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

Disregarding the growing clamor ashore and on the river, he raced down into the hold of the liner. He
was gone only a couple of minutes. When he emerged he was panting, but there was triumph in his slitted
eyes. A mysterious packet was slung around his neck.

The lookout in the black speedboat below was yelling a frightened warning.

"Hurry it up! Let's go! The whole damned river is awake!"

But Pike was still not finished. Some of the boxes of merchandise on the deck were broken open and the
contents scattered about. To the eyes of the police, it would indicate a cheap water-pirate job. It would
camouflage the real purpose for which Pike had come: the packet that dangled from his neck.

He leaned over the dead mobsters on the deck and pressed against their foreheads something which he
had whipped from a pocket. It left a queer three-pronged insignia on the pale skin of each corpse. It was
a design in indelible ink - a mark that would not fade, even from the salt washing of river water.

The mark was that of a trident. Every water-front crook in New York would know what that meant. It
was the insignia of Davy Jones!

The bodies were flung overboard. The thug who had been shot through the kneecap was carried a
prisoner down the swaying rope ladder. He was tossed into the black speedboat. Its engine awoke with
a roar of power. It made for the open river.

As it did so, a blinding white searchlight pierced the blackness of the Hudson. The alarm had reached the
harbor police at Pier A. The police boat was closing in on the murderous fugitives.

THE searchlight bathed the black craft with daylight brilliance. The criminals dived for cover. Three of
them took up firing positions. Pike remained coolly at the engine controls, keeping a stretch of white,
bubbling foam between the speedboat and the advancing cops.

Police rifles began to crack. Bullets struck the black hull with a spiteful thwack! But the slugs merely
flattened and dropped into the river. The boat was protected by armor. Two thugs at a shielded machine
gun in the stern worked with grim speed to raise their deadly bullet mill. Its air-cooled snout jutted
through the slit in the steel shield.

Pap-pap-pap-pap!

That first burst of spraying lead gave the gunmen their range. The flaming snout lifted. Lead whistled
accurately toward the glaring eye of the police searchlight.

The light went out. The policeman who had been operating it plunged on his face, his body riddled in a
dozen places. Darkness dropped like a cloak on the river.

But the uniformed helmsman of the police launch had guts! Crouched low to avoid the hail of lead, he
began to close up the gap that separated the two vessels.

This was exactly what Pike wanted. He shrilled an order to his third henchman - who had ducked toward
the weapon lockers.

The crook raised the pipelike snout of a cumbersome weapon. He loaded it with what looked like a