"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 168 - The Lone Tiger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

The judge was leaning forward again; the culprits quailed beneath his
stern gaze.
"Chance saved you," he told the prisoners. "Your victims, luckily
released, escaped death; hence I cannot sentence you for murder. But there was
one member of that party who was in ill health. She was Joseph Mileson's only
daughter, Dorothy."
A sob stabbed through the courtroom. The judge sat silent, while
sympathetic attendants aided a black-veiled woman toward the door. She was
Mileson's wife, mother of the girl that the judge had named.
 A gray-haired man was seated in the chair next to the one just vacated.
He
was Joseph Mileson; his face, handsome and of kindly mold, was fixed in an
expression that gave it the appearance of granite. Great though the ordeal,
Joseph Mileson was determined to see it through.


"DOROTHY MILESON died soon after that horrible night," continued the
judge. "Forced from her bed, insufficiently clad against the chill of the wine
cellar, she suffered a relapse that made her illness fatal. The law,
unfortunately, cannot declare that death to be murder; but Joseph Mileson has
always regarded it as such.
"He has thrown his entire effort into the capture of the Tiger Mob. He
has
been unsparing of his wealth, in his desire to see every member of that evil
band brought before the bar of justice. I commend him for that work, and
herewith affirm that he deserves all credit for the law's complete triumph.
"Scattered everywhere, the members of the Tiger Mob used every device to
keep themselves hidden and unrecognized. Only Mileson's perseverance could
have
ferreted them out. Only his willingness to leave no stone unturned, no penny
unspent, could have produced the mass of indisputable evidence that made the
conviction of each mobster a foregone result, with each capture."
His own eyes meeting Mileson's, the judge flashed emphasis of his
approval. He understood the nod that the gray-haired man gave. Mileson wanted
to hear the words that would bring the trial to an end. The judge turned to
the
shrunken prisoners.
"You have pleaded guilty," he told them crisply. "Under other
circumstances, that might bring leniency. With the weight of evidence against
you, it has no bearing in this case. I sentence each of you to a term of
twenty
years in the State prison."
From somewhere in the courtroom came a vague, whispery tone; it seemed
the
echo of a strange laugh, sinister, unearthly. The judge heard it, and started.
But the prisoners were the ones most impressed. Taunted by that weird, evasive
mirth, they quivered like frail saplings in a wind.
Only a ghost of a laugh! But it brought them terror that would persist
long after they had become accustomed to the penitentiary cells!
The laugh of The Shadow!