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

Then it went down the stairs, seeking, occasionally stopping to note some trifling sign. It reached the
vestibule and made a thorough search. Here were no splotchesтАФonly a broad smear, in the midst of a
dust-streaked floor. The light was tiny now, as it ran up the side of the wall and stopped on the name of
Joseph T. Dodd. Then the light went out.

The front door opened softly, and a thin figure slipped through, to merge with thickening night.
Wentworth became suddenly alert across the street. He fancied that he had seen another motion at the
door of the house; then he laughed at his imagination.

Why should he be concerned with every fleeting shadow that might appear before that door? He was
posted to watch for a living beingтАФ not a phantom!

And so, when Wentworth ended his vigil, being relieved by a plain-clothes man, he made out a simple
report: namely, that no one had visited the house that dayтАФwith the exception of Clyde Burke, reporter
on the Classic.

His report said nothing of a shadow in the dusk. If it had, it might have attracted the attention of the
observant Joe Cardona. For the star detective knew more about shadows than did Wentworth.

Joe Cardona, alone of the New York detective force, might have suspected the truth: that The Shadow,
living phantom of the night, had come and gone at the old house on East Eightieth Street. In answer to
Clyde Burke's messages, the strange man of darkness had investigated the spot where Joel Caulkins had
died.

Silently, invisibly, The Shadow had learned facts which had escaped the observation of Joe Cardona;
and those facts pertained to other than Joel CaulkinsтАФnamely, Judge Harvey Tolland, and to the man
known only as Double Z.

CHAPTER V. CARDONA ENCOUNTERS CRIME
DETECTIVE JOE CARDONA was a man who played hunches. For months, he had been thinking off
and on of Double Z. He had classed the man as an eccentric individual, who knew the inside of
crookdom, and liked to display his knowledge by letters to the police.

He had harbored a hunch that Double Z might some day become dangerous, and he had been waiting for
that time.

Now, the day had come. The murder of Joel Caulkins indicated action on the part of Double Z. It
enabled Cardona to form his impression of what type of man Double Z might be.

He pictured him as one of those characters who fringe the borders of the underworldтАФperhaps a "fence"
who disposed of stolen goods. Through contact with crime, the man had gained knowledge. Now,
possessed of more intelligence than the average criminal, the lure of crime had caused him to enter the
field himself, while his eccentricity still made him follow his old practice of writing letters to the police.

Cardona recalled that two of Double Z's veiled tips of impending death had failed to materialize. Some
months ago, he had said that a gangster was to be put on the spot, within a week. The killing had not
occurred.

Then, he had hinted also the kidnapping of a prominent society woman. The police had become vigilant.