"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 331 - Mark Of The Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

inquiry and an official verdict. He insisted that even a mayor must follow the full letter of the
law.
"That is what the law is for, gentlemen. No man can be above the law in any way."
The mayor was applauded, of course. As his last act until fully exonerated, the mayor
suggested that the outside Crime Commission be called into the city.
The second killing made the City Council agree.
That same morning, no more than ten minutes after the police had received the frantic call
from Max Goleta, the district attorney of Santa Carla, Drake Hind, was killed by a fusillade of
shots as he slowed his car at a street corner to allow another car to pass in front.
The district attorney, it was determined, had been driving very fast through the city from his
home when he had to slow at the intersection for the other car. There was little doubt that the
other car had been part of a trap to kill Drake Hind.
4 MARK OF THE SHADOW
A man, acting suspiciously near the scene of the murder of the district attorney, was captured
in a police dragnet. The man was found to be a suspected member of the Mafia in Santa Carla.
The man was arrested at once.
The next day the Crime Commission was impounded.
And that was really when it all began.
MARK OF THE SHADOW 5



1

THE CITY JAIL of Santa Carla occupies the top four floors of the Courthouse Building. It is a
tall, modern building in sharp contrast to the Spanish style architecture of the rest of the official
buildings of the city. It is not a maximum security institution, since it is intended only for
holding prisoners awaiting trial. Or prisoners awaiting not trial but interrogation. Or, perhaps,
awaiting something no one else could know.
Vita Maggiore was waiting for something. The suspected Mafia man, suspected participant in
the killing of District Attorney Hind, sat on his bunk in the cell of the city jail and talked to
himself. He talked softly, steadily, half in English and half in Italian. He talked as if to quell a
great fear.
"All right. So he kiss," and he swore in Italian. "A kiss. So? He kissed me, compare, why
not?"
Vito Maggiore stood up, paced the dark and narrow cell like a caged animal.
"No, like that a kiss it is not compare!"
Maggiore stopped in the center of the dark cell.
"The kiss, mio Dio! The kiss!"
As if this were something too hard to bear, Maggiore seemed to stagger where he stood. He
swayed. The small swarthy man reached out to catch hold and found nothing but air. He took
two steps on his shaky legs, and sat heavily on the single bunk again. Then he swore.
"Coward! Pig! What must be must be. Che ser├б, ser├б!"
He seemed to change actual physical shape as he sat there on the narrow bunk in the silent
cell. He grew taller, sat stronger and straighter. Down the dim corridor outside the cell a man
moaned. Someone somewhere whimpered. Maggiore smiled, curled his lips in a sneer. Women!
No, not him. Che ser├б, ser├б! Maggiore lay down on the bunk, his hands steady, his eyes cold but
no longer afraid.
He lay there for a long minute. His eyes closed in readiness for peaceful sleep.
The laugh came from nowhere.