"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 281 - Town of Hate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

mind and body, in his forty-first year of wisdom--had sold the old family sheep pasture.

Of course it was more than an ordinary sheep pasture, and therefore it brought more than an ordinary
price. This was the very reason Claude Bigby should have suspected what might happen to it. The
pasture occupied the same slope as The Gables. It followed the side of the wooded hill that curved
around to the left. The dividing line between the mansion grounds and the old pasture was Stony Run, the
stream that cascaded down the hill to join the Kawagha River.

Perhaps the trouble was that Claude Bigby hadn't sold his sheep until he sold his pasture.

Sheep love to nibble a pasture clean, giving it the effect of a beautiful, well-kept lawn. That was what
attracted Preston Brett. He was a man of Claude's age and wealth, but none of the tradition. Mr. Bigby
should have guessed that Mr. Brett had no intention of raising sheep.

What Preston Brett raised was a residence of the most ultra-modern style. His new home was one of
those prefabricated propositions, constructed out of everything from indestructible glass to
unrecognizable plastics. It was all brought in sections like the parts of Solomon's Temple. The completed
whole included impossible balconies and a flat-topped roof with garage accommodations for the
post-war helicopter that Brett had ordered.

So now the broad slope had two mansions: Brett's dream-dwelling with its soap-bubble hues and strange
name of "Future Haven", opposed to Bigby's ivy-walled establishment which was called "The Gables".

Which house was the monstrosity depended on the viewpoint. One thing was certain: whoever lived in
one of those houses would normally view the other in contempt, house and all. Each being a normal man
in his own right, Bigby and Brett behaved accordingly.

Those houses, however, were but the personalized symbols of the feud that had grown between the old
and new.

The man who knew it all was Herbert Creswold. He was telling the full tale as he sat by the window of
the fifth floor room of the Kawagha Hotel. His interested listener was a visitor named Ralph Lenstrom.

He was a shrewd man, Creswold, with sharp eye and grizzled hair that denoted experience to back his
keen gaze. He had lived in Lamira long enough to learn its possibilities as well as its quirks.

"Look at this town." Creswold gave a gesture from the window. "Tell me what you see in it, Lenstrom."

Adjusting his glasses, Lenstrom raised his heavy eyebrows to offset the bags that lay beneath. His piggish
face gave the impression that he would have liked to wallow in the grassy soil that flanked the sides of
Lamira's main street. What Lenstrom was seeing, however, were buildings which were mostly of wood,
except the Star Theater and the Lamira State Bank. Those two structures were brick.

"Rather antiquated," observed Lenstrom. "Or should I say obsolete?"

"Either term will do," conceded Creswold. "The point is they're doing business. Agreed?"

Lenstrom couldn't help but agree. It wasn't yet evening, but lines were forming in front of the Star
Theater. That promised a capacity crowd for the supper show, at which the average theater would find
the attendance poor. People were also going in and out of the bank, which stayed open until nine every