Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 173 by Maxwel l Grant

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

CHAPTER X. MASTER AND MAN

HARRY VINCENT didn't waste a second of delay as soon as he realized that Blackie had eluded him and had made a quick getaway from the vestibule of the slum rooming house.

To search the surrounding neighborhood for the slick, well-dressed thug would take time.

And just now, time was precious.

Harry was convinced that the car which had run down Evelyn Standish was the dark-colored sedan that belonged to her own father. He was less certain of the identity of the driver. But the thought persisted firmly in his mind that the chauffeur was probably Noble. If this were true, it linked the colonel and his wooden-faced butler to the very heart of a murderous spy intrigue.

The colonel's sedan held the answer to the riddle. Harry decided to hurry to the Standish mansion and have a quick look at that car. If his theory was correct, the sedan's engine

should be still hot from its wild race across town. And there ought to be a perceptible dent in the left fender, where Harry's hunched shoulder had been struck by the speeding car.

He hurried to the corner and halted a taxi. It wasn't long before the cab approached the imposing neighborhood where Colonel Standish lived. Harry wondered how the colonel could afford to maintain so princely a dwelling on the relatively small pay of an army officer.

But for the present, the colonel's sedan was the all-important clue.

A block away from his goal, Harry paid off his taxi driver. Had it been night, Harry would have sneaked through the deserted property in the rear and vaulted the back fence. But in the broad daylight of early afternoon, that wouldn't do.

A grocer's light delivery truck parked midway down the block suggested a simpler and more effective method. The truck was empty. Harry had just seen the driver disappear into the service entrance of a nearby house with a heavy delivery basket on his arm.

In an instant, Harry was up on the seat of the truck. He took off his hat and tousled his hair.

He laid his overcoat neatly inside the truck, shivering as the cold winter wind blew icily in his face. That, however, was just what he wanted. His tousled hair and his reddened hands and face would draw attention away from his well cut suit.

He stepped on the gas and drove coolly through the Standish driveway to the rear of the mansion. His heart leaped as he saw that the door of the garage was open. The dark sedan was parked outside. If Noble had driven it, a sudden summons from the house must have interrupted him before he could put the car away.

Picking up a basket of groceries, Harry descended from the truck. He noticed at once the United States army bronze shield above a very soiled license plate. The front left fender was dented. Harry laid a bare hand on the hood of the car and jerked it swiftly away. The engine under that hood was still hot!

He heard a sudden sound behind him and stepped quickly away.

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