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

and ride from this weird neighborhood. Once away, he could examine the black
dragon and figure out what it meant. Probably owners of black dragons were
regarded as members of a secret fraternity, something that Miljohn hadn't
known.
Those thoughts were flashing to Steve as he crossed the street, wisely going
in
back of the cab so that its dimmed headlights would not disclose him. But as
he
rounded the rear of the cab, Steve stopped short, face to face with the
passenger who had just stepped to the sidewalk.
Fierce eyes met Steve's, ugly eyes that flared narrowly beneath bushy
brows. He saw a sharp nose; beneath it yellow teeth that gritted from the
sudden
thrust of a heavy jaw that poked from a muffling overcoat collar. The man was
an
American, of tawny visage, but he wasn't welcoming Steve as a compatriot. An
instant's glance at Steve, then those narrowed eyes tilted upward. With a half
snarl, the tawny man swung his arm wide, as if in a signal. Steve didn't
lunge,
because the man was springing back into the cab. What Steve did was swing
about,
following the direction of the tawny man's gaze.
Shadows had come to life!


THE balcony post across the alley was lunging into human shape, if its
grotesque lurch could be called human. Steve saw a saffron Japanese face push
forward from the rail; with it came a clawed hand that furnished a downward
whip. From those fingers came the glint of a knife that the creature was
releasing - with Steve as the only target in its path!
Nothing could stop that hand of death, for its fling was complete. The
intervention that saved Steve was of a more amazing sort.
A gun tongued from the cornice on Steve's side of the alley. Straight as
the knife-fling and far swifter was the bullet that intercepted the blade of
death. Literally, that leaden slug plucked the knife from the hand that hurled
it. Steve heard the sharp ping and saw the knife go flying out into the
street,
while the clawing hand whipped back as though stung by the force that shivered
the deadly dirk!
Steve's rescuer was the black shape that he had mistaken for a segment of
the cornice. Timed to the recoil of its gun, that figure was rising to reveal
itself as a cloaked form. Shadows had truly came to life.
This one was The Shadow!
Cloaked fighter who battled men of crime, The Shadow wasn't stopping with
his first endeavor. He was swinging from the cornice to take another gun stab
at
the foiled assassin on the balcony across the alley. And Steve, knowing that
this cloaked being must be a friend, was wheeling about to handle the glaring
man who had sprung back into the cab.
That man was gone; so was the cab. Steve's hearty lunge carried him out