"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 250 - Death About Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

watchman saw Laverock, and gave a bellow. On impulse, Laverock aimed the Sharps and pulled the
trigger.

With the first cough from the pepperbox gun, The Shadow reached Laverock with a long lunge. He
wasn't close enough to grab the gun, but he jarred Laverock so that the shot went wild.

Suddenly mistrusting The Shadow, Laverock sprang for the door, with the cloaked fighter after him.
There was a spurt from another muzzle of the four-cornered gun, but this shot went high, for The Shadow
was jogging Laverock's hand upward.

The two whirled out through the door, into the gloomy hall, their running grapple punctuated by two more
blasts from the Sharps, shots which exhausted the weapon. Those bullets found their mark in the ceiling,
and Laverock, flinging the empty gun at The Shadow, suddenly found himself staggering clear.

He thought that he had crippled the cloaked fighter, but he hadn't. Actually, The Shadow was sending
Laverock along his way. From The Shadow's viewpoint, Laverock's folly did not nullify their agreement.

Laverock reached the hallway window opening on the court. Wrenching it open, he sprang out to a low
roof, to retrace the route by which he had arrived. By then, the watchman was coming out into the
hallway, and The Shadow swooped to meet him in the gloom. Again, the watchman found himself
spinning from wall to wall, before he had a chance to look for Laverock.

From a front window, The Shadow saw flashlights blinking below. At the same time, Laverock's
telephone began to ring furiously. The lights meant that detectives had heard the shots from Laverock's
old gun and were coming into the building. The ringing telephone told that The Shadow's agents had
spotted the invaders and were passing the word to their chief.

Starting downstairs, three steps at a clip, The Shadow heard the watchman coming after him. The
watchman couldn't see the figure in black, but he heard the clatter that The Shadow purposely made. By
the time The Shadow reached the second floor, The Shadow heard detectives coming up. From above,
the watchman was bellowing for them to stop the fugitive.

Perhaps the detectives expected to see Laverock. Certainly, they weren't looking for blackness to
materialize itself into a human shape, which it did. As they sprang around a corner from the stairs, The
Shadow met them with a low charge, so sudden and surprising, that it seemed as though he grew from
the floor itself.

The dicks went sprawling, their guns spurting high and wide. From past the corner, they heard the taunt
of a departing laugh. They were coming to their feet when the watchman overtook them. All three
charged down the stairs, aiming their revolvers for splotched blackness in the gloomy lobby.

A trio of guns ripped in unison. Their bullets found the blackness and what it represented. There were
sharp crackles as the slugs smashed the tiled floor. That inky path wasn't The Shadow; it was merely a
corner of the lobby, where the light was cut-off. Like a living ghost, The Shadow had disappeared.
THE pursuers hurried to the street, but couldn't find the fugitive there. They guessed correctly that The
Shadow must have doubled his trail and gone down to the basement, so they raced back through the
lobby, hoping to box in The Shadow below.

Hardly had they dashed into the building, before the grating lifted itself from the sidewalk beside the
darkened wall. Out from that space emerged The Shadow, unseen in the gloom.