"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 169 - River of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

His sharp voice compelled attention. So did the direction of his rigidly pointing finger. He was standing in
the doorway of the women's cabin. It was the same deserted cabin through which the masher had fled
when the girl with the blue eyes had screamed. Cranston's finger was pointing at the paneled wall where
the drinking faucets were located.

Water was running down the outside face of the wooden panel, to puddle on the floor.

Cardona stood on a bench and pried the panel loose. It came away suddenly, and with it a deluge of
water that almost knocked him headlong from the bench.

The overflow of water was caused by something that had been crammed into the open top of the
concealed tank. Cardona's face went grim as he peered at a pair of shoes and two bent legs.

A man had been forced headfirst into the huge ice-water receptacle behind the removable panel. His
ankles were cuffed together with steel links. So were his wrists. His face was a ghastly blue when his
corpse was lowered to the floor of the cabin.

It was Sailor Marco. He had been drowned in the water tank.

THE motive for the drowning was grimly clear to Joe Cardona. The blueness of the dead man's forehead
couldn't hide the trident insignia that made a gruesome pattern on his wet skin.

Davy Jones had removed the last living threat to his hidden identity! Sailor Marco had carried his
dangerous knowledge to the grave. The police were up against a blank wall.

But the way to The Shadow was not closed. Hidden in the rear of Cranston's expensive car was a living
clue. He would use that clue to guide him closer to the heart of murder.
Cardona made no effort to detain Lamont Cranston. The sight of the drowned Marco had driven the
thought of the missing girl temporarily from his mind.

The limousine rumbled over the loose planks of the ferry exit. The noise covered a sibilant sound that
issued from the lips of the man who sat in the back of that chauffeur-driven car.

It was the grim laughter of The Shadow!

CHAPTER III. VISITORS FOR MR. HOLLISTER
ROY HOLLISTER was nervous.

His uneasiness, however, was not noticeable to his pretty stenographer. She was used to receiving rapid,
rather jerky dictation.

As he dictated. Hollister stared out the window. His swanky office was on one of the upper floors of the
Maritime Building. From where he stood he could see the bright glitter of the Hudson River.

Hollister was a marine broker. He never seemed to work very hard. Yet in the few years he had been in
New York, he had amassed plenty of money. He was welcome in the best social circles of Manhattan.

Glancing swiftly at a clock, a frown twisted his brow. Hurriedly, he wound up his letter with a few deft
phrases.