"Avenger - 4408 Shadow - To Find A Dead Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avenger)

hold of some information which might mean his death. He didn't dare to leave the hotel. He asked me
to come here this evening, after dark. But some one else must have got to him first--"

"Not someone else," Elsa Hammond said stubbornly. "You! You came in and talked to dad for five
minutes, while I sat in the corner reading. Then you suddenly jumped up and took out a gun and hit
dad on the head, and pushed him out the window. Then you jumped for me, and you hit me with the gun,
but it only grazed my head. I screamed, and ran into the next room and locked the door, and you went
out. When I heard the door slam, I came out in the hall and ran downstairs. When I got down here,
you were right where you're standing now. You must have come down just ahead of me!"

Frowning, Benson studied the girl. She was about eighteen. There was a strange air of
unsophisticated innocence about her which did not jibe with the deadly lie she was telling. It was
hard to guess whether she really believed the lie, or whether she had been coached by one of
Benson's many enemies.

It was a ghastly thing to think that she could act so--with her father's crushed body Iying on
the pavement outside!

But in the meantime, the real murderer of Matthew Hammond must have made good his escape through
the back entrance. The killer would surely not have remained in the hotel. There would be no use in
searching the place now. Benson shrugged, and resigned himself to await the arrival of the homicide
men.

They had not long to wait. Within a very few minutes, a small, tight knot of men pushed in
through the crowded lobby. At their head was Captain Dolson.

Dolson knew Dick Benson very well. He frowned when he saw that the patrolman was covering Benson
with the revolver. "What's this, McClure?" he demanded. "Don't tell me that Mr. Benson is your
murderer."

"Yes, sir," Patrolman McClure said. "This girl here accuses him!"

It took just a few moments after the lobby had been cleared for Captain Dolson to get the girl's
story. When she finished, he looked at Benson. "Can you clear yourself easily enough?"

"Why, yes. I think so. All I need to do is prove that I was in the street when the body landed.
It would have hit me if a woman upstairs hadn't screamed a warning. She was leaning out of the
second-floor window. We can go up there, and she can tell you that she saw me in the street."

"Let's go up," said the captain.

He motioned to one of the plain-clothesmen and the three of them entered the elevator. As they
ascended, Dolson said, "What was this information that Hammond wanted to give you?"


There was a faraway look in Dick Benson's eyes. "It was about a dead man," he said.

"A dead man!" Dolson exclaimed. "You mean, about some one else who was murdered?"

"No. It was about a man named Egon Black."