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

near-side of the hair-pin turn. The corner of his left eye was busy, though, just as it had been when he
made the bridge. In an instantaneous glance, Cranston spied a turnout over on the gorge side. He was
not deceived into considering it a part of the highway proper.

Perhaps his glimpse of a parked truck helped, but it also registered another impression; namely that the
truck might have a driver. When Margo shrieked from her side of the car, Cranston knew the reason. In
a flash, he spotted the missing driver who came plunging headlong from a high, steep embankment. He
was apparently in a hurry to reach his truck.

There couldn't have been fifteen feet to go. A direct hit on that flying figure could have been admitted and
accepted at any inquest. But Cranston missed, and that was when Margo learned what real skill at the
wheel could do.

The car tipped to an angle that would have dropped Margo in Cranston's lap if the wheel hadn't
intervened. The right side was up on the embankment like a racing car in a motordrome. The man who
should have been a victim was sprawling in the exact center of a practically unoccupied highway.

Letting the embankment veer away from him, Cranston leveled off and stopped the car.

Lightning flickered, thunder crashed, and what Margo might have said, she didn't, because she couldn't.
This was one of those things that called for a long halt and lots of quiet, but Cranston wasn't thinking in
such terms. His uncanny judgment was just becoming tuned, for very suddenly he flung the car door open
and leaped out to the road. Thinking the highway was going to cave completely, Margo sprang from her
side of the car; then better judgment told her that Lamont was simply going back to help the near-victim
to his feet.

Again, Margo's guess was wrong. As she saw Cranston dash past the prone figure, Margo heard the
sudden thrumm of a motor, coming from the direction of Lamira. Margo knew that the approaching car
must be very close, as everything else had been, so far. In fact, to her astonished ears, the sound seemed
to start very sharply. However, the car was coming faster than might be expected, which meant that its
driver must be someone who knew this road.

Cranston was moving fast, too, but in the other direction. Margo caught a distorted glimpse of him
against a pair of headlights and her deductions ended in a gasp. It wasn't her fear that Cranston might be
run down; somehow, she couldn't connect common accidents with Lamont. What Margo saw reminded
her of a memory which projected itself into the future.

Against the glare, Cranston's figure looked fantastically like a shrouded shape clad in a flowing cloak and
slouch hat. He was in that instance another personage entirely, a strange, amazing being known as The
Shadow.

The illusion was quickly gone, however, obliterated by rain and mist. The oncoming car came to a stop
well short of the inert shape that was lying in the highway. Margo hurried in that direction. She was just in
time to form a huddle with Cranston and a man who was getting out of the car.

They were all in the shine of the headlights. One look at the man from the car was all that Margo needed
not to like him. His eyes were shrewd. They became accusing, like his crisp, tight smile, which, though
devoid of humor, had no justification in the present situation. Removing his gloves and folding them in his
pocket, the man asked coolly: