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

“I only been talkin' to get you fellers to let me see this Doc Savage,” he said.

“Do you know Doc?” Ham asked.

“Nope. Never heard of him before Doctor Rayburn mentioned him, and so did my old pal Arctic Davis.”
The old man grinned and got out his pipe. “Wouldn't believe much this Doctor Rayburn told me, because
I don't know the gent hardly. But if old Arctic says Savage is all right, he is all right.”

“Does Doc Savage know Arctic Davis?”

“Doubt it.”

“Where is Arctic Davis now?”

“Figure I'll tell Doc Savage that as part of my story.”

Ham said, “Did you meet Arctic Davis down in the Mexican state of Chiapas?”

The old man winked elaborately. “I'll talk to Doc Savage. The story is too hair-raising for you boys to
hear. Might give you nightmares.”

He puffed on the cob pipe, filling the room with awful tobacco smoke which made everybody gag and
cough.

Then the old man died.



HE died with a bang. There was a little fire, too, some flying sparks, smoke.

The first impression everyone had was that the old cob pipe had blown up, which somehow did not seem
unreasonable. A thing with such a smell was likely to disintegrate by itself.

Methuselah Brown was sitting in a straightbacked chair at the moment, and he toppled backward, chair
and all, exactly the way practical jokers hope their victims will do when they give them an exploding cigar
or put a load in their smoking tobacco.

Monk leaped to his side, because the old man had fallen very heavily.

“Somebody put a load in his tobacco,” Monk said. “Did you hurt yourself, old-timer? Here, give me your
hand.”

The old man didn't move.

With popping eyes, Monk watched a drop of blood crawl out of the small dark-rimmed hole which was
a little off center of the middle of the old man's forehead.
“Somebody shot him!” Monk said.