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

Monk and Ham went back into the library to make the telephone call. The telephone had two pony sets
there, so that they could both talk and listen.

“The screwball things that happen around here!” Ham said. He began to grin. “I don't know but what this
is the goofiest one that has come along. Two hundred and ninety years old!”

“It's a gag,” Monk declared. “It's got to be a gag.”

“This Doctor Frederick Rayburn is a serious kind of a chap, with more dignity than a new congressman.
Somehow I doubt if he would pull a practical joke on Doc.”

“I suppose the old bag of bones is two hundred ninety years old!” Monk said violently.
Ham laughed. The thing was beginning to strike him as funny.

He got Doctor Frederick Rayburn's office on the telephone, and a very staid-voiced office girl told him to
hold the wire. Ham waited, mentally picturing Rayburn's ultra-swank offices on middle Park Avenue in a
building which you hardly dared enter unless wearing a silk hat and cutaway.

Ham recognized Doctor Rayburn's rather preoccupied and over-dignified voice immediately. The man
might sound slightly like a stuffed shirt, but he wasn't.

“I imagine you are calling about Mr. Methuselah Brown,” said Rayburn self-consciously.

Ham said, “That's right, but this isn't Doc, it's Ham Brooks. We are checking up to see whether this is
something we should bother Doc with.”

“It is my opinion Savage should be called at once,” Rayburn said. “Of course you can use your own
judgment. But you might be interested in knowing how the case came to my attention.”

“You bet we would,” Ham assured him.



DOCTOR FREDERICK RAYBURN began, “I was born in the state of Chiapas, which is one of the
states in southern Mexico, adjoining the Guatemala border. My father was doing research for a fever
foundation fund at the time, and my mother had gone along as assistant. I lived there until I was seven
years old, during which time I met an old fellow named Davis. He called himself Arctic Davis.”

Ham asked, “Pardon me, Doctor, but is all this personal history a part of it?”

“I want to explain how I became involved,” Rayburn said stiffly. “It is such an unusual matter that I would
prefer to give such an explanation. In other words, if this turns out to be something other than it seems to
be—and God knows, it seems utterly impossible—I should like for you to know exactly how I happened
to meet this old man and send him to you.”

“I see your point,” Ham admitted.

Doctor Rayburn continued, “The section of Chiapas where I lived those years is very remote and very
lovely, and it has always held a fascination for me. It might be, too, that there is something in man's
psychic makeup which makes him want to return to the scenes of his youth. At any rate, all of my life I