Blackmail Bay (Short Story) by Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson

Author:Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson [Grant, Maxwell & Gibson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Thrillers
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1980-01-20T08:00:00+00:00

V

DUSK was deepening over Hiram's Cove when Kroft and Margo had supper on the veranda. The judge looked over the sizeable lists that had kept Margo busy until after seven o'clock. Approvingly, Kroft remarked that when all the names from the tapes had been fully checked, some would surely provide links to the past, but their value would depend chiefly on what happened here tonight. Looking up at the clouded, darkening sky, he added finally: "Come. It is time we began our vigil."

They went to the living room on the land side of the ranch house. When they settled there, Margo was convinced that Kroft must have had a meeting with Cranston while she had been working in the library. The old judge displayed a confidence that she herself had invariably felt when she knew that The Shadow was somewhere in the offing. Even the slightest sound attracted his attention, as though it represented a vital moment that he expected. Then Kroft's smooth forehead suddenly wrinkled at the sound of a steady thumping from outside the house.

"That sounds like the old windmill pump that Hobbs was going to fix," declared Kroft. "But who could have started it - and how? Or why?"

As the thumping continued, Kroft came to his feet and stepped to the back door, beckoning Margo to join him. When he opened the door and stepped to the rear porch, a voice came hoarsely from the dark: "Who's that! Who's there!" On impulse, Kroft pressed a switch and floods of light came not only from the house, but the surrounding trees as well. The circle of light carried almost to the pump-house; and there, on the fringe of the glare, stood Hobbs, holding a large satchel in one hand, a double-barreled shotgun crooked over his other forearm.

That sight literally produced a chain reaction. An answering shout came from the path leading up from the birch grove. As Hobbs dropped the satchel and raised the shotgun, he heard the call, "Hi, Ezra!" and recognized Torgesen, who was wheeling a bicycle up the path. Hobbs lowered the gun. The store-keeper leaned the bicycle against a tree and approached with a wave of greeting, but by then, Hobbs was aiming for another target farther down the path, a white, roundish figure that flitted in ghostly fashion as though about to merge with the birches.

The effect was so startling that Margo could understand why Hobbs fired on impulse, but as he did, he floundered backward as if the recoil had acted before the shot, sending the gun blast straight upward. Margo looked just in time to see a weird, cloaked figure merge with the blackness beyond the circling light. Apparently The Shadow's intervention had prevented a fatal shot, for the white shape proved to be a human and not a ghost. Stepping forward from the birches was Madge Moffat, wearing white slacks and jacket. But even as Hobbs recognized one mistake, he made another.

Lurching forward from a level path through the pine

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