"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 209 - Crime Over Miami" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"We'll mix with the customers," remarked Lee in a smooth, confident tone. "Why should any dumb
copper figure us as different from them?"
"Yeah, why?" queried Hawk, his voice harsher. "Besides, what chance has any copper of taking a
look-see in this part of the joint? The commodore is strict, ain't he?"

Even Manuel grinned at Hawk's last comment; the croupier went his way, and the two crime aces
remained by the cigar counter, which had no attendant. Turned away from the rest of the patrons, Lee
and Hawk were examining the spheres that Manuel had exchanged for theirs. Each ball was a trick one.
The center unscrewed when twisted along a left-hand thread.

From the cavities within, the crooks obtained thin-wadded papers. Each screwed his hollow ball tight
shut again, dropped it in his pocket. Individually, each examined the message that had reached him
through Manuel.

"Get a line on this," undertoned Lee. "I'm to dig up a couple of the boys and put the heat on a stiff named
Harvey Brenbright. That's him, the fat guy playing over at the faro board. From the piker bets he's
making, you wouldn't figure he carried a big roll."

Hawk threw a sideward squint.

"Thought you had your schedule all mapped out, Lee."

"This won't be a trim," returned Lee, smoothly. "It's to be a stick-up, after Brenbright leaves here. Kind
of away from my line, but the boss knows best. It will get the coppers after a lot of smart guys who
haven't lined up with the racket."

Hawk nodded. He seemed pleased by the instructions that he had received.

"It's a double," he told Lee. "Mine's a society dame named Marcia Tyrone, and her boy-friend Georgie
Agnew. There's the dame, over by Manuel's wheel. She's the one that looks like a jewelry-store
window. The glamour boy with the marcel and the stack of fifty-dollar chips is Georgie."

Turning to view the persons mentioned, Lee saw a stir beyond the curtains that led to the outer lounge.
He nudged Hawk and the pair parted, to make themselves inconspicuous.

Word had been flashed to the manager of the gaming room that unwanted visitors, representing the law,
were on their way up to see Commodore Denfield. Neither Lee Clesson nor Hawk Silvey had forgotten
the admonition of Manuel, the croupier.

Lee slid his thin frame among the chuck-a-luck players, while Hawk disposed of his bulkier figure near a
corner slot machine, where he was practically out of sight. Both aces were anxious to escape
surveillance, and they were luckier than they supposed.

In another corner was the concealed door of the rear passage that Manuel had mentioned, a portal
concealed by a portrait of a Spanish grandee, that Commodore Denfield had brought from Cuba. The
center jewel of the painted grandee's belt was a peephole, through which an eye was viewing the scene in
the gaming room.

The eye was keen, its probing gaze the sort that could ferret out rats, no matter how they disguised