"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 327 - The Shadow Strikes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"You can give me the details now, Margo," Cranston said quietly.
Margo Lane, private secretary to Lamont Cranston and close friend and operative of The
Shadow, crossed her slim legs and frowned.
"I watched him all week, Lamont, just as you told me to," Margo said. "The waitress disguise
fooled him, I'm sure he did not suspect me. But he knew that the others were watching him. Do
you know who the others are yet, Lamont?"
"No, Margo," Cranston said. "The commissioner meets with the FBI man Altman in the
morning. I will be there. Perhaps one of them will know why the others were watching Pavlic."
"Early this morning," Margo continued, "I saw him sneak into the back room. I followed and
saw him use a secret door in the storeroom. The door led to an exit on Seventy-fifth street. He
obviously used it often to leave the club. I'm sure even his wife, Helga, doesn't know it is there."
"The others didn't see him leave?" Cranston asked.
"Not as far as I know, Lamont," Margo said. "As you know, I followed him to Penn Station
where he caught a train for Beach City. Then I called you. I lost his trail in Sea Gate just before
you arrived this evening. I'm sorry, Lamont."
Cranston nodded and brushed his long fingers through his greying blond hair. A man in the
prime of life, Cranston's every move showed the remarkable muscular control and great physical
strength and agility of The Shadow. He lacked only one power of The Shadow. As Cranston, the
fire was not in the deep, half-closed eyes.
The power of The Shadow's eyes, learned so long ago from the great Chen T'a Tze in the
Orient, required the secret black cloak, the black slouch hat, and the fire opal girasol ring, to
effect men's minds. The secret of the Master was of the mind, but could not be brought into play
without the special garb and the amazing gem handed down to Lamont Cranston by the Master
himself. With Chen T'a Tze dead, The Shadow was the last human to have the power. The
6
Master himself had charged Cranston to use the power wisely, and The Shadow had never
betrayed that trust.
Now, the secret crime fighter, as Lamont Cranston, reached out his hand to comfort Margo.
"It was partly my fault, Margo," Cranston said softly. "When Stanley found where he was
living as Jonson, we could have found him in time if that car had not revealed me in the
highway. I waited too long after it passed. He was dead when I found him."
"Do you think it was an accident?" Margo said.
"Perhaps," Cranston said. "I found no evidence of murder. But it would be quite a
coincidence."
"Possibly someone else-did follow him here," Margo said.
"Yes, or they could have been here waiting. It seems Stanley discovered that Pavlic had been
coming down here for a year under the name of Jonson. And, Margo, that sergeant in the police
station took something from Pavlic's effects and pocketed it. I couldn't see what it was."
"You think Pavlic and the sergeant were involved?"
"It's possible," Cranston said. "Perhaps I will find out more tomorrow. Somebody ran Pavlic
down and killed him. It could have been an accident, but I doubt it."
Cranston sat back then, his hooded eyes deep in thought as the long car drove swiftly through
the night toward New York where The Shadow hoped to learn more about the new evil he was
fighting.

In the private room of New York's exclusive Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston locked the door and
turned to face his friend Police Commissioner Weston and the FBI agent Paul Altman. The FBI
man was not pleased with Cranston's presence.
"Just what is Mr. Cranston doing in this case, Commissioner?" Altman said bluntly. "You
know I'm working strictly under cover."