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

"Chelton Raymond gab much?" Tige inquired.

"Gab? You mean talk?"

"Yep. About this thing gettin’ after ‘im, I mean."

The other hesitated, as if thinking. "No-o-o. He did not talk, exactly. He just said two attempts had been
made on his life, and that he was going to send to the Kentucky mountains for what he called ‘a real fighting
man’."

Tige’s chuckle was as emotionless as paper crackling. "Us Raymonds be all fightin’ men."

"Chelton Raymond sent for you, and you came," concluded the other. "That’s all I know about it."

Silent for a time, Tige scrutinized the shore; the shadows were too much for him, and he shook his head
disgustedly.

It would have taken sharper eyes than the gaunt mountaineer possessed to follow the exact course of the
skulker ashore—if there was really a skulker, for a close watcher would have doubted at times that the
marauder was a flesh-and-blood reality.

There was something of the phantom about the figure, a touch of the supernatural, since the form merged
with the dark shadows in uncanny fashion, making no sound appreciable to the ear. An apparition might have
been a-prowl.

In the lee of a great boulder the ghostly presence came to a halt, and all of its attention seemed bent upon
the yacht.

The yacht portholes—those along the upper decks, were squarish and almost as large as windows, and
several were whitened by lights ablaze in the cabins behind. Framed against a port was a head and
shoulders, the lines of which indicated the presence of a man in a chair inside the cabin.

On this shadowy outline the attention of the phantom figure seemed to concentrate, and there was a dead
silence, stirred only occasionally by the mushy slop of a wave piling onto the stony beach.

Then, out of the black shadow jumped a tongue of flame which could only come from a rifle fired by the
ghostly prowler.

Instead of the usual rifle blast, there was only a squeak. It was shrill, almost ear-splitting, a sound such as
might be made by a titanic mouse.

The figure behind the yacht porthole upset, vanishing from sight.



THE shore of the rocky cove blasted into life. The boulder shadows spewed men who had been in hiding, men
who gripped guns, waved flashlights and yelled.

A flash beam sprouted a glaring wedge which waved and sought the spot where the rifle flame had licked. It