"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 027 - The Silent Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

A figure raised itself beside the rail. Barely discernible in the glow from the metropolis, it formed the
sinister, ghostly shape of a tall being clad entirely in black. Even the hands of this weird phantom were
now covered with black gloves. The only spots of light that showed were two blazing eyes that flashed
from beneath the brim of the slouch hat.

Howard Broderick's part was ended. This visitant's statement of identity had been false. No longer
guised as a manтАФinstead, a fantastic creature of darknessтАФhe had become The Shadow!

Sinister foe of crime, amazing master of the night, The Shadow had arrived at the spot where death was
stalking. His tall, eerie shape was rising higher as it poised upon the broad rail of the veranda. Long arms,
stretched upward, gripped the projecting slope of the roof.

The figure of The Shadow swung outward. It poised over nothingness; then swung upward. Unyielding
hands drew the lithe body to the safety above.

The Shadow, unseen, his form now but a mass of moving blackness along the steep incline, was scaling
the sloping roof of the penthouse, bound upon a precarious mission which involved the life of a man
already doomed to die!
 CHAPTER III. THE TRAP ACTS
THE watchers high in the Brinton Building were studying the penthouse scene with renewed interest.
Their evil eyes were upon the corner window, where light had now replaced the former blackness.
Beyond the framework of the studio window, plainly visible through the small panes of glass, sat Alfred
Sartain. The millionaire was busy at his desk.

While Thomas Jocelyn and Larry Ricordo stared in silence, Professor Folcroft Urlich spoke in low,
continued tones, still maintaining his lecture style.

"Our man is in the trap," he explained. "As yet, he has not experienced its effects. That time is coming
shortly. Here is the means whereby we may study him more closely."

The professor drew a pair of opera glasses from his coat and focused them upon the scene across the
street. He tendered the glasses to Jocelyn, who drew nervously away. Ricordo, however, seized them
eagerly.

The former gang lord laughed gruffly as he gained a close-up view of the doomed man within the studio.
He noticed a perplexed look that appeared upon Sartain's face. Then the millionaire stepped from the
field of vision as he suddenly arose from his desk. Ricordo passed the glasses back to Urlich.

"He has noticed the noise from the radiator," decided the professor, as the three men watched Sartain go
toward the corner. "The noise is due to the air-dry attachment which is now being used on many
radiators. These devices were installed throughout the penthouse, during the renovation."

While Sartain was stooping by the radiator, the professor continued his theme.

"The air-dry attachment," he explained, "is a commercial device which is designed to remove moisture
from the atmosphere. By experimenting with these articles, I learned that they could be adjusted so that
they consume oxygen very rapidly. Sartain does not know it, but that piece of mechanism is sucking the
life-giving element from the air in his studio."