"Avenger - 4303 - Calling Justice, INC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avenger)

Slowly, Nellie Gray put the paper down. She glanced at the brief case which lay on the desk. Its
owner was dead. She was sure that the killer was the man in the tan sport coat. But that killer
hadn't gotten what he sought. The thing for which Mr. Joplin had been murdered was lying here on the
desk.

Grimly, Nellie went to her bag and took out a small set of keys. The lock on the brief case was
a simple one and it yielded to her typewriter-case key. She raised the flap and began to draw out
the contents. And her blood began to race swiftly as she saw what the brief case contained. Mr.
JopIin's "evidence" was queer indeed.

There were half a dozen plushlined boxes in the brief case. The first box contained a jeweled
horseshoe about six inches long. At conservative estimate it could not be worth less than a quarter
of a million dollars. It was made of platinum and it was studded with diamonds--large diamonds,
brilliant and blue-white, and all matched in size from two carats at the ends, to a huge ten-carat
stone at the apex of the arch. The thing glittered in her hand like something alive and dynamic!

Nellie put it down and opened the next box. Upon the plush cushion in that box there rested a
diadem of diamonds which was breathtakingly beautiful. The stones sparkled and shone in the electric
light with almost unholy beauty. She opened the other boxes and as the untold wealth of their
contents was exposed, Nellie Gray began to understand that this must be some royal or imperial
collection, pilfered from some royal vaults. For the value in dollars of these jewels was beyond
estimate.

Mr. Joplin must have been desperate indeed to have intrusted this treasure to a girl he had
never seen before. Desperate? Or clever, perhaps? But not quite clever enough. For now he was dead.
But if his enemies knew where this treasure was--

Suddenly, on an impulse, Nellie stepped over to the window. She turned one of the slats of the
Venetian blind so that she could look out into the street. And, immediately, her blood began to
race. For there, on the opposite side of the street, stood the green convertible!

That man in the tan sport coat had traced her here! How he had done it she couldn't understand.
Even as she watched through the blind she saw the now-familiar tan sport coat. The man was crossing
the street toward the car. He was apparently coming from the hotel. He must have been downstairs at
the desk, inquiring about her.

Nellie saw him lean in at the window and talk to the driver of the car. The convertible
immediately pulled away, and the long-faced man remained at the curb. He lit a cigarette and stood
there, watching the hotel.

Nellie stepped away from the window. She switched on the radio, tuned it to a local Miami
station, and then went over to the desk and looked down at the fabulous fortune in jewels which lay
spread before her. There was enough wealth here to tempt anyone to commit murder. She was sure that
the man who had called himself Joplin had not been the rightful owner. It should not be difficult to
ascertain who owned them. It must indeed be a famous collection.

Nellie made her decision swiftly. She had gone far enough in this matter on her own. Her duty
was clear. She must phone the police and turn these jewels over to them, At the same time she must
tell them of the man in the tan sport coat. They could pick him up and they'd have their murderer,
and at the same time a solution of the entire case. That course of action, she felt, was what The