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

Cranston suggested that he and Vincent would leave, but Delmot shook his head.
"No need to go," he said. "This matter can wait. The executive committee will have to reorganize, now
that Orvill is dead and Laverock has left for parts unknown."

CRANSTON still insisted upon leaving, taking Harry with him to see more of the club. But Buram
decided to stay with Delmot. It wasn't that Buram particularly wanted to talk business; rather, he was
anxious to avoid a pesky reporter who had camped in the foyer of the Avenue Club and wanted an
interview.

As they left the committee room, Cranston and Harry exchanged smiles. The reporter to whom Buram
referred was Clyde Burke. When they reached the foyer, they saw Clyde, and Harry heard Cranston
undertone:

"Stay around awhile, Vincent, and get acquainted with the members. But don't recognize Burke. Ignore
him completely, for the present."

When Cranston rode away from the Avenue Club, he was alone in his limousine. From a pocket of his
evening clothes, he drew a small gun, quite unlike the famous automatics which he carried as The
Shadow. The gun was the four-barreled Sharps that Laverock had carried.

Following the fray in the Galba Building, The Shadow had scooped that empty weapon from the hallway
floor, to prevent either the watchman or the detectives from finding it. He was glad that he had done so,
for the antique shooting iron was a lead to James Laverock, a man whom The Shadow wanted to
interview again, under less pressing circumstances.

So far, the lead was barren, but with Harry Vincent installed at the Avenue Club, and Clyde Burke also
on the job, The Shadow, as Cranston, was free to push the trail that the gun afforded.

Sooner or later, the trail would lead to Laverock. The whispered laugh that came from Cranston's lips
was token of that fact.

The Shadow knew!

CHAPTER VI. THE DOUBLE TRAIL
A BLUISH light was glistening upon the surface of a polished table. Beneath that glow, long-fingered
hands moved like separate creatures that crept from blackness. Upon a finger of the left hand gleamed a
rare gem of ever-changing hue, a matchless fire opal called a girasol.

That stone was the symbol of The Shadow, and its fire compared with the burn of his amazing eyes. As
for the blue light and the surrounding blackness, those denoted The Shadow's sanctum, the hushed
headquarters in the heart of Manhattan where he formulated his plans against crime.

The hands crinkled a sheet of paper. It contained a long list of names, some typed in blue, others in red.
All were names of persons who knew James Laverock; those in red type stood for the men who were
members of the Avenue Club. This list had been compiled for The Shadow by an agent named Rutledge
Mann.

Like Laverock, Mann was in the investment business, and had been able to tally the persons with whom
Laverock was acquainted, both as friends and customers. So far, however, Mann had been unable to
trace anyone - club member or otherwise - who made a hobby of collecting old guns. Thus, The