"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 052 - Crime Circus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"You'll stay here" - Cardona eyed the little man steadily - "until after we've checked up on what you've
told me. If you've been handing us a stall, Dowdy, it won't be good for you."

"I ain't been stallin', Joe -"

The rat-faced speaker stopped suddenly. He was staring at the detective across the battered desk,
where the scratched woodwork showed the dull reflection of the ceiling light above. Into the sphere of
light had come a shade of fleeting blackness. It was like the passage of a cloud in front of a brilliant sun.

Dowdy turned nervously. A man had entered the office.

TALL, stoop-shouldered, the intruder bore a dull face as pasty as Dowdy's own. The man was clad in
old clothes. He was carrying a mop and bucket.

Dowdy stared; then turned back to Joe Cardona. The detective was chuckling.

"Who's that?" questioned Dowdy, in a hoarse tone. "What's he doin' here?"

"He's the regular janitor," returned Cardona. "Going his usual rounds." Then, to the stoop-shouldered
arrival: "Hello, Fritz. Another one of your early nights, eh?"

"Yah."

Dowdy was watching as the janitor spoke. He observed the man's expressionless stare. He saw the
fellow clank bucket on the floor and lift the mop to begin his scrubbing in the corner.

Fritz had moved from the central range of light. Yet his tall, stooped figure still caused a manifestation of
his presence. Stretching across the floor beside the bucket was a long streak of blackness that ended in a
hawkish silhouette. Dowdy failed to see the darkened splotch. He was studying the janitor's face.

"Don't mind Fritz," came Cardona's injunction. "All places are alike to him. He wouldn't know the
difference between headquarters and the morgue. Would you, Fritz?"

"Yah."

The expressionless tone curbed Dowdy's qualms. The rat-faced product of the underworld turned
toward Cardona. Eying the little man steadily, Cardona resumed his quiz.

"I'm going to get Dombo Carlin," announced the detective sternly. "I'm sending out thirty men to look for
him and his gorillas. I'll be on the job myself. It's going to mean a lot of trouble, Dowdy. If the tip you've
given me is phony -"

"It ain't phony, Joe," insisted Dowdy. "I tell you, I seen Dowdy an' I know he ain't worryin' about no
dragnet."

"I'm taking your word for it. But it sounds like a stall."

"Why?"