"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 242 - Formula for Crime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

Two detectives came from doorways and joined the trio. Cardona dropped back to speak to
them, but merely told them to come along.

His hesitation was a pretext. The inspector wanted to get a look at a low roof which
projected a short way into the alley, just above the barred rear windows of Bartier Co. He
saw that the roof was vacant.
Upon rejoining Weston and Troy, Cardona used a flashlight close against the brick wall of
the alley. Trickling along the brick, the light finally halted on a heavy steel door. Professor
Troy had called the turn; this was undoubtedly the rear exit from Bartier's, and as good a
place as any to listen for alarms from inside.

At Weston's order, the five men took their silent station, and Cardona's flashlight flicked off.
But, in the darkness, the ace inspector was visualizing that steel door and the possibilities of
cracking it as a quick route into Bartier's, should occasion demand.

Cardona was beginning to have a hunch; it told him that all was not entirely well in the
preserves of Bartier Co.
WITHIN the building, matters were bearing out Cardona's hunch. There were lights
inside—lights that couldn't be seen from street or alley because of the thick steel shutters.
Furtive lights that were blinking downward from a corner, like hovering fireflies coming down
to roost.

One flashlight, stronger than the rest, emerged from the corner and then gleamed back
again, revealing what was happening.
Intruders, half a dozen in number, were entering Bartier's from a doorway leading from a
spiral staircase. They had come down the staircase to begin with, thereby showing their
acquaintance with a secret much cherished by the heads of Bartier Co.

That stairway, hidden by a paneled door, led up to another office, kept by Bartier's under
another name. It was a secret emergency outlet, to be used if daring crooks staged a raid
by day. But these crooks weren't coming by day; they had arrived by night, and were using
the upstairs exit as their entrance.

Having solved the riddle of any alarms above, their way was clear, and one man, evidently
the leader, showed further acquaintance with the Bartier preserves by flicking his flashlight
straight across the floor. Passing desks, showcases and counters, the gleam fixed on a
ponderous safe in a deep wall of the ground-floor room.
Like a magnet, the safe drew the prowlers to it. The leader passed his flashlight to another
man and thrust his face into the gleam. The light showed shrewd features, sallow in the
yellow glow, and the grin on the man's lips was both contemptuous and hard. As he turned
toward the light, the man's face revealed a short but jagged scar that crossed his square
chin.

The scar was the final touch that identified this product of crimedom. He was Mort Lombert,
a very canny crook, who knew when to play things safe. Once, Mort had aspired to be a
mobleader, in the days when warehouse robberies had been popular, but he had tossed
aside such ambition about the time police began to smother that particular species of
crime.

Still, Mort had not forgotten his skill at working into places; nor had he let his ambition go to