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

"At billiards, maybe," Weston began. "Cranston plays frequently with that chap Kelford, who is always in
the billiard room." Then, halting, the commissioner added: "No. If Cranston came back, he would have
stopped here first. I know what happened. His telephone call must have come from that Lane girl, and
he's gone somewhere to meet her. Those two are always wasting time together."

"And we're wasting time, commissioner," Cardona reminded. "Want me to go ahead and start the squad
cars?"

Angrily, Weston responded in the negative. Still forgetful of his new alpaca overcoat, the commissioner
strode from the grill room by the usual door, expecting Cardona to follow, which Joe did, with a grin.

THOSE few minutes that the commissioner wasted were actually unimportant. Over at the Century
Casino, a rapid transformation was under way. Tex Winthorp had come from his office to stop the play
at the roulette and faro tables. He was standing in the center of the big gambling room, making an
announcement.

"We are going to call a recess," declared Tex. "There is not time to cash in the chips. Simply keep them
until later, while we entertain our friend the police commissioner."

There was merely a murmur from the listeners. Most of them were too well versed in the ways of
gambling parlors to be at all perturbed. To Terry Radnor, however, the scene was a novelty, and the
thing that fascinated him most was the way the attendants were handling the gambling equipment.

Large tables, even a drinking bar; were being pushed across the floor to conceal the faro layout and the
roulette wheels, along with other gambling devices. The place, as Tex had stated, was swiftly becoming a
social club. Terry wondered, momentarily, how that would solve the problem, since the police might tear
the furniture apart despite Tex's protest.

Then, as camouflaged equipment was rolled to the corners of the room, one object stopped near Terry,
who was standing just outside the door of Tex's office. Distinctly Terry heard a low thrum that other
patrons were not close enough to notice. He had his answer.

From beneath the shell furniture that covered them, the gambling devices were secretly descending
through the floor on trapdoor elevators!

Terry recalled that the Century Casino was over a garage that opened on another street, because he had
tried to park his car in the garage, only to find it full of trucks.

Those trucks, too, had a purpose. They were taking in the gambling equipment, and would be out of the
garage, off on a rapid journey elsewhere, before the police arrived!

Terry wondered if Dunvin had caught on to the trick. He looked for the stoop-shouldered man, but
Dunvin wasn't around. Remembering two more men - one wavy-haired, the other mustached - Terry
looked for them, too, but couldn't sight them in the throng.

His gaze returned to Tex Winthorp.

On an ordinary table in the center of the transformed room, Tex had opened a large suitcase and was
stuffing it with miniature mountains of currency, which the croupiers brought him. The money was the
evening's "take," and it certainly totaled into six figures. Indeed, considering the way that wealthy