"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 115 - Seven Drops Of Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

THE SEVEN DROPS OF BLOOD
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," December 1, 1936.

Seven priceless rubies; seven ruthless killers to combat - but it was The
Shadow's unfaltering sixth sense that led him, step by step, to The Seven
Drops
Of Blood.


CHAPTER I

DEALERS OF DEATH

SIRENS shrilled along Fifth Avenue. Their whine rose above the hubbub of
the heavy traffic, where snorting taxicabs were poking their way past
automobiles and shooting in front of lumbering busses. It was quarter past
eight in the evening, a time when through traffic chose Fifth Avenue in
preference to the jammed routes near Times Square.
The splitting sirens were answered by the whistles of traffic officers,
who motioned cars toward the curbs. Gawkers atop the double-decked busses
craned to watch a pair of motorcycles zigzag through the traffic. Behind came
an armored truck, manned by uniformed policemen; another pair of motorcycle
cops formed a rear guard.
The cavalcade roared southward; reached a cross street and swung left.
Before the traffic officer could blow his whistle to start cars moving, a big
limousine detached itself from the congestion and sped after the convoyed
truck. The traffic cop started to blow his whistle, then grinned instead,
deciding that the limousine had not violated the left turn rule.
Half a block east of Fifth Avenue, the limousine stopped just in back of
the halted armored truck. On the right was a pretentious doorway that bore a
large sign:

KIRK PETTIGREW
Private Auctions

Two plain-clothes men were giving the nod to unload the armored truck.
They hesitated when they saw the limousine; watched the big car while the
chauffeur opened the rear door.
A lone passenger stepped to the curb. He was clad in evening clothes; his
well-formed face carried a masklike expression. He was tall, leisurely in
action. Apparently oblivious to the police, he produced a briefcase from the
limousine and waved for the chauffeur to depart.
The car rolled away. The plain-clothes men nodded anew to the officers
who
guarded the truck. Meanwhile, the tall arrival strolled through a storelike
room
that formed the front of the auction house. He reached a heavy door that bore
the sign: