"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 018 - The Squeaking Goblin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"You ain’t called in a furriner, be you?" Tige asked sourly. "Kain’t no feller from the low country be man
enough to help us."

Chelton Raymond smiled faintly at that. He had been away from the mountains and their people for many
years, and contact with the wild scramble of the cities had caused the foibles and pet hates of the mountain
folk to become small and trivial in his mind. It struck him as funny that the mountaineers should consider
anybody not of their mountains as not worth associating with. Another time, he would have laughed.



ONE of the detectives came running toward the radio room. He was excited; he breathed rapidly as he
popped through the door.

"
Did you take the bullet?" he demanded.
"
What bullet?" questioned Chelton Raymond, not comprehending.
"Slug that was fired at you, of course. The one that went through the dummy you fixed up in front of the
porthole."

"No," said the blond man. "I didn’t get it."

"We been huntin’." The sleuth threw out his hands, palms upward, to indicate defeat. "We can’t find it."

"What?"

"There is a hole in the bulkhead, Mr. Raymond, where the bullet must have hit. It’s a small hole, as if the slug
wasn’t much bigger’n a twenty-two. But there ain’t no lead in the hole."

Chelton Raymond came forward suddenly and grasped a handful of the detective’s coat front. "Are you sure?"
he gasped.

"As sure as I stand here," the detective said earnestly.

Chelton Raymond released his grip and stepped back. He gazed thoughtfully at the floor, at his rubber-soled
shoes, then roamed his glance up until he and Tige were exchanging steady, blank looks.

"Hell!" he said. "Not so good."

"‘Pears like this spook shoots spook bullets," grunted Tige.

"Spook?" said the detective. "There ain’t no such animal."

"So I always thought," Chelton Raymond agreed.

"Mought be," corrected Tige. "If thot be the Squeakin’ Goblin, he’s sure enough a spook, ‘cause my
great-grand-daddy shot the Squeakin’ Goblin plumb dead comin’ on eighty year ago."

The sleuth clapped fists on his hips, arms akimbo. "Say, what’re you guys givin’ me?"