"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 231 - Garden of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

struck Cardona squarely in the shoulder. Starting back, the inspector stopped short and stared at the
bullet-riddled creature.

The victim was the one and only thing that Cardona hadn't expected from the tree. It was a big hoot owl,
that had been voicing a genuine call. The fact left Cardona baffled. A human fugitive answering a real
owl's call was a puzzle. He might have understood, had he realized that the fugitive was an ape, not a
man.

There was one who understood: The Shadow. His laugh, low-whispered, told that he, the master of
darkness, was departing from this scene where creatures of the night had played strange parts in an
aftermath of crime.

CHAPTER VI. CRIME'S CANDIDATES
KIRBY ELDWALD was a middle-sized man whose shoulders had the shape of a coat hanger, with a
squarish face above them. An odd face, Eldwald's, with eyes that were always quizzical, even when his
lips were furnishing a pointed statement. Nor did his lips lessen the enigma; instead, they increased it.
They had the habit of continually starting a smile that they never finished.

Even Eldwald's one outstanding merit seemed phony. His merit was his frankness, and it didn't seem to fit
him. As he sat chatting in Weston's office, Eldwald spoiled the police commissioner's whole morning.
Weston had brought him here to be quizzed, and Eldwald was answering questions before they were
even asked.

Not for a moment did Eldwald deny that he sought the new drug, Somnotone, and had hoped to outbid
Bendleton for it.

"Of course I've been up to Malbray's," Eldwald declared, in a clipped tone that matched the darty
maneuvers of his eyes. "He supplied me with some Somnotone pills for physicians to test. I had mine
analyzed."

"Then you know what Somnotone is?"

"Not exactly," returned Eldwald. "You see, Malbray's discovery is really a process that he begins from
the ground up. He grafts rare plants from all over the world, gets a combination that no one else can
duplicate. He blends the results of such hybrid herbs, and winds up with something you can analyze but
can't fully define or produce."

Weston looked across the desk to his friend Cranston, who had been invited specially to hear the quiz.
Cranston's thoughts seemed far away, so Weston saw fit to jog him back to the present.

"Listen to this, Cranston!" snapped the commissioner. Then, to Eldwald: "What did the analysis of
Somnotone show?"

"It's akin to datura," explained Eldwald. "The jimson weed is a species of datura; both narcotic and
poisonous. It has a dash of Indian hemp, too. You know, the plant that produces marijuana. Only, it isn't
either of them. It's neither poisonous nor habit-forming.

"Let's put it this way. You're familiar with coffee from which the caffeine has been extracted to render it
harmless. Well, Malbray has done the same thing with Somnotone. The stuff ought to knock you out, but
it doesn't. My experts can't figure it out. Extracting the harmful elements from datura or marijuana doesn't