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

Dick from Friedrich, which left Greug and his gunners at a total disadvantage.
Of course there was a target that all three wanted, as a temporary
substitute for Dick; namely, Cranston. But he knew it and was keeping behind
the grapplers who held the main attention. Neither Greug nor his square-mugs
could get around to flank Cranston, the way Dick and Friedrich reeled.
Out of the two-man tangle came the piping, hysterical orders that Dick
could neither duplicate in tone nor language, but the flicker of the departing
lightning wasn't enough to fully identify the future Fuehrer. So the whirl
continued until Cranston put a sudden stop to it.
With thunder rumbling dully in the distance, the terrific sweep of the
torrential rain was the main sound now in progress, but it didn't drown the
hammer of new footsteps from the porch. Cranston knew what they signified, as
did Foxcroft. Reserves were arriving to aid Friedrich's cause. All those phony
rangers, loggers, hunters and woodsmen, who didn't know how to wave a greeting
without going into a Nazi salute, were coming here to rally around the future
master they had seen descending from the sky.
Having drawn them in by prolonging the battle, Cranston now saw
opportunity for escape. If alone, he might not have chosen that course, but it
was the healthiest prospect for Dick as well as Foxcroft.
A gesture to Foxcroft brought the caretaker over to Cranston's vantage
spot beside the cellar door. As the grapplers reeled past, Cranston flung into
their fray and broke them apart, grabbing the one he thought most likely to be
Dick. Getting no opposition, Cranston knew that he was right, and spun Dick
into Foxcroft's grasp.
Before Cranston could turn to deal with Friedrich, Greug and his two
huskies were on the surge, augmented by others who were charging in through
the
door from the porch. Finishing his whirl, Cranston whipped wide the cellar
door,
flung himself bodily upon Dick and Foxcroft. With a combined sprawl the three
went hurtling down the cellar stairs, Cranston's flying foot hooking the door
into a closing slam behind them.
It was Dick who took the hard brunt of their landing, but Cranston and
Foxcroft brought him to his feet. With their groggy burden between them, they
shoved out through a door beneath the porch, sidestepping some scattered ropes
that Greug's helpers had used for binding Cranston.
Amid the wailing lash of the rain, Foxcroft thought he heard a singular
laugh, but his overwrought nerves never connected it with Cranston, the man
who
had used his own capture as a route to rescue, without adopting his customary
character of The Shadow. Up on the slope, Cranston had translated the
statements he had overheard and learned that his captors-to-be intended to
bind
and gag him in the cellar of the lodge.
So Cranston had simply played the come-on and let them use their clumsy
roping methods, which he knew he could shake off in mere minutes.
But it was no come-on now.
The race up the steep path, with Dick mushing in the mud, was a longer
task than Cranston had anticipated. He knew that pursuers wouldn't overtake
them, but bullets were another problem, particularly as the business of