Shadow 250 - Death About Town 07-15-42, The by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street and Smith
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

WAYS IN THE DARK

ONE man watched Louis Buram when he strode across the foyer of the Avenue Club; that watcher was Harry Vincent. He noticed that Buram seemed in quite a hurry, and that he was clutching his brief case very tightly.

What worried Harry was the fact that Clyde Burke wasn’t around. According to plan, Clyde should have been tagging Buram very closely.

In fact, Clyde was.

Outside the door of the club, Buram stopped. Walking over toward the attendant’s desk, Harry saw the reason. Clyde was outside, too, and he was halting Buram. It looked as though the two were due for an argument, for the doorman was joining them.

One hand on the door, the man in uniform was pushing it open, as though to summon aid if an altercation followed. Thanks to the doorman, Harry heard what happened.

Buram took the situation with a smile. Removing his cigar from his lips, he said to Clyde:

“All right, Burke. You win. What do you want?”

“I still want a story,” returned Clyde. He gestured toward the doorman. “If you chase this fellow, we can go inside and have a pleasant chat, Buram.”

Buram shook his head.

“Can’t do, Burke,” he said. “The club has orders to keep reporters out.”

“Then how about going somewhere else?”

“Very well,” decided Buram. “You can come over to my office. I’ll have to make a few stops on the way, but I don’t suppose you’ll mind. Let’s take a cab.”

The two moved away, quite amicable, and the doorman went back to his post. By then, the attendant at the desk was eyeing Harry quizzically, wondering what he wanted. So Harry asked for paper and envelope. Receiving them, he wrote a brief note, sealed it, and told the attendant to deliver it to Mr. Cranston.

Cranston was strolling down from the mezzanine when the note reached him. Harry had just gone out the door, but the note disclosed the fact that his departure was very recent. The reason Harry hadn’t addressed the note was because he had written it in a special ink which The Shadow and all his agents carried in their fountain pens - a quick-drying fluid that vanished rapidly when exposed to air.

To prevent any chance prier from learning the note’s contents, Harry had to put it in code, which Cranston read rapidly. The note stated that Clyde had met Buram, and that the two were going on a roundabout trip that would finally land them in the Zenith Building, where the A.B.A. offices were located.

Thinking that Cranston was tied up with the commissioner, Harry was going directly to the Zenith Building to be there when they arrived. Crumpling the note, as though it were quite unimportant, Cranston tossed it into a wastebasket.

Had anyone picked up that sheet of paper, they would have wondered why Cranston had bothered to study it at all. By then, the sheet was quite blank.

It was remarkable, the way in which Cranston retained his leisurely manner at a time that required action. Things had happened with a rapidity that fully established The Shadow’s conjecture regarding imminent trouble.

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