"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 161 - The Voice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

THE VOICE
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," November 1, 1938.

The Voice spoke and murder was done - but when the final fray was over,
it
was the taunting, triumph laugh of The Shadow that was heard above all!


CHAPTER I

CRIME AFTER DUSK

EARLY darkness gripped the street that fronted the old Glenmore Building.
The increasing gloom had an unnatural touch that worried late workers coming
from their offices.
Not yet six o'clock - yet the street had an encroaching pall that
belonged
with midnight!
People didn't pause to reason that the days were short at this season of
the year; that heavy clouds had smothered the sunset, bringing this premature
twilight to Manhattan. Instead, they shuffled hastily toward the distant
lights
of an avenue where a subway station welcomed homeward voyagers.
The Glenmore Building was a grimy old structure, isolated in an
almost-forgotten section of New York City; but the building boasted a
uniformed
doorman, who peered from the dimly lighted lobby.
That doorman didn't like the early dusk, for he found it difficult to
keep
watch on a row of pretentious automobiles that were parked beside the curb.
Just why the directors of the Allied Airways Corporation had chosen this
hour, and this particular evening, for a meeting, the doorman couldn't say.
Perhaps, if he had reasoned further, he would have wondered why Allied Airways
still maintained its offices in the antiquated Glenmore Building.
Those questions were simply answered.
To-night's meeting was a special one. It had been set after office hours
to convenience directors who had daily business elsewhere. As for the location
of the offices, it happened that the Allied Airways Corporation owned the
Glenmore Building. Space there was difficult to rent, so the company had
solved
that difficulty by occupying the third floor itself.
What concerned the doorman most was a space in the line of parked cars.
He
was anxious to keep it open, for another car was expected. While the doorman
watched, an automobile began to shove into that gap.
It wasn't the limousine that he expected; the car was a long, low-built
touring car, old and ugly. It looked like some rakish pirate craft poking its
nose among the shiny, aristocratic cars that belonged to the directors of