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

"Yes," Doc interrupted, "but what have you learned?"
"We're on a submarine."
"But what is this all about? What have you learned?"
"If you've got to be so darned persistent—nothing," Monk grumbled. "We ain't learned a thing."
"And with that," said Ham, who had taken no part in the conversation up to this point, "Monk hit the nail on the head. We're mystified."
"We're flopdoozled," Monk explained.
When Monk coined a word to explain a predicament, it was apt to be a bad fix he was describing. Doc Savage inquired, and learned there was no one else locked up with them. Their prison cell was a compartment in the submarine.
"About the young woman named Portia," Doc said. "Do you know where she is?"
"Oh, boy!" Monk said. "Ziggety! Hot dog!"
"From which we can gather," Doc Savage said dryly, "that you have seen the young lady. Where is she?"
"They put her on board this submarine," Monk advised. "Further than that, I don't know."
Doc Savage moved to the steel door of the steel compartment which was located slightly abaft of midships in the sub.
"It is time we were doing something about this," the bronze man said, "providing anything can be done about it."
Monk and Ham went silent. It was utterly dark in the metal cubby, their captors having neglected to supply the newly installed electric light socket with a bulb. The place smelled very new; also, there was a trace of ozone odor that electric welding machines leave in the vicinity of their operations.
It was dark, but it was by no means quiet. Hammers, riveters, grinders, and electric drills made an uproar that illustrated exactly what they meant when they said a place was as noisy as a boiler factory.
"If Doc gets us out of here," homely Monk muttered, "I'll buy the cigars."
THE scientific training which Doc Savage had received had been thorough and, of course, included some work aimed at developing his sense of touch, which was particularly important when it was necessary to do something in the dark.
As one exercise, Doc Savage had started out reading the conventional Braille raised-dots-on-paper printing of the blind, and had systematically decreased the size of the Braille letters until he could touch-read astonishingly small type.
It did not take him long to feel out the construction of the door. There was nothing to be encouraged about. The door would have been rather formidable equipment for a vault.
Doc took all the buttons off his coat, and crushed these separately, then mixed the powder. Then he tore his necktie in two pieces and used the ends to fashion receptacles for the powder on top of the door hinges. He poured the powder in the receptacles.
The bronze man then tore the lining out of the watch pocket of his trousers, wadded it, and rasped it along the wall as if he were striking a match. The cloth burst into flame. He applied this flame to the powder.
There was a loud, hissing noise and an incredibly white light; the hinges began to melt, and molten metal spilled down on the floor. The powder Doc had mixed was a form of thermite which was much hotter than the usual type formed by combining powdered aluminum and a metallic oxide.
While the special thermite was melting the hinges, Doc Savage grasped the door and shook it. It soon came loose, hinges melted away.
"Blazes!" Monk breathed. "We've got a start!"
Doc Savage lifted the door to one side and put his head out into the corridor. The coast was clear.
"Next," Doc said, "we find the two young women, Portia and China."
"But we'll have enough trouble," Monk reminded, "getting ourselves out of here."
"If we left them, and escaped, we might feel embarrassed," Doc Savage suggested.
"When I escape, I think I'll be too pleased to be embarrassed," Monk muttered. "However, where are these women?"
Doc said, "They may be in another one of these compartments."
THE bronze man and his aids ventured out into the corridor, still seeing no one but themselves, and began opening all the doors they came to. The steel doors did not have locks, but only the regulation arrangement of steel dogs with which they could be wedged water-tight. They could all be opened from the outside.
To fix the doors so they could not be opened from the inside, as in the case of the cubby from which Doc and his two men had just escaped, part of the closing mechanism was simply removed from the inside of the door.
Behind the seventh door they opened, they found Duchess Portia Montanye-Norwich.
Portia was exactly what the mind would naturally picture for a former showgirl who had married a wealthy duke, whose husband had died, and who had then become a rich thrill-seeker. She exactly filled the bill.
She was a tall, striking, dark-haired beauty of the Ziegfeld type. The light of adventure was in her wide, dark eyes; her mouth was shaped exactly right to taste thrills, and also to deliver them; and she carried herself as if ready for excitement.
Portia was hollow-eyed for want of sleep, and some rough handling had bedraggled her clothing; but she still gave the impression that, no matter what trouble she was in, she had done her part toward getting herself out of it.
Being rich, as well as a duchess, she was apparently accustomed to issuing orders. She lost no time giving one.
"Get me out of here!" she commanded imperiously.
China appeared beside Duchess Portia. China still wore her bathing suit. She gaped at Doc Savage.
"I'll bet," China said, "that they didn't turn you loose."
Doc Savage gave orders in a voice which did not sound particularly excited.
"We will go out through the conning tower," he said. "Run for my car. Don't try to get out of the doors. Head for the car."
This proved to be a remarkably feasible plan until they stepped out of the conning tower. Two jumps took them to the movable stairs, and they clattered down those. Doc Savage took the lead, because opening a path was most important.
Prince Albert saw them. He let out a howl. Welders dropped torches, and every one else dropped whatever they were carrying. A charge for the fugitives began.
Surprisingly, Prince Albert howled orders to stop the escape without shooting if it could be done.
The charge closed in. Doc Savage straight-armed one man, then picked up the next one bodily and hurled him at a third. This got them to the car. Portia, China and Ham got into the machine. Then Doc Savage. Monk was last.
Monk had stopped to let the rush catch up with him, so he could hit somebody. Monk loved a fight. He knocked two men down, then turned and scrambled into the car; but before he got entirely in, a man had him by a heel.
Monk reached back with one of his remarkably long arms and stuck a finger in the man's eye, loosening the fellow's grip. Then Monk got in.
They slammed the car doors and locked themselves in the machine.
CHINA gasped for breath, then said, "I hope this car is what you fellows seem to think it is."