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

"There's a phone call for Mr. Brellick," he said. "In the pay booth back of the drug store downstairs.
Whoever is calling says it's important."

The man in overalls was gone when Brellick came pouncing out of the inner office, after the stenographer
had relayed the message. He hurried to the elevator and went to the street floor. He had to go into the
next building to reach the passage that led beyond the drug store. There, in a dingy corner, Brellick found
the telephone booth.

The door of the booth was open; the telephone receiver was hanging loose. Brellick gathered it up, gave
a quick "Hello" into the mouthpiece. He heard a voice that he recognized, and promptly pulled the door
shut. The automatic light did not work. Brellick was in darkness, as he talked.

"I know," Brellick spoke rapidly. "I saw the news only a short while ago... Yes, I figure I can take half of
Thurnig's share... By tonight, of course..."
Cloudiness was creeping down toward Brellick's head. He couldn't hear the hiss that caused it until he
hung the receiver on its hook. Even then, the sizzle sounded feeble, for Brellick was conscious of
something far more horrible.

A yellow cloud was all about him, choking, forcing him to gasps that he tried to resist. He was sickened
by an odor that he could not identify. He saw the door of the booth so hazily that all outside was dim.

Wildly, Brellick found the handle of the door; he tugged, with no result. It wasn't until the hissing ceased
that the door suddenly yielded to his yank. By that time, it was too late. Brellick reeled drunkenly from
the telephone booth.

BEHIND the portly man, the yellow gas issued like a ghostly figure from the confines of the booth. It
wavered; its coils looked like fantastic clutching arms. That was only momentary. As Brellick staggered
away, the air of the passage absorbed the weird vapor. The cloudiness faded; the odor vanished with it.

Brellick was staggering for the open exit to the street. He was puffing clear air as he went, but it served
only to increase his stumbles. He was having the same after effect that Thurnig had experienced. Like the
previous victim, Brellick was fighting to reach the open.

He was on the sidewalk when he caved. Passers saw the long, hopeless sprawl that he took. A crowd
gathered; by the time an officer arrived, they were lugging Brellick into the drug store.

First-aid measures didn't seem to help. Stretched on an improvised bench of soda fountain chairs,
Brellick lay in a fixed stupor, his breathing heavy, slow, as though each effort would be his last.

Those who stood near were riveted. Those long gasps were like the slow ticks of a clock, coming in
endless procession, until their very monotony made them seem a certainty.

An ambulance arrived; Brellick was started for the hospital. Druggist and policeman scarcely heard the
whine of the ambulance's departing siren.

They were still counting those long, deep sighs that had come from the throat of Martin Brellick.

Within another hour, the big presses of the evening newspapers were grinding out early editions of
another sensational story. The dread malady of sleeping sickness had struck again, as suddenly as before.
The second victim was not an out-of-towner, like George Thurnig. He was a New Yorker, Martin