"Shadow - Back Pages - 370515 - The Kid Faces Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

shoe-shine boy; then, alarmed, he jumped up and rushed into the store. Paul was
nowhere to be seen, and there were no customers present.
Danny went around behind the soda fountain. There was no one there. He
walked back into the small storeroom. Here he stared down, sucking in breath. He
was too paralyzed to move.
Paul Hudson lay in a crumpled and bloody heap on the floor, his chest
crimson with blood, his dark eyes, burning no longer, staring emptily past Danny.
Some of the blood was still trickling to the floor.
It was obvious that Paul had been recently murdered!
When Danny's senses awakened to the full horror of what had happened he
looked around. There was lipstick on the floor near the body, and it was rubbed
into the wood. Shirly Parker must have dropped it in her hurry and stepped on it!
Danny Garrett could feel his heart beating like a hammer against his chest. He
backed away, still gasping for breath. The rear door was open, exposing a back
yard. Suddenly he saw a figure moving across the yard.
Running, Danny reached the door. Miller, the florist whose store was next to
Hudson's, was retreating through the back door of his own shop.
Danny knew that he should phone at once, but something forced him out the
door. He walked to the back of the florist shop, saw MillerЧa squat, bald
manЧwashing his hands. Danny looked around the yard. He bent, touched his
finger to a drop of blood.
Temples throbbing now, he glanced again toward Miller, then hurried back in
through Hudson's stationery store. He went at once to the pay telephone and put in
a nickel. He dialed the police headquarters and asked for Mike Ryan.
"This is Danny," he said when the burly Irish dick came on the line. "It's
happened!"
"What?"
"Paul Hudson has beenЧbeen murdered!"
"No fooling, kid?"
"YeahЧand darn it, Mike, next to you and Slug he was about the swellest guy
going!"

Slug O'Donnel and Mike Ryan looked at the body of young Paul Hudson as
the assistant medical examiner busied himself, with a preliminary examination.
Uniformed cops had been placed at the front and back doors of the establishment
to keep out the curiousЧsome of whom had been Hudson's friends, some his
enemies.
"He guessed right about the murder," Ryan said at last, lighting his stogy, "and
I thought the guy had a screw loose."
"I didn't," said Slug O'Donnel, who had a figure like a bean. pole and hair not
unlike a straw mat. "I knew he wasn't kidding. And from what Danny has told us
it's obvious who's behind it. No mystery on this trip, Mike. It's clear-cut: a jealous
woman.
"And this is a case just like you'd expect of a woman. Nothing clever, nothing
subtle. Stabs the guy, gets hysterical and beats. it. Even leaves her lipstick
behind her in the rush."
Ryan pushed back his derby. He was skeptical. "It's too easy! Danny, are you
sure Shirly Parker came out of the store like you said, just before you found
Hudson had been killed?"
"Positive!" said Danny.