"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 005 - Gangdom's Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"Wait until we're inside," he ordered. "I want Weaver to be in on this. I think you've got the dope.
Remember now, play square. If you doтАФ"

The assistant commissioner turned suddenly. A large touring car was coasting silently toward the curb.

In an instant, Higgins realized the menace.

"Duck!" he shouted, as he released his hold on the arm of his companion. "Duck for cover!"

BEFORE Fellows could respond, the staccato rattle of a machine gun drowned the commissioner's
words.

Claude Fellows was the living target of the steel-jacketed bullets. Standing alone on the sidewalk, he
went down beneath the metal avalanche.

A gasp escaped his lips as he fell. It was the last sound he uttered in this life.

The motor of the touring car purred as the automobile swept away. In a few moments it was traveling at
reckless speed, disappearing around the corner before any could identify it.

Higgins had escaped the attack. He rose from the spot beside the steps where he had flung himself.

He knew that the killers had not desired his death; yet he also realized that his position with the police
force would not have deterred the slayers in their mad desire to blot out Claude Fellows. Only through
his prompt, intuitive action, had Barney Higgins evaded a similar end.

The assistant commissioner bent over the body of the murdered man. He saw in an instant that Fellows
had expired. The man's lips were half open. They seemed on the point of speaking; about to cry their
knowledge of gangdom's crooked ways.

Claude Fellows had been wiped out; and with him, the revelations had been suppressed. He had begun
to speak, and the powers of the underworld had silenced him.
"We'll never know," muttered Barney Higgins. "We'll never know what he was going to tell us. We know
who this man isтАФbut that is all."

There was conviction in the commissioner's tone. He was amazed by this bold stroke of gangdomтАФthe
killing of a man who was about to enter police headquarters, accompanied by an assistant commissioner.

Higgins wondered what secrets had perished with this murdered man.

Yet, he connected Claude Fellows only with Horace Prescott. Had he known of the greater secret which
Claude Fellows possessed, Higgins would have been completely bewildered.

For Claude Fellows had not mentioned his unknown employer in New York. Barney Higgins had no
inkling of the most important factor regarding Claude Fellows.

He did not even begin to suspect that the supposed insurance broker had been the confidential agent of
The ShadowтАФthat strange, mysterious being, whose name was a word of terror to the denizens of New
York's underworld!