The Shadow 331 Mark of The Shadow by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1965-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

on the floor. A cheap bottle of blended rye. A bucket of ice stood near her on a table. In her tumbler there was one melting ice cube and a great deal of pure brown whisky.

Frieda often “rested,” and often sat in the darkened living quarters—but not with the windows locked and the doors locked. Frieda was afraid. She sat, drank, stared at the locked door. Each time she drank she wiped her mouth with the back of her pudgy hand, leaving a smear of dirt each time. She drank often.

“Darn you, Max! The big deal! You got to be the big deal!”

She drank, wiped, stared at the door.

“Darn you, Max! What about me? You couldn’t keep quiet?”

She drank, wiped, shivered.

“I don’t even know who!”

She drank and stared at the door. When the glass was empty she picked up the bottle without looking at it, poured another tumblerful of the cheap whisky, dropped in a single ice cube, swirled the liquid, and drank. She opened her mouth to speak again.

The macabre laugh came from somewhere in the shifting light and dark near her kitchen.

Frieda whirled in her seat, as pale as chalk, gasping.

“Who?”

The chilling laugh came from a dark corner near the TV set this time.

Frieda spilled her drink, slopped the whisky over her sleezy dress, sucked greedily at the brown liquid. Her eyes darted like the eyes of a hunted weasel.

“Who is it? I don’t know, you hear? He never told me nothing! You hear me? He’s dead, who cares? He never told me!”

Then she saw the figure, shape, and the blazing eyes under the brim of the wide black hat. She saw the long, scythelike nose that seemed to slash the dim room. The figure did not move. It loomed there, ominous and deadly in the far corner.

“I don’t know nothing,” the woman, Frieda, whimpered.

She stared transfixed at the macabre shape that seemed to hover there in the corner. Her hands shook so badly she had to take hold of her glass in both hands, the whisky slopping over.

“Go away,” Frieda said, whimpering.

The eerie voice laughed again. A long laugh that seemed to echo and fill the room, the silent room shut away in the afternoon heat.

“You are afraid, Frieda Goleta!” a deep, cold voice said.

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