"065 (B056) - The Giggling Ghosts (1938-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Inventor?"
"We won't go into that," the other growled. "I manufacture things, too. I'm not such a small-timer!" He waggled a thumb around at the boat. "Just because I live on this hooker, it don't mean I can't afford a penthouse." He beetled his brows and added, "I don't like women."
Doc Savage explained, "I'm looking for two friends of mine who were led here when they trailed a young woman who claimed she caught a strange giggling fit from a ghost."
"That sounds crackpot!" The young man shoved out his jaw and his gun. "Come across with a story that makes sense—or I'm gonna get tough!"
He took a step forward, hooked his thumb over the hammer of his gun, so the gun would not discharge, used the big six-shooter as a club to strike at Doc Savage's head.
Several blurred things then happened. The gun clubbed the spot where Doc's head should have been, but the bronze man had moved. The young man went off balance. Doc grasped his gun wrist.
The young man started struggling—struggling confidently—but his confidence went out of him like air out of a split balloon. For the gun was yanked out of the young man's hand; he was slapped down on the floor, held there, searched, and although all the while he struggled—he was a very strong young man—his muscles might have been as soft and unmanageable as a sack of mice.
He peered dazedly at the bronze man.
"Now I know why you seemed familiar!" he muttered. "You're Doc Savage!"
Doc Savage did not answer that. He was examining an interesting object yielded by the young man's pockets: a woman's wrist watch.
Chapter VII. ROAD TO DEATH
EARLIER that evening in the storehouse, Doc Savage had seen the wrist watch that Birmingham Lawn had handed to Miami Davis. Lawn had also described the watch in detail: small purple jewel in the stem, the two small diamonds, one at either end of the dial.
This was undoubtedly the watch which had scared the girl into flight.
And now it had been in William Henry Hart's pocket.
Doc Savage tossed the burly young man's big six-shooter overboard. Then he took a yachting book off a shelf and glanced at the flyleaf; the book was marked:
PROPERTY OF WILLIAM HENRY HART
"Do you know a girl named Miami Davis?" Doc asked.
Effect of this on the brawny Hart was pronounced. He slapped both hands against his chest and gaped, his mouth very wide.
"Who?"
he exploded.
"Her name," Doc Savage said, "is Miami Davis. This is her watch, supposedly?"
"I—uh—wuh—"
The young man hauled himself up and sprawled on the transom seat. "She's my secretary," he said.
Doc Savage pointed at the watch. "How did this watch get in your pocket?"
"I found it lyin' on the chart table when I came back," Hart said.
"That all you know about it?"
"I gave the watch to Miss Davis as a Christmas bonus," Hart said. "A couple of days ago, she said it had stopped runnin'. I told her I would get it fixed. She gave it to me, and I guess I put it on top of the chart table and forgot all about it." He scowled. "Now what about it?"
"For one thing," Doc said promptly, "someone might have taken the watch and made her think you lost it in that storehouse."
"What storehouse?" The young man with the large shoulders looked puzzled.
"Again, you might have lost it in the storehouse," Doc said.
The other glared. "What's this storehouse talk?"
"Is she in love with you?" Doc asked.
"Love—who?"
"Miami Davis—with you."
"How the hell would I know?" Hart yelled.
Doc Savage opened a galley locker, took out a can of coffee and poured it on a galley table. He reached for the salt.
"What in blazes you doin'?" Hart yelled.
"Going to give your boat a thorough search," Doc explained.
"Over my dead body, you will!" the burly young man howled.
The search proceeded over his bound and gagged body; during the incidental fighting and kicking, a locker door was caved in, the table kicked loose from its fastenings, and some dishes broken.
The note had been jammed hastily into the mouth of a brass chart case.
It was a plain white envelope with Hart's name on the outside. Its content was a single sheet of white paper. Printed on this:
Hart:
The two Doc Savage men and the girl have been taken out to Beach Road.
Doc Savage held the note in front of Hart's eyes. Doc removed Hart's gag.
"What do you say to this?" the bronze man demanded.
"I've been framed!" Hart yelled.
"That is hardly original," Doc said.
BIRMINGHAM LAWN was beating on the car window, trying to break them, when Doc Savage returned to the machine. Doc unlocked the doors.
"This is no way to treat an innocent bystander," Lawn said indignantly. "Locking me in the car!" Lawn pointed at Hart. "Who's this fellow?"