"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 123 - Washington Crime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

Further questions were put to Colonel Follingsby; by the time they were
answered, dusk had settled in the trial room. Glowing lights of Washington
appeared beyond the windows; evening life was coming to the nation's capital.
The presiding officer rapped an order for adjournment. The strokes of the
gavel made Colonel Follingsby shudder as if he had heard his death knell. He
could foresee that when the court-martial assembled again, its first business
would be the giving of a verdict.
That verdict would be guilty. Dismissal from the service would be
Follingsby's disgrace. Yet that, alone, was not the full cause of the
colonel's
misery. Over Follingsby hung the terrible knowledge that he had been
responsible
for an irreparable loss.
All that General Darson had stated was fact. Victimized by the vicious
influence of conniving spies from foreign countries, the military defense of
the United States was confronted by the most pressing situation in its
history.
Army and navy alike had relied upon the National Emergency Code to meet a
crisis.
Should the NEC fall into the hands of the wrong foreign power, that
nation
might easily choose to declare war upon the United States. American forces
would
be paralyzed; for the National Emergency Code contained every intricate system
that had been secretly devised for military use. National calamity - if it
came
- would be blamed solely upon Colonel Follingsby.
There were serious faces on the men who left that somber room. All knew
that the fate of Colonel Follingsby was trivial; that the national welfare was
the cause at stake. Subtly, the trial officers had sought to ferret out some
chance clues that would lead to the recovery of the National Emergency Code.
They were faced by the realization that they had utterly failed.
One listener, however had gained a vital fact. The Shadow's thin,
masklike
lips showed the slightest semblance of a smile. As witness to the
court-martial
proceedings, The Shadow had gained a fact that interested him.
Had he been called upon to name the man who had stolen the National
Emergency Code, The Shadow could have done so. That, however, did not fit with
The Shadow's policy.
Knowing the identity of the man who possessed the missing NEC, The Shadow
was planning to regain the document intact. It was more important to secure
those papers than to expose the criminal.


CHAPTER II

A THIEF'S THRUST

OUTSIDE the court-martial room, The Shadow shook hands with Senator Ross