"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 033 - Murder Melody" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Under the man's feet the ground trembled. The earth jerked spasmodically. The motion was both lateral and
forward. The man stumbled as he walked toward an iron bench placed in a secluded niche.

Dried cones from a lone pine tree pelted about the bench. The quivering earth rumbled as if some monster of
tremendous size and weight were stalking past. Though he was apparently the only person in the many
square miles of Vancouver's wilderness park, the man on the bench began talking. He spoke rapidly, but not
loudly.

As the terse, clear words tumbled from his twitching lips, the man fumbled with the buttons set in a double
row along a tuniclike garment. Except for unusual looseness and length, the garment might have been a vest.

One hand found a button. The fingers lingered upon it. They pressed inward and turned the button slightly.
Immediately there was another voice. This was faint, but its enunciation was clear.

"Three Zoromen have departed. Andro, Namos and Lamo. Beware! Write quickly the message as instructed."

The word Zoromen was spoken as if this was the name of a clan. The speech had that perfection which a
well-educated foreigner gives to a new language. The man on the bench spoke only three words in reply to
the mysterious voice.

"Lanta is understood."

Through the rumbling of the apparent earthquake a weird melody had been permeating the misty night. This
was low but shrill, as if played upon a flute. Its cadence became higher. The mystic music was drifting
nearer.



WITH the three final words, the man quickly pulled a roll of dull yellow substance from under his coat. He
next produced what might have been a stylographic pencil. This gleamed in the misty light. A section of the
yellowish roll was removed.

The man already was sagging forward. But the parchment-like scrap was on his knee. He wrote rapidly with
the stylographic instrument. The yellowish roll fell among the rotting leaves at his feet.

The shrill, piercing melody increased in volume. Shadowy figures flitted among the still-shaking bushes in the
vicinity of the bench in the isolated niche. The man upon it was no longer sitting erect. He was doubled over
in a silent contortion of agony. The stylographic instrument dropped to the ground. The man's feet shuffled it
into the loose gravel.

Under a repetition of the earth shock of a minute before, one towering tree snapped near its base and came
crashing down. The tree was an ancient spruce. The supporting ground had betrayed it after two centuries of
growth.

The man of the shining face clapped both hands to his ears as if to exclude the weird melody. His body
crumpled on the bench. He writhed as if he were being tortured. One hand came slowly downward.

He thrust a small yellow roll into his mouth.