"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 139 - Weird Valley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The collector did that. He asked questions out of his head for a while. He began to perspire. He began to
dig into books on the shelves. Once in a while there would be a question that wasn't satisfactory, and
there would be an argument about it, the argument invariably ending with Methuselah Brown shouting,
“The guy who wrote that book wasn't there. I was!” Or he would bellow, “How could one man know
anything and everything that happened in town?” John Winthrop Widman swore and wiped his forehead.

“Caught him lying yet?” Monk demanded.

“No, darn it,” Widman snapped. “Why did you fellows bring him around. This is going to make me a
nervous wreck.”

Old Methuselah Brown had been studying the face of an old Salem resident in one of the books spread
open on the table. Now he pointed, “Hey, that says Bill Garritt. That's wrong. That ain't Bill Garritt.
That's old Custis Ewing.”

“Custis Ewing!” said Widman. He seemed to jump a foot off the floor. “My Lord! Oh, my Lord!”

“What's the matter?” Monk yelled.

What was the matter was plenty. The fact that the man in the picture was Custis Ewing and not Bill
Garritt was something that no one, absolutely no one on earth, but John Winthrop Widman could have
known. The reason: Custis Ewing was a Widman ancestor on the maternal side, and he had been a
common thief and had changed his name for that reason, a fact that had been kept in the family closet
with the rest of the skeletons.

John Winthrop Widman looked at Monk and Ham with stunned acceptance.

“This old man really lived in Salem in 1674,” he said.



THAT was enough for Monk and Ham.

“Get hold of Doc Savage,” Monk said.

Ham made the call to the Long Island laboratory where Doc was getting acquainted with the new germ.
Ham went to great pains to make Doc understand that they had left no stone unturned to prove the thing
couldn't be true, and that, actually, they still didn't believe it.

But Doc was impressed.
“I will be right out,” he said.

Even over the telephone, some of Doc Savage's unusual character was evident. He had a voice which,
though low and casual, was obviously a controlled voice of great power.

Ham said they would wait, and see what else they could learn.

But he made the mistake of informing Methuselah Brown that Doc Savage was coming, whereupon the
old fellow shut up immediately.