"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 171 - Death Ship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

formed the land end of the pier, he looked back to detect another telltale sparkle from a
flashlight. His penetration had not been discovered.
The pier was a wide, high platform, and the building at the land end of it served as a
boathouse. The building was set low, and it was necessary to pass through it to reach the
space beneath the pier, where The Shadow knew that a small vessel was kept. For tonight's
venture was no aimless quest on the part of the mysterious being in black. The Shadow was
delving into an enterprise as mysterious as these of his own creation.

He had come here to investigate the newly invented Z-boat designed by Commander
Rodney Prew, formerly an officer in the United States Navy.

Off to the northeast were distant lights that marked Mare Island, where naval officers
expectantly awaited tomorrow's announcement regarding the purpose of Prew's new craft.
To the south, The Shadow could see the glow of San Francisco, a city that had sheltered the
secret meetings of plotters whose purposes were as hidden as their methods.
Through stray clues, The Shadow had divined that the future of the Z-boat was at stake,
although there had been no surface indication of such circumstance. It was more than a
hunch that had brought The Shadow here tonight; he had the definite fact that if any stroke
should be intended, it would have to be made before tomorrow.

From the time when the navy department had learned of Commander Prew's private
construction of a new type of war craft, he had been given a limit in which to complete his
preliminary work. Tomorrow, when that period expired, polite officers in navy uniforms would
sail down from Mare Island and take over the ship beneath the pier.
Whether Prew, or others, wished to prolong the secrecy surrounding the Z-boat, was still a
mystery in itself. So, for that matter, was the presence of the men on shore. On previous
excursions here, The Shadow had found no guarding cordon. The only watchers had been a
few men stationed on the Z-boat itself.

Previously, The Shadow had gained access to the little boathouse only to find it deserted,
with farther passage blocked. At the door where he stood now, black against the darkened
weather-beaten wood, he soon made sure that the interior of the boathouse was as dark
and silent as it had been before. That made it expressly suited to his requirements.

While outside lurkers were closing in upon the pier, becoming more confident as they
progressed, The Shadow could be awaiting them in an even better lurking spot. Whatever
their purpose, he would be well equipped to learn it when they arrived, as well as having the
element of surprise in his own favor.
THE SHADOW took one last survey. Off on the bay, he saw dwindling lights, merely those of
a plying ferry. Gazing toward San Francisco, he observed a more ominous sign; sudden
swaths of brightness that came from big searchlights playing a huge circle upon the bay.
Their sweep formed an absolute barrier between this spot and San Francisco, but they
never altered in their circuit.

Those were the lights of Alcatraz, constantly on the watch for any creeping craft that might try
to reach The Rock, where hundreds of criminals held almost impossible dreams of rescue.
The Shadow remembered one time when Alcatraz had been invaded, but he himself had
nullified that enterprise. (Note: See "Shadow Over Alcatraz," Vol. XXVIII, No. 1.)

Thanks to The Shadow, Alcatraz was again impregnable; and watchers on the fortress