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

blast's
effect had ended. Rising, he gazed toward the space that had once been the
lobby
of the Cobalt Club. That scene was a void.
A chasm had replaced the tiled floor. The great front door of the club
was
gone; with it, the whole front of the building had been banished. The Shadow
could see the shreds of the marquee; beyond that, the avenue, littered with
masses of gray stone.
George Zanwood had vanished; with him had perished the uniformed doorman.
Ruthless murder had been done, with Zanwood as its victim. The doorman, a mere
bystander, had been slain also. Only The Shadow's quick action had saved three
other lives: his own, and those of Weston and Throckmorton.
Crime's blast had arrived. A master crook had struck in The Shadow's own
domain. With his first thrust, the murderer of George Zanwood had almost
gained
The Shadow as an added victim.


CHAPTER II

THE MESSENGER CLUE

DUST had settled amid the ruins of the lobby when Commissioner Weston
joined The Shadow at the library door. The chaotic scene awed Weston; made him
shudder when he realized how close he had been to death. In bewildered tone,
he
gulped:
"What - what was it, Cranston? How did you guess - how did you know what
was coming?"
"Zanwood's bag arrived," replied The Shadow. "I saw him take it from the
doorman. From the startled way in which they acted, I knew that they had heard
the ticking of a bomb."
"Then they were blown to atoms -"
"Yes. The Cobalt Club is short one life member and a doorman."
The Shadow's statement was a solemn one. It brought a pang to Weston. The
commissioner remembered his own remark about life members dying off; he
realized that it could be interpreted to mean that he had wanted Zanwood's
death. The grimness of the situation was sufficient to rouse Weston to
excitement.
"I must call headquarters!" exclaimed Weston, edging out into the
shattered lobby. "We can lose no time! The perpetrator of this outrage must be
captured! This is the work of some terrorist, who will be a menace as long as
he remains at large!"
Getting across the space to the front of the lobby was no small task.
Though he could guide himself by the lights that still glowed from the
library,
Weston nearly came to disaster when he tested the broken lobby floor.
One mass of cracked tile gave under the commissioner's weight and crashed
into the basement. Weston would have followed it but for The Shadow's