Shadow 289 - Five Keys to Crime 03-01-45, 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

XI.

WITH The Shadow, action followed action.

Smoke was still curling from the muzzle that missed, when The Shadow reached his feet and dragged Larry to his own. Still deafened by the close-range blast, Larry was staring at a jagged hole in the wall behind him, when The Shadow whisked him full around.

The Shadow paused only to perform two simultaneous actions. One was to scoop up those loose papers that Harland had dropped; the other, to whip out a formidable automatic as he slid the sheet music inserts beneath the cloak from which he drew the gun.

Then, with a beckon to Larry, The Shadow was driving into the inner studio to take over negotiations with Harland.

Negotiations were off.

The floor showed the reason why Larry had heard no further sounds from the inner studio. Greer Harland was sprawled in the middle of that floor as dead as Larry should have been. His blood-stained shirt marked the bullet that had pierced his heart and the great mystery was the fact that he wasn’t lying anywhere near the three pianos that graced this oversized studio.

At least it was a mystery to Larry, but not to The Shadow. Just because one piano had been converted into a miniature cannon, The Shadow wasn’t willing to grant that all might be. The Shadow preferred to think in terms of straight revolver shots when he could find a possible source, and there were two right in this room.

One was a closet door that stood slightly ajar; the other an open window leading to a fire escape.

The Shadow chose the closet, gesturing for Larry to look from the window. Larry did so, rather gingerly, saw nothing suspicious below, and turned to see how The Shadow was making out.

It was an education, the way The Shadow handled the opening of the closet door. He reversed his automatic in his gloved fist, laid it across the door crack, and gave an expert pry with the handle, that sent the door open. At no moment did The Shadow’s hand come across the space; instead, it withdrew deftly and flipped the gun right over, catching the handle and covering the closet with the business end.

If a murderous gunner had surged from that closet bent on destruction, he would have received his own, from The Shadow. But instead of a surge, the only occupant came out with a hunched, rolling tumble.

When he saw what hit the floor, Larry Gray just couldn’t believe it.

Jane Verril!

The girl was bound, gagged, and tied to one of the studio chairs, which accounted for her hunched posture. Under any other circumstances, Larry would have laughed at her plight as a fitting reversal of the complications she had once arranged for him. But now, following an attempt on his own life, and with Harland’s dead body as an example, Larry was stricken with the sort of panic that he didn’t know was in him.

If they’d killed Jane -

Only they hadn’t.

She was struggling against the bonds, trying to chew away the gagging handkerchief.

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