"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 304 - Alibi Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

was concerned with the girl.
And the girl was concerned with Jerry.
Brenda Van Dolphe was wearing a coat of ermine, its collar turned up
around her face. Above was a Cossack turban of the same white fur, tilted
jauntily over the girl's forehead, just showing her eyes. As Brenda drew away
from Jerry's reach, the men put the grapple on him, hauling him back in turn.
To Jerry, the girl looked aloof rather than startled, but Jerry was
wrong.
The cry proved it:
"Miss Van Dolphe!"
It wasn't Jerry who gave the call. A choking arm was too tight about his
neck. The shout came from another direction, given by a man who bulged
suddenly
from the fog, trying, as Jerry had, to shake off interceptors. But this man
was
burdened with a squarish object that he was thrusting forward as though he
intended to fling it.
Maybe the girl mistook it for a bomb, for she tried to turn away, half
tripping over the soggy ground. Her collar fell away and the lights from the
plane showed her face, a very frightened face, which perhaps enhanced its
beauty. It was indeed a beautiful face, because in that moment, Jerry hated
the
girl for having it. He'd wanted Brenda Van Dolphe to be ugly and if she'd just
been normally good-looking, Jerry's prejudice would have been enough to class
her as homely.
But in that one glance Jerry saw features as finely molded, as perfectly
blended, as any he could remember from anywhere, including stage and screen.
As
for rendering emotion, the fabulous Brenda had that faculty too. Her lips and
eyes had gone wide, proving that even fright was something she could manage
prettily.
Even the girl's slight cry was tuneful as the flash-bulb exploded.
The square object the man was shoving was a camera. He'd caught a
three-quarter profile of beautiful Brenda and he couldn't have wanted a better
shot. In fact, he wasn't going to get another, for a variety of reasons.
Half-blinded by the flash, but recognizing what it was, the girl had wheeled
away and was muffling her face again. The camera man was getting muffled too,
by the local law. The secretary and the big man were scurrying the girl away,
towing along the waddly woman to a limousine that had swung up near the plane.
Those details were lost on Jerry Reeth, who could only see the girl's
face, etched like a negative print in the half-blackness that his eyes, too,
had gathered from a straight look at the flash bulb. In fact, Jerry didn't
realize that the girl was gone, so vividly did her after-image hover before
him. But there were other impressions, vague ones of reeling men, coming
directly Jerry's way. Ripping from his captors only to bring them pouncing
after him, Jerry lunged into the mass.
Jerry was mixing it with the pair who had grabbed the photographer. Loose
for the moment, he took them by complete surprise. Then, with Jerry proving
himself a clouting menace, everybody took care of him at once. He went down
beneath a pile-up that reminded him of a Freshman Bowl Rush. Jerry might have