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

up automatically when afternoon brought coolness throughout the stone-walled house.

Turning to blocky darkness that represented Bendleton's desk, The Shadow found another lamp and
pressed its switch. He saw what he expected: Bendleton's body, crumpled in its chair, tilted forward
partly across the desk.

SLEWED sideways, the third victim's face was uptilted in the lamplight.

Rugged, yet kindly; crowned by a wealth of gray hair, the countenance of Richard Bendleton looked the
same in death as it had in life.

Doom had come swiftly, suddenly, for Bendleton was in the midst of work. Stacks of financial reports
and correspondence rested on the desk; all relating to the Alliance Drug Corp., the extensive business
which Bendleton controlled.

The dead man's arm had bushed a few letter aside and they had fallen to the floor. The reason: Bendleton
had been reaching for the telephone when death struck. In fact, the phone was lying off its stand, just
away from Bendleton's half-opened hand. His face was resting on that same arm, but turned away from
the phone, indicating a sudden fading of his strength.

Whether Bendleton was talking to someone, or just beginning a call, was a question, though The Shadow
inclined to the latter theory. For the moment, however, the matter was quite unimportant. The Shadow's
attention was riveted by an object on the desk - the first evidence that in any way gave direct trace to the
cause of triple doom.

It was a little doll, about five inches high, fixed on a plywood pedestal. To be exact, it was a
weather-telling doll, for the pedestal so stated. Moreover, the doll had a skirt, which indicated the
weather by its changes of color from blue to pink.

A novelty of the Nineties, such weather dolls had recently been revived; The Shadow had seen them on
display in shop windows.

Perhaps the chemically-treated cloth was none too accurate as a weather indicator; but as a barometer of
death, it had startling merit on this occasion. The Shadow had seen such dolls in blue and pink, but this
one violated all the rules.

The doll's skirt was jet-black!

Carefully lifting the doll, The Shadow examined it closer to the light; then, with a low, cryptic laugh, he
carried it from the study, downstairs to where the package lay.

Opening the package, he found what he expected: another weather doll. Fay Bendleton had given one to
her father, and was sending the other to her aunt.

But the doll in the package was quite normal. Its skirt was a conventional blue. Tightly boxed, the second
doll had escaped the peculiar result which came to the one on Bendleton's desk.

For a few minutes, The Shadow pondered; then he placed the black skirted doll in the package and
wrapped it. Sliding the package and its curious evidence beneath his cloak, he carried the normal doll
upstairs and stood it on Bendleton's desk.