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

swung away from that side of the door where the light switch was, so Claybourne didn't see him while
turning on the lights.

What Claybourne did see was the empty wall safe beneath the swivelled elk horns. But for that, Johnny
could have reached the hallway with the sneaky strides that he was taking. Down that same hall were the
back stairs that offered exit, but they were useless now.

With a cross between a snarl and a gasp of horror, Claybourne swung about, straight toward the
doorway. Knowing he'd be recognized, Johnny made a frantic effort to avoid it by springing past the
doorway and slapping off the light switch. Whether Claybourne spied his face in that moment, Johnny
didn't know, for the man's voice was incoherent with rage and dismay. What Johnny did was swing
about, driving both fists hard for where Claybourne's fat face should have been.

Only Claybourne wasn't there.

With a wallow like a walrus, Claybourne was reaching the wall, grabbing for something that he had no
trouble finding in the darkness. The thing was a shot-gun, its location quite as plain in Claybourne's mind
as the position of the wall safe. That fact should have warned Johnny, but it didn't. He simply thought that
Claybourne was starting a wild threat with one of the antique weapons.
"Stop or I'll shoot!"

Claybourne was making an oblique charge as he bellowed the time-worn formula and Johnny was
stopping because he thought that Claybourne couldn't shoot, not with that double-barreled wall trophy.
Arm half across his face, Johnny made a sharp cut for the doorway as Claybourne thrust the muzzles
straight for him. Converging like the walls of a funnel, the two men were practically pouring themselves
into the doorway with only a few feet between them.

A trifle ahead, Johnny thought that he was clear; only the hallway light was bothering him, when suddenly
it was gone. Who had turned it off and why, Johnny didn't know or care, but he was due to do both, an
instant later.

The hallway light wasn't out. The blackness from the doorway was alive. It came with a cyclonic surge
that spun Johnny from its path, twisting him against the wall, still under the muzzles of Claybourne's gun.
Fat fingers were tugging at the shot-gun triggers at that very instant, but the mass of human blackness
wasn't overlooking Claybourne.

The gloved hand of The Shadow shot upward out of nowhere, driving the gun barrel to a high slant
above Johnny's head. That must have happened a split second before Claybourne pulled the triggers,
though it all seemed to occur at once. Instead of merely clicking, the hammers produced a roar that
shook the room with it, as a double-barreled discharge could.

Reeling despite himself, Johnny saw Claybourne go tumbling backward, kicked into a somersault by the
double load. Human blackness was gone, somewhere deeper in the room, for The Shadow had wheeled
from the glare of the lighted doorway. Then, as the one victim of the tragedy, a bulky form crashed to the
floor, landing with uptilted head, its great eyes glittering in the glow from the doorway.

Jerome Claybourne had at last added himself to the list of his family's sportsmen. He had bagged the big
moose head hanging on the wall above the door!

CHAPTER VII