call you in that Old English language. Anyhow, before we got far with our rat-killing, some of their partners barged in on us unexpectedlike, and first thing you know, our names was mud. We wound up here."
"My question," Doc reminded Monk, "was this: What have you learned about this mystery?"
"Well," Monk said, "they recaptured some girl named Portia. It seems Portia had got away from another part of their gang, and they wanted her back. Portia was trying to get to you, and had sent some one to you, another girl named China—"