"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 243 - Room of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

Other cars had hounded Kelburn's flight, until he abandoned his machine
and
jumped into a taxicab. Threatening the cabby with a gun, Kelburn had started
toward the airport.
Cut off again by other cars, he had reversed his flight and slipped his
pursuers. His trip had ended in Manhattan, and the cab driver had called
police
headquarters. The cabby's name was Tom Demble, and he was being sent back to
Aldriff's to tell his story personally.
While Cardona was handling all this, Commissioner Weston was receiving
buzzed confidences from Dulther and Sigby. They didn't need Cranston's
persuasion to convince Weston that certain matters should be confidential.
Weston asked the witnesses about the masked marauder, and established two
points: one, that no one had seen his face while masked; the other, that the
raider had tried to take the metal box on Aldriff's desk, only to lose it when
he threw it at Nevlin.
With that, Weston sent all witnesses to the sun porch with the exception
of
Nevlin and Joan. Dulther and Sigby remained, as did Cranston, at their urgent
request. Weston gave the nod to Cardona, who promptly addressed Joan:
"Why did you aid your uncle's escape, Miss Kelburn?"
"He didn't escape," defended Joan stoutly. "Why, he wasn't even here! He
was parked next door."
"And why would he have been there?"
"Why... why -" Joan hesitated. Then: "He might have intended to come here
to see Mr. Aldriff. He probably stopped at the wrong house."
"Unfortunately," snapped Cardona, "he knew where this house was. Nevlin
and
the servants say he came here often, to do business with Mr. Aldriff. You
know,
of course, what that business was."
Joan finally capitulated, and nodded; but she promptly argued that her
uncle wasn't the masked man, that she would certainly have recognized him.
Questioned on that same point, Nevlin felt sure that the marauder was
Kelburn, though he finally admitted that his opinion was colored by
circumstance.
"You knew your uncle was going to the airport," Cardona told Joan. "If
you
had impressed people with the matter, he could have been captured there."
"No one asked me," Joan retorted. "And besides, the people who blocked
him
off from there were started before I could have told them. So it wouldn't have
made the slightest difference."
Commissioner Weston caught a slight nod from Cranston, and understood it.
Though he regarded Cranston's opinions on crime to be rather weak, Weston felt
that his friend gave good advice in handling people. Interrupting Cardona's
quiz, Weston turned to Joan.
"We are not holding you as an accomplice," he said indulgently.
"Technically, your uncle was not wanted for any crime at the time you aided
him.