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

Someone may be crouching there."
The servant hesitated, so two guests stretched across the desk and made
sure that no one was behind it. Nevlin glanced at the near corner on the
right,
and so did others. That corner was empty. Even a midget could not have hidden
behind the small trophy case.
Someone suggested the bookshelves. Nevlin shook his head.
"They're flush against the wall," he said. "No chance of hiding there. We
have only one place left. Will you two gentlemen come from the desk and remove
the screen from the corner behind the door?"
Glistening with its gilded decorations, the new screen commanded all
attention. Shown plainly by the strong light from the desk lamp, the
three-fold
screen looked flimsy; nevertheless, it could be hiding something more than a
filing cabinet.
There might be a murderer behind it!
Two men crept toward the screen, one from each side. As they were
reaching
for it, there was a quick flash of light from the doorway of the room. One man
gave the screen a quick shove and dived away; the other man caught the screen
in
his arms, flattened the folds together, and landed on it like a boy starting a
sled ride.
Each man went in an opposite direction, and Nevlin, seized by the general
hysteria, drove between them, swinging the fire ax.
Nevlin's blow landed with a clang that nearly floored him. He had smashed
a
deep dent in the only object that occupied the final corner: the metal filing
cabinet. Dropping the ax, Nevlin yanked drawers from the cabinet as though he
expected to find a killer hiding in sections. With the ax, he prodded the
interior of the cabinet.
No one could have been there, because the drawers had filled the cabinet.
Nevlin's gestures with the ax brought clangs from the cabinet's thin metal
walls. The cabinet, itself, was in the very corner, so no one could be behind
it.
Again, a light flashed from the doorway. Turning, Nevlin saw the reason.
Among the guests was a society reporter, who was taking flashlight pictures.
No one objecting, the photographer made another shot directly into the
room, then walked toward Aldriff's body, turned around and took a flash of the
doorway where the witnesses were clustered.
Noting annoyed looks on the faces of the guests, the photographer
shouldered through them and waved goodbye. Some persons wanted to call him
back,
but Nevlin shook his head. Pictures were a good idea; they proved that the
room
was empty, and that the searchers had probed into every possible hiding place.
Behind the group in the doorway, the hall looked gloomy, as well it
might.
A shape had emerged from the nearby vestibule, to block off the hallway light.
Peering past heads and shoulders, The Shadow studied the room.