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

bargaining, talk of money for carting away of bodies. The reply the spy received was
evidently satisfactory. He replaced the instrument with a throaty chuckle.
He stared, still chuckling, at his reflection in a mirror. The black satin Harlequin costume with
its huge buttons and ridiculous pompons on the tips of his slippers made the spy chief seem
like a ghastly travesty of death. But it was a travesty that was make-believe. He proved it by
placing both hands at the side of his headтАФand slowly lifting his head upward from his
shoulders!

The whole counterfeit head was a masterpiece of plastic art. It fitted over Number One's
flesh-and-blood head like a helmet. The white ruff of the clown suit at the spy's throat
effectively hid the lower edge of the strange disguise.

As he lifted the helmet, the line of his real chin and jaw began to appear. But he was a man
of infinite caution. Even in a silent room with only two corpses as witnesses, Number One
was unwilling to reveal his hidden identity. His left hand jutted with a quick motion and
snapped off the electric switch. He finished his unmasking in darkness.

A moment later, he was tiptoeing softly from the top-floor apartment.
With him went the steel bar encased in felt. He took also the handbag of the dead Jane, the
one that contained her mask, her bathing cap and the rubber bathing shoes. He didn't
attempt to recover the silken swim suit that was still on the girl's dead body beneath her
silver evening gown. Time was pressing!
Number One didn't descend. He slid past the feeble glow of a red exit bulb, and ascended
the steel-inclosed fire stairs that led to the roof.

AFTER ten minutes, a second figure appeared in the top-floor corridor. It was impossible to
know whether the man had descended from the roof or had made the long, weary climb by
stairs from the street level. The only clue was the fact that he was panting heavily.

He pressed the button of the service elevator several times in what was evidently a signal to
someone below. The elevator began to rise.
The face of the man who had given the signal was strong and clean-shaven. with rather
full-shaped lips. His eyes stared straight ahead without blinking. He wore a gray overcoat, a
gray fedora, and there were gray gloves on his hands.

He was a figure well known in Washington society, by reason of his political and social
activities. His name was Mike Porter. He was a lobbyist, hired by the numerous industrial
firms who wanted to present their views on legislation to the congressmen who framed the
laws. Mike Porter's creep, cordial voice and cheery laugh were well known and well liked at
social receptions and in the marble corridors of the Capitol.

But there was nothing cordial about the way he greeted the men who stepped slyly from the
service elevator. His snarling query was husky with tension.
"O.K. downstairs, Blackie?"

"Yeah. We got the car all ready. Any time me and Slim can make a cool grand apiece
ditchin' a coupla stiffs, we're right on time."

Blackie looked like an ex-pug. He was a thick, hammered-down sort of man, with wide
shoulders and practically no neck below his bullet head. His nose had once been broken