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

Dick Benson felt a sudden, cold chill in his veins. He moved over alongside the captain. And he
saw what Dolson was looking at.

The woman was dead. There was a small, clean bullet wound in her right temple. She hadn't
fainted at all. She had been shot from across the street, probably with a silenced rifle!

"Well," said Captain Dolson, "that sort of puts a hole in your alibi!" He was just a mite less
cordial than before. There was a growing glimmer of suspicion in his eyes.

Benson frowned, looking down at the body of the woman. "Poor thing," he said. "She was an
innocent victim. It was her misfortune to be looking out of the window when Hammond's body fell. She
must have been shot when she screamed the warning to me."

"Shot?" Dolson repeated. "By whom?"

"By one of Egon Black's men."

"Why? Why should they want to kill her?"

"Don't you see? They wanted to remove any alibi I might have."

"Do you mean to say that this Egon Black--granting that he's still alive--planned to
frame you for Hammond's murder?"

"Maybe he didn't plan it in advance," Benson said thoughtfully. "Maybe that marksman was
stationed across the street to pick me off when I got here. But then, when Hammond's body came
hurtling down just at that minute, the sniper must have thought fast. He must have figured that I'd
hurry into the hotel, and that Elsa would accuse me of the murder--"

"Now wait," the homicide captain said. "How would that sniper know that Elsa was going to accuse
you of the murder?" He was openly suspicious now. "The only way Elsa Hammond could accuse you of the
murder, was if she saw you do it."

"Of course," said Benson. "She saw me do it."

"What--who--?" Dolson began to splutter. "First, you say you were in the street; then, you say
Elsa saw you murder her father--"

Benson smiled grimly. "She thinks she saw me do it. The man who murdered her father must
have been made up to look like me!"

"You're crazy--"

"Egon Black must have learned of my appointment with Hammond, He may have listened in on the
telephone conversation. So he got one of his men to make up like me, and came five minutes earlier.
Don't forget that Hammond had never met me in person, so the deception would be fairly easy. The
object, of course, was to get Hammond to reveal his information to the impostor, and then to kill
him. That's just what they did. They were going to kill me, too, in the street; but when the body
fell out of the window just at that moment, they decided to try framing me for the murder."