Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 195 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XIV. HIDDEN STRATEGY

THE beam of a tiny flashlight focused upon the top step of a stone stairway. Playing back and forth in scintillating fashion, the gleam showed that the steps led no farther. Then, the slicing light centered upon the door of an elevator. A figure swished through surrounding blackness, pushing the light ahead of it.

Though the stairs went no higher than eight stories, perhaps the elevator did. Silently, The Shadow worked steel doors apart, sprayed light into the elevator shaft. The glow proved that this was the uppermost level. The shaft was topped by wheels and pulleys, with a cable leading to the elevator eight floors below.

Moving about through rooms that were stored with huge crates and boxes, The Shadow found muddy streaks along the dusty floor. The traces were so slight that few eyes would have detected them, let alone follow them to their exact destination. But The Shadow did both. He came to a crate that blocked the trail.

The crate seemed heavy, but that was promptly explained. Probing deep past its side, The Shadow found that it was loosely bolted to a piano box that adjoined it. He loosened the bolts; the crate proved very light. Lifting it aside, The Shadow found a door which was unlocked.

Beyond the door was a stairway, a steep metal spiral. Through pitch blackness The Shadow moved upward, until dim light greeted him. The trifling glow came from windows situated in the little cubicle that topped the warehouse opposite the Superior Engineering building.

The Shadow's ascent was noiseless, which proved quite fortunate. Otherwise, his arrival would have been detected by a crouching man who was busy near a window. Approaching with ghostlike glide, The Shadow observed the man at close range.

The fellow was of blocky build, his face so chiseled that it looked like stone in the peculiar glow. But the man's task was even more important than his appearance.

He was dismantling a huge camera that had a telescopic lens. The camera was pointed from the window, downward at an angle. Its aim was toward a window in the building opposite. As The Shadow watched, a brilliant light appeared in the lower window across the way.

The stony-faced man gave a chuckle. He could see the men who had entered that other room. Vic Marquette and a pair of Feds were taking another look at Kellington's drawing stand, talking among themselves and nodding. They were going over the details of Kellington's treachery, still confident that they had spoiled the traitor's game.

Here, in the warehouse cubicle, the fixed camera was proof that the Feds had actually failed. Armion, dead agent of the Ilsa, had tricked his own tool, Kellington. The tracing underneath the drawing paper had been a double bluff— first, to make Kellington think that he was accomplishing a real theft; second, to trick the Feds after they uncovered the subterfuge.

The real secret of the game lay here. Hidden cameramen had kept their lens trained on Kellington at the drawing board. When the

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