"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 116 - Intimidation,Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

either aim or press the trigger, his hand was doubled back toward his body.
Caught in the grip of an insidious foeman, Meldon was thrust backward
across the desk. His writhing form blocked the lamplight and half obscured the
features of the evil murderer whose face was eye to eye with Meldon's.
Despite that fact, Meldon managed a gasp of recognition. His frantic lips
were ready to mouth a name. The utterance never came. The muzzle of the
revolver was jabbed hard against his chest. A clamping thumb pressed Meldon's
forefinger. The revolver spoke, muffled by the struggling men.
Ludwig Meldon sagged from his opponent's grasp. Catching the sagging
shoulders, the murderer pivoted Meldon about and let his body sprawl in the
chair by the desk. Meldon's head and shoulders flopped forward; his hand,
still
gripping the gun, lay across the opened letter and the shorthand notebook.


HALF stooped behind Meldon's dead body, the murderer remained obscured.
His hand crept forward, gripped the letter and the notebook, to draw them from
beneath Meldon's forearm. For the moment, it seemed that the murderer intended
to carry those documents with him; then, as though impelled by some other
thought, he turned away.
Only his shoulder and the back of his head showed by the lamplight as the
killer stepped through the doorway into the adjoining office. The door clicked
shut; the turn of a key followed. After that came silence.
Passing moments showed the grim scene unchanged. Two dead victims lay in
the room of death. Lenning, the hapless notary, had gone first, purely because
he had been in possession of Meldon's dictated statements.
With Lenning dead, the murderer had waited to deliver further doom.
Fiendish and efficient in his deed, a master killer had settled his score with
Ludwig Meldon, by murdering the man who had told the facts of crime.


CHAPTER II

COVERED EVIDENCE

FIVE minutes after the murderer's departure, a change occurred upon the
scene of death. The change did not take place within the room itself; it came
from the door to the hall, and so slightly did it alter the scene that even
the
murderer would not have noticed it had he remained to watch.
Grayishness crept across the frosted pane of the outer door. Becoming
motionless, that shadowy form made a silhouette against the outside lights of
the hallway. It marked the presence of a new arrival, who had come with superb
stealth to the spot where crime had struck.
Keen ears were listening from the corridor - ears that must have learned
something from the stillness of the office. Slowly, the door began to open
inward. Blackness blocked the light from the hall. The door closed; this time,
a blackened shape was apparent against the frosted pane. Moving toward the
desk, the shape became a living form.
The singular visitor was cloaked in black. His hands were encased in