"123 (B113a) - The Talking Devil (1943-05) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

He trembled and twitched. He pounded his knees wildly with his fists.
"Hurry, you fool!" he screamed at the driver.
He got out at an ordinary-looking brick apartment house west of Central Park and stumbled inside. He was so weak he had to hold to the hand rail in the elevator while riding up.
in the sixteenth-floor hall a man met him. The man who met him was the timid-looking soul called Butch.
"Goodness, doctor," Butch said. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," said Dr. Nedden. "I'm just having a nervous reaction, that's all. I'll be all right as soon as I can take a sedative."
Butch nodded. "Here," he said. He handed Dr. Nedden a bundle. "Put these on." Butch had an identical bundle. "We can put them on in the inner reception room," he added.
They went to a door.
A legend on the door, in discreet lettering, said:
DR. MORGAN PRIVATE HOSPITAL
They tried the door. It was locked.
"One of the others in there masking," Butch said. "Let's try another room."
There were half a dozen doors in the hall, all bearing the same legend. They found one which was unlocked and it admitted them to a bare room fitted with two white chairs, a white desk, a stool behind the desk, and a telephone on the desk itself.
Dr. Nedden and Butch unwrapped their bundles, which proved to hold ordinary white surgical robes, surgical hoods, and the gauze antiseptic masks which operating-room personnel wear.
When they had donned these their identities were thoroughly concealed.
Dr. Nedden led the way into another and much larger room after unlocking the hall door of the room where they had dressed.
There were seven men already seated in the room. All were enveloped in the surgical robes and masks.
Dr. Nedden was still shaking. Butch had had to tie the strings of Nedden's robe.
Nedden hurried to a cabinet containing medicines, got out a few pills out of a bottle, and swallowed them with water.
The other masked men watched him intently.
Dr. Nedden faced them.
"Gentlemen," he said. "It worked. Doc Savage is trapped."
DR. NEDDEN then sat down and explained, "I am suffering from nervous shock. The Strain has been very great on me, gentlemen. If you will wait a few minutes, please."
They waited patiently. Judging from the eyes visible above the surgical masks, all of them were vastly relieved. Even elated.
The sedative took effect on Dr. Nedden. His agitation subsided and he arose and drank more water. He added a hooker of whiskey.
He faced the men.
"It was an incredibly difficult and ticklish business," he said. "Doc Savage is unquestionably the world's greatest general surgeon, and probably the greatest brain surgeon. To pull this, we had to deceive him at his own business.
"Fortunately, mental difficulties are the most uncertain to diagnose," continued Dr. Nedden. "By the use of drugs, largely types of barbiturates in overdoses, I was able to produce fake mental symptoms in Sam Joseph. A number of very cunning devices were resorted to in order to deceive Doc Savage, but I will not take up your time describing them, and you would not understand them anyway, not being doctors yourselves."
A man interrupted, "What about the devil-statue mix-up?"
Dr. Nedden shrugged.
"We had a narrow escape there," he said. "A devil statue containing a small loud-speaker and radio had been used to fool Sam Joseph into thinking the little statue was talking to him. Through an oversight, this statue was still in Montague Ogden's den when Doc Savage wished to see it."
"I heard," said the other, "that you had to knock out one of Doc Savage's men, that fellow they call Monk, and swap a harmless statue for the trick one."
"We did that," admitted Dr. Nedden. "We pulled it without a hitch."
Butch said, "I pulled it. I popped him one on the head. Then Ogden made him think a picture had fallen off the wall just as he was going under it, and conked him."
"That was a goofy explanation to give him."
"Its goofiness made it good," Butch declared.
They seemed satisfied.
One said, "That fixes everything so we can go ahead with the next step of the plan."
"Not everything," reminded Dr. Nedden. "There is still the Harrison matter."
A man growled, "I'd call it the Duster Jones matter."
Butch spoke up smugly.
"That will be taken care of," he said. "The thing to do is let this operation have its repercussions."
"Savage may think there is something strange about it."
"It's too late now, if he does."
"All right, but murder isn't something to make mistakes," one of the men said.

Chapter IV. THE INDIGNANT MAN

IT was a bright crisp morning, the sunlight crisp out of an utterly clear sky, and the air a thing like wine which you noticed in a way that you do not ordinarily notice air, when Ham Brooks came into Doc Savage's offices in a midtown skyscraper.
Ham looked concerned. Ham was another Doc Savage assistant, another member of the group of five. He was a man of medium height with good shoulders and a thin waist, and clothing which had made him notable as one of the country's best-dressed men. He was the law expert of the group.