"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 311 - Death Stalks the U.N." - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

his fallen superior. Dom Brassle, fighting as he had fought every other battle of his life, with an almost
superhuman resistance, moved his lips.

It was too shocking. It just could not be happening. It was as though a gang war had broken out in the
Senate of the United States. The men gathered in the room could not believe their eyes. A sort of
paralysis gripped them. They watched as the dying man, holding onto a tiny thread of life spoke a few
words to his assistant.

The representatives of every nation in the world desiring peace watched as a brave and great man died.
By some freak of chance the microphone on Dom Brassle's desk picked up his last word. It was 'Cap'...

A man seated at a desk to the left of the dead man leaped to his feet and walked rapidly towards the
door behind him. Yerkes Sarri, finally convinced against his will that his idol was dead, looked up and
saw the retreating back. He didn't speak aloud but his lips formed the words, Captain Derry.

Somehow, the movement of one man, the action of Captain Derry, representative of Molvannia, in
quitting the room brought the rest of the occupants of the room to life.

There was a bustle, that indescribable sound of many people moving at once that is a compound of the
rustle of clothes, the creaks of chairs, the inspiration of breath: the sound that is a crowd.

Before they began to speak, a curious object rolled across the floor. There was a slight slant to the floor
down towards where the body of Brassle lay. This incline had helped the strange brown thing to roll into
sight.

Drawn like a piece of metal to a magnet, a potato came to rest next to the fallen man. Sarri forced his
eyes away from the doorway through which Captain Derry had just exited and looked down at the
potato. His thin, almost fanatical face tightened. His narrow shoulders hunched. The pursuit of his job had
led him into many strange situations. He recognized the potato for what it was. Near him, a woman drew
a shocked breath as she finally forced her mind to accept the fact that the bizarre object was a potato
and not... She racked her mind; what had she thought it was? A grenade. So shocking had been the
death of Brassle, she thought wryly, that she was all mentally prepared for an accoutrement of war!

Her training came to her aid. She was making mental notes about the scene almost before she had
regained the color in her face. Famous correspondent she might now be; but her first training had been
that of a reporter, alert for spot news.

She scribbled in shorthand till Yerkes, pulling himself together, spoke. He said, "Miss Barret, would you
step over here?"

She nodded and stepped to the side of the corpse, completely at ease, for after all, the war had shown
her every one of the varying faces of death. Her syndicated column had absorbed her emotion till there
was very little left in her.

"Will you stand here till I go out for a moment?" Yerkes Sarri asked and it was a command.

She nodded her magnificent head. Almost masculine in its strength of character, there was enough of the
woman in it to make her striking if not beautiful.
He said, and his voice was low, "If I should not return, I think Dom said, just as he died, 'The world is
fair...'" His face was so tightly drawn with emotion that she thought his bones were likely to come through