Grant, Maxwell - The Shadow 036 - The Isle of Doubt by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Detective, Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Adventure, Thriller
Publisher: Street & Smith Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIS was an outlet from the boiler room. Did the door on the lower side still afford a means of exit? To learn that seemed to be The Shadow’s purpose.

The flashlight shone at short intervals as the weird investigator retraced his steps. The light went out; wood creaked as the door gave way beneath The Shadow’s strong pressure. The flashlight glimmered, clicked off, and a soft laugh whispered through the boiler room. After that, deep silence reigned.

The ship seemed deserted. Long minutes passed; at last, a sign of The Shadow’s presence was once more manifested. Creaking boards, the flicker of the flashlight; then a stealthy form ascended from the boiler room. The Shadow picked his way through darkness, and reached the spot where he had moored his boat to the side of the mud-bound ship.

Once more, The Shadow was on the surface of the Mississippi. The little rubber boat slid away from the side of the River Queen. For a hundred yards, the course was directly toward the mainland; then, in the clear water of the cut-off, the boat spun and resumed an upstream progress. It passed the head of the island.

There, The Shadow paused. His keen ears caught a faint sound. While the little boat drifted downstream, the guarded noise came closer. The rubber boat was no more than a floating circle upon the surface of the broad river; the form of The Shadow was so motionless that it seemed like a portion of the tiny craft.

The noise that The Shadow had heard was the creaking of a pair of oarlocks. A splashing followed; then a rowboat passed within ten feet of the invisible craft in which The Shadow floated. The man at the oars was breathing heavily. His boat passed on, headed upstream. The Shadow made no motion. His drift continued, after the rower’s noise had ceased far above.

The rubber boat floated into the shelter of the rugged rocks that marked the head of the island. Here, after gripping a branch that projected from the shore, The Shadow disembarked. Through a carpeting of rain-soaked grass, he glided, invisible, toward the center of the island.

With amazing ability to find his way through darkness, The Shadow reached the abandoned house. He arrived at the front door of the building, softly crossed the threshold and caught the gleam of a light from a rear room on the ground floor. There were no doors in the building; those had evidently been removed. From the darkness of a side room, The Shadow gained an angled view into the kitchen. The oil lamp was visible upon the bench, its light showing the rest of the room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.