"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 094 - Castle of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

engaged in muttering.

He lost the sound of Geoffrey's footsteps; then paused. Edging in from the curb, he thrust his hand
through the solid murk and touched the dampened corner of a building.

No sounds of footsteps. Harry knew the answer. Geoffrey Chiswold had stopped in front of this house in
Whitechapel. There was no noise ahead; that tread from across the street had ended. All that Harry
could hear for the moment was the semblance of a sound in back of him, like a low, whispered hiss in the
blackened fog.

THEN, before Harry could turn or answer, a buzz began ahead. Voices snarled; there was a protesting
cry; then a wild, shrill scream that rent the fog-filled atmosphere. A responding shout broke automatically
from Harry's lips.

The Shadow's agent sprang forward on the instant. He knew the author of that scream, the reason for its
utterance. Geoffrey Chiswold had met with disaster at the hands of lurkers in the fog. The shriek that he
had given could only have come from a man who had felt the arrival of doom.

Here, upon this squalid street in Whitechapel, in front of an obscure and crumbly East End house, murder
was being done. To Harry Vincent, agent of The Shadow, belonged the duty of driving off those
attackers who had set upon Geoffrey Chiswold.

CHAPTER V. DEATH AND STRIFE
IN his forward spring, Harry Vincent came suddenly into light. Like an oblong shaft that cleaved the solid
darkness, the glow stretched from the rectangular opening of a doorway in the house itself. Beginning
from a lighted hallway, the rays produced a square upon both the sidewalk and a short flight of steps that
led into the house.

Struggling men half blotted the steps.

Half a dozen rough-clad thugs had fallen upon a lone opponent. Some had sprung up from darkness;
others had plunged out through the doorway. In the center of that vicious throng was Geoffrey
Chiswold.

As Harry leaped upon the group, the whole mass shifted to meet him; not face to face, but sidewise,
lurched through some fierce impetus from the opposite direction. Harry's mind caught an instant flash:
Geoffrey, in his struggle, must have hurled off some attackers. Then Harry had no time for other
impressions.

A sprawling hoodlum twisted toward The Shadow's agent. With a mad yell, the rogue flashed a knife
blade that was dripping crimson. Harry swung a sidewise stroke that sent the fellow against the house
wall. Then he gripped another dirk-laden killer who dove headforemost toward him.

The whole surge carried Harry with it. Thrust backward, Harry saw four blades above him. Then, into
the twisting throng came a driving battler, who arrived within three seconds following Harry's
spontaneous attack.

IT was The Shadow. From beneath his cape, he had whipped an automatic; but he was not using the
weapon as a firearm. Instead, he was delivering hard sweeps with his gun hand, while he used his other
fist to pluck down hands that bore dripping knives.