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

seed. Crime was experiencing a revival, and Mort Lombert was to the fore. Instead of a
warehouse, he was tackling a wholesale diamond house, and he had his mob, a
streamlined crew, all specialists in their way.
With a glance toward two of his followers, Mort announced coolly:

"You fellows are good at open work. Take care of the pete."

Then, leaving the pair to work on the safe, Mort began to spread the others to strategic
spots. He pointed one man behind a counter; another toward a door that led from the rear of
the big room. He was starting to post the others, when he heard the second man's footsteps
clatter on the stone floor.
Mort snarled for less noise. In so doing, he drowned a noise that occurred close by.
It came from behind the counter where the first man had stepped. There, as the fellow
started to poke his flashlight into darkness, the darkness rose to meet him. It came as a
living shape, that drove a steel cudgel to the crook's head. Mort's man sagged; there was a
swish in the darkness and the unknown assailant was gone.

Invisible in the gloom, the lone fighter encountered another of the crooks near a showcase.
Again a blow sledged home, and a thug settled silently. This time, however, the sprawl
brought an untoward result.
Hooking the showcase as he fell the mobsman overturned it. The crash, though muffled by
the falling man, was more than enough to bring Mort Lombert full about, swinging his
flashlight as he snarled at his clumsy follower.
Then the light, like Mort, fixed in frozen style. Perhaps it was the chilling laugh that produced
the result; or it could have been the black-clad apparition that confronted Mort Lombert.
Cloaked in black, a slouch hat on his head, a tall figure dominated the scene. The laugh that
spoke a whispered mockery from his lips was backed by the brace of automatics that
projected from his gloved fists.

Huge weapons, those, and in their slow wave they covered Mort and his remaining crew.
Each .45 seemed a living extension of the dread fighter who gripped the formidable guns.

The Shadow!
FROM across the big room, this master foe of crime held Mort and his men at bay. His very
presence confounded them; the fact that he had already begun to thin the opposition, was a
promise of what would happen to the rest.

Mort's own revolver was half drawn, and other crooks were shoving hands to pockets. But
the burn of The Shadow's eyes, the sinister finish of his laugh were invitations to disaster
that none cared to accept.

Hands released guns and came upward. Under the sweeping movements of The Shadow's
guns, gestures easily understood, crooks began to cluster. They weren't joining Mort near
the safe front because they had confidence in their leader; they were doing it because they
feared The Shadow.

Of that trapped tribe, Mort Lombert, the big-shot, had suddenly shrunk to the smallest of the
small.
Again The Shadow's laugh, its sinister whisper echoing from all about, pronouncing his
triumph over crime. A triumph as good as accomplished, for, having cowed this crooked