"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 074 - World's Fair Goblin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Long Tom’s unhealthy-looking face looked tense. He said worriedly, "Doc, that’s funny. Professor
Uppercue is one of the finest scientists living. He sent a request asking me if I wouldn’t come out here for
consultation on some new, important thing he was about to create. I was to meet him here in his
laboratory. But now—"

Long Tom’s sharp gaze, too, had gone to the girl, who was acting strangely.

She was staring toward the floor, the slender steel cylinder still clutched in her hand. Suddenly she bent
down, picked up something long and very thin. She cringed away from the blood that had been on the
floor.

The blond-haired girl was holding one of the red, long hairs that Doc Savage had seen stuck in the
bloodstains.

Long Tom saw the thing, asked, "What is it? Who—where—"

"Perhaps the young lady can tell us," Doc offered. "Where is that hair from, miss?"

The girl looked scared for a moment. Then her sharp chin came up and she snapped, "I don’t know what
it is."

Doc’s flake-gold eyes were moving restlessly. Apparently this girl was more involved in the mystery than
she wanted Doc or Long Tom to believe. She was holding back something.

Doc said quietly, "You’re Uppercue’s daughter, aren’t you? There’s something you’re afraid of. Why not
tell us what it is?"

Long Tom’s pallid face brightened. "Sure!" he cried. "That’s her—Uppercue’s daughter! I saw a picture
of her once in the newsreels, and she—"

The metal cylinder now thrust out of sight behind her back, the girl’s eyes sparkled and she cried, "I
never saw Professor Uppercue in my life!"

"Then how did you get that metal tube?" Doc asked suddenly.

Doc recalled what the bowlegged man had told him on the Perisphere ramp. Doc Savage, of course, did
not know about the soft scraping sound that had been heard inside Uppercue’s queer metal cylinder.

But the bronze man put out his hand and prompted, "Let us see that thing you are holding behind you."

At first, the girl tried to duck away toward the door. Then meeting the compelling, hypnotic look in the
bronze man’s eyes, she stopped. She handed the cylinder over quietly.
Both ends of the unusually light object were inclosed with metal caps that were threaded. The whole thing
looked heavy, yet was as light as a feather.

Doc unscrewed one of the caps, turned the open side of the long tube downward and waited to see what
would fall out.

Nothing happened.