City of Fear 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: 1940-10-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX. A PERFECT CRIME.

LAMONT CRANSTON was having dinner with Alice Gunther in the privacy of her apartment.

Everything had been arranged by one of the best caterers in Western City. The food was excellent. The wines were well chosen. The meal was served by a maid provided by the caterer. When she was not serving, the maid remained discreetly out of sight.

Dessert had come and gone. Cranston held a match to Alice Gunther's cigarette. He murmured something that made her flush with pleasure.

“That's a nice compliment. You're a charming guest, Mr. Cranston.”

“It's easy to be charming to a hostess as beautiful as yourself,” he murmured.

He was not indulging in flattery. Alice's beauty was breathtaking tonight, She was wearing an evening gown that only a girl with a superb figure would have dared. It left her shoulders and arms bare, emphasized the loveliness of her slim, youthful body.

She laughed, and toyed with her cigarette.

Cranston noted that laugh. It was a shade too shrill to be natural. And she was laughing too often.

Alice Gunther was under a terrific mental strain. Cranston knew the reason. Her dinner invitation was a part of a bold plan to make sure that Lamont Cranston wasted time tonight.

Cranston had kept the date in spite of his knowledge. He was depending on Clyde Burke to find out what Martin Black was up to. He knew that Clyde had followed Black aboard the limited.

Clyde's message, hurled through the glass window of a telegrapher's office in a wayside railroad station, had been delivered to Lamont Cranston.

But the message only added to the mystery.

Money had been secretly raised to bail out Martin Black. Political pressure had been brought into play. There was no other explanation for the quick acceptance of bail and the prompt release of Black. The source of that bail money was still unknown to Cranston.

He was unaware of the visit of the fake Shadow to Alice Gunther earlier in the evening.

But Clyde's message warned him that something dangerous was under way. The message had been forwarded from Cranston's hotel to Alice's apartment. He read it midway through the meal. He explained it was a tiresome business report, a matter connected with his investments.

“And now, it's your turn to talk,” he told Alice, smilingly. “You said you had some ideas that might explain the strange bank crime in which your uncle was involved.”

Alice nodded. But what she said was disappointing. It was merely a rehash of theories that had appeared in Western City newspapers. Her hesitant speech confirmed Cranston's suspicion that her promise of new evidence had been bait to attract him to her dinner table.

“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” Cranston said quietly. “Concert music, played very low, makes a pleasant background. I won't tune it loud enough to be disturbing.”

She nodded, and he turned on the machine. He had a grim purpose in so doing, but it did not appear on his face. He returned to his chair. He seemed to be listening to Alice's soft voice and the softer background of concert music.

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