"Shadow - 380401 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Phantom Pirate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

From: The Shadow, The Crimson Pheonix, 4/1/38


Phantom Pirate
by Roswell Brown

The redhead peered across the rail into a night fog like gray velvet, and
listened to the muffled slap of waves far below her.
"Many brave souls lie asleep in the deeep," Jerry Riker mourned noisily. "So
be-ware, bee-ee-ware!"
The girl grunted.
"Always the tactful little flatfoot! Davy Jones's locker is just the thought to
leave with the last of the merry-makers, as they pull for the shore. The Riker
touch!"
On the tossing black water directly underneath, the last ship-to-shore launch
for the evening had nosed alongside the looming hulk of Willy Tizner's anchored
Golden Galleon. The big gambling boat-a reclaimed ocean liner- lowered over
the smaller craft like a duck on a frog pond, rising and falling with the swell.
Overside, the last of Tizner's departing patrons began climbing down the
stairs to meet their power motor ferry for the choppy miles in to shore. Tipsy
shouts echoed back up the metal wall.
"There goes Wanda Sylvester," red- headed Grace Culver indicated absently.
"She's with that phony Count de Villo again to-night."
"Yeah. Couldn't see either of 'em for the dame's heirloom emeralds, though.
She's going to get badly bruised if that six-foot-something husband of hers ever
catches wise to them. He ain't the kind that fools."
"Gentle like a bull, you hear."
The motor launch, loaded with its final batch of gamblers and dancers, was
nosing away from the Galleon's side as she spoke. Its prow knifed the drifting fog
and vanished, pulling the crowded cabin after it into oblivion.
Grace yawned.
"Let's go inside and see if Tom's finished telling Tizner that the Noonan
Detective Agency wants none of his ill-gotten gold."

The Galleon's ornate saloon seemed strangely deserted as they tramped back
into it. Half an hour before, it had been filled with a chattering, well-dressed,
hilarious mob.
But since she had come aboard an hour ago, the redhead had been too busy
wondering what Tizner would offer "Big Tim" to more than notice any of them.
In the early hours of the afternoon, lean, dapper Wally had sauntered into the
Agency's office-and had gotten as far as saying he had a job for them that meant
money. Real money. Then Tim Noonan's gruff rumble had interrupted.
"I don't mix in on but one side of the law, Wally."
"My Galleon's a hundred per cent legal, that far off shore."
"Sure. But it's probably still no go."
"Listen, Tim, have I ever been caught pulling a raw one? You'd snap up a case
like this, if it was ashore. A little salt water doesn't make it crooked."
In the end, they had compromised.
The Agency trio was to come out that night as guests of the management.
They were to look the gambling ship over while it was running full tilt. Then