"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 117 - Vengeance Is Mine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

the patrol car.
Menacing men were still at large. Tools of a supercrook would be ready
for
new murder, if their master commanded. The Shadow could foresee coming doom
for
others like George Zanwood, if such victims were slated for destruction.


CHAPTER V

FACTS FOR THE LAW

LATE the next afternoon, Commissioner Weston entered the Merrimac Club,
where members of the Cobalt Club had found temporary welcome and shelter from
the hubbub of Manhattan. Weston merely stopped there to give the place his
stamp of approval; but as he looked into the lounge, he spied his friend
Cranston seated by the window. Weston approached.
"Hello, Cranston," greeted the commissioner. "I suppose that you have
read
the newspapers and have, therefore, learned about the second explosion that
occurred last night?"
The Shadow nodded, as though the matter scarcely interested him. He was
playing the leisurely role of Cranston in his most effective style.
"We took the wrong trail last night," admitted Weston, ruefully. "We
should have gone to Zanwood's apartment instead of the Apex Security Co. While
we were checking the air-tight alibis of the Apex Co.'s messengers, the actual
criminal visited Zanwood's apartment."
"I read about it in the papers," reminded The Shadow. "Apparently, they
encountered some trouble there."
"They?" queried Weston. "Just whom do you mean by 'they'? We are
searching
for a lone criminal - a terrorist who seems to be determined in his purpose of
blasting helpless victims into eternity. We are after one man; not several."
With that, Weston decided to explain matters thoroughly to his friend.
Seating himself, the commissioner gave the law's version of the whole case.
It began with the previous afternoon, when the janitor of the Everglades
Apartments had missed the master keys that he kept in his little office. At
dusk, he had heard someone in the office; he had found the keys back where
they
belonged. Up the street, the janitor had spied a man climbing into an old
coupe.
"One man only," emphasized Weston, with a wag of his forefinger. "The
janitor could see him through the rear window, taking his place behind the
wheel. Then the car drove away."
"The man was tall?" questioned The Shadow, reflectively.
"Of course. The janitor said that he was stooping as he entered his
coupe." Weston paused to smile triumphantly. "There you have it, Cranston. A
tall man at Zanwood's apartment. The very man who, later, arrived at the
Cobalt
Club."