"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 129 - The Secret of the Su" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

“Do you have a cold, Dr. Wilson?”

Laura asked. “You sound a little hoarse.”

“No, no cold. And, Laura, ask the New York telephone operator just for Doc Savage.

I imagine he is better known under that name. “

“Doc Savage?”

“Yes.”

Laura said, “That name sounds familiar. What is he, a specialist?”

“Yes—a specialist,” Dr. Wilson said.

His voice, when he said that, was a little strange.

“I'll call you back,” Laura said.

Dr. Wilson did not move from the telephone.

He stood there, stiff and waiting, like a man who had thrown a firecracker and was waiting for it to
explode.

An ancient and wrinkled Indian came to the door and looked at him for a moment.

The Indian—he was an American redskin— was very ancient indeed, judging from the lines on his face,
but his walk was that of a younger man. He looked at least eighty, handled himself as if he were no more
than forty.

The Indian did not smile or speak. He just stared. He wore dark trousers and the white coat of a serving
man.

“I will talk to you again in a minute, Slow John,” Dr. Wilson said.

Slow John nodded. He went away.

THE telephone rang and Dr. Wilson said into the instrument, “Yes . . . Hello, New York. Doc Savage? .
. . I see. When will he be back? . . . I find that rather awkward because this is an important matter.
Where could I get in touch with him? . . . It can't. . . . You are Monk Mayfair? . . . Oh, I see. One of
Doc Savage's assistants. . . . Just a moment, please.”

He stood there, holding the telephone, discouraged, not knowing what to do. In his abstraction he beat
one fist absently against the wall.

Slow John, the Indian, appeared again in the door. He came swiftly, and looked at the doctor's fist
thumping the wall in defeat, and he was relieved. Slow John had a fireplace poker in his hand. He put the
poker behind him and disappeared again.