"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 226 - The Blur" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

room. He made for it.

On the way, he stumbled over desk drawers. They had been pulled from Tex's desk and their contents
dumped. Hands stretched ahead of him, Terry tried to catch his balance against the block of blackness as
it winked at him from the quick flashes of ever-changing light.

Instead of stopping, he went right through the blackness, took a long spill and went tumbling down a flight
of stairs.

Those crazy lights had made everything unreal, but this fall was even crazier, during the breath-taking
moments that it took Terry to reach the bottom, of the steps. He stopped with a sharp jar that knocked
some understanding into him. The black oblong hadn't been part of the wall; it was an open door,
probably a sliding one, that Tex used as a private exit from his office.

Killers had turned it to their own use, leaving it open when they fled. Chance had brought Terry along the
very route that the blur-makers had chosen!

On his feet, Terry groped and found another door. It led outside to an alleyway. He heard a car spurting
from the nearest street and hurried in that direction. By then the car was gone, and there wasn't a cab in
sight. But from the next street, Terry heard the blare of a police whistle. On sudden impulse, he hastened
off in the opposite direction.

UPSTAIRS, the huddled customers of the casino were watching the finish of a fantastic fray which left
them utterly aghast. Previous events had been illusive, like the happenings in a dream, but this present
scene took on a nightmarish quality.

Men were bouncing, diving to the floor in jerky, curious fashion, but no one could see what was sending
them. The Shadow was brushing off the misguided croupiers and other attendants with hard swings of his
gun-weighted fists, but his black-clad figure wasn't visible in the brawl. Intermittent light was so infrequent
after each momentary blackout, that eyes couldn't distinguish the swift-moving form of the black-cloaked
fighter.

Others belonged to the light, and were simply blurred by the intervals of patchy darkness. But darkness
was The Shadow's chosen habitat; mere moments of light were not sufficient to reveal him. To one
person, alone, came understanding: why men were going down from unseen causes. The person who
understood was Margo Lane.

She had expected The Shadow. He was here. Detaching herself from the huddled customers, Margo
hurried forward blindly, ducking the slow-motion sprawlers who came her way. Near the vortex of the
confusion, she gave a quick low-voiced call:

"It's Margo!"

A gloved hand caught Margo's arm. The Shadow's opponents were fully floored. So speedily that she
seemed to become a dream-creature, Margo was whisked through the one avenue open for departure:
the doorway to Tex's office.

She heard shouts as she went; they came from the outer door that The Shadow had previously shattered.
Then, beside her, The Shadow's whispered tone: