"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 042 - Mox" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

heard a gem of deductive reasoning. Cardona rated highly in the commissioner's opinion. Now that the
matter of the note to The Shadow had been settled as a hoax, all tension was relieved.

"We can go down to Harlew's place," suggested Cardona. "That's what I intended to do as soon as I had
gotten a line on the murder situation. I've got a police car outside -"

"I shall go down there," interposed Weston. "Would you like to come?" He put the question to Cranston.


"Certainly," replied the millionaire.

BEFORE departing, Weston took the police notations from Cardona and began to study the statements
with which the detective had been working. Cardona watched him. The two stood alone, except for
Cranston. Neither noted what the millionaire was doing.

While his tall form cast its mysterious silhouette across the dead body of Schuyler Harlew, the keen eyes
of The Shadow were at work. It was amazing, the way they traveled from spot to spot.

A watch appeared in Cranston's hand. It slipped back into his pocket. With that action, The Shadow had
checked the time upon the desk. A thin, knowing smile showed on the lips of Lamont Cranston. The
Shadow had observed that Harlew's clock was fast.

Every detail of Harlew's antemortem statement was affixed in the keen brain of The Shadow. This master
of deduction had observed points that had not occurred to either Cardona or Weston. They had read the
note only word for word.

But to The Shadow, the one for whom that message was intended, the note was a revelation of Harlew's
terror of an unknown foe. The Shadow knew that no murderer could have prepared such a document of
human expression to lay upon that desk.

The doomed man's plea for aid rang true. The threat of deathтАФthe monster who wielded itтАФthe hour of
midnightтАФthe suggestion of flightтАФthe hesitancy about revealing the nameтАФall were evidences of
sincere statements.

Harlew's very suggestions that his thoughts were wild, that they would not settle until after the dead line of
midnight, alone convinced The Shadow that the murdered man had inscribed the message to the one who
he believed could meet and conquer the superfiend who had planned this death.
Why, then, if Harlew had written the note, had not the murderer taken it with him? Hasty flight on the
murderer's part could not be the answer to his question. Cardona's theory included the deliberate locking
of the door; the thrusting of the key beneath.

The Shadow saw the answer. It was one that Cardona had himself given, yet one which the star detective
had rejected as impossible. The Shadow knew that Schuyler Harlew's murderer had never entered the
room!

STROLLING toward the window, The Shadow stood directly before the desk, at the very spot where
Harlew had half risen from his chair. Staring through the crevice of the half-opened window, The
Shadow, still wearing the thin smile of Lamont Cranston, saw an object at an angle across the street.

Cranston's limousine was parked beside itтАФa tall telephone pole that bore a thick grouping of wires