"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 241 - Vengeance Bay" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

There was something in their gait that smacked of the water front; hence they could not be classed as
ordinary thugs. However, such discrimination was a minor point, at present.

The two men were posting themselves on either side of the alley, their hands shifting significantly to the
bulges beneath their sweaters. Since Bron had entered the alley, The Shadow intended to do the same.
His was the task of passing these two watchers unobserved.

The Shadow managed it in his accustomed style.
INSTEAD of trusting to the darkness directly between the pair, where the slightest stir might have tipped
them to his presence, The Shadow skirted to a building wall and came directly up in back of one human
watchdog, thus hiding himself from the observation of the other.

Pausing, The Shadow was close enough to grip the fellow's neck, a temptation which he ignored for the
present, though quite willing to go through with it should occasion demand. While the pair stayed where
they were, they couldn't harm Bron. Therefore, it was policy to wait.

The policy proved its worth.

Becoming restless, the lurkers shifted. The man at The Shadow's side of the alley edged over to his pal
and growled something that The Shadow did not quite catch. There wasn't time to listen, for The Shadow
was on his way.

Moving right behind his man, he was still obscure when the fellow gave a grumble; then, with a side step,
The Shadow detached himself from his human shelter and was in the alley itself.

From there, probing through the darkness was simplicity itself. The Shadow expected this to be a blind
alley, and it proved so. An alley with only one outlet, where two men were awaiting Bron's return!

One outlet, so far as the alley itself was concerned; but alleys naturally had doorways into houses, and
this one was no exception.

Finding such a doorway, The Shadow opened it and edged into deeper darkness closing the door behind
him. He moved into a cross passage and there saw lines of light from each direction, coming from the
cracks of doors.

The door to the left could only lead to a grogshop on the water front, a place called the Barnacle, and
which was aptly named, considering the hanger's-on who frequented it. They were the riffraff of this
particular portion of the water front. Naturally, Bron, always a stickler for formality, would not have
joined the Barnacle crowd while wearing evening clothes.

Therefore, Bron must be beyond the door to the right, which probably opened into a back room of the
grogshop. So The Shadow moved in that direction, and finding the door ajar began to inch it open.

He heard voices as he did: a suave tone, representing Bron, and a sharp, short-clipped speech which
was vaguely familiar.

Then The Shadow took a look.

Through the door crack, he saw Bron at one side of a table, facing a rangy man whose appearance was