"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 026 - Murder Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

autogyro had carefully descended along the course by which an escaping murderer had dropped from the
great dirigible Munchen!

Silently, Harry followed the man ahead. He could see no outline of The Shadow's form. A larger
flashlight was working now, sweeping along the ground as The Shadow led the way in a methodical
search.

Suddenly the light stopped. A soft laugh came from above it. Harry shuddered. He had heard that laugh
before; it was a laugh which he, as The Shadow's trusted agent, had no cause to fear. Nevertheless, its
sinister, whispered tones were uncanny. There was something in that amazing mockery that brought
dread to all who heard it.

The laugh of The Shadow!

"Come."

The voice followed the laugh. The single word brought Harry forward. The young man stared at the spot
where the flashlight's rays formed a luminous circle upon the ground. There, Harry saw the marks of two
feet impressed in the soft earth. The traces of those implanted shoes possessed one noticeable oddity: the
left was on the right; the right on the left.

The fact caught Harry Vincent's eye, but his mind gained no explanation. The Shadow's laugh, however,
showed that The Shadow understood. A man, descending in a parachute, had landed with crossed
legsтАФin the proper method of terminating a landing via parachute.

These were the marks that The Shadow had come to find; they were the sure trace of the man who had
dropped from the swift German dirigible. The Shadow had picked up the trail of the man who murdered
Von Tollsburg!

THE light moved along the ground; again, Harry followed. Here were faint traces of footprints going
toward the clump of trees. Harry himself would have lost the trail; but The Shadow's eagle eye did not
fail. With uncanny precision, the bearer of the flashlight followed the course that the murderer had taken.

There was brush among the trees. The flashlight spotted a clump of bushes. A broken branch gave a
quick clew. A low command came in The Shadow's whisper. Harry separated the bushes, and there,
while the flashlight played ahead, he discovered a mass of crumpled cloth. Dragging out the discovery,
Harry spread a parachute upon the ground.

Once again, the keen eyes of The Shadow were taking up the trail along the ground. The path brought
the searchers to an embankment. Footprints showed in the earth. They led to the dirt road, and mingled
with the dust.

Harry Vincent strode along, still behind that light that flickered from an unseen hand. There was
something ghostly in the atmosphere. The light itself seemed detached from a human being. Suspended in
air, it might have been moving of its own accord, as it searched the dirt of the road and never ceased its
progress.

When the light finally stopped, it was at the point where the old road encountered a paved highway.
Here, under the scanning glare, Harry could see another telltale mark in a patch of mud. The footprints
again, turning down to the left. That was the direction in which the man had gone!