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

Suddenly, the beam of the police searchlight focused on an object in the river. The thing proved to be a
log, floating half submerged on the murky surface of the river.

A stick of wood thrust into the log held a fluttering rag. A uniformed arm reached out and clutched the
white rag as the police craft drifted slowly past. It was a man's handkerchief. On it was a grim stencil
mark in indelible ink: a trident.

It was the only clue to the mystery of a drowned speedboat. It made no sense to the police. They didn't
know the real meaning of the crime that had taken place aboard the Equator. They thought that a gang of
unusually efficient river pirates had attempted to steal a few cases of merchandise.
Pike, however, knew better. A perfect crime had been committed - except for the escape of Sailor
Marco. Tomorrow would take care of that, Pike decided, with a grim tightening of his lips.

He chuckled as he unfastened a packet from about his neck. There was river water above him, but he
was not beneath the Hudson, as the police might suppose from the manner in which he had disappeared.

The police were destined to be helpless. But Pike failed to take another grim personality into
consideration. The personality of a man whose life was devoted to the wiping out of master criminals of
the type whom Pike served.

The Shadow!

Would The Shadow be drawn into this amazing mystery? Fate was already moving swiftly to answer that
question.

CHAPTER II. THE MAN ON THE FERRY
TWO men were discussing the events on the Hudson River the night before, which had filled every
morning paper with sensational headlines. They were close friends. One man was Joe Cardona, acting
inspector of New York police. The other was Clyde Burke, crack reporter of the Classic.

"The whole thing smells phony to me," Clyde Burke said.

"Phony?" Cardona growled. "Two harbor cops dead! A gang of river pirates wiped out by another gang
- who promptly disappear into the depths of the Hudson like a bunch of deep-sea divers! Men found
floating in the river with a queer mark on their foreheads! Another discovered drowned in the Central
Park Lake, in the middle of Manhattan!"

Cardona drew a deep breath.

"And this business about Davy Jones! Who is he? What is he? My stoolies tell me that for weeks the
underworld has been buzzing with quiet rumors that a supercriminal has taken over the entire water front
of New York. The stoolies were afraid to talk before this morning. It sounded too silly. Then this thing
busts in our faces, and every paper in New York except the Classic is yelling at me to make an
immediate arrest. You call that phony?"

"I'm talking about the robbery itself," Clyde said quietly.

He pointed out what he meant.

The loot involved in the crime aboard the Equator didn't make sense. A few smashed boxes of cheap