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

Renny had a voice reminiscent of a lion roaring in a cave.
"Has Hart done anything suspicious?" Johnny asked.
"Heck—no! He just bounces around like the Irishman's flea. I never saw a guy do more work than he's done."
"You haven't lost sight of Hart at any time?"
"Long Tom and I have watched him every minute," Renny said.
"Where is Hart now?"
"In the Digester Company plant just around the corner. You might as well walk."
Johnny got out of his traffic hazard. Alongside Renny, Johnny looked incredibly thin. They walked about two blocks, and were confronted by a new brick factory building which, while not extremely large, was neat and modern. A sign across the front of the factory said:
HART DIGESTER COMPANY
"What's a digester?" Johnny asked.
"It's a contraption they put on smokestacks," Renny explained. "It takes the soot and smell out of smoke. This patent digester of Hart's is something a little extraordinary. It purifies the air. If it could be generally adopted, they claim it would be a boon to cities."
"How does a smoke digester purify the air?"
"I'm no chemist!" Renny grunted. "But it takes the impurities out of the air, and puts back oxygen, or something. Works with chemicals."
"Works with chemicals? That seems significant."
"We thought so, too," Renny said grimly.
"If Hart invented the purifier, he's a chemist."
"Hart is a chemist, all right."
"It would take a chemist to develop a gas that makes people giggle themselves to death."
"Still," Renny said, "I wonder if that business about giggling ghosts ain't more important than we figure."
Looking thoughtfully over their conclusions, the two men entered a vacant lot located directly across the street from the factory. The lot was surrounded by a tall board fence.
Long Tom was posted at a knothole in the fence, using a pair of binoculars.
It was a fact that undertakers always brightened when they saw Long Tom Roberts, because he appeared to be an immediate prospect for a funeral.
Long Tom had been a weakly baby, and a feeble-appearing youth, and all through his manhood he had looked as if he ought to be in a hospital. This appearance of being an invalid was misleading; Long Tom could lick nine out of ten of the average run of men on any street.
"Hart is still working," Long Tom explained disgustedly and pointed. Johnny put his eye to the knothole.
HART was seated at a desk in his factory. Hart had his jaw shoved out, and he was doing things to papers with a pencil. He was plainly visible because the entire wall of the room was windows.
"That all he's been doing?" Johnny asked.
"Yep," said Long Tom.
"You sure?"
"Listen!" Long Tom said belligerently. "We ain't taken an eye off him since he left Doc Savage's headquarters!"
"I'll be superamalgamated!" Johnny complained. "I hoped he'd lead us to Monk and Ham."
They stood there gloomily, thinking of Doc Savage and Monk and Ham, and the fate that had befallen them.
"Well, Hart hasn't made a guilty move," Long Tom said finally.
Johnny sighed. "We might as well get him and take him with us. He said he was willing to help. As long as he's with us, we can watch him."
"Take him with us where?" Renny demanded.
"We're going," Johnny said, "to interview a man named Birmingham Lawn."
When Johnny, Long Tom and Renny walked in, William Henry Hart flung one hand on a handkerchief lying on his desk. Hart glared at them, a burly and belligerent young man.
He pointed at Renny and Long Tom. "Who are these guys?"
Johnny explained that Renny and Long Tom were more Doc Savage associates.
Hart then took his hand off the handkerchief, picked the handkerchief up, and disclosed a large automatic pistol under it.
"I ain't takin' chances," he explained. "I've had enough funny business to do me for a while."
Johnny said, "We hope you will join us."
"I got work to do!" Hart said.
Johnny said, "We will look for Miami Davis among other things. We thought you—"
This had an immediate effect on Hart. He put down his pencil, kicked his chair back, and picked up his gun and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers.
"Let's go hunt bear," he said.
They left the smoke-digester-air-purifier manufacturing plant.
"We'll start our hunt," Johnny said, "with Birmingham Lawn."
"He's one of our bears, if you ask me," Hart said.
They reached Johnny's old car and got in.
When the engine started, it shook the whole elderly vehicle, and when the conveyance got in motion, there was a suspicion that one or more of the wheels were square.