The Shadow 220 The House on the Ledge by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1941-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

Dilk tore the label from the package and applied a match to it. While the evidence was burning, Tim arranged the fraudulent two-dollar notes in little clumps to give to the touts when they came for them in the morning.

“Smart business,” continued Tim in a reminiscent tone, “those guys sending

me fifty grand of this queer on consignment. What had I to lose? Nothing!

After

I shoved it, I paid up by sending them ten percent.”

“Suppose you hadn’t,” suggested Dilk.

“Then I wouldn’t have got another shipment,” returned Tim. “It’s the credit plan, same as big mail-order houses are using. You get goods for a start. When you pay up, your credit is good again for the same amount.”

“But what about the last shipment?” queried Dilk. “This one, for instance.

Suppose you leave them holding the bag?”

“I could,” nodded Tim, “but I won’t. They’ve made theirs on half a dozen shipments, so it wouldn’t hurt them too much. But it might hurt me more.

Suppose I want to pick up the racket where I left off at some other track? I want to be in right, don’t I?”

Dilk agreed, but his wise face looked troubled.

“It’s been high-pressure stuff, Tim,” he said. “Moving so fast, it kind of

knocks the wind out of you. Like giving some odd plug a speedball so he’ll win a

heat. Try that with a hay burner and you’ll have the commish on you. This racket

broke well, but it’s going to be tough when it hits the stretch.”

“You mean the Feds will get wise?”

“They’re bound to,” argued Dilk. “They, or somebody else. I’m getting the jitters, Tim, like any minute some guy was going to pop in and hand us the ha-ha -“

FROM the shape of Dilk’s suddenly frozen lips, Tim thought that the laugh he heard was the ex-jockey’s imitation of the promised ha-ha. Only it wasn’t the sort of laugh that Dilk would give, and it didn’t come from the right direction. Those points came home to Tim as the mockery increased.

Strange, sinister, it seemed to permeate the entire room, creeping in from

the walls, shuddering the atmosphere as it did the listeners. Dilk was staring rigid at something that he saw, and Tim instinctively wheeled about to view the

same intruder.

Tim saw The Shadow!

In from the window, the cloaked invader held both Tim and Dilk covered with a single gun. They were practically on a line, which made the action simple. The Shadow’s other hand was reaching for the telephone amid the bundles

of counterfeit two-dollar bills that were banked on Tim’s table.

“No… no -“

Tim was blundering forward, his hands half raised, his face purple. He wasn’t offering fight; actually, he was pleading. The accusing tone of The Shadow’s laugh made Tim falter and drop his hands to the table edge, which quivered under his shaky grasp. The Shadow’s hand lifted from the telephone.

He didn’t want to expose Tim Felbright’s end of the new counterfeiting racket - not yet.

The right system was to hold Tim helpless, and Dilk with him, while The Shadow followed up the Westford clue.

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