"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 011 - Double Z" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

vital facts which he had just heard from the lips of the city editor.

Clyde folded the sheet of paper and sealed it in an envelope. He sauntered from the newspaper office.
He turned his steps toward Broadway, then to Twenty-third Street. There he reached a dilapidated old
building. He entered.

Inside he ascended a flight of rickety stairs. He stopped in front of a glass-paneled door, upon which
appeared the name:

B. JONAS

The reporter dropped the envelope in a mail chute cut in the door. He departed immediately. No one had
seen his action. In fact, no one had ever seen a person enter through that door with the grimy,
cobwebbed glass. Yet notes dropped there by Clyde Burke always reached their destination.

Clyde was thinking of that destination as he traveled uptown. He knew where his message was going.
For the obscure office of B. Jonas was a receiving place used by that mysterious man of the nightтАФThe
Shadow!

Clyde Burke, to the world a newspaper reporter, was actually a trusted agent of this master of crime
detection.

DURING the past few months, it had been Clyde's duty to watch for all startling developments in
criminal activities. As a police reporter, especially with a tabloid newspaper that hungered for crime
news, Clyde was in an excellent position to do this work.

Now, with the Wise Owl assignments in his hands, his contact with the underworld was reaching its
zenith. He had already gained an insight into strange facts concerning the death of Joel Caulkins, and he
had passed his findings on to his mysterious employer.

Despite numerous messages that he had delivered, Clyde had received no orders from The Shadow
during these recent months. This was a singular state of affairs. Clyde could not recall any other period of
inactivity on the part of The Shadow that was as long as this one. He wondered, sometimes, what had
become of The Shadow.

Had the battler of crime withdrawn from the field? Had some shrewd gang leader pierced the
unfathomable veil that obscured The Shadow and forced him to seek safety outside of New York?
These were unpleasant thoughts, but Clyde, at times, had worse qualms. Perhaps something had
happened to The Shadow!

For years gangsters had been trying to put him on the spot. Had they succeeded?

The only ray of comfort was The Shadow's broadcasts. Once a week this man of mystery spoke over
the radio, and his uncanny laugh thrilled thousands of eager listeners. The broadcasts were going along on
schedule; nevertheless, it was possible that some other man had taken The Shadow's place. No one had
ever positively identified The Shadow, Crime Detector, with The Shadow, Radio Broadcaster.

Various tips on crime that Clyde had dropped in the Jonas office had been apparently ignored, although
the reporter had felt sure that The Shadow would respond to them. To date, The Shadow had not, to
Clyde's knowledge, taken the slightest interest in either the disappearance of Judge Harvey Tolland or in