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

followed in rapid succession. There was a clatter of a telephone falling.

"Hello! Hello!" called the city editor.

Vague sounds came through the receiver. Ward fancied that he heard a gasp. A sharp click ended the
chaos. The phone was hung up at the other end.

"Gaynor!" shouted the city editor. "Try to locate where that call came fromтАФthe phone number! Quick! I
heard shooting."

He singled out another reporter.

"Up to Eightieth Street, Briggs," he said. "East Eightieth. Take Stewart along with you. Try to locate
Caulkins. He was calling from somewhere up there. There was shooting in the place where he called
from."

The alert city editor spotted another man.

"Get police headquarters, Perry. Tell them what you just heard. Shooting up on Eightieth Street. Caulkins
is there."

Ward sagged back in his chair, his excitement passed. He became meditative, giving no thought to the
scurrying men who were on their way to do his bidding. He leaned forward to the desk and wrote a
concise memorandum of what he had just heard.

Then he pushed pencil and paper aside while he checked his recollections. He tilted back in his chair and
looked across the room at the clock. He glanced toward the typewriter desks. Harwood, star rewrite
man, was sitting idle.

"Say, Harwood," said the city editor in a matter-of-fact tone, "do a Wise Owl column. Anything you
want. It's your job from now on. I don't think Caulkins will be with us any longer."

THE city editor of the Classic was correct in his prophecy. A few hours later, the lifeless body of Joel
Caulkins was discovered in the third story of an old house on Eightieth Street. No shots had been heard
in the vicinity.

Police had arrived at the place by a process of elimination. The owner of a little store had seen a car pull
away from the building where no car had stopped for months. The place was supposed to be empty. The
statement had warranted a search. The body of the ex-Wise Owl was found there.

Acting Inspector Fennimann was accustomed to reporters from the Classic. He considered most of them
a nuisance. The tabloid newspaper was always after sensational stories, and the Wise Owl revelations, a
page of presumably inside stuff, was not liked at headquarters.

But on this particular night, after he had received a report from Detective Sergeant Wentworth, the acting
inspector was surprised to receive a visit from Dale Ward, city editor of the Classic.

The editor received a cordial welcome. In a few minutes he and Fennimann were in close conference,
chewing fat cigars while they talked.