"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 160 - Colors For Murder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

“Very well.”

“I'm sorry, I don't have the number. My brother . . . but Mr. Savage is quite well known.”

“I've heard of him. I don't imagine a number will be necessary,” the stewardess said. She went away.

Della leaned back, feeling easier because her urgency had seized on something to do. She might, or might
not, be able to reach Doc Savage. She was going to him for help, because she'd heard wonderful and
amazing things about him. She did not know Savage, nor did Walter, but Walter had once worked with
an engineer named Renny Renwick. Renwick was, Della understood, one of a group of five specialists
associated closely with Doc Savage. Walter had raved enthusiastically about Savage and his ability, his
repute, and the strange profession he followed, which consisted, as nearly as Della could gather, of
investigating unusual crimes or crimes in which the police, for one reason or another, could not be
involved. It was a fantastic picture Walter had painted, but effective enough to stay with Della, and make
her think, in her present urgency, of Savage.

Turning her head, Della watched the stewardess coming toward her along the aisle. The stewardess had
the handset that looked like a telephone. The stewardess halted suddenly, wrenched up rigidly, eyes
growing round, mouth making a horrified shape.

The stewardess was looking at the fat man. She touched him. “Mr. Lubbock!” she said.

Mr. Lubbock did not respond and, presently when she shook him slightly, he tilted sidewise out of the
seat, all loose, like a sack filled with balloons. He fell to the aisle floor slowly, defeating, as if he were
alive, the efforts of the stewardess to do something about it, and the jolt of landing made some liquid,
darkly green, spurt from between his clenched teeth.



Chapter II
THE plane passenger who had given the name of South heard a commotion forward. He stood up, went
to see what it was about. Other passengers were doing the same thing.

The fuss was about the dead fat man, South saw.

He was not surprised. He didn't feel much emotion. He had seen the fat man seize the pills and water and
gulp them, so he had known the fat man was pretty sure to die. He, South, had substituted the pills,
which certainly weren't aspirin, without the stewardess' knowledge—a very neat trick, he had thought at
the time. Very neat.

“He looks,” remarked South, eyeing the body, “like a guy who deserved to die.”

A passenger overheard this and stared at him in horror, so he wished he hadn't said it. The statement was
made sincerely, because South didn't like fat men, and he didn't like drunks; too, he needed, and this was
important, to assure himself that there was a reason for what he did. The reason did not need to be large,
not anywhere near enough of a reason to justify the act before a jury of South's peers. But if there was a
reason for an act—any act, even murder—South could accept the reason as a good and sufficient one,
and feel justified. He could even feel quite holy about it, as if he'd done the world a favor.

He examined the fat man dispassionately. Would the stewardess remember the bolted aspirin pills and