"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 301 - The Mother Goose Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

to hand over a batch of securities that were in his desk drawer.
Of course the robber had backed the operation with a gun, and this very
afternoon he had repeated the process by stalking into a jeweler's private
office and demanding a very special jewel case, with its contents, which had
been delivered only a short time before.
In each instance, this daring character had made a very hurried
departure,
picking up a taxicab by flourishing the gun in the driver's face. Outside the
brokerage, however, he'd been forced to run half a block in order to
commandeer
the cab, and he had evidently remembered that experience when he tackled the
jewel job.
A cab had been waiting outside the jewelry shop. It was waiting because
it
had arrived with a passenger, a girl who had offered the cabby a ten-dollar
bill
which he couldn't change. The girl was holding the cab while she fumbled in
her
bag to find smaller money. The cabby hadn't suspected that the girl was
stalling until the masked man appeared, hopped into the cab with the girl and
said to get going.
They'd dropped off together, those two passengers, which made the cabby's
theory valid. Except that the cabby hadn't waited to see that the girl and the
masked man hurried away in opposite directions, the gun spurring the girl's
flight. That part wasn't mentioned in the newspapers.
The girl was described as a fluffy-haired blonde attired in a fancy blue
sport suit. At least none of the subway passengers would tag Diane from that
description, for it was raining outdoors and her hair had lost its fluff;
furthermore, Diane had changed from her sport outfit to an older, dark-brown
dress that she reserved for bad weather.
Besides, Diane wasn't smiling and jolly as she'd been early that
afternoon. Right now, in the last minutes of the rush hour, she wore a serious
frown that gave her the tired look that only long office work can produce. In
fact, Diane was more than tired; she was grim, very grim indeed, as she left
the train at her station, tucked the newspaper under her arm, and started up
the steps to the street.
This couldn't really be called Diane's station; it just happened to be
the
nearest stop to the address of Joey's Shoe Parlor, the name on the card that
Diane had scooped into her bag along with other things that were lying on the
cab seat. Since Diane had never before heard of Joey's Shoe Parlor, she was
playing the hunch that the slip of cardboard had dropped from the masked man's
pocket.
And right now, the stakes had doubled where Diane Marlow was concerned.
She'd started on this journey hoping to gain some first-hand information
before
notifying the police regarding the jewel robber. Now she wanted those same
facts
in order to clear her status as the unknown woman in the case.