Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 217 by Maxwel l Grant

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

CHAPTER XI. ACROSS THE SOUND.

THE effect of Frack's completed statement was exactly what the crook expected. Stan Wilford went breathless with amazement, his eyes took on a transfixed gaze.

Still rubbing his neck, Frack smiled. He had put the idea across as the bigshot wanted, and he had realized something that he hadn't thought about before. If entirely on his own, Frack would have sprung the proposition by telephone; but it wouldn't have done.

Stan would certainly have hung up. The way that he had gone after Frack's throat, was proof. Frack had simply underestimated Stan's impetuous way. In fact, Frack was still underestimating it, as he was soon to learn. Stan's present happiness, though genuine, was only temporary.

Peering out to the lobby, Frack saw that the commotion had not caused any glances toward the phone booths, probably because there was considerable conversation over by the doorway to the veranda.

Turning again to Stan, Frack found his companion quite calm.

"It sounds like a good proposition, Frack," Stan declared. "I suppose you want my answer right away."

Frack nodded. He didn't recognize the turbulence that Stan's pose hid. Once a first impulse had passed, Stan could cover up perfectly. Inwardly, Stan was boiling, furious at the scheme. He understood, at last, that crooks were really working through Marcia, to reach old Theodore Prendle, and that they would have worked through Stan, had he married Helene first.

In light of what Helene had stated earlier, Stan was sure that crooks had seen the one flaw in the game: namely, that Prendle might suddenly decide that he was favoring Jack, at Helene's expense. So they wanted Helene married, with Stan as the candidate, to keep peace in the Prendle family. With The Shadow gone, the confidence ring expected no outside interference.

There was a way to balk them; to break the whole game wide open. Stan was ready to start it, when he heard Frack undertone:

"No strings at all, Stan. Take your time, go away for a while, if you want. We don't care what happens long as you don't take too long. Suppose we give you a month; longer, if you really need it. But you'll be

squared with us, beginning with the day you marry Helene Prendle--"

This time, Frack saw what was coming--one of Stan's hands, instead of both. But the one hand was clenched in the form of a solid fist. Frack ducked the punch and countered. He wasn't a set-up, like Reggie Exeter. Stan's swings were driving Frack away from the phone booths, out into the lobby, but the crook had forgotten caution. He wanted space.

Frack found it. Warding off a few punches, he came in with a rush. He might as well have tried to smash a stone wall, chin first. Frack's surge, in which his own swings went wide, brought him squarely in line with Stan's hardest punch.

Frack's feet went out from under him so swiftly that he thwacked the back of his head against the tiled floor and rolled limp beside the desk, where a startled clerk was grabbing for the telephone, shouting for police.

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