"067 (B083) - The Red Terrors (1938-09) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Well, the white man was Doctor Collendar," Monk said, "or so the hackman insisted."
"But Doctor Collendar disappeared off a ship in the South Atlantic two months ago," Doc Savage said.
"That's why I called you," Monk said. "It's queer, and I figured you'd be interested."
"The taxi driver might have made an error."
"I don't think so, Doc. He said this fellow he saw had a way of poppin' his eyes. The picture of Doctor Collendar that I showed the taxi driver didn't indicate any such thing. But I made inquiries. And that eye-poppin' was a habit of this Doctor Collendar."
Doc Savage did not say anything for a moment. During the interval, a weird and tiny sound came into existence. It rose and fell, at times hardly audible, at other times having considerable volume, and always with a quality of vague unreality that made it almost indefinable. It was as ethereal as the sounds of an arctic breeze among ice pinnacles.
"I shall be in New York in two hours," Doc Savage said abruptly.
Chapter IV. MENACE IN CRIMSON
IT was a small newspaper item about the fight between a white man and some mysterious opponents who were unidentified except for reddish coloration. It was only two paragraphs.
Doc Savage read it, then asked, "Where did the fight occur?"
"On Yardarm Street near the East River," Monk said.
"That is near the Colonial-African Steamship Line piers," the bronze man remarked. "The firm operates the Southern Wind and other steamships."
Doc Savage handed the clipping to Monk. They stood in the bronze man's water-front boathouse-hangar which appeared outwardly an abandoned warehouse.
Doc had just taxied his small plane into the hangar and closed the doors with an electrical mechanism. The bronze man walked over to an instrument board, and threw a switch and said, "Ham!"
"Righto!" came from a loud-speaker on the board.
"Join us at the black sedan," Doc Savage said.
The loud-speaker said, "Righto!" again.
Doc Savage and the apish Monk strode to an object which appeared to be a steel cylinder standing on end. They opened a door, and entered a padded chamber.
The bronze man closed the doors and operated a switch; there was a loud whistling, violent acceleration, a whining, then deceleration, and the bullet-like car came to a stop—it had passed through a pneumatic tube, under streets and buildings, for nearly a score of blocks.
Doc and Monk stepped out in the bronze man's garage, which was located in the basement of his skyscraper headquarters. "Ham" joined them, with Habeas Corpus and Chemistry.
Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, who was always correctly dressed, who always carried an innocent-looking black cane with a sword inside, and who got outrageous fees when he practiced his profession of lawyer.
Ham's real career was that of a Doc Savage assistant. His hobby was quarreling with Monk. Ham shaded his eyes with a hand and peered dramatically at Monk.
"Great Jehoshaphat!" he exclaimed. "A perfect specimen of prehistoric man! Where'd you get it, Doc? Out of a tree?"
"You shyster!" Monk said. "I'll hit you over the head so hard you won't be able to tell the tacks in your shoes from the fillings in your teeth!"
The two glared at each other.
Following their example, Habeas Corpus and Chemistry sat down and also glared at each other. Habeas Corpus was a pig with long legs, extensive ears and an inquisitive snout. He was Monk's pet. Chemistry was Ham's pet.
According to Ham, Chemistry was a blue-blooded ape of direct descent from the house pets of ancient Mayan royalty. Monk's opinion of Chemistry's ancestry was different, and varied from day to day.
DOC SAVAGE, with Monk and Ham and the two animals, entered a black sedan. Doc drove. The sedan did not look like the mobile fortress of armor plate and bulletproof glass that it was. They soon arrived at the Colonial-African steamship pier.
"Why, yes," admitted the chief officer of the steamer lying at the pier. "We got in from Cape Town, Africa, yesterday afternoon late."
Doc Savage asked, "Did you have any passengers who were unusual?"
"I'll say we did. We had—" The officer frowned. "Sorry. Against the rules to give out information to strangers."
Doc Savage made his identity known.
"You're Doc Savage!" the officer said. "That makes a difference."
"What about the unusual passengers?" Doc asked.
"Well, here's what happened," the chief officer said. "In Cape Town, a man rented an entire suite of cabins. Six cabins, to be exact. He had the windows covered, the doors barred, and nobody got a look inside the cabins all the way across the ocean."
"What kind of a looking man rented the cabins?"
The officer described Doctor Collendar.
"He's gone now, though," the officer added. "Disappeared after dark last night. I don't know what the immigration officials will do about it."
"Did you notice anything strange at any time?" Doc asked.
The officer considered.
"Well, there was one of the stewards who was babbling about something he saw at one of the cabin portholes," he said.
They called the steward for questioning.
"Hi dunno wot it was, gov'nor," the steward shuddered. "It was just a kind of 'orrible red smear of a thing!"
DOC SAVAGE did not offer any words as he and his aids rode uptown in the black sedan. His two companions were disappointed, but not surprised. Doc Savage had a habit of keeping his own counsel. To kill time, Monk and Ham hashed things over in their bellicose fashion.
"Look, hairy ignorance," Ham said, "it would appear that this Doctor Collendar came back to the United States and brought something strange with him."
"You seem to be correct, you overdressed discredit to the law profession," Monk admitted.
"Of course, I'm right."
"Except that Doctor Collendar was dragged off a ship in mid-Atlantic and drowned," Monk pointed out.
"Depend on you to bring up a detail like that," Ham grumbled.
Doc's sedan came to a stop before a tall office building in the Wall Street area. Several times, Doc had consulted an envelope containing reports which his operatives had previously gathered as a matter of routine on Doctor Collendar.