"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 298 - The Stars Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

Margo was repeating the words as Cranston gestured her from the platform down the steps where the
porter was waiting to take her arm. Somehow the combination didn't make sense, but Cranston took it at
face value, whatever that was worth. Beckoning a red-cap to take Margo's bag, Cranston gestured to a
row of station wagons that bore the names of Seaview City's leading hotels.
"Take your choice," said Cranston with a smile. "I'll phone you later, Margo. I'm going to look for that
odd cab."

"If you find it," came Margo's parting shot, "you'll have something crazier than any of the items Trenkler
collected."

After watching Margo pick her hotel by its station wagon, Cranston sauntered along to a line-up of cabs.
From the window of her own vehicle, Margo watched his tall figure, saw Cranston thread his way out
from a cluster of train passengers and take his stance beside a waiting cab. Margo hoped the cab would
stay until the station wagon pulled out, and it did. In fact it was the last cab left, with Cranston still
lounging beside it, when the hotel car began its trip and rolled by.

Meanwhile, Margo hadn't been oblivious to the other cabs. They were all of regulation pattern, bearing
the names of two different companies; one called the Black and White, the other the Green.
Appropriately, all the cabs were of the colors that their names represented.

All except Cranston's.

Driverless, the cab was standing with Lamont waiting patiently by when Margo saw it closely. In the
sunset the cab showed its color plainly and its hue was a vivid blue. But on its door, Margo saw the
painted emblem that belonged to one of the regular cab companies.

Emblazoned in a yellow diamond were the words:

GREEN CAB COMPANY

The message to a dead man had brought results here in Seaview City. Substituting for Hugo Trenkler,
deceased, Lamont Cranston had found the blue Green Cab!

CHAPTER II
ATTACHED to the Seaview City depot was a lunch room that Cranston watched with a casual but
expectant gaze. It was a logical place from which a driver would arrive, should the blue Green Cab be in
operation.

Other persons, however, came from the lunchroom first. Two looked like workmen, a third was a crisp
faced old gentleman who was mostly wing-tipped collar and polka-dot necktie. The workmen saw the
cab, decided they could use it, and went back to rap on the window of the lunchroom. While the old
gentleman was looking from the cab to Cranston and back again, a middle aged lady with a shopping bag
and umbrella was attracted to the scene. It was then that the cab driver put in an appearance. He was
shirt-sleeved with the sleeves cut off to show a pair of brawny arms, as freckled as the broad face that
showed beneath the warped visor of his cabby's hat. He looked over the prospective passengers and
grunted.

"I was supposed to haul this back into the garage," the cabby affirmed. "But since there's a load of you, I
guess I can make deliveries. Only room for four though. Who's first?"