"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 159 - The Dead Who Lived" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"Better unlock the door," the doctor told the dick. "Acute indigestion is serious, and Thurnig may have
had an attack."
They found Thurnig by the open window, sprawled in the very position where he had fallen. The doctor
stooped above him anxiously, listened to his heart.

Thurnig was alive.

"He withstood the attack," declared the physician. "Help me place him on the bed. We should have no
trouble reviving him."

Thurnig did not revive. He lay motionless as ever, after his coat, vest and collar had been removed; no
restorative had the slightest effect upon him. His face was grayish; his breathing came slowly, painfully, in
a ceaseless monotone.

"What is it, doc?" asked the house dick, his own face strained.

"It looks like sleeping sickness," returned the physician. "All the symptoms of trypanosomiasis. And yet" -
the doctor looked around the room suspiciously - "it is strange that it should have come so suddenly. This
case is unusual. This patient must be taken to the hospital at once!"

The physician was still shaking his head when Thurnig was removed to be put in an ambulance. It was the
house detective, standing alone in the room, who had the next suspicion. He even sniffed the air as he
prowled about, but the odor of the yellow gas had departed long ago.

Then came the discovery that ended all suspicion. The dick found Thurnig's wallet, lying in plain view; he
gawked when he saw the bundle of currency. After he had counted the money he called a bellboy,
watched the fellow's eyes bulge.

"From the way the doc was puzzled," said the detective, "I thought maybe something had been done to
Thurnig. But this shows nobody was in it. No crooks would have taken a whack at a guy and left all this
dough loose!"

Crime had served itself, with George Thurnig as the victim. Crime that lay as deeply hidden as the
purpose that inspired it. For that crime had seemingly ignored the very end for which crooks strive: that
of quick, easy profit.

Thurnig's twenty thousand dollars, left untouched, was a smoke screen as effective as the mysterious
yellow vapor that had faded into nothingness.

There was an added element to the mystery of George Thurnig; one that concerned the victim's own
condition. It was summed up by the physician, who was driving alone to the hospital.

"For a moment," muttered the doctor, "I might have pronounced him dead. Yet he is alive - a dead man
who lives."

CHAPTER II. THE SECOND THRUST
THE name of George Thurnig was headlined the next morning. His case closely resembled that baffling
ailment known as sleeping sickness, which always becomes news.