"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 100 - The Man From Shanghai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

H. DURLEW

Apothecary

Peering through a glass-paneled doorway, Spark saw a stoop-shouldered man huddled over the counter
of the tiny shop. Large-rimmed spectacles gave the fellow an owlish look. Spark could spy twitchy lips;
he guessed the reason for the man's nervousness. The owlish individual was Durlew. The druggist was
reading a final edition of an evening newspaper.

Spark shouldered his way into the store. Durlew looked up, saw his visitor and gulped. His twitching lips
began to phrase incoherent words. Spark cut Durlew short with a growl.

"Close up this joint of yours," he told the druggist. "Slide into the back room, where we can talk."
Durlew nodded, and moved toward the door. Spark picked up the newspaper and added:

"I'll take this sheet in there with us. I want to see what sort of baloney the bladders have been handing
out."

Durlew closed his tawdry shop and extinguished the lights. He and Spark walked around an ancient
show case that reached the ceiling, and entered a dim, dingy passage at the back of the store.

They came to a small room; Durlew turned on the lights and closed the door. They were in the
apothecary's office.

This room was as old-fashioned as the store at the front. The rolltop desk and swivel chair; the revolving
bookcaseтАФall were furniture of the past century, as antiquated as the title of "apothecary," which Durlew
preferred to druggist.

"Getting jittery, Durlew?"

Spark snapped the question as the druggist seated himself in the swivel chair. Durlew nodded; licking his
twitchy lips, he replied:

"You faked what you said about the bottle and the poison, Spark. If I'd known you were after an
important man like William Hessup, I wouldn't have gone through with it."

"Just what I figured," retorted Spark. "That's why I bluffed you, Durlew. What difference does it make,
though? Your moniker wasn't on that bottle label. It said Northern Drug Company."

"The police will make inquiries at the Northern Drug Company."

"What if they do? The bulls will spend a week quizzing mugs who know nothing. That's all the further
they'll get."

"Unless they find out that the printer who does work for the Northern Company ran off some labels for
me," Durlew said. "Maybe he'll remember that he shipped a small batch of Northern Drug labels to the
wrong customer."

"Forget it! There's no dick on the force who's smart enough to go to see the printer. But what if some
one does? All you've got to do is sit tight. Just say that you never got any of the wrong labels."