Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 119 by Maxwel l Grant

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

CHAPTER XII

CROOKS TURN SLEUTHS

AT the very time of The Shadow's departure from Vic Marquette's hotel room, a shuffling, thin-faced figure was passing along a street three blocks away. Clad in overalls and carrying a rattly tool case, the fellow looked like some carpenter's apprentice who had been working on a night job.

The tool carrier who was shuffling across the avenue was Slink Ratzler, the "eyes" of the wanted bank robbers.

A block along, Slink stopped to rest his tool kit on the sidewalk. He was near a news stand; fumbling in his pocket, he produced a few coppers and bought

a newspaper. He opened it to the comic page, grinned wanly as he read the funny

strips. Folding the newspaper with the cartoon page outward, Slink picked up his tools and rambled along.

Slink arrived at a cheap rooming house. He lugged his tools up to the third floor. He went into a room at the back, took off his overalls and hung them in a closet. There were other clothes there, but Slink did not don them.

Instead, he used a skeleton key to open a connecting door into a room farther front. It was a better room than the first one. Slink locked the door

behind him; went to a closet and brought out better clothes.

Slink played the part of two roomers at this house. After he had washed the pastiness from his face, brushed his hair back and straightened his shoulders, he looked quite different from the shambling apprentice who usually appeared in overalls.

All that Slink carried with him as reminder of his former character was the newspaper that he had bought. He carried it beneath his arm, when he left the rooming house attired in a well-fitted suit. But he had turned the pages of

the newspaper so that it now showed the sporting page instead of the comics.

Slink headed for the nearest subway station. He rode one stop in a local; then changed to an express. One stop more, he emerged from underground and walked a brisk half block to a presentable apartment house. Slink took the elevator to the fifth floor; unlocked the door of a small apartment, where he tossed his hat and coat upon a chair.

This, too, was one of Slink's many residences. As at the rooming house, he

had a key that unlocked a connecting door. But before he used the key, Slink rapped three times.

WHEN Slink stepped through to the adjoining apartment, he found two men awaiting him. They were Turk Dorth and Skibo Hadlen. Both were on their feet.

Turk saw the newspaper; took quick, limpy strides to snatch it from Slink's hands. Angrily, he turned over the pages to get from the sporting news to the front page. Glowering, Turk scanned the headlines. Skibo shoved a hard face over Turk's shoulder, to get a look of his own.

The pair were after news reports from other cities; items which concerned the activities of supposed counterfeiters. They happened upon some of the reports that Vic Marquette had mentioned to The Shadow.

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