"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 010 - Hands in the Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

clutching fingers tightenedтАФ choking, choking, choking! Reynold Barker's brain was whirling. His eyes
were bulging, but unseeing. He heard a roaring in his earsтАФlouder than the thrum of an airplane motor.
Then came blackness, sickening blackness, more terrible than the shadowy darkness of that sinister
room! Again, the strangling hands were tightening...

CHAPTER II. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
BOB GALVIN looked around the room and smiled. He remembered the place from his boyhoodтАФthis
quaint old room, with its dark, oak-paneled walls.

He still felt a slight trace of the awe that had gripped him here, for this had been his uncle's roomтАФthe
uncle whom Bob remembered as a stern, gray, grim-faced man.

"Does it remind you of old times, sir?"

The question came from Hodgson, the old servant. Hodgson had been Theodore Galvin's attendant for
many years. To Bob, he seemed like a part of this old room.

"Yes," replied Bob, "it does. So do you, Hodgson. You're just the same as you wereтАФwhy, it must be
nearly twenty years ago!"

The servant nodded.

"Close to that since you left here, sir. I'm not the same as I was then, sir. I can't see the way I did once.
My eyes"тАФhe shook his head sadlyтАФ"are very poor, sir. It seems like I feel my way about the house,
Mr. Bob. I know the place so well -"

But Bob Galvin wasn't listening. Instead, he stiffened as his eyes, turning toward the heavy casement
window, fixed themselves for a moment on a strange form outside.

It was a face, shrouded in the shadows. The lower part of the face was hidden in blackness, but the
piercing eyes seemed to be studying Bob's own features. Bob only had a chance to see the face an
instantтАФ then it was gone.

The old butler sensed that something was wrong. He turned toward Bob.

"WhatтАФwhat was it, sir," he stammered. "Did you feel suddenlyтАФ suddenly ill?"

"NoтАФa face! Out the window! Peering in at me! Did you see it, too, Hodgson?"

Then, Bob realized that Hodgson had indeed spoken the truth when he said he was nearly blind. The old
man's stonelike, groping expression told that. Hodgson shook his head.

"No, sir. It might have been something caught in those branches that sway against the window. There's a
single tree in the garden out there."

Bob pushed back his chair and crossed the room to the window. He unfastened the latch and opened the
casement. Only the branches of the lone tree swayed mournfully against the casement in the night wind.
Nothing more.
Bob bolted the casement again, and shook his head, his lips compressed.