"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 179 - The Green Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

“What would explain that?” Monk demanded. “It's kind of surprising, isn't it?”

“Here's something that will surprise you still more,” Doc said. “That piece of stone has been in a
refrigerator for two days. I took it out several times during that interval, and each time it was warm, or
felt warm.”

“That's impossible. You mean that rock stays warm in a refrigerator?”

“I mean it retains its feeling of warmth.”

“If it feels warm, it is warm, isn't it?” Monk demanded.

Doc said dryly, “I'll show you something. Get a small glass beaker just large enough to hold the rock, fill
it with ice water, and bring it here, along with a thermometer.”

Puzzled, Monk followed the instructions. Doc dropped the stone in the ice water and inserted the
thermometer. “Watch what doesn't happen,” he said.

“Oh, the rock is warm enough to raise the temperature of the water slightly,” Monk said. “But what will
that prove?”

“Watch.”

Monk's jaw sagged presently. “The water doesn't warm. The thermometer must be screwy.”

Doc lifted the thermometer from the liquid, and immediately the column of mercury lengthened, indicating
that the warmer air of the room was sufficient to raise its indication instantly. He inserted it in the water
again, and it returned to about the previous level. “The thermometer is O.K.,” he said. “And the warmth
in that stone, enough warmth to make it comparatively pleasant to the touch, should raise the water
temperature somewhat. Yet it doesn't.”

“The water lowered the temperature of the stone,” Monk said abruptly. “Sure. That's what happened.
Why didn't I think of that before.”

Doc's usually expressionless bronze features broke in a slight smile. He used a pair of tongs to lift the
rock from the water, and dropped it in the palm of Monk's hand.

Monk held the stone for a moment. Then his homely face slowly blanched.

“It's still warm!” he blurted. “What kind of damned rock is it that is warm, but not with a warmth you can
measure with an instrument?”



WHAT had been a routine mystery of piffling proportions now assumed some magnitude to Monk. He
was a chemist, a skilled one, too, even though he did look somewhat like an ape, and he knew that here
was something that shouldn't be. He made a couple of additional tests, then stepped back.

“That's the damndest rock I ever saw,” he commented. “Let's give it a going-over with an analyzer.” He