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

"I am sending Kirkwood to New York with you. He will return when you no longer need him.
Good-bye, Johnny, and good luck."

As the door closed on Johnny and the trained seal who accompanied him, Noble Elder slowly shook his
head. Then, returning to his desk, he pressed a button and stood waiting, staring out past the pure blue
spring, to watch the station wagon that swung along the pine-arched road, carrying Johnny Craver back
to a turbulent world. As dust swallowed the departing car, a woman's voice spoke methodically:

"You summoned me, Mr. Elder?"
"Yes, Agatha." Elder turned to face a woman whose looks were plain to the extreme. "I want you to call
New York for me."

Agatha picked up the telephone, which seemed all the more odd, since with her straight, primly parted
hair, she looked like someone straight from Puritan days. But she was efficient, this secretary of Elder's,
even though make-up wasn't part of her office equipment.

"You want to talk to Mr. Cranston?" queried Agatha, in an even, efficient tone. "About Johnny Craver?"

Elder nodded.

"You know everything, Agatha," he complimented. "Yes, I'm worried about Johnny. He needs watching,
more perhaps than I can possibly give him, now that he has left here. I hope that I can depend upon
Cranston to do all that may be needed."

Thus did Noble Elder survey the prospects of Johnny Craver, a young man whose future would depend
upon the philosophy that he had absorbed at Sapphire Springs along with the curing waters.

In leaving the rest to Lamont Cranston, Elder was placing Johnny in good hands; perhaps better hands
than Elder himself realized!

CHAPTER II
"SO what about Johnny Craver?"

Margo Lane put the question in a piqued tone and meant it, though her motive was somewhat
double-edged. She wanted Lamont Cranston to feel that she resented the time he had lately wasted on
Johnny, whose chief forte had always been the wasting of other people's time. But there was also a dash
of curiosity in Margo's nature, which she felt that she could satisfy by pressing the question bluntly.

"Poor Johnny," returned Cranston, sympathetically. "He always seems to have a tough time of it."

"And so does everybody else," reminded Margo, "when they begin to turn soft-hearted on his account.
You ought to know better, Lamont."

"Yes, Johnny always was a weakling."

"That's just what I mean." Margo's dark eyes flashed significantly. "Such people shouldn't concern you."

"You think not, Margo?"

"Not if you're thinking of your friend The Shadow," returned Margo, pointedly. "His job - and so I might