"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 268 - Murder Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

the king of all batdom.

Striking like a living thunderbolt, The Shadow sped one fist, then the other, straight to the gun hands of
his two antagonists. Gripping their wrists in a steely clutch, he thrashed them crisscross fashion, tumbling
each man against the other. Guns scaled unfired from hands amid that human tangle; clearing the two
men, The Shadow reached their car.

Shoving into reverse, The Shadow veered back and away, leaving the muddled pair in darkness that the
headlights vacated. Another twist of the wheel and he was spinning along the lower road, following the
direction that Harry Vincent had taken not long before.

Shouts were coming from the cave. With them came the gleam of many flashlights. Arrivals saw two of
their friends rising, half dazed, from the ground, pointing after the car that was speeding away. Guns
opened a hurried fire, but by then the taillights that marked the moving target had twinkled out of sight.

Back from the settling darkness came a long, quivering laugh that ended in a shivery crescendo. Yet in
The Shadow's parting laugh was a tone of invitation, calling for those who dared to follow!

CHAPTER IV. GONE WITHOUT TRACE
DURING the weird events in Echo Cave, Harry Vincent had not been idle, even though he was far from
that scene of action. In his roundabout trip to reach the cliff top, The Shadow's agent had encountered a
trail of his own.

It began when Harry neared the dirt road that The Shadow mentioned. Hearing a car coming down that
road, Harry had parked on the main highway, extinguishing his dim lights. Seeing the car emerge and turn
along the highway, Harry had promptly followed it, with very good reason.
The vehicle happened to be a light delivery truck, with closed sides and rear doors. It was the very type
of vehicle that would prove most suitable for carrying away the oblong box and its incriminating contents
from the depths of Echo Cave.

It struck Harry instantly that crooks must have found some opening down from the cliff into the rear of
the cave. What Harry didn't include in his summary was the fact that those same crooks had encountered
The Shadow.

Unfamiliar with these roads, Harry took it that the delivery car must have covered a distance equal to his
own, which was not the case. The trip from the cliff top, along the dirt road, was much shorter, thus
taking up the slack in time.

Like all The Shadow's agents, Harry was trained to make the most of all chance opportunities. Assuming
that the body-snatchers had made a perfect getaway, it was Harry's business to trail them farther. So trail
them he did, guiding his own car by their headlights along a winding but well-paved highway that led off
into the hills.

The delivery truck was making good speed until it reached a level stretch beside a deserted farmhouse.
There, it pulled to the side of the road. Doing the same, Harry watched four men get out and open the
back doors. From the truck they slid a long box that looked somewhat like a coffin.

Carrying their burden toward the barn behind the farmhouse, the four men were met by a pair of
flashlights. Out of his car now, Harry saw that other men were helping with the box, taking it into the
barn, where the rear of another car was visible. Obviously they intended to drive through the rear of the