"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 335 - Riddle of the Rangoon Ruby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

surprised gasp, "whenever a car drives in at night. If any prowler should
happen to be about, he would be spotted instantly." With that, Zelda added a
gasp of her own and pointed toward the portico that fronted the mansion. "Why,
there's one now!"
Margo saw a streaky shape emerge beyond the shrubbery, and the car's
headlights showed it to be a human form as they came beneath the portico.
There, a burly man in knickers and parka waved a welcome.
"Brent Huling," introduced Zelda as she and Margo alighted. "One of my
uncle's oldest friends. He likes to take late strolls."
"And smoke my pipe afterward," added Huling, with a broad smile, "if I
can
only find it."
He was bringing a tobacco pouch from one pocket, but the other proved
empty. Then, as they entered the front door into a large living room with a
broad stairway beyond, Huling spied his pipe on an ash stand and promptly
reclaimed it. Zelda, meanwhile, was introducing Margo to a tall, slightly
stoutish woman named Pauline Dotha, who proved to be Mycroft's housekeeper and
took the title as a definite compliment.
Also present was a dapper, thin-haired man whose worried expression was
relieved by a twitchy smile. Margo took it that he was Mycroft's secretary and
her guess was right. His name was Ray Cragmore and he happened to be working
late as usual. Carter Mycroft had retired early, being an early riser, so
Margo
wouldn't meet him until tomorrow.
For that Margo was just as glad. When Pauline showed her to her room and
Tilson brought her bags from the car, Margo bowed a good-night to the others
and Huling waved cheerily through a cloud of pipe smoke. Alone in a lavishly
furnished second-floor room, Margo gazed from the window and studied the
shadowy shapes that wavered across the moonlit lawn. Somehow, she had an
ominous feeling that all was not well at Mycroft Manor.


CHAPTER III

Margo Lane met Carter Mycroft at breakfast the next morning, and the
experience was a shocker. She had expected Zelda's uncle to be robust and
pleasant mannered, like his pipe-smoking friend Brent Huling. Instead, Mycroft
was scrawny, with a cadaverous expression that accentuated a wide, lipless
grimace that was anything but the smile he meant it to be, though it could all
have been pretense on his part. His tone, polite in an oily way when he spoke
to Margo, became an off-guard snarl when he called for his secretary,
Cragmore,
to bring memos, letters, and contracts. All during breakfast, Cragmore was
bobbing in and out; and after gulping his food between times, Mycroft gave a
curt nod with a toothy wince that was supposed to be a parting smile and
headed
for his upstairs study to continue his day's work.
Margo was skilled at maintaining her poise under such circumstances, so
all during breakfast, she had chatted casually with the other persons present
whenever Mycroft was snarling for Cragmore or had his mouth too full to talk.