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

as when she had entered.
However, that was only an illusion.

The blond spy left the beauty shop. She didn't take another cab. She walked in a deliberate
effort to find out if she was being followed. Her fear was realized. A hand dropped lightly on
her shoulder.

Turning, she saw the lean face of Vic Marquette. He pointed to a dark sedan that waited
quietly at the curb.
"Get in."

"What does this mean?"
"I think you know." There was a brief flash of Vic's badge.
The blonde laughed suddenly. She obeyed without any further fuss. Neither she nor Vic said
another word on the swift drive to F.B.I. headquarters.

But in the quiet, brilliantly-lighted room where she was taken, Jane Purdy said plenty. The
gray-haired man behind the desk gave Vic a worried stare. A civil suit for false arrest was
not to his liking. It might ruin careful preliminary work already accomplished. But Vic
Marquette smiled.

"I don't think she'll cause us any trouble. I'm certain she's carrying a message of some kind."

"Very well."
The gray-haired man pressed a button. A matron appeared. She led Jane Purdy into a
windowless room and searched her to the skin.
The search was disappointing. She found nothing. Jane Purdy was allowed to dress and
was conducted back to the room where Vic and his chief waited.

Quickly, the matron made her report. Miss Purdy heard Vic reprimanded by his superior.
She was allowed to go after receiving an apology.

Her triumph was complete when she discovered that no further attempt was made to follow
her. She had fooled two of the shrewdest undercover men in Washington!
WHEN Jane Purdy returned to her apartmentтАФa small suite on the top floor of a fashionable
buildingтАФshe did an apparently senseless thing. Removing her silver evening gown, she
took a white silk swim suit from the closet and donned it in place of her wispy pink
undergarment.

It seemed a ridiculous change to make in the dead of winter, but there was no smile on Jane
Purdy's lips. Swiftly, she produced a more sinister object: a slitted white mask. With the
mask in place and a rubber bathing cap over her blond hair, her identity was completely
hidden.
All that was visible in the mirror was an extraordinarily beautiful woman in a skimpy swim
suit.

Jane Purdy's laughter rippled. She placed the mask, the cap and a pair of rubber bathing
shoes in her handbag. Once more, she donned her evening gown. The swim suit, however,
remained on her body beneath the gown. She was now ready to leave the apartment, and
she reached for her furred wrap.