"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 272 - King of the Black Market" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

his plain office indicated.
Chet handled the inspection department. Outside his office was the room
where the belt line ended. There the gallon cans of Pyrolac were stacked,
stamped, and turned over to the loaders. At present, the room was empty, but
soon the belts would teem. Which meant that it was time for Chet to be
starting
through the plant to check things all along the line.
It was good business, though, to watch the loaders. Their work took up
where Chet's left off, and things might happen, even to certified goods. That
was why Chet's eyes kept following the shifting engine until it reached the
box
cars. Then Chet's dark eyes narrowed; his square jaw tightened forward.
A splotch of blackness was the reason.
The blot looked huge, vaguely human, as it detached itself from the front
of the shifter. Oddly, it seemed as though a chunk of the locomotive had
broken
loose to come to life. Crouched in the engine's own gloom, such living
blackness
could have passed the guards unnoticed, riding right into the yard of the
Pyrolac factory.
At that thought, Chet laughed.
The blotch of blackness was gone, so suddenly that it could not possibly
be
a thing alive. Just the jolt of the shifter, cutting off the lights of the
building opposite, that was all. That, plus Chet's eyes, which had been
bothering him lately, from overstrain at test tubes, studying the reaction of
Pyrolac samples. No wonder he was seeing black spots, but it wasn't pleasant
to
view such big ones.
Rubbing his eyes, Chet took another look from the window, this time at
the
loading platform. The loaders were sliding one car door shut, so that it could
be double locked and sealed. Chet looked for a familiar face, but didn't see
it.
He wondered what had become of the swarthy man with the dark mustache, who
usually supervised the operation.
Chet hadn't yet become acquainted with the chief loader. His own
associates
were the chemists who so zealously handled every stage in the manufacture of
Pyrolac. Chet was something of a chemist too, otherwise he wouldn't be holding
the inspection job.
A good job, too.
The telephone on Chet's desk seemed to agree as it tingled furiously. And
when Chet answered the call, the voice he heard corroborated his opinion. Chet
found himself talking to none other than Hiram Biggs, the president of
Pyrolac.
And Biggy, as he was nicknamed, wanted the inspecting chemist to come to his
office right away!