"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 039 - The Seven Agate Devils" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"I told you it was all a dag-gone mystery!" Monk grunted.



THEY entered through the rear of the brightly lighted main operations office, and Doc Savage removed his
stratosphere suit. He made a bundle of the garments and hailed an airport attendant. Doc handed him the
suit.

"In my baggage you will find an unlocked duffle bag," he told the attendant. "Put this suit there, please."

The attendant took the suit and walked off.

Monk squinted curiously at Doc Savage. "What was the idea?"

"That odor," Doc told him. "So far, we have experienced no symptoms of toxic action; so, presumably, it was
not a poison gas. Yet the odor was strange, quite different. An analysis of it, during spare time, might be
interesting."

"I see," Monk said, vaguely.

Ham flourished his black cane, caught it, then untwisted the handle in a manner that showed the
innocent-looking thing was, in reality, a sword cane.

"That pair wanted the document case!" he snapped.

The homely chemist, Monk, still carried the document case. He tapped it with a finger.

"Let’s look the things in here over again," he said, "and see if we can figure out—"

The words seemed to freeze in his throat—freeze because of a sound that came through the door from the
hallway outside. It carried a quality utterly blood-curdling. The product of a human throat, a cry with agony in
its every pulsation.

Doc Savage was already diving into the hall. The other two followed him. They headed for the shrieks, running
down a dark hall.

The light!

They saw it, quite unexpectedly. It must have been a tremendous light, because it was reflected down
corridors; and even then, its intensity blinded. It had a reddish quality—or was it yellowish? It lasted only a
moment, and then vanished.

They ran on. Doc Savage produced a small flashlight and sprayed light over two lumps on the hall floor.

One of the lumps was the stratosphere suit which Doc had given to the attendant to place in the duffle bag.

The other lump was a human body, contorted in a manner that was utterly grisly.

The shouts had attracted the throng. People began to run up, many of them to take a look at the thing in the
flashlight glow, then regret their impulsiveness.