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

gloom of that later afternoon, gained a new hunch for his collection. He seemed to see the hand of The
Shadow entering into a new perplexing mystery, of which these deaths were the forerunner. If it were
only so!

Cardona was still thoughtful as he made his way to headquarters. He was wondering if, somewhere in
great Manhattan, The Shadow was at work. The question persisted, even after he had reached his office.


WHILE Cardona sat at his battered desk, speculatively drumming with his finger tips, another man in a
different part of Manhattan was also considering the Suburban train deaths in terms that included The
Shadow.
In the inner office of his suite in the towering Badger Building, a chubby-faced investment broker named
Rutledge Mann was carefully clipping items from a stack of evening newspapers. The columns which he
chose were ones which referred to the strange killings at Felswood.

The windows of adjacent buildings were glimmering amid the dusk when Rutledge Mann slipped his
accumulated clippings into a large envelope. Pocketing the packet, the investment broker left his office.

He rode by cab to Twenty-third Street, entered a dilapidated building, and went to the second floor. He
stopped before a door which bore a name upon its smudgy glass panel:

B. JONAS
Rutledge Mann had never seen the interior of that office. His occasional visits terminated at the door.
Here, Mann produced the envelope and dropped it in a letter slot. His work of the afternoon was
complete.

An agent of The Shadow, it was Mann's duty to bring items on unsolved crimes to this particular place.
Deposited there, such data reached The Shadow.

Whether or not The Shadow was in New York; whether or not The Shadow would display an interest in
these reportsтАФthese were factors which did not concern Rutledge Mann.

The agent had performed his appointed task. The details of crime had been accumulated for use. Action
now lay with The Shadow himself.

CHAPTER II. THE THIRD TRAGEDY
DETECTIVE JOE CARDONA stood upon the platform of the station at Felswood. His sharp, dark
eyes were scanning the roadbed toward the curve near the station. The time was thirty five minutes past
eight.

To all appearances, Cardona was merely one of the dozen or more commuters who thronged the station
platform. But the detective was there with a more important purpose than that of a morning ride into
Manhattan. He was the captain of a crew of able men who were here to study every detail that occurred
when the eight thirty-eight arrived upon its westward journey.

A trackwalker was loitering on the curve. Standing aside, as though to await the train, the man was part
of Cardona's scheme. The supposed trackwalker was a detective.

Cardona turned idly and glanced in the opposite direction. Another pretended trackwalker was strolling
along the tracks, slowly nearing the station platform.