"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 023 - The Mystic Mullah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

there was a crook in the corridor and he did not see the form of Hadim immediately.

The bony man absently stowed the monocle magnifier in a vest pocket under his rubber laboratory
apron, and advanced. He rounded the corner, jerked up and stared.

Hadim was now motionless on the floor, and his head was angled back in a grotesque posture which no
man could attain normally.

The bony man in the rubber apron suddenly snapped a hand to an armpit and brought it away gripping a
weapon which somewhat resembled an oversize automatic pistol. He flipped this up and tightened on the
trigger; the weapon shuttled, smoked and made a noise like a gigantic bullfiddle. It was a machine pistol
with a tremendous firing speed.
One of the sinister green wraiths was still inside the corridor, rolling against the window as if seeking
blindly to escape. The stream of bullets from the machine pistol passed through it, disturbing it, fattening it
a little, but not destroying it or seeming in any way to affect its unholy life.

The stream of lead broke glass out of the window. The green harpy squirmed through the opening and
floated away into the gloom, losing itself over the nest of skyscraper spires.

The skeleton of a man stood very still for a long minute.

“I'll be superamalgamated!” he muttered finally.

Stooping, he examined the body of Hadim—body, for Hadim was dead. When Hadim's head was
moved, there was a grisly looseness about its attachment to the body, as if it were only connected by a
cord no stiffer than a wrapping twine.

The bony man eyed Hadim's extraordinarily long knife.

“Sixteenth century Tananese,” he decided aloud. Then he employed the monocle magnifier briefly.
“Wrong. Tananese, all right, but of modern construction, using sixteenth century methods of tempering
and moulding. Most peculiar.”

The wall beside Hadim's body was of plaster, painted over, and it was scarred with numerous rather
odd-looking marks. These came to the thin man's attention.

“I'll be superamalgamated!” he gulped again, using what was evidently, for him, a pet ejaculation. He
stared harder at the marks. Down the corridor, an elevator door clanked to a stop. Before the door
opened, voices could be heard. They were very loud voices, angry. It sounded as if a fight was about to
occur in the elevator. The cage door opened and a man came skidding out.

This man was slender, waspish, with a high forehead and a large orator's mouth. His attire was sartorial
perfection from silken topper to the exact hang of his tail coat. He carried a thin, black cane.

He yelled at the open elevator door, “You hairy accident! You awful mistake of nature! You insult to the
human race!”

A most striking-looking individual now came out of the elevator. His height was no greater than that of a
young boy; his width was almost equal to his height. His face was mostly mouth, with a broken nubbin of
a nose, small eyes set in pits of gristle, and scarcely a noticeable quantity of forehead. His long arms