"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 313 - Room 1313" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

ROOM 1313
Maxwell Grant
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? CHAPTER I
? CHAPTER II
? CHAPTER III
? CHAPTER IV
? CHAPTER V
? CHAPTER VI
? CHAPTER VII
? CHAPTER VIII
? CHAPTER IX
? CHAPTER X
? CHAPTER XI
? CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I
SNAPPED from his deep concentration over an involved table of precedency, Lamont Cranston for the
first time in over an hour looked out of the window of the plane. Darkness split by an occasional flicker
of stabbing light from the airport were the only signs that this was not a trip through the stratosphere.

Those travellers who are always prepared to leave hours in advance were leaning forward eagerly as
they had been from the time the stewardess called out, "Croydon, on time"; the others, the habitual
leave-it-to-the-last- minuters, like Cranston, didn't even give it a thought till the wheels spun on dry
ground.

Cranston threw the copy of Burke's Peerage he'd been reading into his suitcase and snapped it shut. His
only baggage, besides that, was his brief case.

A polyglot murmur of tongues around him said, in as many languages as there were passengers, the same
trite things that are always said after a safe and quiet trip - be it on bicycle, train or plane.

That attitude was shared by most of the people whom Cranston could see without being rude. The girls,
the few in sight, were proof of the superstition that the wet climate was good for the complexion. But he
could not help wondering if it was the fault of that same climate that the women were one and all so
dowdy-looking.

Perhaps, he thought, it's the fault of their dressmakers. It just didn't seem possible with the pictures of the
New York women so fresh in his mind, that a sex could be so dissimilar.

As for the men, the myth of the English tailors was just that, as far as he could see. If this was the famous
drape that all tailors would give their arms for, he just didn't care for it. The men's jackets were bulky and
to his American eye, unsightly.
The underground went on its way with a lot more speed than he had given it credit for. It rattled along at
the rate a regular train would.

As usual in any air flight, there was a dissimilar amount of time wasted in getting from the plane to the real