"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 336 - Blackmail Bay" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

One was a note from Judge Kroft, inviting Margo to lunch when she
arrived;
the other was signed by a woman named Madge Moffat, saying that Margo's room
at
the Moffat House was available and that supper would be ready whenever she
arrived there. Margo showed the notes to Barton, who commented:
"Hobbs will take you to both places. He runs the local taxi, or jitney,
whichever you want to call it. He's outside now."
Through the doorway, Margo saw a relic that looked like an old Model-A
with a slouchy man of the same vintage hovering alongside it. Five minutes
later, she was on her way to Kroft's, her bags in the trunk compartment where
Hobbs said they would be safe until he came to take her to the Moffat House,
later in the day. As Margo expected, Kroft's house was the one she had seen on
the cliff above the cove, but from this side it was reached by a narrow, rocky
path that zigzagged from the road up through a grove of birch trees.
Judge Kroft met Margo at the doorway. He was an elderly, stoop-shouldered
man who leaned heavily on a stout cane, but he had keen eyes that peered from
a
face as smooth as parchment beneath a shaggy crop of whitish hair. His thin,
taut lips moved in a precise, mechanical fashion as he spoke in a crackly
tone,
but his manner was courtly as he conducted Margo to the veranda that
overlooked
the cove, where lunch was served by a middle-aged woman named Hulda. The judge
chatted casually during the meal but when Hulda had cleared the dishes, he
came
straight to the point.
"I have a problem, Miss Lane," he stated, "which Commissioner Weston
thinks you might help me solve. I am preparing a book from confidential
discussions of important cases that I decided while I was an active judge.
They
were all carefully recorded, but I find that some of the key tapes are
missing."
The judge's accent on the word "missing" prompted Margo to respond: "You
mean lost? Or stolen?"
"An apt question," returned the judge, approvingly. "I mean stolen,
because I have received anonymous phone calls from a blackmailer who offers to
return them for fifty thousand dollars. Cash."
 Before Margo could reply to that, the judge went on:
"This blackguard - correction, I should say blackmailer - is apparently
well acquainted with Spruce Island, but we have no other link to him. So the
commissioner suggests that I have you listen to my remaining tapes and list
the
names of persons mentioned on them, as that may give a clue to the miscreant
involved."
With that, Judge Kroft led the way into a miniature law library, where
buckram-bound books lined the walls. He gave Margo a corner table with a tape
player, a stack of recorded tapes, some legal pads and a portable typewriter,
so she could go right to work.
"As you list each name," the judge suggested, "make notes of any special