"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 044 - Treasures of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

CHAPTER II. THE UNSEEN VISITOR
A TELEPHONE was jingling. The city editor of the New York Classic reached for the receiver. His
voice sounded above the eternal hubbub of the news room.

"What's that, Tewkson?... Yes... Yes... All right, I'll send a man out on it."

The editor hung up the receiver and looked about him for a reporter. The first one whom he spied was a
frail fellow who was idly puffing a pipe. The city editor beckoned. The reporter hastened to the desk.

"Good story here, Burke," informed the editor. "Tewkson just phoned in about an old fellow named
Shattuck Barliss who died from heart failure. Seems that he was killed by the shock when he learned that
a valuable manuscript had been stolen."

"Is Tewkson at detective headquarters?" questioned Burke.

"Yes," replied the city editor. "He says that a man is going out to investigate the robbery. You'd better
hop up to the house where that old fellow Barliss lived."

"Right."

Burke left the desk. He went from the city room, descended in an elevator and reached the street. He
turned directly into a cigar store and entered a telephone booth. He put in a call. The response came in a
quick voice.

"Burbank speaking."

"Report from Burke."

"Report."

Briefly, the reporter gave the information that he had received from the city editor. He added the address
of the old house that had belonged to Shattuck Barliss.

There was purpose in this report. No one, watching the telephone booths in the cigar store, would have
attached significance to the fact that Clyde Burke, reporter on the staff of the New York Classic, had
made a brief telephone call. Yet Clyde Burke had performed a most unusual function.

Somewhere in New York, his very sanctuary a place of unknown location, dwelt a mysterious being
called The Shadow. A master of detection, a lone wolf who battled crime, this strange personage had a
penchant for solving cases which baffled the police.

None knew the identity of The Shadow. He was a master of disguise, a phantom who moved with the
silence and stealth of night. His stalwart hand had spelled doom to hosts of supercrooks; yet none had
managed to defeat the purposes of The Shadow.

IN his ceaseless hunt for crime, The Shadow depended upon information which he received from trusted
subordinates who were always on the lookout for new developments. One of his most capable agents
was Clyde Burke, the Classic reporter now assigned to the Barliss case.

It was Clyde Burke's duty to send in facts concerning unusual crime as quickly as he encountered it. The