Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 250 - Death About Town

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DEATH ABOUT TOWN
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. DEATH AROUND THE CORNER
? CHAPTER II. THE LAW DECIDES
? CHAPTER III. THE MAN WHO CAME BACK
? CHAPTER IV. ACCEPTED TERMS
? CHAPTER V. AT THE AVENUE CLUB
? CHAPTER VI. THE DOUBLE TRAIL
? CHAPTER VII. DEATH ON THE MARCH
? CHAPTER VIII. THE MISSING KILLER
? CHAPTER IX. CRIME'S PROOF
? CHAPTER X. CRIME'S INTERLUDE
? CHAPTER XI. WAYS IN THE DARK
? CHAPTER XII. CHARGED BATTLE
? CHAPTER XIII. AFTER THE BATTLE
? CHAPTER XIV. THE FORCED CHOICE
? CHAPTER XV. THE NEEDED TRAIL
? CHAPTER XVI. DROPS OF BLOOD
? CHAPTER XVII. ELECTED: A KILLER
? CHAPTER XVIII. THE GAME THAT TURNED
? CHAPTER XIX. DEATH AMONG FRIENDS
? CHAPTER XX. PROOF OF MURDER
CHAPTER I. DEATH AROUND THE CORNER
WHEN Dana Orvill stepped from the elevator in the Avenue Club, an attendant approached and handed
him a message. It was the sort of message that caused Orvill to lift his eyebrows and give his cane a
casual twirl.
The message stated, simply:
Hotel Bayberry. Seven thirty. Side door.
That was all, and it was quite enough. Orvill did not expect people to add their names to telephone
messages that they sent him. For Dana Orvill, dapper to the waxed points of his mustache, was the
perfect man-about-town, and preferred blind dates.
Not only was Orvill a member of the swanky Avenue Club and vice chairman of its governing committee;
he also belonged to an elite social set, which, like all such sets, had its petty ways and jealousies.
Preposterous though it might be, certain men in that group mistrusted Dana Orvill. They regarded him as
a ladies' man - a middle-aged Lothario who thrived on feminine sighs.
Hence, rather than run into trouble from the male contingent, Orvill always advised his lady friends - past,
present, and future - to choose a quiet out-of-the-way meeting place whenever they felt that life was
becoming unendurable without the company of Dana Orvill.
Inasmuch as the trysting spots varied, Orvill always managed to avoid one girl friend while meeting
another, which made it all the better. This was the first time that anyone had suggested the side door of
the Hotel Bayberry, but Orvill approved it. The hotel was only a few blocks down the avenue, and there
was a florist's shop on the way.
It was after seven o'clock, so Orvill was already wearing evening clothes. He frowned a trifle as he
crossed the palatial foyer of the club, for he remembered an appointment that might detain him. Pausing
at the door, he spoke to the attendant at the desk:
"When Mr. Cranston arrives, ask him to wait until I phone him. I shall do so within a half hour."
Outside the Avenue Club, Orvill strolled jauntily away, and the doorman watched his departure. Few
men of Manhattan had the boulevard manner of Dana Orvill, and the doorman always liked to watch him
stroll along the avenue.
This, however, was to be Orvill's final stroll. He was on his way to a date with death!
In the florist's shop, Orvill ordered a dozen jonquils and a gardenia for his overcoat lapel. While waiting
for the flowers, his thoughts reverted to his appointment with Cranston, and Orvill became a trifle
annoyed. He wanted to talk to Cranston, very badly.
Matters weren't just right at the Avenue Club. The members of the governing committee couldn't quite
agree on certain matters. It was all very troublesome, not only to Orvill but to Rudolph Delmot, chairman
of the governing committee. A fine chap, Delmot, but too inclined to heed everyone's opinion.
Delmot never tiffed with other committee members, as Orvill did. If a chap behaved like a bounder,
Orvill did not mind telling him so. Sometimes they became angry, such chaps, almost threatening; but
when they did, they simply proved themselves to be bounders. Which meant that Dana Orvill, in his
opinion, was always the winner of an argument.
The jonquils wrapped and the gardenia in his buttonhole, Orvill strolled along to the Bayberry. He did not
enter the hotel; instead, he went past it and strolled to the side door, just around the corner. There, Orvill
took up a convenient stance and waited.
A nice spot, this. The street was comparatively dark, and the light was not strong beneath the side
marquee of the hotel. Behind Orvill was a doorway into the lobby, but very few people used it. The door
was of the revolving type, and made a sweeping noise whenever anyone came out.
At those times, Orvill strolled over toward the curb and remained there, except when people came along
the street, at which times he stationed himself at the side of the revolving door and remained there.
Orvill's chief annoyance was his half-hour time limit. He didn't want his call to Cranston to interfere with
his date. Still, he would have to make the call, for Orvill was very precise in such matters.
Glancing at his watch, Orvill remembered that he hadn't checked it by the club clock. So he looked
across the street, hoping he might see a clock above the door of the office building opposite.
INSTEAD of a clock, Orvill saw the building's name, and he did not like it. It happened to be the Galba
Building, where James Laverock had his office. In turn, James Laverock happened to be the biggest
bounder on the governing committee of the Avenue Club.
His gaze lowering, Orvill saw Laverock's car, parked beside the Galba Building. You couldn't miss
Laverock's car. It was red and shiny, and it looked just as hideous here as it did whenever Laverock
parked it outside the Avenue Club.
Maybe broad-minded men like Delmot could excuse Laverock for owning such a car, but Orvill couldn't.
It simply proved that Laverock had no taste, and shouldn't be a member of the Avenue Club. Nor would
he be, if Orvill could have prevented it. The trouble was that Laverock already belonged to the Avenue
Club when Orvill joined it.
Turning away, Orvill decided to ignore the garish car. He kept pacing a circle under the marquee, from
the curb, past the revolving door, and back again. A box of flowers under one arm, a walking stick
hanging from the other, Orvill was attracting more notice than he supposed from passers-by. In fact, such
pedestrians were too interested in watching Orvill to observe what happened across the street.
A short-built man came briskly from the Galba Building and thrust himself into the garish red coupe. His
manner marked him as the owner of the car, which he was. But James Laverock seemed far too
interested in starting his car to pay any attention to Dana Orvill across the street. He twisted the key in
the ignition lock, pressed the starter, and yanked the coupe in gear, as he turned the wheel to pull out
from the curb.
That was when it happened.
Dana Orvill swung about as he heard the car start. He saw James Laverock staring from the window,
and their eyes met in a mutual glare. Laverock's right hand was swinging up across the steering wheel.
From there on, witnesses were to tell it.
With the roar of the car motor came, sharp reports that echoed loud along the narrow street. Witnesses
might have mistaken those repeated bangs for backfires from the car, if they hadn't seen the immediate
result. Amid the bursts, Dana Orvill wilted.
Recoiling queerly, he struck the sidewalk, losing the box of flowers, which broke open, to strew the
yellow jonquils beside him. As witnesses dashed up beside the stricken man, they saw Orvill clamping his
hands to his side and caught his dying gasp:
"Laverock... he... he shot me!"
The red car was swinging the corner when the pack went after it. One man yelled to a cop across the
avenue. Another shouted to the doorman in front of the Hotel Bayberry.
Others were waving excitedly at passing cars and cabs. In surprisingly swift time, a chase was being
organized. But in that interim came a pursuer who was to outstrip the rest.
A cab was cruising down the avenue. From its window a keen-eyed passenger with hawkish face
observed the commotion and all that lay beyond it. He saw Orvill, prone amid the jonquils; he spotted
Laverock's car, picking up speed, as though the blares of a police whistle were giving it new impetus.
Calmly the hawk-faced passenger told his cabby:
"Overtake the red car."
The cab's passenger was Lamont Cranston. The driver was Moe Shrevnitz, the speediest hackie in
Manhattan. Shrevvy knew how to overtake wayward cars like Laverock's. It was part of his business,
because he was working for The Shadow.
And it happened that Lamont Cranston was The Shadow.
Cranston demonstrated that point as the chase was getting under way. Reaching beneath the rear seat, he
drew out a hidden drawer. From it he whisked a slouch hat and a black cloak, garments which seemed
to slide on his head and over his shoulders of their own accord. His hands slipped into thin black gloves,
and with the same sweep one hand tightened in a fist that brought an automatic from a hidden holster.
Aiming the .45 from the window, The Shadow was prepared to halt Laverock's car the moment Moe
overhauled it, which promised to be at the next corner. Already a strange, weird laugh was phrasing itself
upon The Shadow's hidden lips. Suddenly The Shadow halted that mirth, rather than laugh too soon.
More things happened at the corner.
A CAR, starting from a side street, made a wide veer to avoid Laverock's flying coupe. The veering car
crossed the path of a truck, which promptly skewed across the avenue. Moe slung his cab about,
sideswiped another car that heaved in from somewhere. The cab took a jounce across the curb, heading
the wrong way on a one-way street.
Someone, lurking in a parked car, either saw The Shadow or guessed that his cab was pursuing
Laverock's car, for shots rang out and bullets clanged the car. There were more shots from another
direction, and The Shadow returned the fire.
He was gripping the handle of the cab door, ready to spring out and fade into darkness, from which he
could deal with those lurkers who favored Laverock's getaway, when the chase came roaring up.
Shouts from the drivers of stalled cars, bellows from truckmen were accompanied by pointing gestures,
all toward The Shadow's cab. These people, who hadn't seen Orvill's death, nor recognized Laverock's
flight, were taking it for granted that the police were after the cab from which the gunshots spurted.
In their turn, the new pursuers assumed that Laverock had left his red car and transferred to the cab. A
police car, spouting gunfire, became the spearhead of a drive for the cab, with other cars wheeling in to
flank the hapless vehicle and its occupants.
Dropping low, The Shadow spoke a word to Moe. Crouched behind the wheel, the cabby let ride. He
was zimming down the side street like an arrow, zigzagging from one side to the other, using the curbs as
buffers, as he weaved his way through traffic coming the opposite direction.
Looking back, The Shadow saw the police car threading its way through stalling cars. It was losing
ground in the pursuit, and once Moe reached the next avenue he could begin a twisting course that would
eventually shake all followers off the trail. On that account, The Shadow laughed.
Nevertheless, his mirth was grim.
The Shadow was thinking of Dana Orvill, who had kept a date with death. He was also considering
James Laverock, the man who had escaped. Though The Shadow, at present, was busy shaking
mistaken pursuers from his trail, he was thinking of another trail that he personally intended to follow.
It might be long before The Shadow found that trail, but when he did, he would see it to the finish and
bring Orvill's murderer to justice!
CHAPTER II. THE LAW DECIDES
THE startling murder of Dana Orvill brought very swift results. So swift that they actually outraced The
Shadow in his routine task of shaking off the cars that had pursued him by mistake. By the time The
Shadow arrived back at the Hotel Bayberry, other investigators were on the scene ahead of him.
Naturally, The Shadow did not return in guise of black, nor did he come in Moe's cab. He arrived as
Cranston, in a chauffeured limousine. Stepping from the big car, the leisurely Mr. Cranston immediately
found himself shaking hands with his friend the police commissioner, Ralph Weston.
"Glad to see you, Cranston," spoke Weston briskly. "You've heard about poor Orvill, of course. We just
removed his body. I hear you had an appointment this evening. Tell me, what was it about?"
"Something to do with the Avenue Club," replied Cranston. "Orvill wasn't satisfied with the governing
committee. He said its members were not in harmony."
"Did he mention any committee members by name?"
"No. I think he intended to cover that this evening. He said that some members refused to co-operate
with the chairman, Rudolph Delmot. That was the part Orvill didn't like."
As Cranston mentioned Delmot's name, Weston turned and gestured. Looking that direction, Cranston
saw Delmot approaching in company with a police inspector, Joe Cardona.
Delmot was a tall, broad-shouldered man, of late middle age. He had a long, solemn face, that Cranston
had never seen so firmly set as upon this occasion. Delmot was carrying his hat in his hands in respect for
his dead friend, Orvill. Above his set face, Delmot's gray hair was spreading in the evening breeze.
Usually Delmot wore a kindly look; at present he lacked it. His whole countenance bespoke a grim
determination to avenge the death of Dana Orvill.
Cardona looked grim, too, but that was Joe's way. The stocky police inspector had a swarthy
countenance that always wore a pokerfaced expression. While Delmot was shaking hands with
Cranston, Cardona turned to Weston.
"We're going across the street, commissioner," said Joe. "We want to have a look in Laverock's office.
The shots came from his car, all right. We've got half a dozen witnesses to prove it."
Weston nodded. But when Cardona started off with Delmot, the commissioner decided to remain a few
minutes, and gestured for Cranston to do the same. Weston wanted to know what else his friend knew
about the Avenue Club, but there was comparatively little that Cranston could tell him.
"I haven't been there in months," Cranston explained. "In fact, hardly in years. I bought a life membership
largely because of an insurance benefit that went with it. Orvill was going over the list of charter
members, and found my name. He thought I would agree with some of his ideas regarding the club, so he
looked me up."
Finding that he could learn no more from Cranston, Weston decided to go across the street. He and
Cranston entered the lobby of the Galba Building and looked at the name board, to find that Laverock's
office was on the fifth floor. While they were buzzing the elevator button, Delmot came up a stairway
from the basement.
"It's no use, commissioner," declared Delmot. "We'll have to use the stairs, like Inspector Cardona did.
The elevator operator has left, and I can't find the janitor anywhere."
While the three were turning toward the stairway, a rumble came from the elevator shaft. They waited,
and soon the elevator arrived, piloted by a man in overalls who turned out to be the janitor. He said that
Cardona had met him on the third floor and had sent him down to get the rest of the party.
The janitor took the group by elevator to the fifth floor, where they found Cardona in Laverock's office,
which he had opened with the janitor's keys. Laverock's office was small and unimposing, but it
represented a profitable business, according to Delmot.
"Laverock handles investments," Delmot explained. "His clientele is small, but select, and I understand
that his customers are well satisfied with the purchases that he suggests. Quite a few of his customers
belong to the Avenue Club."
Weston asked if Orvill belonged to that group, and Delmot gave a sad headshake.
"Laverock and Orvill never did get along," said Delmot. "But I can't understand how personal animosity
would allow Laverock to go so far as to murder Orvill. Perhaps it was impulse, seeing the man he hated
just across the street; or he might have supposed that Orvill was spying on him."
Delmot finished with a shrug of his shoulders, as if to inquire: "Who knows?"
AT least, Laverock's desk and filing cabinets offered some chance of a clue, so Cardona began to dig
through them, though results were small at first. Most of Laverock's files consisted of printed matter,
pertaining to stocks and bonds.
Joe came across some letters that Laverock had received from customers, and took down the names of
the senders, but such letters were comparatively few and, according to Delmot, could represent only a
fraction of the persons who dealt with Laverock.
Then came a real find - a folder marked with Orvill's name. It contained several letters from Orville, with
Laverock's carbon replies. The letters had nothing to do with investments; instead, they pertained to the
Avenue Club.
In one, Orvill suggested bluntly that Laverock resign from the club. Laverock's pointed reply stated that
he would continue to be a member long after Orville was forgotten around the Avenue Club. This, in the
light of Orvill's sudden death, could be interpreted as a murder threat on Laverock's part.
Next, in Laverock's desk drawer, Cardona came across another piece of evidence. It was a permit for a
revolver, listing the make and serial number of the weapon in question. Since the permit had been issued
by the police, Cardona promptly pocketed it, but he left everything else as he had found it.
"I'll put a couple of men on watch outside," declared Cardona, "just in case Laverock decides to come
back here. Meanwhile" - he gestured toward the janitor - "this fellow can keep his eyes open, inside the
building."
The janitor remarked that he would be leaving in another hour and that the building would be closed, with
a night watchman on duty. Cardona decided that would make it all the better. He said he'd stay around
and talk to the watchman when he arrived.
Cardona came to that decision while riding down in the elevator. Outside the building, he stood by while
Weston and Delmot discussed their next step.
They decided to go to the Avenue Club and investigate the phone call that had brought Orvill to the side
door of the Hotel Bayberry. In light of what had happened, Laverock could very easily have faked that
call. The test would be to check on all of Orvill's acquaintances, and find out if any one was responsible,
thus reaching Laverock by a course of elimination.
Cranston was smiling during the discussion. Not only were Weston and Delmot taking on a wearisome
task; they were seeking negative evidence, only. If someone had merely played a practical joke, hoaxing
Orvill to the Hotel Bayberry on an imaginary date, the person in question probably would not admit it.
No one would care to be classed as an accomplice in murder, whether rightly or wrongly.
So Cranston merely shook his head when Weston inquired if he intended to go along to the Avenue
Club. At that moment, Delmot was steering Weston up the street toward a taxicab, and the
commissioner, looking back at Cranston, stumbled across a grating close to the wall of the Galba
Building.
Even as Weston stumbled, Cranston's keen eyes caught a glimmer from below the grating. But, seeing
Cardona spring forward to save the commissioner from a spill, Cranston let the inspector do the rest.
Cardona saw the gleam, too, for he was looking straight down at it when he grabbed Weston's arm.
"Look, commissioner!"
Cardona jabbed a finger downward. Five feet below the grating lay the glittering object, a revolver!
BY the time Weston was through looking, Cardona was tugging at the grating. It was set too tightly in the
cement to be hauled loose by such tactics. Cardona called the janitor, who produced a length of thin iron
pipe, which just managed to fit between two bars of the grating.
With some bricks serving as a fulcrum, Cardona and the janitor managed to pry the grating loose.
Dropping down into the pit, Cardona came up with the gun on the end of a pencil inserted in its muzzle.
Joe was using the right technique to avoid smudging any fingerprints. He held his prize into the light, noted
its make, and read the serial number stamped on the gun.
There wasn't any mistake about it. The weapon was Laverock's revolver, and two of its chambers
contained empty cartridges.
"So he took two shots at Orvill," announced Cardona, "and then chucked the gun right out the other
window, down the grating, so we wouldn't find it on him if we caught him. Laverock brought Orvill here,
all right, with that fake phone message, and thinking about the grating was more than just quick
headwork. Laverock had it all doped out beforehand!"
Cardona's summary impressed Weston and Delmot, but it made their trip to the Avenue Club all the
more imperative. Even negative evidence might count, with Laverock so clearly labeled as Orvill's killer.
But Cranston still declined to go along. He had a dinner engagement, so he said.
The statement was true enough. Cranston did have an engagement, though he hadn't yet informed the
persons with whom he intended to dine. He waited until the cab left with Weston and Delmot; then, in
leisurely style, Cranston strolled around the corner. His trip proved a short one; when he reached the
front door of the Hotel Bayberry, he entered it.
In a telephone booth, Cranston dialed a number. A methodical voice responded with the words:
"Burbank speaking."
No longer did Cranston use his calm tone. In the confines of the telephone booth, his was the whispered
voice of The Shadow, as he gave instructions to his contact man, Burbank, telling him to send two
competent agents who would be useful in cracking the Orvill case.
For The Shadow was by no means satisfied with the law's decision. Just as complex cases usually had a
simple solution, so were simple cases apt to prove complex. The Shadow held to the definite idea that
the quest for a murderer might travel farther than James Laverock.
How far farther it would carry, The Shadow had not yet surmised. Facts were too few to point to further
crime. The death of Dana Orvill, man about town, had the aspects of an isolated murder, nothing more.
Strange, however, were the circumstances that The Shadow would encounter while on this case.
It wasn't just a matter of a man about town who had met with a violent end. It was to be death about
town, with The Shadow on the trail!
CHAPTER III. THE MAN WHO CAME BACK
CRANSTON'S dinner guests at the Hotel Bayberry were Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke. Choice of
those two agents indicated that The Shadow might have gained an inkling of a long campaign ahead. He
had picked men specially qualified for the coming investigation.
Harry Vincent was a clean-cut chap who would be welcomed anywhere. Cranston's first act was to
supply him with a guest card and a membership application to the Avenue Club, thus making it possible
for Harry to introduce himself to the very environment wherein Orvill and Laverock had voiced their
disagreement.
As for Clyde Burke, he already had a card that would admit him to the Avenue Club. Clyde's was a
reporter's card, for he was a newspaper man on the staff of the New York Classic.
Clyde nodded when Cranston told him what he had to do. It wouldn't take much argument for Clyde to
convince his editor that there might be a good story at the Avenue Club for anyone who sought the inside
angle. While getting his story for the Classic, Clyde would have plenty of opportunity to pick up data for
The Shadow.
All that lay in the future. For the present, The Shadow, in Cranston's quiet style, outlined the case for the
benefit of Harry and Clyde. Finished, he awaited their reactions. They gave them without hesitation.
"It's Laverock, all right," asserted Harry. "So much has piled up against him, that there is not much
chance to dispute it."
"When Joe Cardona hits a lucky streak," commented Clyde, "he doesn't have to crack a case. It just
splits itself wide open for him!"
Both were surprised when Cranston shook his head in disagreement.
"This case is too pat," he analyzed calmly. "Besides, there are points that dispute each other. Take, for
instance, the hoaxing of Orvill, the disposal of the gun, and Laverock's rapid getaway. All those indicate
thorough premeditation."
There were nods from Harry and Clyde. Cranston promptly ended them.
"With all so smoothly planned," continued Cranston, "Laverock proceeded to commit two grievous
blunders. First, he left incriminating correspondence in his filing cabinet. Second, and far worse, he forgot
the permit that proved the death gun to be his own. I can assure you" - Cranston's lips wore a smile -
"that the bullet in Orvill's body will prove to be one from Laverock's gun, which will be just another
reason to suspect another hand."
The listening agents began to grasp The Shadow's logic. It did look as though Laverock's stupidity was
far too great for a man who had plotted a crime intelligently. Both Harry and Clyde were trying to find
some solid fact, for a beginning, so their chief supplied one.
"We must give Cardona credit," declared Cranston, with another smile. "He expects Laverock to return
to his office. So do I. Even an innocent man wouldn't want the police to find the evidence that was lying
there."
Dinner finished, Cranston led the way to the side door of the hotel. He stopped before they reached the
revolving door and pointed to two opposite spaces, one on each side. Those were solid doors that could
be used when the revolving door was out of order.
At present, they were loosely barred, and formed small, dark pockets. Cranston motioned Harry into
one and Clyde into the other. When they were nicely tucked away, he went out through the revolving
door.
Neither agent saw him reappear. Cranston had been carrying a cloak across his arm, a slouch hat
beneath it. He'd put them on during the trip through the revolving door; hence he emerged as The
Shadow.
In the dim light beneath the marquee, his cloaked shape escaped the eye. But Harry heard his chief's
whisper, when The Shadow stopped near the narrow barrier beside the revolving door. The Shadow
was asking Harry how far the little door could open.
"A couple of inches," Harry reported. "Enough so I can look across the street."
Receiving a similar report from Clyde, on the other side of the central door, The Shadow told both
agents to watch the Galba Building. Should they see anyone enter it, they were to call Laverock's office,
for that was to be The Shadow's next destination.
Therewith, The Shadow glided across the street, so elusively that Harry and Clyde caught only a fleeting
glimpse of fading blackness.
NEITHER agent saw The Shadow enter the Galba Building, because he didn't use the door that led in
from the street. The Shadow chose a better route, one that Joe Cardona had unwittingly provided.
Close against the darkened wall of the building, The Shadow squeezed his fingers between the slats of
the grating that Joe had pried loose earlier. Lifting it, he slid to the space beneath and let the grating lower
silently into position.
Noiseless, too, was The Shadow's attack upon the cellar window. It was held by a catch, but The
Shadow soon worked it open. Clanking sounds came from above: a detective tramping across the
grating. There was a pause as the detective inspected the space with a flashlight.
By then, The Shadow was through the window, fixing the catch from within. The patrolling detective
gained no glimpse of the human shape in black.
From there, The Shadow went directly to Laverock's office. Since it opened on a court, and the building
was deserted except for the night watchman; who was keeping to the hallways, The Shadow turned on a
light. He began an inspection of Laverock's files, hoping to find some clue that Cardona had missed.
All the while, The Shadow listened for footsteps, and finally heard their beat: the heavy tread of the night
watchman. He turned out the light, waited until the tramping sound reached a stairway, and then restored
the light, to resume his search. His ears tuned to the situation, The Shadow kept close tabs on the distant
sound of the watchman's departing footfalls.
Sometimes, The Shadow's very faculty at distant concentration could trick him. This was one of those
occasions. A creeping sound, much closer, was subdued enough to escape The Shadow's detection, until
it was too late. The creep was outside the door of Laverock's office. It ended when the door suddenly
slapped inward.
Wheeling from behind the desk, The Shadow saw the man who lunged through the doorway. There was
no mistaking his short build and his blunt face, which showed a glare approaching fury. The man who had
thrust himself into the office was James Laverock.
Though the police had appropriated Laverock's revolver, the man was still armed. He was carrying a
weapon that could be classed as an antique, a Sharps four-barreled pistol that dated back to the '60s.
Such a weapon, the final development of the "pepper box" style of gun, was noted for its lack of
accuracy, but at this close range, it could hardly fail to miss a target of human size.
Laverock voiced a triumphant snarl, pleased by the luck which had enabled him to trap an intruder in his
office. It happened, however, that Laverock was luckier than he knew. The Shadow's hand, sweeping to
his cloak, was actually gripping an automatic, ready to flip its muzzle in Laverock's direction - when
something caused the cloaked figure to relax.
That something was Laverock's glare. In the man's eyes, The Shadow saw more than a murderous glint;
he caught a calculating flash which told him that Laverock would go easy with a trigger, if such policy
promised results. Playing a sudden hunch, The Shadow let his hands move away from his cloak and
come up toward his shoulders.
It was a better plan, on The Shadow's part, than shooting it through with Laverock in a quick fray that
might bring bullets to both. A long risk, in a sense, for The Shadow was placing himself in Laverock's
power; but the cloaked fighter was playing a chance that in a game of wits he could outmatch his
opponent sufficiently to make up the lost margin, and more.
Indeed, giving Laverock the full advantage helped throw the fellow off his guard, as Laverock promptly
evidenced by a harsh chuckle.
"I THOUGHT as much," clucked Laverock. "Whoever murdered Orvill would have reason to come
here, too."
The Shadow responded with a whispered laugh.
"Your supposition supports the police theory," spoke The Shadow, in sibilant tone. "With this difference,
Laverock: They foresaw your return - not my visit."
"You accuse me of murder?" Laverock was drawing closer to the desk, thrusting the gun ahead of him,
so that the four muzzles nearly reached The Shadow. "On what grounds, may I ask?"
"On better grounds than could be applied to my own case," parried The Shadow. "I had no quarrel with
Orvill, as you did."
Laverock's hard smile showed that he was unimpressed.
"Let us assume that a murderer has returned," suggested Laverock. "I don't need to prove that I didn't kill
Orvill. I know I didn't. Eliminating myself, that leaves only you."
Squinting upward, Laverock was trying to probe the face beneath The Shadow's slouch hat, but the brim
cut off the light. All that Laverock observed was the burn of keen eyes, a glow that should have warned
him of The Shadow's mettle.
摘要：

DEATHABOUTTOWNMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.DEATHAROUNDTHECORNER?CHAPTERII.THELAWDECIDES?CHAPTERIII.THEMANWHOCAMEBACK?CHAPTERIV.ACCEPTEDTERMS?CHAPTERV.ATTHEAVENUECLUB?CHAPTERVI.THEDOUBLETRAIL?CHAPTERVII.DEATHONTHEMARCH?CHAPTERVIII.THEMISSINGKILLE...

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