"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 285 - Fountain of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

was around. He turned just in time to see a girl's face looking back at him from the rear window; then the
big car turned the corner. Nor did Sheff and Hippo fail to perform like human cog-wheels. The moment
they saw the note delivered, they were out from their doorway and walking rapidly along their own side
of the street, away from the hotel.

"That's that," summed Sheff. "Now remember, Hippo, we're not working the big con tonight. You're
fronting for something solid."

"In other words," returned Hippo, "I'm to ride along with old Claybourne."

"And be ready to back whatever you offer."

"You mean with a check-book?"

"Yes, and not a rubber one. Only whatever you do offer, phrase it as a man of your repute should."

"Banish your apprehensions, Sheffield," Hippo's accent became a Bostonese that fitted the character of
Artemus Borgand. "Gentlemen of breeding cast a contagious influence upon me, whenever I am in their
presence. In falsifying my genealogy, I chose a lineage of true sportsmen. I have literally imbibed their
heredity to an extent where I allow myself to be bested at nothing; not even in so trivial a competition as
an ostentatious display of dignity."

The two men were around the next corner by the time Hippo had finished his harangue. By then, Johnny
Craver couldn't have spotted them, even if he had looked, which he didn't. Still standing outside the hotel,
Johnny was staring at the figures on the paper in his hand.

It wasn't a Connecticut license number. In fact it didn't belong on any automobile plate that Johnny had
ever seen. Such numbers didn't run: R-3, L-5, R-3, L-7, R-1, L-6. Only one type of numbers followed
that pattern; they were the combinations of safes.

Folding the paper, Johnny tucked it in a pocket of his white vest and strolled around the nearest corner,
hoping to find a cab on the avenue. One was parked half a block away, so Johnny stepped into it and
gave the driver Claybourne's address.

A great change had come over Johnny Craver.

No longer was Johnny talking to Kirkwood, nor even to himself. His afternoon nap reminded him of a
Rip Van Winkle sleep. He'd awakened as a new man, but in a sense a composite of two former selves.
He had become precisely what Lamont Cranston had stated that he might: the original Johnny Craver,
rendered strong by a brief period of a complete new life.

Situated on a secluded avenue, the Claybourne mansion was a pretentious relic of early century
Manhattan. Set back from the street, the brownstone residence had all the appearance of a museum,
which it could rightfully be termed, for its present incumbent, Jerome Claybourne, was the third in a line
of greedy tycoons who had each succeeded in outgreeding his predecessor.

In the huge reception hall that constituted but a fraction of the mansion's interior acreage, Jerome
Claybourne was receiving guests in his accustomed style. Among the early arrivals, Lamont Cranston and
Margo Lane had gone through the usual formality of meeting Claybourne and the members of his family
who fronted the statuary that adorned the marble staircase. Now, Cranston had sauntered off among the