"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 113 - Partners Of Peril" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

PARTNERS OF PERIL
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," November 1, 1936.

Partners of Peril play a dangerous game. But it is The Shadow who makes
the final move that blasts to bits the plans of the unknown power of evil!


CHAPTER I

BREATH OF DOOM

THE tall gray-haired man who entered the Cobalt Club was badly
frightened.
He walked through the ornate foyer with almost cringing haste. But when he
reached the doorway of the lounge room he stopped and forced himself to act
more calmly. He glanced hopefully around, as though searching for some
reassuring face that would ease the fear that was flooding his rather spare,
well-dressed body.
He was looking for Police Commissioner Weston. At headquarters, they said
that Weston had left a few minutes earlier and had probably gone to the Cobalt
Club.
The gray-haired man had to see Weston. He was afraid to open his mouth to
any one else. To-night he knew he was marked for murder! Death before
midnight!
The man walked quickly toward the Cobalt Club's desk and spoke in a low,
guarded voice to the attendant. He hid his fear. He even managed a cool smile
as he asked for Ralph Weston.
The attendant told him that the police commissioner was not there.
"Perhaps if you tried his home, Mr. Harrington -"
He turned toward a row of discreetly closed phone booths. There was a
strained smile on his pale face as he nodded to members of the club who sat
idly about in comfortable chairs. He congratulated himself on his control of
his nerves. Nobody suspected anything was amiss with the tall Mr. Harrington.
He was wrong. Somebody did suspect. The man who suspected was uttering a
barely audible chuckle behind the spread pages of a newspaper. Apparently, he
was not even looking at Harrington. But his eyes had noted Harrington's panic
the moment the fellow had come in from the foyer.


THE clubman with the newspaper was Lamont Cranston. Tall, well-bred,
quiet, his outer appearance gave no hint of his keenness and strength. To
Harrington, he had always seemed a wealthy and not very sociable clubman. His
hawk nose and burning eyes were screened at the moment by the spread
newspaper.
Harrington, in his extremity of fear, would have thought it a waste of
time to have asked Lamont Cranston's help against a mysterious murder threat.
Yet Lamont Cranston, whom he was passing with a faint nod, was the only man on
earth who could have helped him.