The Devil's Paymaster by Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson

Author:Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson [Grant, Maxwell & Gibson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Thrillers
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1940-11-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX. THE SHADOW OUTWITTED

DANIEL JUDSON was scared.

He leaned against the bar in the taproom of the Green Tree Inn, talking idly about trout fishing to Clyde Burke and to Richard Woodstock. From time to time, his gaze drifted toward the taproom clock.

When fifteen minutes had passed, Judson glanced suddenly at his watch.

"Good gracious! I had no idea it was getting so late. I've got to run along."

He watched Woodstock narrowly. He knew that Burke was a friend of Lamont Cranston's. But Woodstock seemed no more anxious to detain Judson than the yawning Daily Classic reporter.

When Judson left the taproom, he heard Woodstock ask Clyde if he'd care to kill some time with a game of checkers. Clyde agreed.

Judson departed from the inn by the front door, as Cranston had told him to do.

His car was in the parking circle. Except where the driveway entered the parking circle from the road, the spot was heavily screened by trees. It would have been a simple matter for someone to have tampered with the car without being seen.

But Judson found everything in order. His tires were untouched, his gas tank intact. When he unlocked the car and stepped on the starter, the motor hummed efficiently.

Judson drove toward his estate.

He had about a seven-mile stretch to cover. He drove fast, because he knew the road would be a poor one after he reached the fork.

The fork was three miles from the Green Tree Inn. To the left it wound through valley swamp land in a meandering course that brought it back to a main highway. This swamp road was no more than a muddy wheel track, a short cut that only a motorist in a hurry would be apt to use.

The road to the right climbed steeply over a chain of hills. Judson's estate was in a valley beyond.

As it happened, Judson was able to take neither fork of the narrow road.

A car blocked his progress. It was halted several feet in front of where the road branched. It was parked broadside, so that Judson was unable to pass it.

He braked to a quick stop, blew his horn for the careless driver ahead to move out of the way. Then he realized that the car was empty.

At any rate, it looked empty. There was no one behind the wheel.

Judson got out and walked hesitantly to the stalled car. There was no one hiding inside. The car was unlocked. The ignition key was still in the dashboard. Judson decided to move the abandoned car himself.

"Up!" a voice snarled suddenly.

The voice come from behind the inventor. When he turned, he found, himself confronted by a masked man with a gun.

The masked man had stepped out of the shrubbery close to the two cars. He wasn't wearing Richard Woodstock's clothing. And yet Woodstock was the name that Daniel Judson gasped.

A diamond ring, on the masked man's finger, the huge stickpin in his tie, suggested that in some miraculous way Woodstock had managed to elude Clyde Burke at the Green Tree Inn.

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