"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 041 - The Black Spot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The young woman had slapped him. His mask fell off. The man seized the girl’s arm and twisted. With rough
fingers, he jerked at the emblem ring. The metal circle came free, tearing the skin and flesh of the woman’s
finger. She screamed now with real pain.

"Why, you dumb ox, you can’t do that!" yelled the young man named Happy Joe.

He accompanied his protest with swift action. Though clearly drunk, he carried a quick punch. One balled fist
smacked squarely into the chin of the man who had pulled off the ring. The man teetered on his heels.

Then an automatic cracked. Happy Joe’s left was starting a swing that might have been a finisher.

"Why, damn it," he coughed out, "you—you’ve shot me!"

His swinging arm carried him around. Blood spurted in little jets from the side of his throat. It pumped directly
from his heart. His next words were gurgled. Then he fell down, twitching convulsively.

The two State coppers were not close enough to see clearly what had happened. But both had whipped their
guns into their hands. The sergeant started running and shouted:

"Hey! That’ll be about enough outside!"

Red death erupted from beside the chauffeur. This was a machine gun at close range. The State coppers
jack-knifed as if solid blows had been struck across their stomachs.

The five or six masked men rolled back into their car. The chauffeur freed it smoothly. The car whirled away
into the darkness.



FOR a minute or two, the other State coppers did not move to the scene of death. Nor did any of the several
guards near the entrance of the estate. They were aroused to the tragic reality when a young woman ran
screaming down the highway toward them.

She was waving a bloody-fingered hand.

"They’re dead, I tell you! Oh, won’t somebody do something! It’s Happy Joe! They shot him!"

Then the policemen and guards came upon the results of the orgy of blood in the highway. One State copper
stayed on the scene.

"Get headquarters!" he ordered the other, crisply. "Captain Graves himself, if he’s there! Put the lid on that
stuff inside! Hold everybody under guard, an’ use Vandersleeve’s hired men! Anybody might’ve known what’d
be likely to bust out of this!"



CAPTAIN GRAVES, of the State police, was soon contacted. After he had viewed the murder victims outside,
he made his way directly to the library of Andrew Podrey Vandersleeve.

A small gray mole of a man, who said he was Arthur Jotther, a distant cousin of the millionaire and his