"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 030 - The Death Giver" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

agree with it.

"You think I am correct?" quizzed the commissioner sharply.
"Yes," replied Cardona, with emphasis.

"Why?" asked Weston shrewdly.

The detective clenched his fists. He had walked into the trap. Weston had put forward the theory simply
to try him out. Cardona had no answer.

"A hunch again?" demanded Weston.

"I guess that's it," growled Detective Cardona.

"Cardona"тАФWeston's voice was criticalтАФ"we've talked over this hunch business before. You know
what I think of youтАФyou're the ideal man to take practical evidence and follow it up for facts. But when
you come to theory, you take no basis. If an idea looks right to you, you lay it to a hunch."

"Hunches work sometimes."

"PerhapsтАФbut not always. When you get them, see if you can find a tangible reason."

"There's a reason here, commissioner. Two men with no connection, killed at the same spot -"

"A reason to look for something unusual," interrupted the commissioner, "but not a reason to lay it on a
killer instead of an accident. You're just where you were, Cardona. You know nothing. Find out
something. Then talk to me."

"I'll get somewhere, after to-morrow," said Cardona gruffly.

"See that you do," said the commissioner dryly. "If you find facts, follow them. If you gain theories,
substantiate them."

There was a long pause; then the commissioner spoke again, his voice still hard in tone.

"I admire good theory, Cardona," he said. "It clears the way to fact."

"If it's on the level," responded Cardona.

The commissioner winced. For a moment, he appeared angry; then a thin smile crept beneath his trimmed
mustache. He knew the meaning of Cardona's subtle thrust. Once the commissioner had teamed the
detective with a professor who had claimed great ability in the theories of crime. The professor had
turned out to be a criminal himself!

Cardona was sorry that he had spoken; for the thought of the past pricked the detective's conscience. In
the case to which Cardona referred, the detective had received credit for the death of the supercriminal.
In reality, Cardona had been aided by a master mind who warred on crimeтАФa strange being known only
as The Shadow. In Commissioner Weston's mind, The Shadow was a myth. Cardona could tell by
Weston's smile that reference to that fact was coming: