"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 265 - The Black Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

the door slammed shut and bolts slid home that Steve put facts together.
The shopkeeper hadn't said "dlagon" as most Chinese would. He had
correctly
pronounced the word "dragon." Also, the name that had been spoken over the
wire,
Sujan, was distinctly not Chinese.
The man was a Japanese!
No wonder the shop bore no name and looked closed. It was a hideaway for
Sujan and perhaps for other Japs.
 Steve started to dismiss the thought as preposterous, until he reasoned
how
shrewd the game could be. Chinatown was the one place where Japanese could
risk
being seen by Americans, because there they could be mistaken for Chinese.
Naturally, they'd have to make sure that the Chinese did not spot them,
but
Sujan's actions proved that he was following just such a policy. He'd taken a
chance when he saw that Steve was an American. But Steve had guessed the truth
and maybe Sujan knew it. If so, there could be trouble!


THIS dimmed street was sinister. Looking about, Steve saw a mass of
basement entries, so dark they looked like fox holes. The only place that
promised Steve safety was a doorway across the street. It was deep, even
though
it ended in a door of heavy bronze, so formidable that quick entrance would
prove impossible.
To the right of the house with the bronze door was an alley; on the far
side, Steve saw a higher structure that looked like an old apartment building.
Its second floor was fronted by a balcony with bulky ornamental posts.
Odd how the nearest of those posts looked like a huddled figure watching
for some prey!
Shaking off the illusion, Steve glanced elsewhere. His eyes narrowed as
they covered the cornice of the house roof above the bronze door. Even more
ominous than the apartment balcony, that cornice jutted like something carved
from blackness, yet with a clinging effect that reminded Steve of a living
creature.
Turning his gaze across the narrow alley, Steve looked higher to the
projecting caves of the apartment building, four floors up. If he'd wanted to
let his fancy get the better of him, Steve could have imagined a stir beneath
those eaves.
But Steve wasn't letting himself be deceived by shadows that looked like
things alive!
Dimmed lights were coming along this forgotten street. They marked an
arriving taxicab, its driver looking for some address. As the cab pulled in
front of the house with the bronzed door, Steve saw that it had a passenger
who
was about to get out.
This was real opportunity. All Steve had to do was get into the vacated
cab