"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 252 - Judge Lawless" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"You mean the place called the Eclipse Lunch?"
"Yeah. If that guy gandering from the window wasn't Hog Logan, I'll eat
the dirty apron he was wearing."
Cliff gave a shrug, and grunted:
"So what?"
"I'll tell you what," Hawkeye persisted. "Hog is as smart a lookout as
either of us ever met. Too smart to be hanging around a dump like that place,
unless there's real dough in it."
There was another grunt from Cliff.
"Guess it's the Eclipse Lunch for us," decided Cliff. I'll order a ham on
rye and you can eat the apron. I don't think it was Hog that you saw, but I'm
willing to humor you, Hawkeye."
It was several blocks to the lunchroom. While Cliff and Hawkeye were on
their way there, a cab pulled into the block in question and a passenger
alighted. The passenger was Dave Channey, and he lost little time in paying
off
his driver, because he didn't want the fellow to know that he was looking for
a
lunchroom instead of a brownstone house.
Dave was still pretending to look at house numbers when the cab rolled
away; then, cutting across the street, he reached the lunchroom, only to stop
short as he stared at its window. This wasn't the Eclipse Lunch, the place
Dave
wanted. The sign on the window read:

EUREKA LUNCH

Nor was the man in the window the greasy-faced husky who had been in the
Eclipse Lunch. This proprietor was a wan, thin-faced chap who actually looked
pleasant. So pleasant, that Dave considered it a good idea to go into the
lunchroom and order a sandwich and coffee, while he tried to figure how he'd
gone wrong on his bearings, coming from the Avenue Theater.


THE thing really had Dave puzzled. So puzzled, that when his coffee and
sandwich came, he didn't ask the cost but simply handed the proprietor a
dollar
bill. A few minutes later, Dave heard a tapping sound and looked around. The
proprietor was busy at the counter tacking shut the back of a picture frame,
and as he lifted the frame itself, it displayed Dave's dollar bill!
"Looks nice, eh?" queried the proprietor. "The first dollar I take in!
She
hangs right here" - he lifted the frame to the wall behind the counter -
"where
everybody can see."
Dave was on his feet, leaning eagerly across the counter.
"Let's get this right," he insisted. "You say you just took over this
place?"
The proprietor nudged at the clock.
 "Ten minutes ago."