"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 123 - The Talking Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Doc Savage listened to them patiently. Patience was one of Doc Savage's accomplishments, being one of
the things that had been hammered into him as a part of the strange training which he had received in his
youth-when, at diaper age, he had been placed in the hands of scientists to be subjected, over a course
of almost twenty years, to an intensive program which was intended to fit him for one specific and rather
strange career. Unlike many persons given an arbitrary training before they were old enough to know
what it was all about, or speak for themselves, he had elected to follow the career for which he had been
trained. It was an unusual career. It consisted, literally, of making other people's business his own. Or at
least their troubles.

For some time now, Doc Savage had been taking it on himself to right wrongs and punish evildoers,
traveling to the far corners of the earth to do so. He had five associates who worked with him. Renny
Renwick and Long Tom Roberts were two members of this group of five.

“A devil,” Doc Savage said, getting it straight. “And it talks. But only one man can hear it.”

“That's right,” Long Tom said. “Sam Joseph.”

“There are more details,” Renny said.

“But they won't make it sound less silly,” Long Tom declared.

Renny took Doc's arm. “Come on,” he said. “We will take you to talk to Montague Ogden.”

“Who is Montague Ogden?”

“He hasn't any connection at all with the devil, or so he claims,” said Renny Renwick. “But he is the
employer of Sam Joseph, the man who has been hearing the devil speak.”



THE impressive Ogden building was new, just barely prewar, and the lobby was all black and gold and
apparently designed by an architect who had fallen on his head when small. But it was utterly expensive.
The elevators were gold and black and also utterly expensive, and the elevator operators were girls with
shapes that also looked expensive.

“I would like to have the money it cost to think about building this place,” said Renny Renwick, who was
an engineer and knew what it had cost.

“I would rather have the elevator operators,” said Monk Mayfair. Monk was a remarkably homely
fellow with a remarkable eye for a well-turned ankle.

The elevator let them out in a corridor which was ankle-deep in rich carpet. Office building halls are
ordinarily not even carpeted.

“What kind of a place is this?” remarked Monk.

“Wait,” said Renny Renwick, “until you see the master of the establishment.”

They walked into a reception room that might have been lifted from a spectacular motion picture. The