"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 035 - The Black Hush" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

Had someone crossed Goldy Tancred? Were important figures of the underworld anxious to launch a
new scheme of crime free from his clever, tribute taking surveillance? If such were the case, there was
reason why Goldy's life might now be threatened.
The detective was not here just to protect Goldy Tancred. He was here to thwart crime that might be in
the making.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Cardona entered the Blue Room. He found a chair at a corner table along
with a group of lesser politicians. These men, enjoying their first evening with the Mohawks, were quiet in
demeanor. They accepted the detective as another of their ilk, and made no effort to open conversation.

The detective sensed that violent death would be attempted within the walls of the Olympia Hotel. On
this very night. He waited patiently while the Mohawks chattered and burst forth in boisterous song.

At last, restless and uneasy, Cardona pushed his chair from the table. He sidled along the edge of the
room, and paused as he neared the door. Something told him that danger might lie without. He felt that
the crucial moment was close at hand.

Then, while the merrymaking was rising to a new height, the unexpected happened. One instant, Joe
Cardona was watching Goldy Tancred and Bowser Riggins as the pair were laughing at the capers of a
stout, bald-headed politician. The next moment, the entire scene was gone.

Without a warning, the room was plunged in darkness. Every light, not only in the Blue Room, but
throughout the entire hotel, was blotted into blackness. With that unfathomable gloom, shouts and
laughter seemed to die away. A black hush lay over all!

CHAPTER II. MURDER STRIKES
WHILE the Mohawks had been enjoying themselves so loudly in the Blue Room, a quiet dinner was in
progress at the other side of the Olympia Hotel. Within the Red Room, some thirty men were listening to
a presiding officer at the head table.

This gentleman was Richard Reardon, a prominent member of the Association of Electrical Engineers, the
organization which was assembled here tonight.

On this occasion, he was introducing a young man who sat beside him. In quiet, convincing terms,
Reardon was telling the assemblage that in Roland Furness, the association possessed a member whose
ability would soon be widely recognized.

While Roland Furness, red-faced and uncomfortable because of Reardon's praise, was glancing toward
the tablecloth, the darkness came to the Red Room. As promptly as if someone had pulled a hidden
switch, blackness replaced light. The change caught Richard Reardon in the middle of sentence.

After a momentary pause, the president resumed his discourse, in a voice that sounded strangely
modulated in the midst of that impenetrable darkness.

"We shall wait," he announced, "until the light is restored. Then we shall be ready to hear from our
associate, Roland Furness."

A sharp exclamation came from the man beside the president. Roland Furness had risen to his feet in the
darkness. Something in the hushing power of the new atmosphere had evidently alarmed him.