"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 290 - Death has Grey Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"If something has happened," Claire charged, "you're responsible!"
"I wouldn't be here if I was," returned Irene, coldly. "Suppose you tell
us where to find Mr. Whitlock. I don't even know his apartment number."
Jerry supplied the information and they crowded into the elevator to go
upstairs. On the fourth floor, Weston led the procession with drawn gun, and
when he found that Dick's door was unlocked, he strode through like a hunter
intent upon a kill. Entering the curtained living room, the commissioner
stopped short, his revolver lowering itself of its own sheer weight.
Seated in a comfortable chair, blandly confronting the commissioner, was
Lamont Cranston!
"Hello, commissioner," Cranston greeted. "I was expecting you, but not so
soon. I intended to call you after I talked to Whitlock."
"You mean you knew that the attack was meant for him last night?"
"The notion occurred to me," returned Cranston, indifferently, "but I
thought I should inquire first."
"Have you?"
"Whitlock wasn't here when I arrived. He must have gone out some time
ago.
By the way, commissioner, I heard some sounds like shooting in the
neighborhood."
"So did a lot of other people," snapped Weston, "but it couldn't have
happened in this apartment. Not unless you slept through it, Cranston, but I
credit you with more intelligence than that."
"Thank you, commissioner."
Claire and Irene weren't crediting anybody with anything, particularly
each other. They were looking around for traces of Dick, even to opening the
door of the living room closet. While Claire was letting her glance rove from
one piece of furniture to another, Irene took a look at the telephone table in
the hallway, but found nothing there.
Weston could have interfered with that process but since Dick's rival
girl
friends were doing his work for him, he let the matter pass. Meanwhile, Jerry
Trimm was seated quietly in the corner, wearing a troubled expression that
only
Lamont Cranston could understand.
"I guess Dick left for the Adirondacks," said Jerry at length. "He was
getting bored with town life. Felt rather cramped in this apartment, so he
said. We'll hear from him after he reaches the lodge."
Agreeing that he'd been brought on a fool's errand, Commissioner Weston
decided to leave and beckoned the others along. It was Cranston who proved
thoughtful enough to close the closet door. Since that made him the last to
leave, he had no difficulty removing a black cloak and hat that he had stowed
out of sight, behind some of Dick's wardrobe.
"I left Dick before the rain started," Jerry was telling the
commissioner,
as they went out through the hall. "He wasn't worried about anything then -"
A low, whispered laugh was Cranston's summary of that departing
statement.
Taken on face value, it could explain an odd fact. Not the various papers,
including a letter addressed to Dick that Cranston had found on the telephone