"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 261 - The Museum Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

The reason? War! Old Argyle, in all his elaborate precautions to protect his treasures for posterity, had
not foreseen the day when attacks would be possible from the air. His mansion had concrete foundations
that matched the thickness of its walls; the windows were triple-barred; but the roof, though sheathed
with a layer of metal and equipped with alarms, could never stand the strain of a high-explosive charge.

Should a lone air raider fly over Manhattan and drop a single demolition bomb in the blackened hollow
where the Argyle Museum was flanked by towering skyscrapers, there would be utter devastation among
the priceless antiquities that old Henry had accumulated.

Hence the directors were in session behind the drawn steel shutters of their conference room in the
museum itself. Not a preliminary meeting this, but a final one. Long since, Ewell Darden, chairman of the
directors, had ordained the transfer of irreplaceable treasures to somewhere outside the city.

Somewhere that even Darden did not know. The choice was to be made by lot. Various directors had
individually investigated suitable places, in accordance with the strict requirements set by the board. On
the table in front of them lay hollow wooden capsules - some directors had as many as four or five - in
which they had written the names of remote strongholds where the treasures could be safely housed for
the duration.

Ewell Darden was a gray-haired man, thin of features, but sharp of eye and strong of jaw. Himself an art
collector, he had become the chairman of directors through dint of long service. Compared to him, the
remaining directors, a dozen-odd, were a drab lot - with one notable exception.

The man who violated the rule was hawk-faced, his expression almost masklike. He looked younger than
the rest, by far, yet it was impossible to determine the exact age of that calm, immobile countenance.
Suffice it that he, too, was wealthy and appreciated art. His name was Lamont Cranston.

A name that symbolized The Shadow - to those allowed to know it!

As Cranston, The Shadow posed as a man of leisure, who hobnobbed with his friend the police
commissioner and sought the company of the wealthy. For in his other self, The Shadow, his business
was to crack down on crime. By knowing the moves of the law, by studying in advance the targets
against which criminals might shoot, The Shadow, along with cleaning up crime, did marvels in preventing
evil.

IF ever crime could wish an opportunity, it had one - the priceless possessions of the Argyle Museum!

Recognizing that fact, Ewell Darden was admitting it in no mincing terms. Crisply, he was reading the list
of items to be moved. There were jeweled crowns and other regalia from the palaces of rajahs; statuettes
of gold, similarly gem-encrusted; even suits of armor inlaid with precious metals.

There were priceless paintings that certain unscrupulous collectors would purchase, had they the
opportunity, even if they had to keep them hidden for years to come. There were rare porcelains,
fabulous tapestries, which might by clever alteration be changed to pass as other specimens that were
known to exist.

There was no hiding the value of the Argyle collection. Its rarities had been catalogued in a volume
replete with illustrations. Artists and craftsmen had been allowed to make replicas of certain treasures for
exhibit elsewhere, always with the edict that such imitations be later destroyed.