"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 203 - Crime at Seven Oaks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

rose like ghostly sentinels, to warn of a curve ahead. Pressing the brake
pedal,
the youngish man brought the car to a complete stop.
The gray things were pillars; between them ran a roadway that formed the
entrance to an estate. Above, stretching from post to post, was a grilled
archway that bore the name:

SEVEN OAKS
 Instead of continuing along the road to Northdale, the sleek man veered
his roadster between the pillars. The turn was sharp; to make it, he had to
back the long roadster out into the road.
As he pushed the gear into reverse, he heard an approaching roar, saw
headlights curving in from the road that had brought him here.
Directly in the path of the arriving car, the sleek man calmly nudged his
roadster forward, expecting to be clear of any reckless driver. But the car
that took the turn did a most unusual thing.
Its driver saw the roadster dead ahead; instead of staying to the road,
he
slashed for the gateway, jerking his car to a halt as he arrived.
The incoming car was a rakish sedan. Clashing fenders with the roadster,
it blocked the fancy car from the driveway between the gates. Doors slapping
open, the sedan disgorged a quartet of active ruffians, who made a united
drive
for the man in the roadster. As they came, the fringing lights of headlamps
showed the glitter of revolvers swinging in their fists.
Against such odds, the man in the roadster had no chance. With one hand,
he grabbed for a revolver in the pocket of the roadster's door; with the
other,
he snatched a suitcase from the seat beside him. Such delay was all that the
attackers required to complete their onslaught.
Overwhelming their victim, they hauled him from his car. Hands plucked
away the gun before he could use it. The suitcase was torn from his clutch.
Slugging guns descended upon his head, as he tried to ward off the blows with
his arms. Another minute would have brought complete disaster to the sleek
man,
if a third car had not entered the scene.
It came from the same route that the other cars had used. The rapid spurt
of its motor, the sudden shriek of brakes, told that another combatant was
anxious to join the fray. Instinctively, the four attackers flung their
sagging
victim into a gully and swung, with aiming guns, to greet the new challenger.
Guns could not help them; not against an adversary who opened fire as he
came. The stabs of an automatic crashed the night air, and with those shots
figures began to stagger in the gleam of powerful headlights.
As a token that such shooting was the work of a master marksman, foemen
heard a mocking laugh.
Long, strident, the taunting mirth brought ghoulish echoes from the
surrounding slopes, as though the tongues of a thousand demons had joined in
the challenge. Out of those echoes came the hoarse cries of the scattering
fighters, who were learning the lone marksman's prowess: