"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 310 - Death on Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

DEATH ON ICE
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," December, 1946.

Violent death, set high in the wintry mountains where vacationers revel,
confronts The Shadow - as the weird fool killer stalks his helpless victims.


CHAPTER I

IT was as close as a human can come to really flying. Body bent forward,
the man's figure split through the air like some huge prehistoric bird. His
wings were on his feet.
His arms bent behind him were as carefully placed as a tight rope
walker's
pole. The extensions of his arms trailed him. The eyes that followed his
flight
were fixed. It didn't seem possible that he could land safely.
It was the last jump of the afternoon and by far the best and longest.
Peter Gohan was living up to his international reputation as a ski expert.
The platform from which he had taken off made a backdrop behind him. His
black figure jet-like in contrast to the snow, flew forward. He was fifty feet
from the ground when it happened.
The clear crisp air magnified the sound till it reverberated like a
cannon
shot. Almost magically the flying form of a man crumpled in mid-air.
Such a short time before the scene had all been frivolous and gay.
Brightly clad spectators, lining the sides of the ski jump, gay with
excitement
and with joy of the crisp clean air washing out their city bred lungs, had
been
laughing and exclaiming.
Then, the excitement had mounted as jumper succeeded jumper. Each jump
seemed a little longer, a little better. Finally when all the amateurs had had
their innings, the pros, the ski instructors, had taken over and then the
jumps
really became magical. It did not seem possible that a human being could glide
through the air defying gravity with nothing but some slats of wood.
Jim Thompson, one of the instructors at Chez de Silbis, a resort, had
made
the longest jump of the afternoon. There was only ore man who could possibly
beat him and that was his best friend, Peter Gohan.
It was Peter who had taken off just now. It was Peter who had looked as
if
he were setting a new record as he took off from the inclined plane and flew,
swifter and swifter and further and further through the air.
But now, all that was ended and like a bird, shot down from the sky by a
random hunter, the flight was over. The man was no longer one with the sky. He
was now of the earth, earthy!