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

his
own death as something imminent, judging by the tightening of the pistol in
Greug's hand.
Then Friedrich interrupted.
"What of Irene?"
"I am not sure," returned Greug. "We must learn later, for a certainty.
At
least she believes that Whitlock is you, Friedrich, for she is sure she saw
him
die, the night when I arranged his escape. We shall discuss the question of
Irene in the presence of one less listener -"
Lightning blazed and thunder crashed, all in one momentous instant,
during
which Dick Whitlock knew that this was it. He was going out on his feet, but
not
without another fight. Madly, Dick rushed Greug's gun, knowing he could never
beat the cold, merciless finger that was on the ready trigger.
Dick almost made his lunge suicidal.
The gun jolted upward as Dick charged, and if he'd gone a trifle faster,
he'd have beaten the lift of the muzzle. As it was, the gun hoisted ahead, and
the nine millimeter shell breezed the fringe of Dick's rumpled hair.
Greug was sprawling backward, struggling to strike out with his gun, but
he couldn't get at the attacker whose firm forearm was hooked around his neck.
As for the two square-faced men who formed Greug's very special murder squad,
they were staring more amazed than Dick at the face they saw beyond Greug's
snarling, choking visage.
It was the face of their recent prisoner, Lamont Cranston!


CHAPTER XIII

THE fray in the hunting lodge became so kaleidoscopic that it seemed out
of this world and into unreality.
As a man back from the dead so often that it had become a chronic habit,
Dick Whitlock could count this episode as the maddest dream of all.
Cranston was flinging Greug against the doctor's stupefied pair of
stooges
and in the same sweep, he was upsetting a table that held a burning lamp.
Foxcroft, starting to Dick's aid, was saved by Cranston, putting him from
harm's path and flattening the second table.
The crashing lamps spilled their kerosene and the flames gobbled it with
ravenous licks; but with the ending of those flares, there were only the
lightning flashes, and the scene seemed dreamlike.
Sprawled in the corner where he had landed, Foxcroft began to see why he
wasn't needed.
The real dream-stuff was the struggle in the center of the room, where a
frenzied fighter seemed to be grappling with himself. Actually there were two
participants, but they were too much alike to be distinguished.
Friedrich had foolishly lunged for Dick who had accepted the gag without
realizing how smart the procedure was. For as it stood, there was no telling