Grant, Maxwell - The Shadow 209 - Crime Over Miami 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

CHAPTER XI

DOUBLE DOUBLE

SOMETHING seemed wrong in the royal suite. It made June Marwyn wonder if she had come too soon. Her knock had not been answered; instead, the door had yielded under her light taps. She was stepping into the outer room, only to find it empty and rather gloomy.

All was so still that June felt that she had entered a huge mausoleum. Unwilling to disturb the silence, she waited, hoping that someone would come to greet her.

Trying to analyze her dread, she remembered an odd impression that had gripped her in the hallway. As June recalled it, things had begun when she stepped from the elevator.

The corridor itself was gloomy. Its blackness had actually seemed to move. Shuddering at her recollection, June stepped farther into the living room, gave an anxious look back over her shoulder. Again a sense of the uncanny gripped her. She saw the half-opened doorway, but no glow beyond it.

Some ghostly thing, a mighty living blot, was encroaching on the suite, following close upon June’s own footsteps!

The girl gave a stifled cry, fearful that the menace would take on some horrible shape. Her gasp brought an answer, not from the door but from deeper in the suite itself. A raspy, low-pitched voice challenged her with the words:

“Stick ‘em up!”

June turned to stare at a masked man, who happened to be Mort. She didn’t recognize him as a bellboy, for Mort was wearing a rough sweater over his fancy uniform jacket, and his trousers were simply a plain black.

He was backing his words with a revolver, and from his angle, he blocked off June’s return to the outer door, not guessing that she had no desire whatever to flee in that direction.

Seeing June tremble, Mort became careless with his gun. He gestured her farther into the room, and she followed his motion gladly.

Meanwhile, at the doorway, the thing that June dreaded was taking place. A mass of blackness was materializing into a cloaked shape. Beneath the brim of a slouch hat, a hawkish profile silhouetted itself against the woodwork of the door frame.

June did not see that weird manifestation, but she heard the sibilant whisper that came from hidden lips.

So did Mort. As the girl shuddered, the crook wheeled. His gun was already half pointed to the door. With June fully cowed, Mort was more interested in looking out for other factors. But he had picked a task for which he hadn’t bargained. Before he could complete his swing, Mort saw the challenger at the door.

Mort was covered by the muzzle of a .45 that projected from a gloved fist. Above that evil-looking weapon were eyes that had a burn so fiery that it promised a blister of bullets, should Mort make one false move.

The sight froze Mort. But his lips, already moving, gave words to the hoarse cry that, issued from his throat:

“The Shadow!”

Things happened swiftly. As Mort dropped back, June turned about, giving a cry of her own at viewing the black-clad figure which she knew must be friend, not foe.

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