"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 173 - Death's Harlequin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

DEATH'S HARLEQUIN
Maxwell Grant
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? CHAPTER I. THE TRAIL OF NUMBER ONE
? CHAPTER II. THE LITTLE FACES
? CHAPTER III. THE MILITARY CLUE
? CHAPTER IV. THE PIT
? CHAPTER V. WHITE ORCHIDS
? CHAPTER VI. ALIBI FOR MURDER
? CHAPTER VII. EYES IN DARKNESS
? CHAPTER VIII. DELAYED DOOM
? CHAPTER IX. THE BROWN ENVELOPE
? CHAPTER X. MASTER AND MAN
? CHAPTER XI. THE CLUB BANDBOX
? CHAPTER XII. CLARITA UNMASKS
? CHAPTER XIII. THE HOUSE IN THE MUD
? CHAPTER XIV. DEATH UNDERGROUND
? CHAPTER XV. THE FACE OF GUILT
? CHAPTER XVI. TRAITOR'S END

CHAPTER I. THE TRAIL OF NUMBER ONE
A PLEASANT-FACED, mustached young man stood on one of the quiet streets of
Washington, staring cautiously ahead.

It was a cold winter night in the nation's capital, and few people were abroad. The young
man had halted at a spot well beyond the rays of the nearest street lamp.
A block away a taxicab had halted in front of a swanky apartment building. A women
alighted and dismissed her hackman. She was dressed in a gorgeous evening wrap with a
furred hood, lifted partly over her blond hair. She walked with leisurely grace into the
building.
The man who was watching her was not deceived by this maneuver. He expected the girl to
emerge again without much delay. He had never seen her before tonight, but that did not
lessen his suspicion that the girl in the furred wrap was a criminalтАФa paid spy in a powerful
international organization financed from abroad.

He had seen the blonde meet another woman who was definitely a suspect. He had trailed
her taxi in an apparently aimless journey through the dark streets of Washington. Her
present halt, he was convinced, was merely for the purpose of throwing any possible pursuer
off the trail.

The name of this man was Vic Marquette. Few people in Washington knew his real
business, Vic Marquette was an ace in the United States Secret Service, now temporarily
working for the F.B.I.

His loitering figure became tense as he saw the blonde in the furred wrap emerge again
from the apartment building. She didn't walk very far, before a taxicab swerved suddenly into
the curb. The woman got in and the cab sprang away. An instant later, Vic himself was on