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

The most she could do was huddle her arms and keep the revolver hidden.
Hauling her back into the hallway, the men tugged her folded arms apart.
Despairingly, Joan relaxed, spreading her hands, expecting to hear the
revolver
thud the floor. It didn't fall and Joan found herself staring, quite as
surprised as the rest.
Commissioner Weston strode to the vestibule. He found a light switch and
pressed it. He looked for the gun and could not find it, even when he opened
the
door and looked outside. By then, Joan was rallying her scattered senses.
Recalling The Shadow's whispered tone, she realized what it meant. By
starting her into a fall, then catching her, The Shadow had caused Joan to
fling
her arms without realizing it. That had been his opportunity to pluck away the
incriminating gun.


ACCUSED of harboring a gun, Joan blinked blankly and shrugged. Cardona
was
on her side, arguing that Nevlin could have done the shooting that Weston
blamed
on Joan; that the secretary's subsequent gunfire backed the supposition.
Weston finally admitted that he wasn't sure Joan had a gun when she went
down the stairs. Both Dulther and Sigby proving doubtful, the commissioner
decided that the girl's status was still acceptable.
He only wanted to know why she had gone upstairs, and Joan declared
honestly that she had wanted to talk to Nevlin, to assure him that her uncle
certainly intended him no harm.
She hadn't managed to convince Nevlin, she declared; in fact, he hadn't
given her the chance. He'd sprung from his room like a madman, and had taken
shots at her while going down the stairs. In order to be fair to Nevlin, Joan
added that he had fired very wide and probably didn't intend to hit her. She
felt that he had been excited, nothing more.
Joan rather regretted the statement, when she recalled the way Nevlin had
tricked her from the bottom of the stairs; but her partial defense of Nevlin
proved wise. Since she showed no animosity toward the fellow, the listeners
accepted her story and asked no more questions. Thus Joan was saved from any
quiz that might have produced mention of The Shadow.
One man had that subject on his mind: Joe Cardona. He had seen the spills
the servants had taken out in the driveway. He remembered Nevlin's frantic
shots, and knew that they were the sort that men delivered when The Shadow
baited them.
But Cardona did not care to cloud the issue by bringing in The Shadow.
Joe
was on pins and needles, much like Joan.
It was Cranston who relieved the situation, when he strolled in from the
front door. He had joined the pursuit of Nevlin, but his limousine had proven
too unwieldy to keep up with the chase. Cranston dropped a few remarks
regarding
Nevlin.