"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 109 - The Too-Wise Owl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Ham said, "Doc sounded serious."

Monk rubbed his jaw. "That owl did act funny, at that."

The radio outfits which they were carrying said, "Go south from the main entrance of the building. When
you reach the corner, advise me."

Monk and Ham hurried outside. The cold grabbed them instantly. The wind had a biting vigor and a
hurried force. It seized their coat skirts and popped them against their bodies. It tried to pull the breath
out of their lungs with icy fingers.

They had dashed out without their overcoats.

Monk said into his radio, "We’re at the corner, Doc."

"Look up about ten stories," Doc Savage said. "There is a ledge. The owl alighted there."

Monk and Ham squinted upward. Ham leveled an arm. "That’s your night chicken there, isn’t it?"

Monk nodded, said, "He isn’t mine," and into the radio, advised Doc, "We see him. What now?"
"Keep an eye on the bird," Doc Savage said. "After he gets cold, he may be easy to catch."

Monk asked, "Doc, why so anxious to catch the owl?"

The bronze man did not answer immediately. Instead, there was a small trilling sound from the radio, a
noise that caused Monk to stare at the instrument with interest. The trilling, low and exotic, was a thing
Doc Savage did without thinking, when he was mentally excited.

Finally Doc said, "There is a possibility that the owl is a key to something very important."

Monk wanted to go further into the subject, but he was prevented from doing so by a sudden gasp from
his side.

Ham did not do the gasping. Their pointing upward, and the intensity with which they were watching the
owl on the ledge, had stopped a crowd of curious pedestrians. The weather never seems to be too cold
for a New Yorker to stop and ogle something that someone else is ogling. Already, there were at least
fifty people around them, and a woman was sobbing and moaning that it was a baby up there on the
ledge and that it was going to fall any minute.

The gasping was caused when the owl flew off the ledge. On spread wings, the bird came downward.
Now and then, he flapped his wings. He seemed comfortable, unmindful of the cold, at home in the wind
that seemed about to turn to ice.

Also, the owl had a destination. A car. The bird flew to the machine. A window was down, and a hand
reached out and took the owl inside.

Monk reached the car and thrust his head inside.

Monk took a good look, said, "Blazes!"