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

Harry Day yelled, "Doc Savage?"
"
Yes."
Harry Day clucked disgustedly.
"I'm a damn fool not to have thought of Doc Savage before this!" he shouted.
"What do you mean?"
"Even in Africa, I heard talk of Doc Savage. But it never entered my thick head to call on him for help."
"Maybe this man wasn't Doc Savage."
"What'd he look like?"
"A giant. But he didn't seem so large until you got close—"
"That's him! Look, sis! Get hold of Savage! Or learn where I can talk to him by telephone."
"You—"
"I want to talk to Doc Savage!" Harry Day shouted.

The silence that followed was long enough for the girl to do some intent thinking.
"Harry," she said queerly.
"Well, what is it?"
"Harry, I—well, won't you go to a psychiatrist?" The girl sounded as if she had been biting holes in her tongue.
HARRY DAY swore, swore a trifle wildly, as though he were in a very dark room and wasn't sure but that there might be a something hungry and man-eating in the room. He swore as if trying to keep up his courage in that room. He stopped swearing.
"I'm not crazy!" he said.
The girl began to talk like a woman telling a boy it was better to pull a tooth out than to let it ache.
"A person can experience hallucinations without being insane, Harry," she said earnestly. "A profound shock can cause delirium. You received a shock when the steamer Muddy Mary sank."
"Oh, hell! I'm not crazy!"
"You might have been struck on the head by wreckage or something."
"Some of my boxed equipment rolled on me as the ship sank," Harry Day admitted. "But I tell you that—"
"You may have been in a coma afterward. You could have imagined things. Perhaps a ship picked you up."
"I tell you—"
"Harry!" the girl said firmly. "Probably you only imagined what you think happened. You had to imagine it!"
Doc Savage was motionless and intent at the listen-in receiver.
Long Tom came back and said, "I've got the address."
The bronze man moved a finger for silence.
"I didn't imagine anything!" Harry screamed. "The steamer sank with me in her hold almost a year ago!" He took in a windy breath. "I've told you everything that happened after that, and God knows I don't blame you for thinking I'm crazy."
The girl's sigh was defeat.
"I'll try to get hold of Doc Savage," she promised.
"I'll wait for your call."
Clickings broke the telephone connection. Big-fisted Renny pulled his mouth corners down thoughtfully. "Holy cow! This Harry Day has been through something so strange he thinks he did imagine it!"
Doc Savage asked, "Where was Harry Day talking from?"
Long Tom said, "No. 11 Conkley Street."
"Monk, Ham and myself will go after Harry Day," Doc said. "Renny, Long Tom and Johnny get hold of the girl. Harry Day has told her his story. Get her to repeat it."
"Ah, bugs!" Monk said.
"Something wrong?" Ham inquired.
"Doc is kinda overlookin' my power over women," Monk said.
Ham snorted.
"What Doc isn't overlooking," said the dapper lawyer unkindly, "is the power of women over you!"
Chapter VI. THE VANISHING MEN
CONKLEY STREET did not appeal to Monk. He gave it a long look.
"Phooey!" he said.
Ham chuckled. "Nothing would look good to you right now."
"That girl would." Monk pulled the ear of his pet pig ecstatically. "Oh, boy, was she a morsel! I always did like them small and dark."
Doc Savage was silent, his flake gold eyes fixed on long horns of light that stuck out of the headlamps. The sun had gone away and left blackness and low clouds. The clouds were leaking a few raindrops that burst on the windshield like fat, transparent bugs. The windshield wipers rocked back and forth lazily.