"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 039 - Road of Crime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

For New York sensation seekers had been treated to a contrast. The columns in the evening journals
were, in themselves, food for a grim debate on crime.

Was crime profitable? One news account said no; the other said yes.

Two hordes of bank bandits had struck at noon, in different parts of Manhattan. Those who had invaded
the Parkerside Trust Company had been routed in a spontaneous fray which had left half a dozen
mobsters dead and wounded. But those who had entered the Terminal National Bank had gained swift
success. With the aid of tear gas, they had eliminated tellers and bank patrons. The robbers had escaped
unscathed with thousands of dollars in currency.

STUDYING his fellow passengers, Graham Wellerton placed them in two definite classes. One group,
he felt, consisted of those who gloried in the victory over crime - who gained high satisfaction in the
outcome of the fray at the Parkerside Trust.

The others, Graham decided, were those who held a secret envy for robbers who had looted the
Terminal National and had made so perfect a get-away.

Idly, Graham played a game of human analysis. He noted the people who were reading about the
thwarted robbery. Most of them possessed an air of stability. Those who were eagerly perusing the
accounts of the successful raid, however, were curious, bitter-faced individuals who seemed to gloat in
the knowledge that wrongdoers had gained a momentary triumph.

In considering those whom he thus classified, Graham Wellerton adopted an odd neutrality so far as he
himself was concerned. Had he included himself, he would undoubtedly have placed himself in the select
category. In dress, appearance and manner, Graham was the most distinctive occupant of the subway
car.

Tall, handsome and dressed in perfectly tailored clothes, Graham had the appearance of a polished
man-about-town as he sauntered from the car when the train stopped at an uptown station.

But the smile upon his face was reminiscent. Not so many hours before, Graham Wellerton, in another
subway car, had represented an opposite class of society. Then he had been wearing baggy trousers,
heavy sweater and checkered cap.

Graham was still smiling as he tossed his newspaper into a trash receptacle. The accounts of the bank
holdups had included descriptions of just such individuals as he had been at noon this very day. Evening
had brought the present transformation.

So far as the bank holdups were concerned, Graham's neutrality was one of balance. He was pleased
that the attempt upon the Parkerside Trust had failed; he was glad that the Terminal National robbery had
been successful. For Graham knew something that the police did not suspect: namely, that both raids had
been ordered by one master of crime.

Two lieutenants had been employed, each the leader of a band of marauders. One - "Wolf" Daggert -
had failed at the Parkerside Trust. His minions had been overpowered, his own escape had been a
matter of luck.
The other - Graham Wellerton - had succeeded at the Terminal National. By cool strategy and swift
action, he had gained his end without the loss of a single henchman.