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

“In that case,” Doc Savage said, “we had better see Sam Joseph.”



THEY surrounded Sam Joseph where he lay on a bed, a great chromium-and-green bed, in the
penthouse on top of the flamboyant Ogden building. The decorating theme of the penthouse was
chromium and other colors, broken up with large and vital flowers of bright coloration. The penthouse
was not in quite as bad taste as the rest of the building.

“My personal apartment,” said Montague Ogden of the penthouse layout. “I had poor Sam brought
here.”
Sam Joseph was obviously not himself. He was a man large enough to make quite a hump on the bed,
under the silken covers. He had gray hair, a not inconsiderable shock of it, and an angelic, peaceful,
completely honest-looking face.

Sam Joseph had the kind of a face you would expect a man-angel to have. It was so entirely benign and
innocent.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Or, rather, good afternoon. It is afternoon, isn't it?”

“Don't you know whether or not it is afternoon?” Doc Savage asked.

Sam Joseph seemed somewhat confused. “I guess so,” he said. “That is, I was watching the snow, and
the bluebirds singing in the snow. It only snows in the afternoon, does it not, or is it only on Wednesday,
the first of June?”

Doc Savage asked Montague Ogden, “How long has he been talking like that?”

“Gracious, I never heard him speak like that before,” Montague Ogden said. “I really haven't.”

“His conversation hitherto has been rational?”

“Oh, yes. It really has.”

Sam Joseph said, “I came out of the hill and it was very dark, but there was the fish in the sand, with the
ice all around it. We sat down there, the fish and I, and we had fine steaks and caviar, but the fish
wouldn't eat the caviar because he was not a cannibal, he told me. When the fish said he was not a
cannibal he had a very deep voice.”

Monk Mayfair, Doc Savage's assistant, looked at Doc thoughtfully. Monk put the end of a forefinger
against his own right temple and made a motion as if he was winding up something.

“Like the things you pull corks with,” Monk said.

Doc Savage studied Sam Joseph for a while. The man was smiling, but it was a vacantly empty smile, a
smile without intelligence or even much feeling behind it.

Doc turned back to Montague Ogden again.

“The devil statue,” Doc said. “Where is it?”