YOUNG MEN OF DEATH
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," April, 1943.
Death by accident - that was the verdict of everyone. And yet The Shadow
knew there was a definite answer to the riddle of the missing men!
CHAPTER I
DANGER IN CHICAGO
A COLD night wind from the lake had set Chicago to shivering. On
fashionable Michigan Boulevard people turned up overcoat collars and walked
briskly.
A bad night for slum dwellers. A worse night for bums who didn't have the
price for even a cheap flop-house.
Some of the shivering bums were trying to keep warm under a bridge
approach. It was a dead-end street where nobody but bums would congregate. The
bridge approach took up most of the street. The sidewalks below the steel slant
of the structure were lined with decayed tenements and cheap gin joints.
In the blackness under the bridge, small fires burned in a half a dozen
trash cans. Bums crowded about them, toasting their hands. Occasionally a cop
drifted past. But no cop stopped or asked questions.
This was not a healthy section for cops. Thugs found this a good
neighborhood in which to drop conveniently out of sight. Unless a known
criminal was wanted for a known crime, cops didn't go out of their way to stir
up trouble.
The Shadow preferred to remain invisible, too. But for a different reason.
The Shadow was watching a certain grogshop. He expected a Chicago
underworld character named Snuffy to enter that joint.
Invisible against the cold blackness of the bridge support, The Shadow
waited. His black cloak muffled his face below his mouth. The brim of his
slouch hat hid the gleam of watchful eyes.
The thought of Snuffy seemed to amuse The Shadow. Sibilant laughter came
in a whisper from his hidden lips.
Snuffy was far from a big shot of crime. He was a jackal of the
underworld, not a tiger. He ran errands, did favors for more dangerous crooks
who found Snuffy's talents helpful. In Chicago police headquarters, Snuffy was
listed as a pickpocket. He had another talent that the police didn't consider
important. Snuffy was supposed to be "hot luck."
Criminals, especially big ones, are superstitious. Things went well for
bigger crooks to whom Snuffy attached himself. The Shadow had learned this in a
patient investigation of a score of criminal hang-outs.
The Shadow had been in Chicago several days. A master of disguise, he had
penetrated crook dens without arousing suspicion. In Chicago, unknown derelicts
were always dropping off freights. The Shadow seemed a harmless bum.
The accidental death of a young man had brought The Shadow to Chicago. The
young man had fallen from a tower window of a Chicago skyscraper. His name was
George Eldridge. He was a metallurgist employed by a large company. He had gone
to a tower washroom, had lost his balance at an open window, had fallen to a
horrible death far below.
The police report showed that George Eldridge suffered from dizzy spells.
There was no reason to suspect anything more sinister than an accident. The
facts were in a newspaper clipping under The Shadow's robe.
But the clipping concerning George Eldridge wasn't the only one in The
Shadow's possession. There were two more. One was from an Atlanta newspaper.
The other was from a paper in Boston.
Two other young men had met death in accidental plunges from high places.
They had also been metallurgists, though not in the same company which had
employed young Eldridge. All three had been recent college graduates; all three
had been recommended as brilliant technicians.
From his sanctum in New York, The Shadow had sent agents nosing along what
was by now a cold trail. The reports from his agents did not seem to justify The
Shadow's suspicion. The three similar deaths in three different cities disclosed
no apparent motive for murder.
Neither George Eldridge nor the other two victims had been engaged in any
secret research. All three had been doing routine laboratory work in metallurgy
of no especial importance.
Now, in the cold darkness of a Chicago slum, The Shadow's laughter
indicated that a link existed between the death of George Eldridge and a minor
pickpocket named Snuffy!
THE day after George Eldridge's death, Snuffy had begun spending money -
lots of it. He paid off gambling debts. He spent freely in the company of a
dance-hall girl named Irma. Snuffy had given this Irma an expensive gold watch
he was wearing. The Shadow had been curious about that watch. It was a man's
watch. Irma never wore it.
The Shadow searched Irma's apartment in her absence. He was unable to find
the watch. But he found a pawn ticket. He went to the pawnshop and redeemed the
watch. Inside the back, a small photo of Snuffy had been pasted. The Shadow
removed the photo. Engraved words were disclosed: "To George Eldridge, for
proficiency in the Chemistry of Metals - Barham Institute of Technology."
At his hidden post below the bridge structure, The Shadow stiffened
suddenly. He saw a beady-eyed little man slip quietly into the gin joint. It
was Snuffy!
The Shadow made no move to follow his quarry. Another figure was due
before The Shadow would be ready to put certain plans into execution.
The Shadow was waiting for Cliff Marsland.
Cliff was supposedly on the lam from the New York cops. He had managed to
scrape up a friendship with Snuffy. Snuffy didn't know that Marsland had long
since paid his debt to society and had gone straight. It suited both Marsland
and The Shadow to keep up the illusion that Cliff was still an active criminal.
Marsland was an agent of The Shadow.
A few minutes after Snuffy had faded, Marsland drifted into view. He moved
into the darkness under the bridge approach. The shivering bums around the
trash-can fires paid no attention to him.
Presently, in the blackness, he heard a softly uttered word:
"Report!"
The Shadow seemed to be part of the steel girder against which he stood.
Marsland's report pleased him. Cliff had arranged to meet Snuffy tonight in the
gin joint.
Cliff listened to sibilant instructions. A wallet passed from The Shadow
to his agent. The wallet was bulky with currency. Most of the bills were of
large denomination.
In addition to the money, there were three newspaper clippings. They
described the "accidental" death of George Eldridge and the other two young
metallurgists who had perished in Atlanta and Boston.
The Shadow vanished. Marsland remained where he was.
Presently, a grimy old bum lurched into view from the darkness under the
bridge. He walked with shambling slowness to the joint where Snuffy had faded.
As soon as the bum lurched inside Marsland glanced at the radium dial of his
watch.
Ten minutes later he followed the trail of the bum.
Marsland had to brush past the disguised Shadow to reach Snuffy's table. A
glass of gin and water was clutched in The Shadow's grimy hand. He seemed to be
in a semi-drunken stupor.
Snuffy's ratlike eyes scanned Marsland keenly. He wasn't sure why Cliff
had arranged this date. Cliff had been deliberately mysterious in his hints of
"something in the wind" that might mean big dough.
"What's up, chief?" Snuffy whispered. He had a whining habit of calling
bigger crooks "chief."
"Buy me a drink," Cliff growled.
Snuffy nodded and bought drinks. His tight eyes got tighter. Marsland's
previous hints of something promising didn't sound so important tonight. If
Marsland was broke, there didn't seem much chance for the cunning Snuffy to
wangle a kickback for himself. He scowled, let Marsland do the talking.
CLIFF seemed in no hurry to come to the point. Artfully he beat about the
bush. He hinted vaguely that there was something going on in Chicago that
looked to him like a juicy set-up.
"The trouble is," he muttered sourly, "I'm busted! Haven't got a dime! It
took all my dough to get out of New York with a clean nose."
"So?"
"I got a proposition. If it works, there'll be dough enough for you and me
to buy ourselves yachts."
Snuffy's tight eyes sparkled.
"What's the angle, Cliff?"
But Marsland shook his head. He was still spreading bait.
"I need one more guy to make my stunt work. Somebody really big. A guy
with plenty of guts."
Snuffy rubbed his long nose.
"Where do I come in?"
"You know everybody in Chi. I figured you could give me a knockdown to
some smart mobster. Some guy who wouldn't be afraid to tackle a risky job."
Snuffy shook his head.
"No soap. I'm only a two-spot in this town. I don't know no big shots."
"O.K. Skip it!" Marsland growled.
He started to get up from the table, but Snuffy halted him with a
placating grin. He bought Cliff another drink.
"It's cold outside. Stick around. Why do you need a tough guy? Sounds like
a highjack? Am I right?"
"I'll give you a hint," Marsland grinned. "Ever hear of a guy named George
Eldridge?"
He busied himself with his drink. He pretended not to notice the swift
grimace of surprise that twisted Snuffy's lips.
"Never heard of Eldridge," Snuffy muttered. "Who is he?"
"He fell out of a tower window in one of the big Loop skyscrapers. You
know, got dizzy." Cliff's chuckle sounded nasty. "Too bad for the guy, huh?"
"How do we make money out of some dope who has an accident?"
"Maybe it wasn't an accident!"
"Whaddye mean?"
"Suppose somebody pushed that guy Eldridge. Nice for him, huh? The cops
closed up the case as an accident. If it was a bump, the guy that shoved
Eldridge is sitting pretty."
Marsland grinned.
"But suppose a guy named Cliff Marsland smelled something funny? Suppose I
could team up with a really tough mobster who knows Chicago? I think I could
pull off a sweet blackmail job on somebody. But skip it, pal! I'm busted. And
you don't know anybody!"
"Have another drink," Snuffy said in a choked voice.
Marsland reached for the bottle. He seemed oblivious to the presence of
the sprawled bum at the adjoining table. The bum had risen dizzily to his feet.
He headed for the door. As he passed Marsland's table he lurched, almost
upsetting the drink that Cliff had just poured.
Marsland uttered a grunt of anger. He grappled with the hum, shook him
fiercely. The exertion spun Cliff around with his back to Snuffy. The leather
edge of a wallet stuck partly out of Marsland's hip pocket.
Snuffy took the bait. A clever pickpocket, he snaked the wallet loose,
with one deft motion. By the time the bum had been thrown out, and Marsland was
back at the table, the wily Snuffy was eager to make an excuse for a brief
fade-out. He said he had to go to the men's room.
Aware that The Shadow's scheme had worked, Marsland nodded and turned to
his drink.
THE room where Snuffy had faded wasn't the men's room. It was a tiny
cubbyhole with nothing in it but a droplight and a phone. With eager fingers,
Snuffy opened the wallet he had snatched. A quick inspection of its contents
made his thin, jackal face turn pale.
Marsland had said he was broke - and there was more than a thousand
dollars in his wallet!
But it was the three newspaper clippings that made Snuffy tremble. He
dialed a number with careful speed. His whisper spat a warning over the wire.
"Listen, chief! There's hell to pay! A crook from New York named Marsland
- you know the guy I was telling you about? - well, he's wise to the Eldridge
job!"
"What!" The voice from the other end was like a whiplash.
"I'm tellin' you! I just snatched his wallet. He told me he was broke -
and he's carryin' more than a grand in cash. He's got a clipping about the
Eldridge accident. And that ain't all! He's got clippings about the guy in
Atlanta and the guy in Boston!"
There was a soft oath in the receiver.
"Marsland, eh? So that's why he came to Chi!"
"He's trying to muscle in on a highjack. He's been sounding me out to see
if I know any big-shot crook to help him turn those newspaper clippings into a
juicy bunch of blackmail."
Laughter rustled coldly over the wire.
"O.K. We'll fix Marsland up! Go back and tell him you just thought of
someone who'd be a smart bet to team up with. Tell him you phoned and are
trying to locate a guy. I'll need about a half-hour to get things set. And get
that wallet back in Marsland's pocket before he begins feeling for it!"
"Yeah, yeah," Snuffy gasped.
He hung up hastily and went back to the table where Cliff Marsland was
still innocently gulping liquor.
Snuffy grinned. Leaning over Cliff he whispered, "Good news, chief!" He
whacked Cliff with friendly force on his shoulder.
It gave Snuffy a lightning chance to return the stolen wallet. Marsland,
aware of what was going on, was forced to admire the deft skill of Snuffy.
"What do you mean - good news?" he grunted.
"I just thought of a guy. He'd be tops in a highjack proposition. I tried
to get him at his hang-out, but he wasn't around. I left a message for him to
call me back. Are you in a hurry?"
"No."
"Swell! We'll stick around. I oughta hear from my guy in about a
half-hour."
"Who is he? Do I know him?"
Snuffy shook his head. "This ain't no place for mentionin' names. Take it
easy, chief!"
A half-hour later the barkeep called across the room.
"Hey, Snuffy! Phone call! In the back room."
Snuffy faded. He was careful to talk only in monosyllables.
"Who? Yeah... O.K. Sure thing. You bet."
The whiplash voice at the other end of the wire wasn't so brief. There was
murderous intensity in it.
"I've got everything set. We'll cook his goose - and we'll cook him, too!
But not until I find out how he got so damned wise. You know the house over by
the freight yard?"
"Yeah."
"Take him there! And don't grab any old taxi. Ask Carl to give you the one
in the garage. I don't want to have to be bothered bumping a hack driver later
on."
"Sure," Snuffy said, and hung up. He had left the door of the back room
open, to help Marsland keep on thinking that things were good. His grin when he
returned to the table emphasized their good luck.
"All set. My pal says he'll lay a grand on the line if you show him a good
proposition."
"Fair enough. Where is he?"
"He's waiting for us at the other side of town. Let's go."
Snuffy paid the liquor bill. He led the way up the dead-end street to the
corner. Turning the corner, he went another block or two down the avenue.
There was a taxi at the curb and Marsland started to hail the sleepy
driver. But Snuffy said no to that.
"I know a pal who'll drive us across town for nothing."
He entered a grimy garage that didn't seem to be doing much business.
There was a taxi parked at the rear. A man named Carl slid obligingly behind
the wheel when Snuffy said he had a little trip to make.
The man named Carl looked more like a thug than a mechanic. The taxi
looked queer to Marsland, too. Its license number was almost illegible with
grease and dirt. The photo in the identification rack had been badly torn.
But Marsland, obeying The Shadow's orders, made no complaint.
The ride was a long one. It took them to the outskirts of Chicago. It
stopped on a deserted street lined with shabby dwellings. Most of them were
empty.
Behind the houses, Marsland could hear the choof-choof of switch engines
and the banging of freight couplings.
Marsland and Snuffy entered one of the dilapidated dwellings.
CHAPTER II
DEATH JET
UNSEEN in the windy darkness, The Shadow watched Marsland and Snuffy fade
into the house.
The Shadow had trailed the pair in the taxicab which Snuffy had been too
cagey to hire. In that cab he bore no resemblance to the black-robed figure
under the bridge approach, or to the shambling bum who had tussled briefly with
Marsland in the gin joint.
The Shadow studied the row of houses on this dark, unfrequented street.
Melting into a narrow alley, he transferred his attention to the rear.
He saw at once that a rear entry was impossible. The backs of the row of
houses were flush with a stone retaining wall. Below the wall was a sunken
freight yard many acres in extent. The Shadow could see the crimson and green
glow of signal lights. Switch engines shuttled back and forth, making a hideous
clamor.
The rear walls of those houses that backed on the railroad cut were blank
brick. No windows showed.
The Shadow was eager to reach the roof level, but those vertical brick
walls offered no chance for a foothold.
The Shadow returned through the alley to the street. He had donned his
black robe. Except for the gleam of deep-set eyes below the brim of his slouch
hat, his face was as invisible as the rest of his figure against the dark
background of the front entry he selected.
It was not the house into which Marsland had been led by Snuffy.
Skeleton keys moved deftly in and out of the rusted lock of a vestibule
door. The door opened and closed without sound. The Shadow raced silently up a
couple of flights of dusty stairs.
A moment later he was on the roof.
Hunched low to avoid silhouetting himself against the sky, The Shadow
hurried across to the roof of the house that Cliff Marsland had entered.
Noiseless leaps carried him across the narrow valleys that separated the houses.
He leaned from the roof coping, studied the set of a corner window that
faced the street. A rope appeared from beneath the robe of The Shadow. It was
light, pliable and strong.
It would have been simple for The Shadow to have slid from the roof coping
to the sill of the top-floor window. But there were lights in some of the houses
across the street. The Shadow chose a more secluded route by way of the alley
wall.
He slid several feet down the rope. Dangling invisibly against the
blackness of the alley wall, he hooked one toe around the brick corner of the
building. His foot braced itself on the sill of the front window.
A black-garbed arm snaked into view. Fingers that were expert at jobs like
his explored the window catch. A small-edged tool of tempered steel took care of
the rusted catch. The window lifted gently.
Through the dark opening of the window moved a swift patch of blackness.
The Shadow was inside!
He still retained his end of the dangling rope. Within the room, crouched
below the sill of the window, he made certain quick motions with the rope. The
tricky knot at the coping of the roof came apart. The Shadow drew in his
dangling rope.
Tiptoeing through the dark room on the top floor, he opened a closed door.
Below him lay a seemingly empty house. There was no sign of a light, no hint of
a sound.
The Shadow advanced toward the black staircase.
MEANTIME, Snuffy hadn't wasted any time. He and Marsland climbed the
stairs to the second floor behind the gleam of Snuffy's tiny electric torch.
Marsland's spine was cold with the knowledge that he was deliberately
risking his life. But the risk was necessary. This was the only practical
method of uncovering the identity of the boss for whom Snuffy worked.
Marsland hid his wariness under a careless growl.
"What kind of a joint is this? Dust and dirt! Are you sure this guy of
yours has dough?"
Snuffy giggled.
"Don't worry. My guy's got everything! In here, chief!"
He opened a dark door. Again Marsland saw only a dusty and empty room. But
within this room was an inner door, also closed.
Snuffy opened the inner door. Instantly bright light streamed into
Marsland's eyes.
The light came from a small room with no windows. It looked like a
storeroom. Blinking, Marsland saw the taut face of a man.
It was a face that he recognized.
"Hello, Cliff," the man said.
Snuffy had remained a pace in the rear. His voice sounded strained.
"Hey! Do you guys know each other?"
Marsland had conquered his surprise. He put fake pleasure into his hoarse
voice.
"Mike Vallon! I didn't know you were in Chi."
"I didn't know you were, either," Vallon said.
Mike Vallon had eyes like dull-blue chips of ice. Behind those unblinking
eyes was a cold, shrewd brain. Marsland had met him once or twice in New York,
but had never found out much about him. Vallon lived well, dressed well, always
had ample funds. He had never faced a police line-up. Mike was the sort of crook
who knew aldermen and judges. In hot weather he played golf in some cool
mountain resort. In the winter he was apt to be seen on the beach at Florida.
There was a gun in his hand. Its muzzle pointed at Marsland. Mike Vallon
had stopped smiling.
"I hear you got a proposition for a highjack."
Marsland didn't say anything.
"What made you think you could put the bee on me, you stupid louse?"
Vallon continued in a soft, ugly whisper.
"You?" Marsland pretended amazement. "I didn't even know you were in
Chicago. I just figured that Snuffy might put me in touch with somebody who
could -"
"You liar! Do you think I'm a sap? Snuffy was dumb enough to fall for a
dance-hall girl named Irma. He gave her a certain gold watch. Irma was greedy
enough to pawn the watch."
"I don't get you," Marsland muttered.
"No? Who swiped that pawn ticket from Irma's apartment? Who got the watch
out of hock? Why did you lie to Snuffy about being broke? Where did you get
those newspaper clippings?"
"Clippings?" Marsland said.
He tried to let his hand drop slightly toward his hip.
"Freeze, sucker!" Mike Vallon snarled.
There was death in his eyes.
"Get his rod, Snuffy!"
Snuffy obeyed. He was like an eager little ferret behind Marsland's frozen
back.
"Put your hands behind you," Vallon ordered. "Slow! One at a time. Up in
the small of your back. Up high - between your shoulder blades!"
He didn't give Snuffy any orders. They weren't necessary. In a moment
Marsland's joined hands were tied viciously tight by the wily little pickpocket
behind him.
"You know too much," Vallon told Marsland with a horrible little grin that
barely pulled his lips away from his teeth. "I think we'll take you for a little
freight ride. It'll be nicer if cops don't find your body here in Chicago. We'll
let some hick cop out in the sticks have you. Or maybe we'll let the swamp
snakes and mosquitoes find you first, and do a little work on your corpse!"
Laughter trickled through Vallon's teeth.
"You showed up at a nice convenient time, pal. I'm through with Chicago. I
got a little job to take care of somewhere else. So tonight I'm heading West! On
a fast freight."
Snuffy's chuckle echoed Vallon's.
"Where are we gonna toss him off, chief?"
"Nowhere!"
It was a crisp word that sounded with grim suddenness. It was followed by
weird, menacing laughter.
SNUFFY had left the storeroom door open. Across the lighted door lay a
black, projecting shadow. The projected shadow of a cloaked and invisible
figure - a figure with twin .45's!
The shadow of The Shadow jerked swiftly forward. Gunfire hammered. But
neither of the opposing bullets found a mark.
The gun of Mike Vallon missed the black-robed figure plunging toward the
open doorway. The Shadow's heavier-calibered slug did not find a target in the
swift-moving body of the killer. The Shadow had meant to wing Vallon, not to
kill him.
His maneuver failed as Vallon darted behind Cliff Marsland.
At the same instant, Snuffy dropped to the floor. He stiffened like a man
mortally wounded. But it was a cunning stratagem. Protected for a precious
instant by the flaming stabs of gunfire that Mike Vallon spat over the helpless
shoulder of Marsland, Snuffy kicked fiercely at the partly opened door.
The door slammed!
A bolt clicked on the inside as the advancing body of The Shadow struck
the barrier. Heedless of danger, The Shadow began a fierce assault on the lock.
But no bullets ripped through the panel to cut him down. A sinister
silence prevailed in the windowless room on the other side of the locked
barrier.
It was impossible to smash the door down. It was made of heavy oak. The
.45s of The Shadow crashed again. Roaring streaks of scarlet ripped at the lock
mechanism.
The wood around the lock split and splintered. The lock itself turned into
a battered and shapeless hulk of metal. The butt of a .45 beat like a ram
against that twisted lock. It was battered out of its anchorage in the wood.
The door burst violently open. A leap carried The Shadow across the
threshold. Twisting as his feet touched the floor, he flung himself lithely
aside.
Light still blazed in the inner room. But there was no sign of Snuffy and
Mike Vallon. Nor of Cliff Marsland.
The room was completely empty!
The gleaming eyes of The Shadow scanned the empty floor. There was a
sprinkle of scarlet drops on the dusty spot where the helpless Marsland had
stood. He had been slugged on the head. Dragged somewhere through a secret exit.
But where?
The blood trail didn't lead to any of the four walls. The Shadow was faced
with the swift and urgent task of locating the secret exit.
Marsland's life hung now by a slender thread. The Shadow knew that. He
also knew that Marsland had imperiled his life because of his obedience to The
Shadow's orders. Mike Vallon's complicity in the "accident" to George Eldridge
was now proved.
The Shadow's swift energy indicated that he did not intend to let Marsland
pay for that success with his life.
He devoted only a split-second scrutiny to the floor of the room. Eyes
trained in the ways of crime told him that there was no trapdoor opening
through that dusty expanse of floor. Somewhere in one of the walls was the
route through which Marsland had been jerked from sight.
The butts of The Shadow's .45s tapped the walls in a swift drumbeat. One
of them gave back a hollow echo - the clanging echo of hidden metal!
The Shadow's eyes peered. His scrutiny detected a slight blur in the dusty
expanse of the wall. The mark of a hurried finger!
The deft fingers of The Shadow explored the same spot. Presently, he felt
a slight depression in the wall's surface. He pressed.
A square opening appeared.
IT was a vertical pit inside the wall. Peering downward, The Shadow could
see nothing but blackness. He sent a ray of light into the pit from a tiny
electric torch. The light did not add to his knowledge.
It showed nothing but emptiness and the metal rungs of a wall ladder that
led to the bottom.
Swiftly The Shadow descended through the wall.
At the bottom he found another opening. This time the passage was
horizontal. It led toward the rear of the house.
The Shadow divined at once where this horizontal passage led. He knew that
it was very deep. He had estimated the depth while he was racing down the steel
rungs of the vertical pit. He was now considerably below the street level of
the house.
There was only one answer to the problem of where this deep, horizontal
passage led. To the stone retaining wall of the freight yard! To the tangled
area of tracks and switches where a fast freight was almost ready to leave for
the West!
The Shadow crawled along the passage. He could see the exit opening now.
He could see the twinkle of red and green lights in the darkness outside.
He tensed his muscles to move into the open. But before be could quit his
earth tunnel, another sound made him stiffen. It was a sound that was barely
audible. A slight click. It didn't come from the darkness of the open freight
yard. It came from the horizontal tunnel behind The Shadow!
Twisting about in his confined position, The Shadow crawled backward. He
didn't crawl as far as the vertical pit through which he had descended. That
was no longer possible.
A barrier blocked off any possible return to the house. It was steel! It
had dropped like a solid guillotine blade from a slitted recess in the roof of
the horizontal passage.
The Shadow was cornered! He had now only one possible way to advance -
through the opening in the stone retaining wall that led to the freight yard.
The Shadow peered cautiously from the exit hole. A single glance proved
that his guess about the depth of the passage was correct. His face was barely
two feet above the dark gleam of a railroad track. It was the track closest to
the masonry wall of the freight yard.
A moment later The Shadow saw the switch engine. It was on the track
closest to the wall. It was heading swiftly toward the spot where The Shadow's
head projected.
His impulse was to jerk his head back and remain inside the wall passage
until the locomotive roared past the opening.
But The Shadow noticed something else.
There was no headlight gleam along the track from the advancing switch
engine. Its lights had been doused to avoid drawing the attention of other
railroad men at other points in the freight yard.
The engineer at the throttle was not piloting this locomotive willingly!
The Shadow could see the frightened blur of his pale face. A thug with a
gun was giving the engineer orders. The reflection of the locomotive's banked
fire gleamed for an instant on the barrel of a gun.
The brakes of the locomotive were beginning to grind and squeal. A moment
later it came to a halt directly opposite the tunnel exit in the stone wall.
The thug with the gun snarled an order to the captive engineer. There was
a roaring cloud of steam. It shot sideways, under pressure, from the exhaust of
the steam box.
Live steam, as potent as the steam in a pressure cooker, filled every inch
of the blocked-up passage from Vallon's house!
For five full minutes that horrible jet roared!
CHAPTER III
FAST FREIGHT
THE SHADOW, hidden by darkness, uttered a grim whisper of mirth.
The Shadow was no longer in the death trap!
An instant before the switch engine had ground to a halt opposite the open
tunnel end in the retaining wall, The Shadow had dropped headfirst to the tracks.
A swift wriggle had rolled him like a patch of blackness to the narrow
space between the track and the wall. Belly flat against the ground, he crawled
swiftly away from peril. The jet of live steam roared harmlessly above his
flattened figure as he crawled onward.
Unseen, he climbed to the rear of the switch engine's coal tender.
He began to belly forward across the lumps of coal toward the figures of
the engineer and the thug with the gun.
Soon he could see the face of the thug more clearly. The Shadow recognized
him as a local Chicago criminal. His name was Pocky Bender. His nickname came
from the ugly, pitted skin of his lantern jaws. He was a lone-wolf crook, on
sale to the highest bidder. It was evident that Mike Vallon had met Pocky
Bender's price.
Invisible against the coal in the tender, The Shadow waited. His motive in
creeping closer to the gunman was not to capture Bender, but to protect the life
of the captured engineer.
The Shadow's primary purpose was still to locate Vallon and Snuffy.
Somewhere in the black wilderness of this freight yard, the two kidnapers held
Cliff Marsland a prisoner. The Shadow knew that they were ready to head
westward on a fast freight. He had heard Vallon chuckle boastfully about "a new
job."
But there were many freights in the yards. The Shadow was depending on
Pocky Bender to lead him to the right one before the lanterns of brakemen waved
and the freight got under way.
For five full minutes The Shadow lay motionless, his .45s aimed at Pocky's
back, in case the thug tried to murder the engineer of the switch locomotive.
Then the death roar of the steam ceased.
"Back up, stupid!" Bender snarled.
The frightened engineer complied. The darkened locomotive backed twenty
feet along the track. Bender's gun lifted. The black-gloved fingers of The
Shadow tightened against his twin triggers. But almost in the same instant his
pressure relaxed.
Pocky Bender had no intention of killing the engineer. He merely wanted to
knock him unconscious. He had reversed his grip on the gun. The butt of it
struck the engineer on the back of the head, stunning him.
The Shadow remained motionless. He waited for Bender to leap to the track
and race across the yards to rejoin Vallon and Snuffy.
But Bender did no such thing. The moment he leaped to the track, he ran
swiftly toward the tunnel in which he expected to see the steam-cooked corpse
of The Shadow.
An oath of rage snarled from his thin lips as he peered through the
opening in the stone wall. Instead of a sodden corpse robed in black, Pocky
found only black emptiness.
He ran back to the motionless switch engine, climbed up to the cab. His
hand reached for the whistle lanyard. The whistle shrieked four times - a short
blast, two longs, another short.
Pocky was sending a signal to hidden pals. A signal of failure. Vallon and
Snuffy knew now that their double trap had lost one of its victims. The Shadow
was still at large!
AN instant later Pocky Bender was again in flight. This time, The Shadow
changed from a passive watcher to an active trailer.
Pocky seemed to know the tangled wilderness of track and switches like a
book. Ducking the gleam of signal and switch lights, he headed deeper across
the tracks.
Like a black phantom, The Shadow kept on the heels of the gunman.
But in a few minutes The Shadow realized that his plan to use Bender as a
decoy was not going to work. The gunman was not heading toward any of the
motionless freight trains lined up on dark tracks. His goal was the black,
overhead shape of an enormous steel viaduct.
It was a viaduct that carried Chicago automobile traffic across the sunken
area of the freight yards.
Avoiding the swift rush of an electric suburban train, Pocky Bender headed
for one of the steel anchorage supports of the viaduct.
He began to climb upward like a monkey.
His intent was clear to The Shadow. Bender's job was done. He had been
hired to get rid of The Shadow. The fact that his ugly little job of
steam-cooking had resulted in failure didn't worry Pocky. He had been paid in
advance.
The whereabouts of The Shadow was a more immediate worry to Bender. He was
eager to make a pullout from danger and save his own skin. The Shadow on the
loose was a different proposition from The Shadow penned up helplessly in a
death trap.
That was why Bender climbed his steel girder toward the viaduct level with
such desperate urgency. Once on the viaduct sidewalk, he could hail a taxi and
scoot swiftly back to the Chicago underworld. Let Vallon and Snuffy worry about
The Shadow! Pocky Bender was heading for a safe rat hole where he could lie low
for a while.
The Shadow had no intention of allowing Pocky to head back to town. Pocky
was his only link to the whereabouts of his kidnapped agent.
The Shadow melted swiftly under the viaduct. Unseen, he began to climb a
steel girder alongside the one that Pocky was so desperately climbing.
Midway up the vertical girders was a steel crossbeam. The Shadow reached
it first. Still invisible to his quarry, he made a silent swing and gained to
horizontal beam. He slid like a swift, black blot toward the spot where Pocky
was approaching.
An instant later Pocky's ugly face lifted. His hands caught at the
horizontal beam to swing himself upward.
"Surrender - or die!"
The words seemed to Pocky to rasp out of thin air. He could see nothing.
Then he screamed.
A face had appeared on the black, overhead beam. A face with eyes that
burned like flame!
"The Shadow!"
The gasp of Pocky Bender was muffled by a burst of sibilant laughter from
The Shadow. Twin .45s motioned sternly for Pocky to continue his ascent.
But The Shadow didn't reckon on the terror that his appearance produced in
the hearts of otherwise tough crooks.
Pocky Bender quailed. Terror gave him the courage that springs from
absolute desperation. His hand that gripped the edge of the steel beam
tightened. The other snatched at his hip, yanked out a gun.
Flame spat from the weapon. A slug cut viciously close to the peering face
of The Shadow.
The echo of Bender's shot was drowned out by the roar of an electric train
that sped below. The speed of the passenger train sent a gale of wind shrieking
under the viaduct.
Hanging by one hand, trying to aim another shot at the beak-nosed face
above him, Pocky Bender lost his grip. The hand on the beam edge slipped.
Aware of the gunman's peril, The Shadow bellied forward, flung down a
supporting hand. But it was too late! The hand of The Shadow clutched only at
empty air.
Below Pocky's plunging body lay a cradled network of wires. They were
high-tension wires carrying the juice that fed those swift, electric passenger
trains.
Pocky's body struck and bounced. His shoulders touched the wire. His
desperately kicking feet touched the metal support pole within the glass
insulators.
There was a hideous sputter of purplish light. For an instant the body of
the electrocuted gangster seemed to be incandescent with bluish brilliance.
Then he crashed in a lifeless lump to the cinder bed alongside the railroad
track below!
THE SHADOW remained motionless for an instant of horror. Then he descended
rapidly to the ground below the viaduct.
The overhang of the steel viaduct had hidden the brief brilliance of the
shorted electric current. People in the cars moving across the viaduct were
unaware of the tragic drama that had just taken place below the level of their
eyes.
The Shadow searched the burned body of the gunman. He found nothing to
interest him. The whistle of a freight train on the other side of the yards
reminded The Shadow that every second was precious.
His burning eyes surveyed the hopeless wilderness of darkness. He could
see the green flick of switch lights, the brighter glow of yellow arc lights.
It was hopeless to try to search every freight in this windy darkness.
The Shadow looked for something that offered a swifter chance for finding
out what he wanted. Suddenly, his turning gaze halted. The brightly lit window
of a signal tower!
The Shadow raced across the tracks toward a stilted structure where a
lonely towerman sat with a bewildering array of polished lever handles. This
was the man whose hand controlled the change of signal lights from red to
green. This was the man who would know which of the freights in this vast
acreage of tracks was due to leave almost instantly for a destination west of
Chicago!
A steel ladder led aloft to the door of the signal tower. The dispatcher
saw nothing, heard nothing until the crisp voice of The Shadow reached his ear.
"Steady!"
The man whirled - then stiffened with upraised hands. His face grew pale
as he saw the hawk-beaked nose, the flame-like eyes of the intruder with the
level .45s.
He was a brave man, this tower-man. Instinctively, his hand swung toward
his telephone to send a warning over the wire concerning what he conceived to
be a holdup.
"No!"
The monosyllable halted the frightened hand that had edged toward the
phone. The Shadow's voice asked a swift question. It was a question concerning
the destination of the freights about to leave the yards in the next few
minutes.
"How many?" The Shadow rasped.
"Two."
"Where bound?"
"One to New Orleans. One to St. Louis."
"St. Louis freight. Which track?" The Shadow prodded.
The man didn't want to tell. Loyal to his job, he closed his lips.
The Shadow didn't force him to speak. The sidelong glance of the towerman
had told The Shadow where to find the information he sought. One of his .45s
disappeared. His free hand darted toward the tower wall where the signalman had
glanced.
There was a hook there with a series of yellow dispatch sheets impaled on
it. The Shadow tore the sheets loose. For a swift instant, his gaze scanned the
contents of those sheets.
The facts he sought leaped at him from one of the papers: Train 8247,
Destination: St. Louis. Contents: freight.
Another fact brought a sibilant laugh from the taut lips of The Shadow. It
was a through freight with only one stop en route. The stop was at a place
called Truxton.
"Truxton?" The Shadow said to the captive towerman. "Why stop at Truxton?
Explain!"
Words came unwillingly from the man's pale lips. Truxton was a small town
midway between Chicago and St. Louis. It had no value to the railroad except as
a junction point for rail traffic north and south. The fast freight for St.
Louis stopped there merely for the necessary servicing on so long a trip.
"Track number?" The Shadow asked.
"Thirty-eight."
"When?"
"Four minutes," the towerman faltered. His face was gray and strained
under the menace of The Shadow's guns.
"Set signal properly in four minutes!"
THE minutes seemed to crawl like an eternity. Sweat glistened on the
forehead of the towerman. His hunted eyes kept veering toward the telephone.
Two minutes... three -
"Set signal! Green!" The Shadow whispered above the barrels of his guns.
The towerman obeyed. Through the darkness of the yards, on Track 38, a red
disk of light blinked abruptly to green. Signal lanterns began to make circling
clots of yellow in the gloom.
The long freight shuddered. Its whistle blew a steady hoot for departure.
The Shadow laughed.
A swift leap took him past the frozen figure of the towerman. His hand
reached for the telephone instrument on the wall. A terrific jerk ripped the
phone loose from its connection. He tossed the phone to the floor, its useless
wire dangling.
Then he backed swiftly to the door of the tower.
At the same instant the train dispatcher dived for the drawer of a
high-legged table beyond the rows of polished lever handles. He grabbed for a
hidden gun.
The Shadow had already melted out the doorway to the topmost rung of the
steel ladder that led to the ground. He raced down the ladder to a point midway
between the tower room and the dark earth below.
Then he sprang swiftly aside from the ladder!
He was just in time to escape a fusillade of bullets that roared from the
doorway of the tower room above his head.
The towerman realized, too late, that he was emptying his gun at the rungs
of an empty ladder. He ducked back into the room above. Then the glow of an
electric torch began to throw a swiftly moving oval of light on the ground
below.
The light disclosed nothing. The black-clad figure of The Shadow was
already thirty feet away. Hidden by the darkness, he was making a desperate
sprint in the direction of Track 38.
His breath sobbed in his throat with the effort he was making. He leaped
over tracks, spun around the end of a long string of empties. Then he was
conscious of a gale of cold wind, and the black, formless blur of swiftly
moving box cars.
They were going fast, but The Shadow dared not hesitate. Every instant
that passed, the train was picking up additional speed. Only three cars were
left now. Only two...
The Shadow leaped upward.
His outstretched hand caught at the pale glimmer of a steel rung. The
force of his jump and the speed of the train banged him against the box car
with terrific impact.
He felt agony in his shoulder socket, a wrench like flame in his wrist.
But he held on!
Both hands had a grip now. The Shadow began to climb. He wriggled over the
edge of the car's slanting roof, crept to the catwalk.
Already the freight yard had been left behind. A snaky network of dangling
ropes hit The Shadow in the face. He ducked. The next moment he was roaring
through the blackness of a tunnel, half-choked with clouds of soft-coal smoke
from the locomotive far ahead.
The roar of the tunnel ceased. He straightened.
He began the slow, irksome task of creeping ahead in the icy wind, trying
to locate the car in which Mike Vallon and Snuffy were hidden with the
kidnapped Marsland.
It was a dangerous task as well as a slow one. By hanging from the roof of
each car and using a flashlight, The Shadow was able to examine the seals on the
side doors below.
He was looking for evidence of tampering.
The wind, roaring along the exposed freight roofs, was like a polar blast.
The fingers of The Shadow began to get numb. But he stuck grimly to his
difficult task. Four cars... eight... a dozen -
No sign yet of an open side door. Or a closed one whose seal showed
evidence of having been broken.
The tiny glow of The Shadow's electric torch winked monotonously ahead
from car to car. Suddenly, he doused his torch.
Ahead, he had seen a similar brief glow. He watched. Then he saw it again.
A man was crouched in plain sight on one of the catwalks a few cars in front. He
looked like a brakie.
The next instant The Shadow felt again the soft lash of dangling cords
that betokened the approach of a low-roofed tunnel.
The Shadow ducked.
The freight roared into smoky blackness. It was a long tunnel. When The
Shadow saw open sky again he was grimy with soot, half-blinded with coal
cinders.
He rose to his feet and stared ahead. The man with the light was gone!
CHAPTER IV
REEFER AMBUSH
CROUCHED against the blast of cold wind that roared viciously across the
top of the speeding freight, The Shadow waited.
Brakies didn't customarily carry torches. Their usual equipment for the
long tour along the car roofs was a hurricane lantern. Nor did brakies duck so
magically from sight when their presence was discovered!
The Shadow remembered the signal that Pocky Bender had made with the
whistle cord of the switch engine, back in the yards of Chicago. That signal
had informed crooks of a dangerous situation.
Mike Vallon and Snuffy were aware that The Shadow had escaped from being
cooked to death in a bath of living steam. Knowing he was still alive, Vallon
and Snuffy had undoubtedly kept a sharp watch as the fast freight pulled out
from the yards.
They had probably spotted the dark-robed figure that had made an almost
suicidal leap to board the speeding freight.
Afraid to risk a frontal battle with this supreme enemy of crime, killers
were trying to lure The Shadow into an ambush by allowing him to see the brief,
telltale flash of that light four cars ahead!
Having hesitated long enough to keep up the pretense of not being sure in
his own mind what the light might mean, The Shadow began a forward advance.
The nature of the ambush was clear to him the moment he reached the fourth
car ahead. It was a refrigerator car!
Laughter whispered from The Shadow's lips. The icy wind whipped away the
sound of his grim mirth. Leaving the comparative safety of the catwalk along
the center of the roof, The Shadow repeated the tactics he had used on the cars
he had already investigated.
He crawled across the slope of the roof to the edge.
It was a dangerous perch. The freight was making terrific speed. Wind
bellied out The Shadow's black cloak like a sail. The gale made it hard to hold
on.
The Shadow leaned daringly. One gloved hand was tight over the topmost
rung of a ladder. The other gripped his flashlight. He pressed its button, sent
a thin beam of brilliance toward the side door of the refrigerator car.
Behind his seemingly inattentive body, a square section of the roof began
to lift gently under the pressure of a man hidden below!
There were four of these square trapdoors in the roof of the car. One was
at each corner. They were the entrances to the ice compartments of the
refrigerator car. Below each was a steel-wire cage into which big chunks of ice
were tumbled by the service crew to keep the car contents properly iced for a
big trip.
Hobos called them "reefers."
When a refrigerator car was traveling empty, a reefer made an ideal hiding
place from the eyes of patrolling brakies.
Behind the dangling figure of The Shadow, the reefer lid was now open. A
murderous figure began to crawl silently toward the edge of the roof.
Suddenly, the man sprang. Both hands shoved fiercely at The Shadow to hurl
him headlong to death.
The shove failed. The apparently careless hand-hold of The Shadow had been
carefully arranged. His outstretched feet were braced securely against the
housing of a brake wheel.
But so savage was the onslaught of the killer that for an instant The
Shadow was almost torn loose from his dangerous perch. He whirled, kicked
strongly with one of his feet. The thug staggered back, fell. The next instant
The Shadow was diving relentlessly on his foe.
Behind him, he saw a ratlike face, a long nose, eyes aglitter with hate.
The man was Snuffy!
BUT Snuffy was no longer the ordinary little pickpocket with whom Cliff
Marsland had scraped an acquaintance in the slums of Chicago. Terror had turned
him into a jungle beast.
He writhed from The Shadow's clutch. Sharp teeth bit savagely into The
Shadow's wrist, drawing blood.
Snuffy staggered to his feet. A gun glittered in his claw-like hand.
Crouched low like a beast at bay, he tried to cut down his black-robed foe with
a spurt of lead.
The Shadow prevented that with a forward leap that started at the instant
that Snuffy drew his weapon.
His twist brought a howl of pain from the smaller man. The gun clattered
to the roof of the refrigerator car, bounced off into darkness. The Shadow
forced Snuffy to his knees on the narrow catwalk.
"Surrender!" his voice rasped.
An instant later The Shadow was rolling on the catwalk with his frantic
foe. Mad with terror, Snuffy meant to kill or be killed.
His clutch at The Shadow's legs toppled his robed adversary. He fought
with his hands, with teeth, with wild, spasmodic kicks of his heavy-shod feet.
The Shadow had a double task. He had to defend himself, and keep Snuffy
from plunging blindly to his death before he could capture and question him.
The Shadow's foot skidded on the slippery roof of the car. He went to one
knee, his back at the edge of roaring blackness.
Snuffy hurled himself at The Shadow like an avalanche. He kicked The
Shadow in the stomach. Hands thrust at The Shadow's windpipe. The Shadow's body
began to bend backward over the roof edge.
He didn't attempt to let go his grip on the roof to fight off the maddened
crook. To do that was to topple to death. What The Shadow did was to duplicate
the earlier tactics of Snuffy. One of his writhing legs doubled up. It shot
forward like a battering-ram. The blow knocked the wind out of Snuffy.
Half-crazed with pain, Snuffy made a final rush. He tripped and fell
forward, off balance. The Shadow risked his own life to make a desperate grab.
The cloth of Snuffy's jacket ripped through The Shadow's tight fingers.
The crook shot headfirst into space above The Shadow's prone body.
There was no time for Snuffy to utter a single shriek. His plunging body
struck the top of an earth embankment alongside the speeding train. For an
instant it seemed to waver. There was a fifty-fifty chance for Snuffy to roll
forward or back.
The luck of the damned rolled him backward toward the track. The suction
of the icy gale whipped up by the freight's speed pulled the doomed little
pickpocket under the wheels. There was a brief, horrible, crunch - then it was
over!
The Shadow's eyes were bleak. His hand shot out toward a small oblong of
white that fluttered on the car roof, pinned against the edge of the catwalk by
the wind. The Shadow's fingers closed over it before the wind could whip it
loose. It was a small, white envelope.
It had fallen from the pocket of Snuffy. The rip of the cloth that had
defeated The Shadow's attempt to save Snuffy's life, had torn open Snuffy's
pocket.
The Shadow made no attempt to examine this envelope he had so swiftly
retrieved in the nick of time. His attention was wholly centered on the side
door of the refrigerator car.
HANGING at the edge of the car roof, The Shadow saw that the side door had
been slid quietly open. A snarling face was framed in the opening. A man with a
gun was pressing the trigger to send a bullet crashing into the dangling,
black-robed figure above him.
It was Mike Vallon!
A stab of scarlet streaked toward The Shadow.
It was death that failed to find its target. The wind-whipped cloak of The
Shadow took the impact. A hole appeared in the cloak close to The Shadow's
braced stomach.
This time, it was The Shadow's turn to fire!
His swiftly drawn .45 spat a heavy slug before Mike Vallon could press his
trigger a second time. Unlike Vallon, The Shadow didn't fire to kill. His aimed
shot was meant to disable and disarm.
There was a shrill, wind-blown howl from Vallon as The Shadow's slug hit
the mark. The gun seemed to leap miraculously from Vallon's grip under the
impact of The Shadow's bullet. He sprang back out of sight into the car.
The Shadow was on the move, too!
Hurling himself swiftly across the car's roof, The Shadow reached the open
trapdoor of the reefer where Snuffy had hidden earlier.
He dropped feet-first into the steel-wire inclosure.
He was now inside the refrigerator car, but he was still unable to get
effectively at Vallon. The steel-wire ice cage was tough, impossible to cut
without special tools.
Vallon had lost his gun, but he still had a desperate ace in the hole. He
flung himself flat to the floor of the empty car as the twin .45s of The Shadow
menaced him.
The dazed body of a man lay on the floor where Vallon made his quick dive.
The captive was hauled roughly to his feet as Vallon rose.
It was Cliff Marsland!
Cliff's hands were still tied in a tight knot behind the small of his
back. Blood had caked on his forehead and temple where he had been slugged
earlier by the butt of Vallon's gun. He reeled and almost fell as he was
dragged upright, but the grim clutch of the crook behind him steadied his human
shield.
Vallon uttered a cackling laugh. It sounded devilish.
He began to back toward the open side door of the refrigerator car,
keeping the dazed Marsland between his own body and the aimed .45s of The
Shadow.
His intent was obvious. A strange, new sound had changed the monotonous
rhythm of the flying wheels of the freight train. It was a hollow and empty
sound: Whoomp - whoomp - whoomp!
The Shadow knew the meaning of that sound.
The train was racing over a high trestle!
Unable to cut down Vallon without putting a bullet through the flesh of
Cliff Marsland, The Shadow saw Vallon's hand streak from his pocket with
something that glittered.
It was a knife.
Crouched in the open, side doorway of the car behind his human shield,
Mike Vallon slashed twice with his knife. The blade sliced through the flesh of
Marsland's wrists.
Blood spurted in a crimson jet.
Penned inside the reefer cage, The Shadow knew that Vallon intended to
hurl his bleeding victim into the black, scarcely visible river below the
trestle over which the freight was speeding.
Horror twisted the heart of The Shadow.
He clawed fiercely at the wire network of the reefer. He went up the
inside of his cage like a black-clad monkey. A swift, flat dive carried him out
to the roof of the car - just as Marsland's bleeding figure was flung outward
into empty darkness.
Mike Vallon had given The Shadow a bitter choice.
THE SHADOW didn't hesitate. Marsland's life was at stake. A brave and
obedient agent, he had calmly taken the risk of death in order to carry out
orders given him by The Shadow himself.
The Shadow left the roof of the freight in a long, outward dive!
His body missed by a hairbreadth one of the steel supports of the
trestle's overhead structure. He fell like a plummet into blackness, his body
turning into a stiffly controlled dive the moment he dropped clear of the
bridge.
He struck the water with a knifelike stab.
It was like striking a solid substance. Pain ripped along his body. He
could hear a vast, thunderous roar of bubbles as he shot irresistibly downward
into the icy water of the stream.
His hands twisted upward, he tried to arch his body with every atom of his
will, in order to avoid miring himself in the mud of the river's bed.
He could feel the mud, clinging and oozy, as it tried to engulf his body.
But his thrashing legs and arms forced him free of the fatal embrace. He
ascended to the surface with bursting lungs.
The cold, dry air in his lungs was like wine. One deep breath cleared his
eyes of pain, renewed the strength in his battered body.
He looked across the dark surface of the water, searching for the body of
Marsland. He could see no sign of his unconscious agent.
The Shadow dived. He sank deep, exploring the muddy bottom in wide,
desperate circles. Four times he submerged before his fingers reached and held
on to a sodden bundle.
It seemed like years before he rose to the surface with the mud-smeared
body of Marsland. Actually, scarcely more than two minutes had elapsed since
Marsland's plunge and the rescuing dive of The Shadow.
A few swift strokes pulled Marsland to the shore of the stream. In the
blackness of a wild and deserted swamp region, The Shadow worked swiftly.
His first concern was Marsland's slashed wrists. One of them had not been
badly cut by the hasty knife of Mike Vallon. But an artery had been severed in
the other. Blood pumped in bright-red jets from the gash.
The Shadow fixed a hasty tourniquet with ripped pieces of his black robe.
He knotted the cloth strips tight. He used two or three, tightened them until
they bit deeply into the flesh above Marsland's wrist, leaving his hand and
fingers pale and waxen-looking. The Shadow tightened the tourniquet immovably
with a small piece of wood.
When he had finished, the crimson jet of arterial blood had subsided to
almost nothing.
The Shadow turned Marsland on his face. Squatting astride him, he worked
swiftly with artificial respiration.
Presently, he heard a sigh. It was a sound almost inaudible, but it was
followed by stronger breathing. Marsland began to groan. It was pleasant to
drown after a certain point. Marsland, still unconscious, was fighting dully
not to be brought back to life!
The Shadow worked tenaciously. Soon Marsland was past danger. His eyes
flicked open. They were glassy. But he tried to smile. He had recognized his
black-robed rescuer. Weakly he tried to stagger to his feet.
HE wasn't able to stand. The Shadow lifted him over one shoulder, steadied
his weight. He carried his wounded agent toward the only possible route out of
this deserted and black wilderness of mud and water and weeds.
The railroad embankment!
By the time The Shadow reached the track roadbed, he was weary with the
weight of his burden. But he had no time to delay. A glance at Marsland's face
proved that Marsland had lost a considerable amount of blood. His face was
waxen, almost bluish.
He needed something important as soon as it could be administered. A blood
transfusion!
But where? And how?
The Shadow laid Marsland gently alongside the track. He raced onward into
the darkness. He went a half mile, a mile, before he found what he sought - the
bare, unpainted shape of a wooden shack alongside the right of way.
It was the shanty of a section foreman. The door was locked, but The
Shadow broke it down with a chunk of rock. Inside was a telephone. The Shadow
put through a swift call to the nearest town.
His voice sounded rough and untutored, the voice of a hobo. When the call
was completed, his appearance also changed to that of a hobo. His black robe
was buried out of sight in a mud hole.
When the gasoline handcar finally arrived from town, the men aboard it saw
what they believed to be a couple of tramps, one of them badly slashed.
One of the rescuers had a gun. He was a deputy sheriff.
The Shadow told a gruff story of a fight in a box car among hobos. He told
how he had leaped overboard to rescue a slashed pal. His story sounded fishy.
The deputy with the gun put him under arrest.
The Shadow made no protest. It was the price he had to pay for getting
Marsland to a hospital.
It was a bitter price, too, for The Shadow knew now that Mike Vallon had
pulled a cunning deception. Vallon was not heading for St. Louis. The small
envelope that had fallen from Snuffy's torn pocket had made the trickery clear.
The Shadow had had time to examine that envelope. In it was a railroad
ticket. The ticket was a first-class fare between Truxton - and New York!
The answer was clear! The moment the fast freight to St. Louis halted at
Truxton for servicing, Vallon intended to leave it. The "next job" he had
boasted about was not out West, but in New York!
The Shadow, under arrest as a hobo, was doomed to waste a full day before
he could follow!
Dawn was beginning to break over the trees when The Shadow was locked in
the cell of a small town jail. For The Shadow, such a jail would be easy to
crack - but not before nightfall.
Twelve hours to wait! And even then The Shadow would be still west of
Chicago, hundreds of miles from Manhattan!
But there was one thing that gave him grim satisfaction. He had learned
from the jailer that Marsland had been given a prompt blood transfusion at the
hospital. His "tramp pal" was now out of danger.
The Shadow grunted, pretended to doze in his cell. He waited patiently for
darkness to fall.
Meanwhile, aboard a comfortable passenger train, a man with a taut smile
on his lips was speeding from Truxton to New York.
Mike Vallon's plans had worked out perfectly. He figured that both
Marsland and The Shadow were dead. Even if by some miracle of luck, they
weren't - what did it matter? Let The Shadow chase onward to St. Louis! Let him
hunt there all he liked!
Vallon's grin widened as he thought about three "accidents." In Atlanta,
in Boston, in Chicago! The "accident" gag was about worn out. Vallon had a
hunch that The Shadow suspected they were a cloak for a systematic chain of
murders.
"O.K., pal," Vallon said to himself. "Figure 'em out as murders! See what
good it will do you!"
He thought about the set-up with satisfaction as the comfortable,
streamlined coach sped smoothly eastward.
"If The Shadow wants to investigate murder, I'll hand him a honey this
time! I know just the guy in Manhattan who can make anything look like murder -
Chip Ricco!"
Something far trickier than The Shadow yet realized was under way. It was
a conspiracy to test even the powers of The Shadow!
CHAPTER V
HEADQUARTERS SNATCH
THE car had not been parked at the curb very long.
It was late afternoon in New York. The short winter day was rapidly
dwindling into dusk. In the office buildings and shops of Manhattan, lights
were shining. But the street where the car was parked was gray and quiet.
Two men were in the car. One was Mike Vallon. Alongside him lounged a
dark-featured, chunky individual named Chip Ricco.
Ricco's specialty was sudden death. The tool of his trade was secreted in
the back of the car. It was a sleek, well-kept machine gun.
Mike Vallon kept his gaze on the front of a house diagonally opposite. It
was a boardinghouse. Nice people lived there, mostly respectable young men with
good jobs nearby. Vallon grinned because he expected one of these young men to
arrive home soon.
But Ricco looked glum. An expert with the machine gun, he couldn't
understand why Vallon didn't want him to blaze away the moment the young man
showed.
"I don't get this," he growled. "It don't make sense."
"Keep your shirt on," Vallon snapped.
"But why pay out good dough if you don't want the sap blasted?" Ricco
persisted.
"Quit thinking about it. Keep your mind on the dough I promised you."
"Dough's O.K.," Ricco muttered. "Only I still can't see -"
"Pipe down!" Vallon said. "Here he comes!"
A young man had just turned the corner from the avenue. He was
well-dressed, pleasant-looking. He walked down the shadowy gray street at a
pace that seemed a little faster than normal. As he passed beneath a sidewalk
light, his face showed clearly for an instant.
Vallon's eyes gleamed as he caught that brief glimpse of the man's face.
There was worry in it. The young man was afraid of something.
He didn't glance toward the blur of the parked car diagonally across the
street from his boardinghouse. His worried eyes kept flicking backward across
his shoulder as if he expected someone might be following him.
He hurried nervously into the boardinghouse entry, let himself in with a
key.
"Sit tight," Vallon told Ricco. "Don't do nothing! I'll be back in a
little while."
He faded slyly across the street and vanished down a narrow alley a few
doors from the boardinghouse where the young man had gone.
Fifteen minutes later, Mike Vallon reappeared. The grin on his thin lips
was more pronounced.
"A cinch," he chuckled. "The sap is gonna do exactly what I figured he'd
do. He's going down to the precinct station to apply for a pistol permit. I
heard him tell the landlady."
Chip Ricco lost his air of disgust. He started to slide with alacrity to
the back of the car where his machine gun lay hidden. Vallon detained him by a
tight clutch at his shoulder.
"Wait! I want to make sure that you don't pull a boner. Tell me the
set-up."
"We're going to get to the cop house the same time this guy does. I let
fly with everything in the gun. When I get done, the front of that cop house
will look like Swiss cheese."
"What about the guy?" Vallon said.
Ricco scowled.
"You're making it tough for me, pal! I'm used to hitting people I aim at.
It ain't easy to miss.
"You got to miss! I don't want that guy touched!"
"O.K., O.K.! I promised, didn't I?"
The stolen car faded as quietly as it arrived. It sped through the
deepening dusk of Manhattan.
SHORTLY after it had left, the frightened young man reappeared from the
boardinghouse. He looked up and down the street, then walked rapidly away.
His goal was a police station several blocks away. When he saw the green
lamps outside the precinct station, some of his nervous haste left him. He drew
a deep breath and turned in toward the entrance.
He failed to see the car. It didn't move fast. It came on with almost
leisurely slowness.
Suddenly, the car accelerated. Mike Vallon, behind the wheel, ducked his
head low. A peak cap, drawn low on his forehead, helped to hide the vague
glimmer of his face. Chip Ricco, in the back, was also an old hand at keeping a
hat low and a coat collar high.
The muzzle of the machine gun projected from the car's rear window.
Suddenly, the quiet dusk was shattered by the staccato roar of gunfire.
Scarlet streaks spat toward the figure of the young man on the front steps
of the precinct station. Lead whistled past him. He flung himself desperately to
the ground. His body rolled grotesquely down the steps under the lash of that
hail of lead.
For several seconds, the snarling inferno of death hammered. Glass
shattered in the window of the police station. Inside, a desk lieutenant flung
himself flat as slugs whined like bees across the spot where his head and
shoulders had just been showing. The front door was scarred and pitted with
holes.
The young man outside lay flat on his face, rigid with the fear of death.
Not a bullet had touched him.
"Swell!" Vallon whispered between locked teeth. "The dope didn't see a
thing! Down on the floor, Ricco! Get out of sight!"
The car got out of sight, too. It raced onward to the corner, shrieked
around it into the avenue. A block to the north, the car's tires shrieked
again. A perfect skid took it at top speed into another side street.
Its speed increased on the longer stretch toward the next avenue.
Far behind it, startled cops were pounding out the front door of the
precinct station. They vaulted over the figure of the young man who lay on his
face. They acted swiftly, but valuable time was lost. Not more than sixty
seconds, perhaps. But seconds were valuable.
By the time a startled chauffeur had jammed on his brakes and allowed the
cops to commandeer his vehicle, the murder car had a neat start. It was easy to
follow. The snarl of its motor had drawn the attention of dozens of pedestrians
to its swift getaway. Voices shouted to the cops on the pursuing vehicle.
Fingers pointed out the trail.
Soon the fleeing car was seen. But it was no longer in motion. It had
halted with a wild screech of locked brakes on an avenue corner, well to the
west of the police station.
On that corner was the kiosk entrance to a subway. The two men in the car
had already leaped out swiftly and headed down into the subway.
Cops scattered to plug up the rat holes through which criminal rats might
escape. Bluecoats with drawn guns guarded the sidewalk exits. Others raced
underground.
It was an express station with a busy mezzanine level, where the change
booths were located. Other stairways led to the platforms where uptown and
downtown trains came in, both express and local.
In the crowded flurry of the late afternoon rush hour, no one had seen
anything of two wildly fleeing gunmen. This was not strange, for Vallon and
Ricco had taken their time once they had dived underground.
An uptown local had halted at one island platform, a downtown express at
another. Police stopped both trains from departing, ordered the doors closed
and locked. Other cops rushed in and out the gloomy passageway of the station
itself.
Ricco and Vallon did not see any of this. They had figured their getaway
neatly. They didn't give a damn about the loss of the machine gun in the stolen
car. There were no prints on it, no way to trace the discarded weapon. Chip
Ricco had made grimly sure of that beforehand.
He followed Vallon through a lighted entrance on the local platform. It
was the underground entrance to a busy department store. Shoppers, trying to
make last-minute purchases before the closing gong, made an excellent screen.
The two fugitives walked upstairs to the street level, crossed to a side exit
on another street, got into an empty cab parked there for just that purpose.
They faded quietly into the dusk. A nice job, perfect in every detail. No
one had seen their faces; no one in the department store had heard the clamor
out in the busy avenue.
Mike Vallon's grin was wolfish. He patted the dark-complexioned Ricco on
the shoulder. Not a single slug from that roaring blast of death had touched
the frightened young man outside the police station!
"Swell work, keed!" Vallon chuckled.
THE frightened young man was no longer prone on the sidewalk. Helped to
his feet by a bluecoat, he staggered weakly into the police station. To the
desk lieutenant, he told a gasping story that did not make things much clearer.
"My name is Marvin Hobson. I don't know who they were, or why they tried
to kill me. This is the third time attempts have been made on my life. Twice
before this, I was almost killed!"
His voice rose shrilly.
"Why should criminals be after me? I have no enemies. I never did anything
to bother anybody. I have a good job. I live in a quiet boardinghouse-"
"Where do you work?"
"At the Bellinger Metal Corp. I'm a metallurgist."
"Hm-m-m." The desk lieutenant's eyes narrowed. "Any special work? Anything
secret or important?"
"No, sir. I've only been out of college a short time. I do routine
research work. The idea that anyone should be after some secret process I might
have discovered, is silly."
His voice had steadied. It carried conviction.
"Why did you come to the precinct station this afternoon?"
"I wanted to apply for a pistol permit. To protect myself from further
attacks."
"And you didn't see who those guys were in the murder car?"
"No, sir. The minute the shooting began, I flung myself flat on my face. I
don't even know what the car looked like."
The desk lieutenant scratched his nose. This was a tough one. He picked up
his phone and called headquarters. He spoke to Inspector Cardona.
Evidently Cardona's comments about the gun raid on a police station were
bitter. The lieutenant's bronzed face turned brick-red. But he kept his voice
under control.
"O.K., inspector. I'll send him down to headquarters for you to question."
Twenty minutes later, Marvin Hobson was in the big, well-lighted office of
Joe Cardona. Inspector Cardona was the biggest ace in the police department. He
was short, thickset, swarthy - and a smart, experienced cop. He had come up the
hard way, through the ranks. He had cracked many a tough mystery, hut this one
made his forehead crease with puzzlement.
There was no handle to anything! No apparent reason why underworld killers
should want to cut down this good-looking young Marvin Hobson.
Cardona made Hobson repeat everything he had told the precinct lieutenant.
He added a lot more questions of his own. But at the end, he was no wiser than
when he had started.
"You can see, inspector, why I wanted to apply for a pistol permit,"
Hobson whispered bleakly. "May I have one?"
"Yeah. That is -" Cardona hesitated again, like a dog looking for a bone
that had been mislaid. "You're absolutely sure that you have never been in
trouble before? Never been arrested? Never consorted in any way with criminals?"
"No, sir. I've only been six months out of college. I graduated from
Barham Institute. I was recommended for my job with the Bellinger Metals Corp.
by Professor Durkin. He will vouch for me. I was honor man in my class."
"O.K." Cardona picked up his phone and spoke briefly. When he hung up, he
nodded to Hobson.
"Sergeant Walsh will take care of your application. Go up to Fingerprint -
on the next floor. You understand, a pistol-permit application takes a few days
to put through. We'll have to take your fingerprints, check our files, send a
copy of the prints on to Washington to be checked there against records from
every police department in the country. If there is nothing wrong with your
record, you'll get the gun permit."
"Thank you," Hobson said.
He went up to the print bureau on the floor above. There, Sergeant Walsh,
a round-faced cop with a humorous Irish twinkle in his eyes, handed Hobson an
application, then took two sets of his prints.
Feeling a lot better, Marvin Hobson left the gray stone building to return
to his boardinghouse. It was much darker outside. He looked at his watch. He was
too late for the dinner hour at his boardinghouse. His landlady was strict about
things like that.
Hobson sighed, went into a nearby restaurant and ordered dinner.
MEANWHILE, in the fingerprint bureau, Sergeant Walsh yawned. It had been a
long day. Walsh was tired and hungry. He felt too lazy too get up and compare
the new prints with the records in the files.
He began to hunt for the big envelope into which the mail for the
Washington Print Bureau went each day.
Before he could find it, the door opened hesitantly. A smiling face
peered. An apologetic voice said softly, "Shine 'em up, pleeze, sarge?" The man
was an Italian.
Walsh glanced at his dusty shoes, nodded. The shoe-shine man got to work
with polish and brushes. Walsh noticed that he wasn't the usual man who
circulated daily through the corridors and offices of the big building.
"Where's Tony?" He smiled. "Gettin' married or something?"
"No, sir, you betcha. Tony is seeck today."
"What's the matter with him. Too much spaghetti?"
The shoe-shine man grinned. "Yeah. Too mooch. Make his belly hurt. Make
him get pills, stay home. I'm his brudder. How you like the shine, huh?"
It was a good job. Walsh yawned, got to his feet, felt in his pocket for
change.
Before he could sort out a dime and a nickel tip, he uttered a grunt of
annoyance. His good nature vanished as he saw Tony's brother walk toward an
open drawer of one of the fingerprint files that Walsh had forgotten to close
on an earlier inspection that day. The shoe-shine man began idly to pull out
record cards.
"Hey! Let that alone! That stuff is confidential! Ain't you got no sense?"
The man apologized. He retreated with cringing haste, leaned down to pick
up his shine box, which he had left on the floor alongside Walsh's desk.
Walsh went over to the open file, straightened out the records which the
man had so clumsily dislodged.
By the time he had finished, Tony's brother and the shine box were gone.
Walsh picked up the print records that Marvin Hobson had made.
Walsh filed one, dropped the other into the Washington envelope. He was
entirely innocent of the fact that a wily trick had been successfully pulled
off by the brother of the sick Tony.
The prints in Walsh's possession were not the same ones that Marvin Hobson
had made!
Hobson's prints were at this very instant leaving police headquarters
inside the battered shine box of a cunning crook!
CHAPTER VI
MURDER MAGIC
MARVIN HOBSON didn't eat out often. The fact that he had missed dinner at
his boardinghouse tonight was not his fault. He decided to soothe his jangled
nerves by a little harmless dissipation.
He selected a good restaurant, ordered an expensive meal. The service was
excellent, the music pleasant. By the time Hobson emerged into the cold
darkness, he felt considerably more at ease.
He went to a downtown movie theater and saw a good picture. It was past
eleven when he returned to his boardinghouse.
He smiled at the worried face of his landlady.
"I was uneasy about you," she said. "It isn't like you to break your
routine about meals. Did you arrange to get your pistol permit?"
He nodded. "It will take a day or two, Sergeant Walsh told me at
headquarters."
He told his landlady about the dangerous experience he had managed to come
through with a whole skin. She shuddered. But Hobson's pleasant evening had
robbed him of some of his earlier fear.
"I don't think I'll be troubled again. Whoever those thugs were, they'll
be afraid to show their faces for several days. Perhaps the publicity about me,
that is sure to appear in tomorrow's papers, will help make things easier. Those
thugs will discover that they've been after the wrong man. I'm sure there's a
mistake in identity somewhere. It's ridiculous to think that any criminals
would have a motive of any kind for killin' me."
"Maybe it has something to do with your work," the landlady said.
"Not a chance. That's even more far-fetched. I do the most routine work
imaginable. All I've been working on is zinc. Can you imagine a metal less
exciting than zinc? Now if I was an expert on rubber or tin!"
He laughed, and turned toward the staircase.
"Good night. I hope there's a good breakfast in the morning. I've got to
catch up on that meal I missed tonight."
His room was on the top floor - a nice, high-ceilinged chamber at the
rear. He liked to work at night. Sometimes he did a lot of typing. It was nice
to know that the room opposite his was unoccupied; that the man in the room
below was deaf enough not to be bothered by the click of typing on the nights
when Hobson worked.
He opened his bedroom door and felt for the light switch. Then he
stiffened. Something cold and rigid jammed into the flesh at the back of his
neck.
It was the muzzle of a gun.
"Keep quiet, sucker!" a menacing voice whispered. "Shut that door!"
The command about the door was addressed to a second hidden intruder. The
door closed softly. The key turned in the lock.
"O.K.! Turn on the light!"
A dim light glowed on the night stand alongside Marvin Hobson's bed. His
eyes blinked. Then, suddenly, he grew rigid with terror.
His bed was occupied by another man. A dead man!
The wide-open eyes of that corpse were horrible to contemplate. But the
appearance of the dead man's head was even more horrible. He had been battered
to death. His face was a bloody smear. There was dried blood on the pillow
where his head rested. There were more blood streaks on the sheets.
Hobson's face turned toward the two intruders who had captured him. He
didn't know either of them. He was unaware that the swarthy little man with the
aimed pistol was Chip Ricco, the killer who had earlier that evening emptied a
machine gun at him in front of the police station. He had no suspicion that the
grinning Mike Vallon had driven the car.
He said in a tremulous whisper, "Don't kill me!"
"Shut up!" Vallon rasped. "Keep that trap of yours buttoned tight. Get out
of your clothes! Strip!"
Hobson obeyed. The gun muzzle of Ricco remained steadily on him while he
disrobed.
"Now, put these on!"
Hobson picked up the garments that lay on the floor. He wondered if they
belonged to the dead man on the bed. The dead man had already been dressed in a
pair of Hobson's own pajamas.
Mike Vallon stripped a ring off the finger of one of Hobson's upraised
hands. He slid it over a finger of the blood-smeared corpse in the bed.
Then he tiptoed behind the helpless figure of the captive young
metallurgist. His voice was an ugly whisper to Ricco.
"Keep your rod on him! If he so much as burps - let him have it through
the belly!"
Hobson didn't know what to expect next. What he felt was a sharp pain in
his neck. Vallon had driven home the point of a hollow needle. The plunger of
the hypodermic shot a powerful drug into a pierced vein.
Hobson quivered, but he was afraid to move. He stood there watching the
pitiless face of the gunman in front of him. Then, suddenly, he saw nothing.
The drug had taken effect with swift power. Hobson's sight faded. He pitched
sideways, unconscious.
His toppling figure didn't hit the floor. Mike Vallon caught him, eased
him to the rug. The light in the room went out. Only one thing was dimly
visible in the darkness - the faintly illuminated hands of a small alarm clock.
Vallon and Ricco seemed in no hurry to do anything else. In the darkness,
they waited. The hands of the clock moved slowly. Midnight passed. One o'clock.
Two o'clock. Three o'clock.
Marvin Hobson groaned faintly. A palm slapped viciously over his mouth,
suppressing the slight sound.
"He's coming out of it," Ricco's voice whispered.
"Give him a little more time," Vallon replied. "We want him to be able to
walk. Keep your hand over his mouth. If he tries to let out a yelp - bat him on
the skull!"
"O.K.!"
Hobson's head was whirling. But through the pain and nausea that were the
after-effects of the drug, he heard those ugly whispers. He remained perfectly
still, afraid, almost, to breathe.
Presently, the pressure over his mouth was withdrawn.
"Up on your feet, monkey!" Vallon snapped. "Don't move until you're told!"
THE night lamp glowed faintly on the table close to Hobson's bed. The dead
man with the battered face was still lying there in Hobson's pajamas. On his
dead finger was the ring that had been taken from the young metallurgist.
Hobson's clothes were hung neatly across the chair alongside the bed.
Hobson shuddered. It was like looking at his own murdered corpse.
He saw that his rear window - the one that opened on a fire escape - was
open from the bottom. He expected to be ordered to climb out that window and
down the fire-escape ladder.
But instead, Vallon opened the door that led to the hallway of the
boardinghouse, after first dousing the dim light in the death room.
The hallway outside was dark and empty. The clock with the radium dial
showed that the time was almost half past three in the morning. Not a sound
came from the sleeping house.
A vicious nudge from a gun muzzle forced Hobson out of the room and into
the hail. He was conducted silently to a staircase that led aloft. He realized
now that he was being kidnapped by way of the roof.
The roof door was locked on the inside by a heavy, metal staple in a hook.
The sight of that staple and hook seemed to amuse Mike Vallon. He opened the
door carefully, leaving no prints. Ricco forced their captive out into the
chilly darkness on the roof.
Vallon attended swiftly to the roof door, while Ricco kept his gun on the
kidnapped man. Using a sheet of heavy cardboard which he had hidden behind the
roof door, Vallon did a trick with that simple lock arrangement.
He fixed the hook delicately at balance before he closed the roof door. He
closed the door with cringing care, so as not to disturb the balanced shaft of
the upraised hook on the inside. Then, he slid his sheet of stiff cardboard
through the crack between the door edge and the door frame. There was just
enough space to manipulate the edge of the cardboard.
Vallon gave his cardboard a sudden, quick thrust. The poised hook fell.
Vallon tried the door with his gloved hand, then he cursed. The hook had fallen
crookedly. It hadn't dropped into the staple. The door was still unlocked.
He tried again. This time, the maneuver was successful. The delicately
poised hook, dislodged by the stiff edge of the inserted cardboard, fell
accurately into the staple on the inside.
Vallon tried the door with a grin. It refused to budge. It was tightly
locked now - on the inside!
A snarl from Ricco forced the shivering Hobson to walk quietly across the
line of roof-tops. It was a row of attached houses, so there was no difficulty
reaching a roof entrance farther along the block.
Hobson was forced downstairs, at pistol point, into what appeared to be an
untenanted and empty dwelling. He was taken to the ground floor and out the back
door.
An opening in a rear fence led to an alley beyond the back yard of the
empty dwelling. Beyond the alley was a place that looked like a paved loading
area for trucks.
A truck was waiting there. It was a covered vehicle.
A shove sent Hobson staggering against the open rear of the truck. Before
he could recover, the gun in the hand of Ricco dealt him a vicious blow on the
skull. Again Hobson collapsed.
His sagging body was caught expertly, jammed headfirst inside the truck.
Ricco sprang inside, grabbed at the limply projecting legs of the kidnapped
man, hauled them out of sight.
Presently the engine of the truck awoke faint echoes. The truck moved out
of the loading area in the lee of a small warehouse. It faded into darkness.
A cunning crime had been completely successful. It was a crime protected
and hidden at every point of deception.
Vallon's chuckle indicated that he did not expect the police to do very
much about penetrating the deception that cloaked the "murder" of Marvin Hobson.
He was right.
Only The Shadow could unravel this cunning mystery - which was but a
single link in a whole chain of crimes forged by a super-criminal for whom Mike
Vallon was only a lieutenant.
But The Shadow was still miles away from New York. Having broken out of a
small-town jail, he had wasted precious hours getting to Chicago and arranging
a reservation aboard a plane for New York.
Worse than that, The Shadow had no knowledge yet of what had just taken
place!
IT was chilly and gray when the big transport plane winged out of the
early-morning sky. It settled gently on the level runway at LaGuardia Field.
The clock on the administration building showed that the time was a little
before seven.
Most of the passengers were army men. But one of them was a civilian. An
important civilian, judging by the way the airfield reporter stopped to
interview him.
"Nothing to say," Lamont Cranston smiled. "Merely a routine business trip
to Chicago."
He walked through the exit gate with a quick, athletic stride. Cranston
was a man of both wealth and social standing. A world traveler and a famous
big-game hunter, Cranston had not left the public eye because of the war. He
had undertaken several important business tasks for the government. It was not
unusual for him to come and go by plane, even in these days of priorities.
The Shadow found this prominence of Lamont Cranston convenient. For Lamont
Cranston was The Shadow! It was one of the many roles The Shadow used when
occasion warranted.
Beyond the exit rate from the airport, a pretty, dark-haired girl was
waiting. Her eyes glowed when she saw the tall, erect figure of Cranston emerge.
"Hello, Lamont. I received your message from Chicago. Did you have a nice
trip?"
"Excellent," Cranston murmured. Then his eves narrowed slightly. "I'm
afraid I'm going to have to cancel our plans to have breakfast together, Margo."
She didn't make any comment. Margo Lane had known Cranston a long time.
Like him, she was a well-known socialite, often seen in his company. But there
was something she knew that was not known to many other people in or out of New
York.
She was aware that Cranston and The Shadow were an identical personage!
It was a subject never discussed openly between them.
"I wonder if you'd mind doing me a little favor, Margo?" Cranston
continued. "Aren't you a fairly good friend of Jimmy Bellinger?"
"Of course. Why? Would you like to meet him, Lamont?"
"Not Jimmy. His older brother - Marcus Bellinger. The head of the
Bellinger Metals Corp."
Cranston paused. His smile was dim.
"You see, Marcus happens to own a collection of weapons that is fairly
important. I've never had the pleasure of seeing that collection. I'd prefer
not to ask openly to see it. So if you were to meet Jimmy, say, at cocktails
somewhere late this afternoon, and I happened along -"
Margo nodded.
"Five o'clock at the Ritz. Jimmy and I are old friends. I think I can
arrange it."
She got into her car and drove away. The Shadow waited a moment or two,
then went back into the administration building at the airport.
HE entered a soundproof phone booth and called a number unlisted in any
telephone directory. A crisp voice replied:
"Burbank speaking."
Burbank was The Shadow's contact man. It was his duty to receive and
transmit messages from The Shadow and his agents.
The Shadow voiced a request.
"Report desired from Vincent."
Harry Vincent hid the fact that he was an agent of The Shadow by posing as
an unassuming young man in a suite at the Hotel Metrolite. Orders from The
Shadow had already sent Harry to a small college town in Massachusetts.
Burbank relayed interesting information from him.
The three young metallurgists who had suffered such strange "accidents" in
Boston, in Atlanta and in Chicago, had all been graduates of the college Vincent
had visited. Three of them had been recommended as brilliant prospects to the
Bellinger Metals Corp. Others had been recommended to various other chemical
and metal companies through the United States.
The victims in Atlanta and Chicago had worked for Marcus Bellinger. A
third was employed by Bellinger in New York.
"His name and address?" The Shadow asked.
Burbank supplied the information. The man in New York was named Marvin
Hobson. Burbank also gave the address of the quiet Manhattan boardinghouse
where Hobson lived.
He added a final fact that made the eyes of The Shadow gleam.
Of the seven young men who had been sent by their colleges to various
companies for brilliance in metal and chemical research, three had been
recommended to Marcus by the professor under whom they had studied, Professor
Humphrey Durkin. Harry Vincent had been unable to contact this Professor Durkin.
Durkin, a man of eccentric habits, had suddenly applied for sick leave
from the institute. He had left on what he called "a curative and pleasure
trip." He had left no forwarding address. The date of Durkin's disappearance
brought a whisper of sibilant mirth from the lips of The Shadow. Durkin had
dropped out of sight just about the time the first young man had plunged so
tragically to an accidental death in Atlanta.
"Report from Clyde Burke," The Shadow intoned.
Burke was a star reporter on the Daily Classic. It was a convenient cloak
for more important activities in the service of The Shadow. The Shadow, knowing
from the boastful remark of Mike Vallon that "a new job" was contemplated,
knowing that Vallon had slyly covered his tracks to get to New York secretly,
had sent instructions to Clyde Burke via Burbank to keep his eyes open for
anything unusual in the way of underworld news.
Burke's news was startling. The Shadow learned for the first time of the
strange machine-gun attack on a young metallurgist at the very entrance to a
police station. He learned that the attack had failed, that the young man had
applied for a pistol permit to defend himself against unknown enemies.
The name of Marvin Hobson brought a gleam to the eyes of The Shadow.
The Shadow was eager to talk to Inspector Cardona and to Sergeant Walsh of
the fingerprint bureau, in his harmless guise of Lamont Cranston. But the time
for direct interference was not yet ripe.
He decided to phone Commissioner Weston. Weston and Lamont Cranston were
old friends. It would be easier to pry essential facts out of Weston under the
screen of a friendly breakfast date. Cranston often breakfasted with the police
commissioner when he arrived early from an out-of-town trip.
He phoned Weston's home, spoke blandly to the servant who answered the
ring.
He received a prompt shock.
"The commissioner isn't at home, sir," the servant replied. "He left a few
minutes ago to investigate a murder which was just discovered by police."
"Murder?"
"Yes, sir. A young man named Hobson, I believe. He didn't appear for
breakfast this morning at the boardinghouse where he lives. His landlady
investigated, found him dead in his bed. Someone got into his room last night
and battered his skull in."
For a second, The Shadow was silent. Then, his voice softer than silk, he
spoke over the wire.
"I see," he said. "Thank you."
CHAPTER VII
CARDBOARD CLUE
THE quiet street where Marvin Hobson's boardinghouse was located had
turned into a noisy maelstrom of cars and people by the time a taxicab brought
The Shadow to the scene.
Almost the first thing The Shadow saw was the long, black limousine of
Police Commissioner Weston. The cop guarding the front door was Weston's
personal chauffeur. The Shadow, in his role of Lamont Cranston, was well known
to the man.
"Hello, Baxter," he said smilingly. "Do you happen to know if the
commissioner has eaten breakfast yet?"
Baxter grinned.
"Hello, Mr. Cranston. No, he hadda skip breakfast - and he didn't like it
much, either. Did he have a date with you, sir?"
"More or less," Cranston said. "Would it be all right for me to go inside
and speak to him?"
Baxter nodded. The Shadow, as Cranston, had a habit of turning up
unexpectedly at scenes like this.
He found Weston upstairs in the bedroom where a murdered man lay in a
blood-smeared bed. The Shadow masked his grim interest in the scene under the
guise of a surprised stare. To Weston he murmured a polite subterfuge. He had
arrived at the airport too early for breakfast. He had hoped that Weston would
join him for a pleasant get-together over bacon and eggs.
Weston looked harried.
"Sorry, Lamont. This thing is nasty." He gestured toward the corpse on the
bed. "This fellow Hobson had applied for police protection. Unless we solve this
case quickly and arrest the killer - the newspapers will give the department
hell!"
It was Cranston's cue to leave. But he didn't. He stood back out of the
way while police specialists from Homicide went over the death room with a
fine-tooth comb. Print men dusted every inch of the place with powder. A
plain-clothes man climbed through the open window from the fire escape. His
scowling face showed unmistakably that he had been no more successful than his
colleagues.
Cardona, backing up, bumped into Cranston. He stopped frowning, shook
hands hurriedly.
"Was the window open when you got here?" Cranston asked.
"Yeah. The room is exactly the way the landlady found it. Door locked. Key
missing. Window open. One of those simple crime jobs that are always tough to
solve."
Under Cranston's sympathetic prodding, Joe Cardona aired his theory of the
murder set-up.
"The killer climbed the fire escape from the rear alley and got into the
window. Looks like he slugged Hobson with a hammer. Haven't found a trace yet
of the murder weapon. The killer was smart enough to carry it away. Not a
damned clue in the room."
Cranston seemed not too interested. "Did you examine the roof?"
"Yeah. No soap! The roof door is locked on the inside. No prints there,
either."
"Has the medical examiner been here?"
"Yeah. He says Hobson was killed around eleven o'clock last night.
Probably a few minutes after he said good-night to his landlady and went
upstairs. The thing looks like a revenge job to me. Maybe Hobson was mixed up
with some woman. But the landlady says he never went out with girls. I tell
you, Mr. Cranston, this thing is a headache!"
Cranston drew Cardona's attention to the badly battered condition of the
dead man's head and face.
"Queer how the killer disfigured him, eh, what?"
"That is queer!" Cardona admitted.
He kept staring at the corpse while the idea, planted by The Shadow,
worked in his mind. Suddenly, Cardona smacked a fist against his palm.
"Hey, maybe this guy in the bed ain't Hobson at all! It wouldn't be the
first time in crime history that a guy with a mutilated face turned out to be
someone else. Carey! Hey - Carey!"
CAREY was one of the print specialists. He came away from the framework of
the open bedroom window.
"Hop down to headquarters," Cardona ordered. "Late yesterday afternoon,
this fellow Hobson applied for a pistol permit. I sent him up to Sergeant
Walsh. Walsh took his prints. Get down there and bring me those prints. I got a
hunch!"
The Shadow drifted into the background, waited calmly. He still gave the
impression of a well-dressed society idler who was hoping against hope that
Commissioner Weston would presently join him for a delayed breakfast somewhere.
Helped by a department siren, Carey made the trip to headquarters and back
in quick time. He took prints of the dead man's fingers. He compared those
prints with the record of Marvin Hobson which he had brought back with him.
"Well?" Cardona snapped.
Carey shook his head.
"Sorry to ruin your theory, inspector," he said. "The corpse in the bed is
Hobson! The prints are identical. We're going to have to go back to where we
started. Find out who hated Hobson and why. Look for a woman, maybe. Look for
some shady deal in money."
Carey suddenly grinned a little.
"What's so damned funny about it?" Cardona snapped.
"Sorry, inspector. I wasn't thinking about the murder. I was thinking
about Sergeant Walsh. Your sudden call for them prints had Walsh scared for a
minute. He couldn't find 'em. He couldn't remember where he had put 'em."
"Why not?"
"Well, it seems that right after Hobson left yesterday, Walsh had his
shoes shined. He got to kiddin' with the shoe-shine guy and forgot all about
the print records. He remembered shoving one set in the envelope for
Washington, but he couldn't remember where he had put the other set. He finally
found it in a desk drawer."
The Shadow listened in to this little discussion. As Cranston, he made
what sounded like a feeble joke.
"Perhaps in the interest of crime detection, it might not be a bad idea to
bar Tony from headquarters," he chuckled. "Seriously, I hope you forgive Tony.
He's given many an excellent shine when I visited the commissioner."
"It wasn't Tony," Carey said. "Walsh told me that Tony was home with a
belly-ache from too much spaghetti. This guy was Tony's brother."
The small talk about shoe shines annoyed Cardona. He uttered an
exasperated oath.
"Cut out the gab. Let's get back to something more important. There's
gotta be a lead here somewhere! You men get busy. Dig me up something!"
The Shadow's eyes held a grim light. Unlike Cardona, he didn't believe
that the conversation about Tony's sudden illness was mere small talk. He
drifted toward the doorway where Commissioner Weston stood. He shook hands with
Weston, made a polite excuse.
"Sorry to have bothered you. I'll see you later. Perhaps we can breakfast
together some other time."
He left the room, headed toward the street. But the moment he was out of
observation, he changed his direction. Presently, in the dimness of the
staircase that led to the roof, The Shadow examined the locked door that led
outside.
He found that, actually, the door was not locked. It was hooked. The hook
rested securely in a stout staple.
The Shadow saw something else that brought a sibilant whisper of mirth
from him. The roof door didn't fit any too well into its frame. There was a
long crack from top to bottom.
Opening the door with gloved hands, The Shadow slipped out into the chilly
wind on the open roof.
Presently, he bent and picked up something. He was not surprised at what
he found. It was a sheet of stiff cardboard, bent a little at one corner.
The Shadow adjusted the hook delicately on the inside of the roof door,
then he closed the door. Through the crack, he could see the poised silhouette
of the hook. He inserted his thin cardboard sheet through the crack, moved it
carefully. Suddenly, there was a quick motion of his wrist.
The Shadow removed the cardboard, tested the closed roof. The door was now
immovable.
His simple trick had "locked" it on the inside!
To The Shadow, certain facts now became clear. Hobson's murderer had
entered the boardinghouse through the roof door, not through the window
downstairs. He had entered the house early, probably while the boarders below
were at supper downstairs. When Hobson had entered his room after bidding
good-night to his landlady - he had probably found the killer waiting for him!
Only Hobson had not been killed! To The Shadow, this was still an
assumption. But he remembered the odd news about Sergeant Walsh and the
substitute shoe-shine man. He thought of the horribly battered face of the dead
man in the bed.
Cardona's complacent acceptance of the fingerprint "evidence" was not
shared by The Shadow. He thought grimly of the accidents that had happened to
smart young metallurgists in Atlanta, in Boston, in Chicago. All those
accidents had one thing in common. The men had fallen from high places. Their
bodies had been badly mutilated.
The coincidence was too much to be credible.
In The Shadow's brain the word "murder" faded. Another word took its place
tentatively: "Kidnapping."
The Shadow advanced across the long line of roofs. Before he had entered
the boardinghouse, a keen glance up and down the street had apprised him of a
fact. One of the houses in the row was empty. A "To Let" sign swung in the cold
breeze outside.
The Shadow entered this house from above. Its roof door was hooked on the
inside, but The Shadow had no trouble getting in. He repeated his trick with
the cardboard. A swift upward jerk knocked the hook out of the staple.
The Shadow descended through an empty dwelling, whose windows were all
screened by black shades.
He found nothing to justify his suspicions until he descended to the
cellar. Then his harsh laughter made an ominous echo in the dusty,
concrete-floored area.
The dust had been recently disturbed in one of the cellar corners. It
hadn't been swept; it had been washed! The reason this dark corner had been
washed was apparent at once. Blood, even fresh blood, is a difficult thing to
get rid of completely. Some of it had spattered.
There were tiny brownish drops on the wall that had escaped the eye of the
man who had tried to erase the evidence of murder.
Opening the door of the cellar furnace, The Shadow saw unmistakable
evidence that clothing had recently been burned there. Reaching delicately into
the cold fire pot, The Shadow was able to lift out something that made his eyes
gleam.
It was the charred handle of a hammer.
From the furnace ash pit, The Shadow raked out the final link in his chain
of circumstantial evidence. It was a fire-scorched chunk of metal. The head of
the hammer!
The Shadow whispered a name: "Mike Vallon!"
Vallon had shrewdly changed his tactics. Accidents had become too risky a
deception to hide a series of kidnappings. The presence of The Shadow in
Chicago had proved that to Vallon. Guessing that The Shadow suspected murder,
Vallon was deliberately encouraging him to keep right on suspecting murder!
Vallon wanted the police to believe Hobson was dead. Believing this, they
would never start hunting for a kidnapped Hobson!
The Shadow added his final link of circumstantial evidence by making a
telephone call after he had slipped out of the vacant dwelling.
The voice of The Shadow went over the wire in the husky, good-natured
tones of Sergeant Walsh of the fingerprint bureau. He called the home of Tony,
the prosperous little shoe-shine man who had made a paying business out of his
visits to police headquarters and the neighboring office buildings.
"How's Tony getting along? I hear he had a belly-ache from eating too much
spaghetti."
Tony's wife didn't echo the good-natured laugh of The Shadow.
"Tony didn't get no belly-ache from no spaghetti, sarge! Doctor say
someone play dirty trick on him. Give him something bad - make him vomit,
make-a his belly hurt. How you know he was sick?"
"His brother told me. His brother shined my shoes yesterday."
There was impatience in the woman's voice. "You must be make-a mistake,
sarge. Tony ain't got no brother."
"No kiddin'? Well, give Tony my regards. Tell him I hope he gets well
soon."
The Shadow hung up. The time for action was at hand!
Marvin Hobson and the victim in Chicago had both been employed by the
Bellinger Metals Corp. The Shadow had learned that Marcus Bellinger had
returned only a day or so earlier from a business trip to Chicago.
The Shadow's next move would be to investigate Marcus Bellinger.
He would take advantage of the friendship of Margo Lane with young Jimmy
Bellinger, to gain a closer contact with Jimmy's cold, phenomenally successful
older brother.
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIAL CALL
MARGO LANE was one of the most attractive girls in the New York social
register. Whenever there was a charity fashion show or, in fact, any social
function, she was always in demand.
This afternoon she seemed lovelier than ever. Jimmy Bellinger was
delighted at his luck in being able to date her. They sat together in the
cocktail lounge at the Ritz, and Jimmy was conscious of admiring eyes from the
adjoining tables.
Suddenly, Margo saw a glum look creep into Jimmy Bellinger's eyes. The
shadow of a man fell across their softly lighted table.
Margo turned, uttered a murmur of well-assumed surprise.
"Why, Lamont! This is delightful! I never expected to see you here! Have
you met Mr. Bellinger?"
Cranston and Jimmy shook hands. As Lamont Cranston, The Shadow was a
master of well-bred charm. His pleasant manner drove away the tiny frown from
Jimmy's eyes. Jimmy felt his quick jealousy fade.
He was the one who finally overrode Cranston's polite reluctance to join
them.
"Nonsense," Jimmy cried. "A pleasure to have you dine with us, sir.
Waiter! Another chair!"
More cocktails were brought. Soon, all three were in animated conversation.
Jimmy Bellinger was flattered by the presence of so important a personage
at his table. He didn't mind it when Margo turned the talk to some of
Cranston's exploits as a world traveler and a hunter of big game. Soon the
conversation veered to Cranston's collection of weapons.
Cranston shrugged.
"Just a modest affair," he murmured. "I've been lucky enough to gather a
few decent pieces. But I don't think my name ought to be mentioned as a
collector of weapons in the same breath with the name of your brother, Mr.
Bellinger."
"Marcus has a pretty darn good collection," Jimmy admitted. "I never
understood why he ever went in for them, to tell you the truth. Marcus is a
businessman. Seems like an expensive hobby. Half the time Marcus never goes
near his gun room."
"I'd give my right arm to be permitted to see those weapons," Cranston
said.
He looked so politely envious that Margo and Jimmy joined in an amused
laugh.
"Why can't you?" Jimmy demanded. His face was a bit flushed from his three
cocktails. "Surely, you know my brother."
"I've never met him," Cranston said.
"There's no time like the present. If you'd like to see Marcus' gun
collection, there's no law against my introducing you to him."
Margo protested lightly.
"Your brother would probably be annoyed at so informal a visit."
"Nonsense! Marcus would be delighted."
He called the waiter, paid the check. A taxi whisked them away from the
Ritz to an imposing, private dwelling just east of Fifth Avenue in the
Eighties. Jimmy was in high spirits.
To the dignified servant who opened the door, he cried gayly, "Greetings,
Pitman! Tell Marcus there are visitors on hand who are aching in every bone to
look at his famous collection of weapons. Tell him I'm here with Mr. Cranston
and Miss Lane!"
There was a queer flick in Pitman's eyes. But he was a well-trained
servant. Also, he was used to the abrupt arrivals and departures of the
irrepressible younger brother of his employer. He conducted the trio to a
reception room and vanished upstairs.
PRESENTLY, Marcus Bellinger descended. There was a smile on his face, but
it was thin, The Shadow noted. Marcus was not overjoyed at the intrusion. It
became apparent that he was not eager to show his collection.
He pointed out the lateness of the hour, their probable desire to have
dinner soon. Besides, his collection was rather large. It would take
considerable time - Jimmy cheerfully overrode all obstacles. He exclaimed,
"We'll just cover the high spots, Marcus! Onward to the gun room!"
The gun room was on the second floor, beyond the doorway of a magnificent
study. Cranston caught a glimpse of the study as they passed. It was a story
and a half, with a balcony circling the upper portion. Cranston tried to linger
for a moment, but Marcus Bellinger hurried them along to the gun room.
His manner seemed more urgent. The Shadow caught him glancing toward a
clock on the wall. It was apparent that Marcus was eager to get rid of his
uninvited guests as soon as possible. The Shadow wondered if the elder
Bellinger expected someone else - someone whose visit he preferred to keep
discreetly quiet.
The gun room looked splendid under the glow of bright vapor lamps. But
Marcus seemed dissatisfied. He summoned Pitman, gave the servant a brusque
order.
"The room looks positively dingy, Pitman! Let in a little daylight. Raise
those front shades halfway to the top. Thank you."
It seemed an odd request. There was no need for daylight. In fact, dusk
had already fallen in the quiet street outside.
To the keen mind of The Shadow, the queer shade-raising seemed a little
like a signal of some kind!
But The Shadow hid his suspicion beneath the bland exterior of Lamont
Cranston. He examined some of the rarer weapons in the collection of Marcus. He
made intelligent comments that showed he knew the value of the antique pieces he
handled with such deft skill.
Jimmy Bellinger and Margo remained in the background. Weapons had small
interest for Jimmy. He was a playboy, more at ease in the frivolous world of
night clubs and cocktail lounges. He and Margo chatted idly. Presently, Margo
spoke about what Cranston wanted her to.
She led the talk to the strange murder of Marvin Hobson.
It was easy, because the front page of every newspaper in New York was
black with the details of the crime. Hobson had been an employee of Marcus. The
cold-eyed head of the Bellinger Metals Corp. found it impossible to ignore the
conversation.
He belittled Hobson's death.
"Certainly the young man's employment as a metallurgist in my company has
no bearing on the mystery," he declared. "It's annoying to be bothered by
reporters on so silly a matter. A fellow named Clyde Burke, from the Daily
Classic, has pestered the life out of me. He was asking me about another young
man named Eldridge, who was killed accidentally in Chicago. It seemed Eldridge
worked in my Chicago branch."
He tried to change the subject. He was annoyed when Jimmy innocently
revealed the fact that Marcus had made a hurried trip to Chicago several days
earlier.
"Purely a routine business trip," he said. "I simply refuse to believe
that the deaths of Hobson and Eldridge might be part of some plot against the
Bellinger Metals Corp. Hobson and Eldridge were only two of several bright
young men recommended to me by Professor Durkin. Others were recommended to
different companies by other colleges. The whole thing is stupid. It will
probably turn out Hobson jilted some girl!"
THE SHADOW made no comment. He concentrated on the task of prolonging his
visit. More and more Marcus' desire to get rid of his visitors was becoming
apparent.
Margo, obeying a signal from The Shadow, kept Jimmy on the subject of
Professor Durkin.
"An eccentric guy," Jimmy said with a chuckle. "I used to study under him.
Would you believe it - I was considered a few years ago a brilliant young
prospect as a metallurgist. Marcus was terribly hurt when I decided I didn't
want to slave in laboratories while I could have a good time."
Jimmy continued to ramble on.
"You see, mother left me plenty of money. I'm lazy, I'll admit. It's more
fun to be a playboy. Besides, that guy Durkin is a whack! He used to do nutty
things in the classroom. Did you know that he had a breakdown once and had to
go to a sanitarium?"
Jimmy laughed jovially.
"Maybe it's just as well I turned out to be a playboy instead of a bright
young metallurgist. Durkin might have recommended me. Maybe when I told
Professor Durkin no soap on a career of science - I saved my life!"
He said it as a careless joke. But Marcus didn't think it was a joke. He
uttered a sharp exclamation of anger.
"I don't enjoy your humor, James. Professor Durkin has been an honored
educator too long to be made the butt of a questionable joke."
There was abrupt silence for a moment. Jimmy was embarrassed. He shrugged
and apologized.
"I was just kidding. Durkin's really a harmless old guy. I'm sorry."
Cranston picked up another weapon from its dust-proof case. But his
attention was not on the gun. He noticed that Marcus had drifted casually
toward a small desk in a corner of the gun room. His back was toward Cranston.
Marcus was sliding something into a drawer of the desk.
Before he could close the drawer, The Shadow was at his elbow. He saw that
the thing Marcus Bellinger had tried to hide was a photograph.
"What an interesting face!" Cranston murmured. "Who is it?"
"I was getting it out to show you," Marcus lied hastily. "It's a
photograph of Professor Durkin - undoubtedly one of the finest teachers of
metal technology in the entire country."
The Shadow studied the photograph. It was a benevolent face, but there was
a hardness around the lips, a pinched expression about the nose. His eyes held a
bright glitter, even in the picture.
The Shadow was an expert in reading character. He decided that Professor
Durkin would be a formidable antagonist if the opposition of someone else
became annoying to him.
Meanwhile, Marcus Bellinger was again noting the clock.
"Didn't you say, Jimmy, that you were planning to have dinner with your
friends?"
"I did," Jimmy replied with a grin. "Margo, I insist that you and Mr.
Cranston be my guests for the rest of the evening. We'll have dinner wherever
you suggest. After that, we'll take in a musical show. I recommend 'The Lady
Said Yes' at the Imperial Theater. I can get box seats without any trouble.
After that - who knows? An exclusive little night club? What do you say?"
Margo's laughter was like silver bells.
"I guess it will have to be 'The Lady Says Yes,'" she said. "Shall we,
Lamont?"
"Sounds pleasant."
"Then we had better get started," Jimmy said.
On the sidewalk outside, he whistled for a cab. He was in high spirits,
apparently, but Cranston noticed that the morose look that had clouded his eyes
earlier in the cocktail lounge had returned.
Cranston divined the cause for that frown, but he ignored it for a moment.
Turning carelessly on the sidewalk, he allowed his gaze to drift toward the
front windows of Marcus Bellinger's home. The shades in the lighted gun room
were still lifted. No one was visible there.
But there was a slight movement at a draped window to the left of the gun
room. A face was peering cautiously, to make sure that all three of the recent
visitors to the house were getting into the taxicab, to leave together.
The Shadow caught a lightning glimpse of the sharp profile of Marcus
Bellinger!
He didn't betray his knowledge that he had noted anything. He stepped into
the taxicab with Jimmy Bellinger and Margo. He waited until the cab had turned
into Fifth Avenue before he spoke.
There was an amused expression on his lips. He said jokingly, "You look a
little glum, Jimmy. Did you know that I have the gift of second sight?"
Margo laughed. Jimmy didn't.
"A fortune-teller, eh? Do you want me to cross your palm with silver?"
"Better than that," Cranston chuckled. "I'm going to make a bet that I
think will win me twenty dollars."
"What's the bet?"
"I can tell you exactly why you are glum. I can also tell you how to cure
it. Twenty dollars if I'm right?"
"Go ahead."
"The reason you are glum," Cranston said, "is because you had hoped to
spend the evening alone with Margo. Now you find an annoying personage named
Lamont Cranston present to turn a pleasant twosome into an annoying threesome.
Correct?"
"Correct," Jimmy grinned.
"Now for the cure! It happens that I have an appointment elsewhere.
Consequently, I've got to leave you and Margo at the next corner. Are you
cured?"
"And how!" Jimmy said. He drew out his wallet, handed Cranston a
twenty-dollar bill. "You're a soothsayer and a gentleman! I never lost a bet
more cheerfully in my life!"
The taxi halted. Cranston got out, tipped his hat, watched Margo and Jimmy
speed away.
AS soon as they were out of sight, Cranston began to walk slowly along the
sidewalk. Soon another cab approached. Cranston got in when the driver hailed
him.
The driver of the cab was a hacker named Moe Shrevnitz. He enjoyed the
reputation of being one of the smartest taxi drivers in Manhattan. But he had a
far more useful purpose in driving that cab.
Moe Shrevnitz was an agent of The Shadow!
In Moe's cab, Lamont Cranston ceased to exist. When the cab stopped
presently in the late afternoon dusk, The Shadow emerged.
He had returned to the rear of the Bellinger mansion. His black cloak and
low-drawn, slouch hat made him seem part of the darkness.
A narrow alley led to a high board fence. On the other side of that fence,
The Shadow approached a lighted window. It was the kitchen window of the
Bellinger home. Inside, a man was visible. Pitman, the butler of Marcus, was
busily cleaning silver.
Alongside the lighted window was a dark one. This window led to the
pantry. The Shadow used a sharp cutting tool to remove the pane. He entered
without the knowledge of the butler in the adjoining room.
The pantry seemed like a hopeless cul-de-sac for The Shadow to choose for
an invasion. Its only door led into the kitchen, where Pitman sat with his
cutlery and silver polish.
But The Shadow was patient. He didn't expect Pitman to remain indefinitely
in the kitchen.
Presently, he heard a ring from the front doorbell. Pitman heard it, too.
He rose, hurried through the house to answer the ring.
He had hardly faded before The Shadow was on the move. A swift advance
took him through the kitchen, into the dimmer expanse of a long corridor.
Like a moving patch of blackness, he glided to the foot of the ornate
front staircase. From where he stood, he had a partial glimpse of the front
door.
A man was standing in the entry. He looked like a workman. He was carrying
a stout leather satchel.
"Phone company repair man," be said crisply. "I understand there's
something wrong with a phone."
"Quite so," Pitman said. "This way, sir."
The man stepped forward into the vestibule light. For an instant his
features were clearly revealed.
The telephone repair man was - Mike Vallon!
CHAPTER IX
VICIOUS CIRCLE
By the time Pitman had conducted Vallon to the foot of the staircase, The
Shadow was no longer visible.
He had faded swiftly aloft.
In the dim hallway above, The Shadow was busy at an urgent task. It was a
task that required a sharp knife and steady fingers.
The Shadow risked discovery to do it properly. But when he faded deeper
into the gloom of the upper corridor, an inaudible twitch of laughter in his
throat testified that he was satisfied.
"A gentleman from the telephone company, sir," Pitman announced at the
door of the study. He turned, started down the stairs.
The next instant there was a terrific crash in the dimness of the upper
hall.
Startled, Pitman whirled about. His cry of alarm was echoed within the
study. Bellinger rushed into view, followed by Vallon.
"What happened?" Bellinger cried.
"I don't know, sir," Pitman gasped. He pointed tremulously toward the
corridor wall. "I think one of the wall paintings has fallen, sir."
Marcus Bellinger bent over the fallen picture. He noted that the antique
gold cord that had parted was badly frayed. The Shadow had done a nice job with
his knife.
Pitman's face was still pale. He was staring, not at the fallen picture,
but at the telephone man. In Vallon's grasp was a grim-looking .38. He chuckled
as Pitman recoiled.
"Don't get excited. Nobody's going to get shot. I just didn't know what
was going on. I'm a collection man for the company as well as a repair man. So
I carry a gun. I just thought I'd play safe."
He shoved the gun into his pocket, followed Bellinger back into the study.
This time, the door was locked on the inside.
The Shadow, unknown to either man, was also inside the high-ceilinged
study!
Profiting by their scrutiny of the fallen painting in the dark corridor,
The Shadow had gained his goal unseen.
A swift advance carried him up the softly carpeted staircase that led to
the balcony. His earlier visit in the role of Cranston had apprised The Shadow
of the possibilities of that balcony as a hiding place.
The wall behind the mahogany rail was lined with tiers of books. From the
railing itself hung ancient parchment maps. It was the work of an instant for
The Shadow to gain his aerial perch and crouch low behind one of those
parchment maps.
"You shouldn't have flashed that gun, you fool!" Marcus snarled. "I don't
want Pitman getting any wrong ideas."
"Don't worry," Vallon said. "I never saw a butler yet that wasn't a dope."
He laid his leather valise on the top of a polished table.
"What was the idea of making me wait? It's cold outside! Why did you give
me the shade signal?"
"I had to," Bellinger replied. "My brother made an ill-timed visit. He
brought a couple of people to look over my collection of arms."
"Who were they?" Vallon rasped.
"Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane. You wouldn't know them." There was a
sneer in Marcus Bellinger's smooth voice. "Cranston is a society man. Miss Lane
is also in the social register. I had quite a job getting rid of them."
Vallon grunted. "Let's not waste time talking about a couple of society
dopes. I'm here for the payoff. How about dough?"
Bellinger turned toward the wall. He pivoted a Florentine cabinet. Behind
it was a small recess. In the recess was a safe.
Bellinger spun the dial swiftly, opened the safe. He began to take out a
number of packets.
The Shadow, watching from his hidden post on the balcony, drew in his
breath in astonishment. Each of those packets was a tight bundle of currency.
There were many packets - and the topmost bill in each one was of large
denomination. It seemed like a terrific amount of money to pay Vallon - even on
the assumption that the money was a payoff for criminal services rendered.
Vallon didn't seem to be impressed by the amount. He packed the money
swiftly inside his satchel. Before he was finished, the satchel was crammed. He
had to work hard at the bag to force it shut, and lock it.
"O.K.," he grunted. "I don't want to hang around here any longer than I
have to. I guess that suits you, too, eh? Unlock the door. Call your dumb
butler, and I'll be on my way."
The Shadow was disappointed. He had hoped to hear more. But it was obvious
that he was doomed not hear anything else.
He crept noiselessly along the balcony. But not toward the staircase that
led to the study below. His goal this time was a small stained-glass window at
the far end of the balcony.
He reached it just as Vallon and Bellinger paused to unlock the study
door. The balcony window operated on a pivot. Opening the catch, The Shadow
pushed gently.
He slid from the balcony to a stone sill outside. Then the stained-glass
window pivoted back. It didn't close completely, because The Shadow was afraid
to risk the telltale click that the latch might make.
In the darkness outside the window, The Shadow prepared to make a daring
descent.
He was hanging at full length from a narrow, stone sill. Below his
dangling feet, the smooth wall of the house offered no chance for a foothold.
But the eyes of The Shadow had already surveyed his dark surroundings. He had
spotted the one chance to get to the ground without too much delay.
It was a risky trick.
Several feet to his left was the perpendicular shape of a copper
drainpipe. It led from the ornamental cornice of the roof to the well-kept turf
in the rear of the mansion.
Inching his cold hands to one end of the stone sill, The Shadow began to
swing. His legs flew out like twin pendulums.
His feet tried to hook about the copper drainpipe. His first try was a
failure. The recoiling swing of The Shadow's body almost tore his icy hands
loose from the stone window ledge above his head. But his nerves were strong,
and his muscles well-trained.
He held on!
Again, he repeated his daring maneuver. This time, his outflung feet
hooked around the drainpipe. He was helped by the fact that a semicircular
metal support rod held the pipe close to the wall at this point. His toes
hooked like the toes of an aerial performer at the circus.
The Shadow breathed deeply. He was now bridged between the sill and the
pipe.
Suddenly, he shoved at the sill with a mighty push. As his body flung free
from the sill into space, he used his leg and stomach muscles to keep it
stiffened. His straining torso moved toward the vertical pipe, where his legs
were anchored lower down.
It was like some of the ladder stunts The Shadow performed daily in the
gymnasium where, as Lamont Cranston, he kept himself in shape. But there was no
mat underneath to break his fall in case of a miscue!
Not once, however, did the thought of peril cross The Shadow's mind. All
he was conscious of was the need to reach the ground below quickly, so as to
get to the street in time to keep tabs on the sly Mike Vallon.
The Shadow was determined to find out the destination of that leather
satchel packed with money from the safe of Marcus Bellinger!
The feet of The Shadow touched the dark turf below the drainpipe.
Crouching low, to avoid being silhouetted against the light from the kitchen
window where Pitman had resumed his silver-polishing job, The Shadow faded
through the tradesmen's alley to the street in front.
He glided across the street, melted into the shadowy expanse of house
fronts on the other side.
A MOMENT later Mike Vallon emerged from the front door of the Bellinger
mansion. He walked toward Madison Avenue.
The Shadow trailed him.
A taxicab was parked near the corner. Vallon glanced toward it, but he
couldn't see the driver's face. The driver was hunched low over the wheel, fast
asleep.
Vallon didn't get in the cab. There was a drugstore on the corner and
Vallon went toward it. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind. While he
hesitated, the unseen figure of The Shadow entered the parked taxicab. Inside
the cab, The Shadow vanished. In his place appeared the elegant figure of
Lamont Cranston.
The driver paid no attention to this use of his cab. He was Moe Shrevnitz,
waiting there on orders received earlier from The Shadow.
The Shadow headed swiftly for the side door of the drugstore in his role
of Cranston. He divined that Vallon was hesitating about a phone call. He
wanted to get inside the store before Vallon did. It was a small drugstore, not
one of the big chain places. There would probably be only one phone booth in the
store.
He was correct. The Shadow moved from the side door to the booth a moment
before Mike Vallon appeared from the avenue doorway.
Knowing that Vallon had never seen him as Lamont Cranston, The Shadow
didn't mind showing himself. He pretended to be getting a wrong number. Before
Vallon could leave, Cranston flung open the door of the booth with an
exclamation of annoyance. He began to leaf through the Manhattan directory,
hinting for the number he had apparently failed to get correctly the first time.
Vallon went into the booth, dialed a number. To him, the appearance of
Lamont Cranston represented no threat of danger. But he played safe. He
pretended to be calling a girl friend.
"Hello, Marie? How's tricks? You're darned right I want to see you, babe!
Listen!"
He glanced out the glass door of the booth. Cranston was still busily
leafing through the phone directory.
"I just got paid, babe! Nice, huh? Yeah, I have tonight off. I thought we
might get together. How about a date, honey?"
He waited a minute. Then:
"Swell! I'll meet you at the Ninety-sixth Street entrance to Central park
in a half-hour. Got it? Ninety-sixth and Fifth. So long, sweetheart!"
He came out of the booth, his gaze still alertly on Cranston. But Cranston
paid no attention. Hurrying past the crook into the booth, Cranston dropped a
nickel, pretended to dial a new number. He deliberately dialed the number of a
big department store which he knew would be closed for the night.
He said to a non-existent voice, "Hello? I thought I'd never get you. I
kept getting the wrong number!"
Vallon, satisfied, hurried out of the drugstore, his hand gripping his
heavy money satchel. The Shadow made no effort to follow him. As soon as he was
certain that the coast was clear, The Shadow went around the corner and again
entered the parked taxicab of Moe Shrevnitz.
His voice intoned an order.
"Twenty-minute delay. Drive around in neighborhood of East Ninety-sixth
Street. In twenty minutes proceed through Central Park. Use Ninety-sixth Street
transverse cut. Additional orders later."
Moe acknowledged the order. The cab moved away from the curb. Twenty
minutes later, it weaved into Fifth Avenue traffic, halted for a turn at
Ninety-sixth Street. Here was a paved, cross-town street that carried cross
traffic through the park by way of a sunken cut.
The moment the light changed to green, Moe sent his cab racing westward.
BUT his speed was deceptive. As soon as the cab reached a quiet spot it
slowed. The black-garbed figure of The Shadow sprang out. It melted against the
blackness of the stone wall of the transverse cut. The cab raced onward, empty.
Swiftly The Shadow climbed the steep wall of the cut. It was not a hard
task for him. The wall was built of rough stones that projected in an irregular
pattern from their base of cement.
In a few moments The Shadow was atop the wall. He crawled through the
protection of dark shrubbery.
He was now inside the park itself. He headed through the thick bushes
toward the Ninety-sixth Street entrance. The entrance at this point led
directly into the park. The Shadow watched with sharp eyes from his covert of
bushes just beyond the ornamental metal railing.
Soon, he saw a figure approach, carrying a heavy leather satchel. Mike
Vallon glanced keenly about. A moment later he was approached by another figure.
It was a man whose appearance brought a gleam of interest to the watchful
eyes of The Shadow. Under his breath, The Shadow whispered a name:
"Chip Ricco!"
He was well aware of the ugly proficiency of Ricco with a machine gun. In
The Shadow's private rogues' gallery at his sanctum, there was an excellent
photo of Ricco. Now he was consorting with Vallon - staring at the leather
satchel in Vallon's grasp with a greedy eye.
The Shadow recalled the machine-gun assault outside a police station the
afternoon Marvin Hobson was found "murdered" in bed at his boardinghouse. Ugly
facts began to fall into a definite pattern in The Shadow's mind.
He trailed Vallon and Ricco, paralleling them through the underbrush as
they walked deeper into the park. They selected a bench on a deserted stretch
of pathway. When they finally seated themselves in the darkness, it was at a
spot where they had an uninterrupted view of the path for many yards in each
direction.
But they failed to inspect the dense shrubbery behind the bench. Screened
by the leafy tangle, The Shadow became an interested spectator of the interview
between Vallon and Ricco.
Vallon unlocked his satchel, handed Ricco a single packet from the
contents. Ricco's eyes bulged at the sight of so much money.
He said greedily, "Cripes, that stuff you got in there ain't hay, pal! How
much have you got?"
"None of your damned business," Vallon snarled. "I'm paying what you
contracted for, ain't I? Then take it, and scram!"
"I just wondered where the rest of it was going."
"Quit wondering," Vallon told him in an ugly rasp. "I might get the idea
you were figuring on a high-jack."
Ricco hastily denied any such intent. He seemed a little afraid of the
truculent Vallon. After a little more talk, he got up from his bench. He faded
stealthily into the darkness with his payoff.
Vallon waited ten minutes or so. Then he, too, got up. He headed back
toward Fifth Avenue with the locked satchel. The Shadow kept him in sight from
behind his screen of tangled park shrubbery.
As soon as Vallon reached Fifth Avenue, he looked about him for a taxicab.
While he was looking, The Shadow crossed the avenue a block to the north. He
slipped quickly into the waiting taxi of Moe Shrevnitz. Moe, obeying orders,
had returned through the park transverse cut as soon as he reached Central Park
West.
The taxi trail of Mike Vallon was not a long one. Vallon's cab turned into
a cross-town street and stopped. It was a street lined with shops and stores.
The Shadow's eyes gleamed as he saw the sign above the store that Mike
Vallon entered with his satchel. It was a telegraph office. The Shadow didn't
follow Vallon inside. Vallon had already seen him as Cranston in the drugstore.
In the role of Cranston, The Shadow waited in the doorway of a shop. Moe
Shrevnitz, parked nearby, had orders to pick Vallon up, if possible, when he
again emerged from the telegraph office.
There was no satchel in Vallon's possession when he returned to the
sidewalk. He headed along the street at a leisurely pace. Cranston heard Moe's
persuasive voice:
"Taxi, sir?"
But he didn't turn to see if Moe's appeal was successful. Keeping his face
averted, Cranston faded into the telegraph office. He walked to the counter,
pretended to compose a message on a telegram blank.
His gaze, however, moved across the counter toward a rack close by. On the
rack was the satchel that Vallon had crammed with money from Marcus Bellinger's
safe. There was a delivery tag attached to it.
The Shadow was close enough to be able to read the writing on the tag.
It showed that the bag was destined to be delivered to a city address by
messenger service at ten o'clock on the following morning.
The sight of the address made The Shadow blink. But he knew he couldn't be
mistaken when he saw the printed name of the addressee.
It was - Marcus Bellinger!
The money paid by Bellinger to Mike Vallon was completing a vicious
circle. It was going back to the home of the man who had paid it out!
CHAPTER X
DOUBLE DANGER
IN a small, furnished Manhattan apartment a thin man with glittering eyes
was preparing to make a phone call. The man was Humphrey Durkin, professor of
the chair of applied metallurgy at Barnham Institute.
His trip to New York had been made in secrecy. Ordinarily, be stopped at a
hotel when he traveled on leave. But this time he had chosen a furnished
apartment. He had rented it under an alias. His name on a hotel register would
have brought reporters to interview him for a science story. Durkin didn't want
interviews. He had a grim reason for keeping out of sight.
As he turned to his telephone, Durkin's grin was taut. A name formed on
his lips: "Henry Strode."
Henry Strode had once been a star pupil of Professor Durkin's at the
institute. There had been others like him. Two more names passed through
Durkin's mind: Eldridge and Hobson. Many promising students had been
recommended to various companies by various universities. But the three that
Durkin was thinking about had all been recommended by himself.
They had been employed by Marcus Bellinger of the Bellinger Metals Corp!
A year ago, Henry Strode had vanished. His disappearance had occurred long
before the unfortunate accident of Eldridge and the unexplained murder of
Hobson. Not a word concerning Strode's sudden dropping from sight had ever
appeared in the newspapers. This fact seemed to amuse Durkin. His grim chuckle
deepened.
Durkin's trip to New York was directly connected with the peculiar events
that had involved his star pupils. So was the phone call he was now about to
make. He had looked up the name Bellinger in his phone book. But not Marcus
Bellinger.
Durkin's phone call was for Marcus' younger brother, the happy-go-lucky
playboy - Jimmy!
He drew a blank. The hallman at the expensive building where Jimmy
maintained an ornate suite on an upper floor reported that Jimmy was not at
home this evening.
"His line does not answer, sir. Sorry."
"That's quite all right," Durkin murmured. "It wasn't important."
That was a lie. The gleam in Durkin's eyes testified to the fact that the
answer he had received was important. Durkin had found out what he wanted to
know.
But he was not yet ready to take advantage of that knowledge. He had one
additional call to make. This time he phoned Marcus Bellinger.
He took precautions to hide his identity. His voice changed to a husky
quality. He pitched it lower than his usual tones.
"Hello? This is Harvey Delburn, a friend of Jimmy's. I've just phoned his
apartment and found he's not at home. I wonder if you happen to know his
whereabouts tonight?"
"Delburn?" Marcus said slowly. "I don't believe Jimmy ever mentioned you
to me."
"Probably not. I've been in Canada. I'm going back early tomorrow. That's
why I'm so eager to see him tonight."
He waited, his eyes bright. Then his taut body relaxed.
"You'll find him at the Imperial Theater," Bellinger said. "He went to see
'The Lady Said Yes.' With Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane. I believe he has a
box."
"Margo?" Durkin said. "Dear Margo Lane! It will be so nice to see her
again."
He had never heard of Margo, but he lied smoothly. He added a few polite
words, then hung up with a nervous click. He was satisfied he had pulled the
wool over Bellinger's eyes.
He picked up a paper-wrapped parcel that looked like a framed picture.
Then he hurried from the apartment.
But Durkin had made a bad guess. Marcus Bellinger was no fool. He had not
been hoodwinked. Durkin's nervous eagerness to get on the trail of Jimmy had
betrayed him. He forgot to keep his disguised voice under control.
Marcus Bellinger had met Durkin many times. They were supposedly good
friends. Marcus had helped to endow the chair of applied metallurgy at Barham
Institute. He was aware of the true identity of his phone-caller by the time he
hung up his instrument.
For a moment or two be stood absolutely still, his mouth drawn in a tight
line. Then he uttered a softly spoken oath. He turned to a carved desk, opened
a drawer. A gun slipped into his hand. He jammed the weapon in his pocket and
donned coat and hat.
He left his home quietly, without the knowledge of Pitman.
MEANWHILE, Professor Durkin was driving swiftly through the cold darkness
of Manhattan. He headed for the Imperial Theater.
The show was well under way, but Durkin bought a ticket. He didn't go near
the usher at the head of the darkened aisle. Dodging the usher, he sneaked
upward to the balcony. Aided by the darkness in the theater, he was able to
move quietly toward a corridor that led to the boxes on the right.
He found no sign of his quarry. Again he made a careful prowl through
darkness. This time, his glance through a tiny gap of drawn velvet curtains
showed him Jimmy Bellinger and a very lovely brunette companion. Durkin figured
the girl was Margo. There was no sign of Lamont Cranston.
But Durkin didn't worry about that. Jimmy was the one he was after! He
retreated through the black corridor that led from the box. He was gone several
minutes. Then once more his fingers parted the rear curtains of the box.
Durkin waited to attract the attention of Jimmy. He was successful. After
a while, Jimmy's head turned. He saw a pale face peering through the dark gap
in the velvet. To his amazement, he recognized Professor Durkin.
He caught only the briefest glimpse. Durkin vanished instantly. Jimmy
hesitated. Margo, turning toward him, whispered, "What's the matter, Jimmy?"
"Nothing," he muttered. "Do you mind excusing me a moment? I'll be right
back." He didn't mention to her what he had seen.
Margo had noticed that peering face, too, but she didn't make any comment.
Jimmy rose softly and left the box. Margo, warned earlier by The Shadow,
remained where she was.
The brief delay had given Durkin a chance to vanish in the black corridor.
Jimmy moved stealthily along, hunting for him. A frown on his good-looking face
testified to his puzzlement at the strange actions of a man he had not even
known was in New York.
Absorbed by the puzzle, Jimmy failed to notice in the dark that the door
of the corridor washroom was slightly ajar. As he passed it, he heard a slight
sound. But his turn was too late.
Something struck him heavily on the skull, stunning him. His toppling body
was grasped, dragged noiselessly into the washroom.
Swiftly, Durkin searched his unconscious victim. He ignored Jimmy's
wallet, crammed with currency. What his trembling fingers sought after were
keys!
He found them on a leather key pad in Jimmy's pocket. He detached one of
the keys from the pad. Its shape and size told Durkin that it was an apartment
key. It dropped into his pocket. He replaced it on Jimmy's key pad with another.
The fake key looked enough like the stolen one to make prompt detection of
a switch difficult. Most latchkeys looked alike. Durkin choked down a nervous
gasp of triumph as he tiptoed from the washroom into the black corridor.
Unless Jimmy hurried home and tried the fake key in his lock, he would
scarcely be aware of the switch that had been made while he lay unconscious.
That meant precious time for Durkin.
At the end of the corridor was a dim, red light. It showed the location of
a side exit from the theater. Durkin pushed the door slightly ajar, slipped
invisibly through. He was on the metal platform of a flight of stairs that led
downward to an exit alley.
The cold wind made him shiver, but there was grim warmth at his heart. He
darted down the metal steps, sneaked swiftly from the alley, hurried back to
where he had left his parked car.
Soon he was driving across town to the apartment building where Jimmy
Bellinger lived.
AGAIN Durkin took advantage of an alley. This time, it was a paved
tradesmen's entrance to the swanky apartment building. Durkin gained the
basement of the building, sneaked through empty silence to the service elevator.
The service elevator rested at the basement level. It was empty, its door
open. But Durkin was too cautious to risk using the elevator. He used the fire
stairs that led upward around the service shaft.
He was aware, now, of the floor on which Jimmy's suite was located. A
glance at the typewritten directory for the convenience of delivery clerks had
apprised him of this.
Durkin didn't try to use his stolen key on the service door of Jimmy's
apartment. He knew his victim would hardly carry a kitchen key about with him.
Sneaking through the service hallway, he opened a metal door.
It was unlocked and opened easily. This was the fire door that connected
the service hail with the main corridor.
The flat package that Durkin had brought with him was still in his
possession. He leaned it gently against the wall, opened Jimmy's door with the
stolen key.
Once inside, he was careful about lights. He turned on only one, a dim
lamp in a corner of the living room, that was shielded from the shaded windows
by the projecting end of a bookcase.
Durkin didn't waste time in the living room. He headed swiftly for Jimmy's
bedchamber, carrying his flat package with him.
Unwrapping it, he disclosed that it was a framed photograph of two young
men. One was Jimmy Bellinger. He and another young man were grouped together in
a college picture. Both wore caps and gowns. Jimmy's arm rested on his
companion's shoulder. Both were smiling into the camera.
It was evidently a college picture taken shortly before Jimmy's graduation
from Barham. The indoor background suggested that Jimmy and his friend had been
roommates.
Professor Durkin hung the picture on the wall of the bedchamber. Having
hung it, he darted back to the living room. He began what looked like a
destructive and crazy search.
He smashed chairs, ripped up the rug, yanked a drawer from a desk,
scattered its contents helter-skelter over the floor. He even ripped and pulled
down a length of picture molding that ran along the upper edge of the
living-room wall.
There was a wall safe in the corner. Durkin made crooked scratches on it
with a pocketknife. Everything he did seemed to be a hurried effort to distract
attention from the picture he had hung on the bedroom wall.
He was so busy that he failed to hear a faint click from the foyer of the
empty apartment. His first warning of danger was a harsh snarl behind him:
"Stick 'em up!"
A gun was aimed steadily at the startled Durkin. It was in the hand of a
man whose face was completely hidden by a mask.
"Back up!" the intruder rasped. "Over in the corner. Keep your hands high!"
Durkin's face went chalk-white. He began to whine, to plead for his life.
The masked man chuckled. He stepped closer.
But professor Durkin was a sly and ruthless foe. His fear was faked. He
pretended to stagger as he backed toward the wall.
His foot suddenly shot out in a vicious kick. The kick missed its target,
otherwise the masked man would have fallen in writhing agony to the floor. But
it carried enough power to topple the masked man backward to one knee.
Durkin dived at him like a thunder bolt. A smash of his fist caught the
masked man on the jaw. The gun slipped from his grasp. Durkin was unable to
grab the weapon, but his furious sweep sent the gun skittering across the rug
out of reach.
His hand clawed toward the masked man's throat, caught a double grip. He
began to squeeze with terrific pressure.
The masked man twisted on the floor. Durkin squatted above him like a
hunched ape, throttling him with remorseless pressure.
A horrible gurgle came from the masked man's throat. His legs jerked with
convulsive fury.
It was purely an instinctive kick, but luck served him well.
His kick struck the leg of a fragile table. The table overturned. A heavy
urn crashed. Bent over his victim, Durkin failed to see the urn topple. It
struck him on the head, dazing him.
The masked man felt the fingers on his throat loosen. He tore them away
with a fierce clutch. Whirling, he dived sideways on hands and knees for the
gun he had lost.
He was unable to do more than get his hands on the barrel before Durkin
was on him like a clawing animal. But this time the gun remained in the masked
man's grasp. He whirled it like a club at the skull of the man bending over
him. The butt struck Durkin back of the ear, pitching him in a quivering heap.
Before he could writhe upward, the masked man struck again. This time,
Durkin stopped writhing. He lay in a sodden heap on the floor, knocked
completely out.
The masked man gasped an oath. For an instant his gun pointed downward at
his foe. But he didn't pull the trigger. A warning whisper inside him told him
that the roar of gunfire, even in a soundproofed apartment, might bring what he
dared not risk: outside interference.
He vaulted over the limp figure of Durkin on the floor and ran toward the
safe in the corner. It was obvious that the masked man knew more about that
safe than Durkin did. He squatted on his heels, spun the combination dial with
sure knowledge.
The safe's door opened. The masked man searched the interior. But he
apparently failed to find anything that interested him. With a harsh grunt, he
put back everything he had examined. He closed the safe, relocked it.
A groan made the masked man halt his fruitless search. Durkin was
beginning to recover consciousness. The masked man dared not wait any longer.
He didn't want to risk recognition. Nor did he want to kill Durkin.
Stealth and flight were more important to the masked man.
He fled silently from the apartment before Durkin's eyes opened. A swift
race took him through the same service corridor that Durkin had used earlier.
He melted from the dark basement of the apartment house to the tradesmen's
alley.
When he reached the head of the alley, the masked man stopped briefly. His
hand lifted. A swift jerk pulled the mask from his face. He stepped quietly to
the street beyond the alley.
There was a street light nearby. It showed the pale face of the man who
had fought Durkin so savagely in Jimmy Bellinger's apartment.
It was - Marcus Bellinger!
His identity was not as secret as he supposed. Marcus Bellinger's sly
withdrawal from the alley was noted by another man. A hidden watcher observed
the face of the president of the Bellinger Metals Corp.
Harry Vincent was watching there on the orders of The Shadow!
Vincent hesitated. He wasn't quite sure what to do. He had seen Professor
Durkin enter first. He had seen Marcus Bellinger follow, after masking himself
cautiously in the alley's mouth.
Vincent knew that Durkin was still inside the building.
For an instant, he debated. Follow Marcus or wait for the appearance of
Durkin? Vincent made a quick decision. He began to move through the darkness on
the trail of the fading Marcus Bellinger.
The light touch of a hand restrained Vincent.
"No!"
The whisper was almost inaudible. It came from blackness. The blaze of
quiet eyes stared into Vincent's. A hawk-beaked nose was dimly visible under
the brim of a slouch hat.
The Shadow ordered Vincent to wait where he was. The next instant, The
Shadow was gone.
He had vanished soundlessly into the basement of the apartment building.
CHAPTER XI
THE RIDDLE OF HENRY STRODE
FOR the third time this evening, a stealthy figure ascended the service
stairway that led aloft to the apartment of Jimmy Bellinger.
Unlike Durkin and Marcus Bellinger, The Shadow did not stop at Jimmy's
floor. He continued up one more flight of the boxed-in, steel staircase. He
melted from sight on the landing above.
The Shadow was aware that Professor Durkin was still inside Jimmy's
apartment. He waited.
Soon, be heard stealthy footfalls. A figure glided to the service
staircase, began to descend. Remembering the photograph he had seen in the home
of Marcus Bellinger, The Shadow had no difficulty identifying Durkin.
The Shadow allowed Durkin to fade unchallenged. Harry Vincent could be
depended upon to tail Durkin from the alley below and report later.
The Shadow turned his attention to the apartment of Jimmy Bellinger.
Skeleton keys took a little time, but soon the door yielded. The Shadow
surveyed the disordered condition of the living room.
He knew that a fight had taken place in this room. But a fight would not
have torn down a length of picture molding from the upper wall. Nor would it
have produced scratches around the lock of the steel safe in the corner.
A search had been made!
The Shadow didn't attempt to crack the locked safe in the corner. He was
not deceived by the set-up. A scrutiny of the living room and its disordered
contents told The Shadow that the search had been a phony one!
If phony, there could only be one answer. The disorder of the living room
was meant to hide some other purpose.
The Shadow's laughter made a sibilant whisper. He glided through every
room in the suite, his eyes missing nothing.
His inspection ended in the bed chamber. His glance turned toward a
picture that hung on Jimmy's wall. Two things told The Shadow that this picture
had been recently hung. Its subject matter didn't match the rest of the
decorations. Every other picture was either a sporting or a theatrical print in
an expensive frame. This picture had a cheap frame. The spot where it hung
ruined the symmetry of the other pictures.
The Shadow didn't try to guess at the meaning of this photograph of Jimmy
Bellinger and an unknown college friend, both in cap and gown.
He was still on the hunt for clues. He glided from the bedchamber to the
dining room, passed onward to a small and compact kitchen.
Here he discovered something else. It didn't seem like an important find.
It was merely a pile of delivery records for milk and rolls. But those crumpled
paper slips told The Shadow something interesting.
The record showed gaps in the delivery service. Every couple of weeks
Jimmy Bellinger was apparently away from his Manhattan apartment - for three
and four days at a time.
The Shadow uttered a sibilant laugh of satisfaction. He didn't remain any
longer. Leaving as stealthily as he had entered, he glided down the fire stairs
to the basement, faded from the dark alley.
His parked car was nearby. He drove through darkness toward the brighter
neighborhood of Manhattan's theatrical section.
MEANWHILE, Margo Lane was waiting in worried silence in an upper box at
the Imperial Theater. The comedy on the lighted stage held no interest for her.
She was disturbed about the strange absence of Jimmy Bellinger.
When Jimmy had sneaked so abruptly from the box, he had told her he would
return in a moment.
Margo wondered what Jimmy and Durkin were up to. Margo had pretended to
Jimmy that she hadn't seen Durkin's peering face. But she had been quick to
recognize him. Like Cranston, she had taken a good look at the photo of Durkin
in the home of Marcus Bellinger.
Margo rose quietly. She parted the black, velvet drapes at the rear of the
box and sneaked through.
In the dark corridor she didn't notice that the door of a washroom was
slightly ajar. She moved past it, her gaze attracted by the dim, red glow of an
exit light. The exit door was partly open. Margo slipped onto the chilly outdoor
platform of an exit staircase.
She suspected that a conference was taking place between Jimmy Bellinger
and Durkin in the dim alley below. She was eager to overhear it. She glided
silently downward.
Suddenly, she felt a light touch on her shoulder. Sibilant laughter
reassured her. Her gasp of alarm died in her throat before it was uttered.
"Wait!" The Shadow whispered.
He was formless in the darkness. Only the glimmer of his face showed. The
brim of his slouch hat screened the quiet flame of deep-set eyes.
"Report!"
Margo told what had happened in the theater. The Shadow showed no
surprise. He leaned closer. From his lips came low-toned orders. Margo repeated
them to show she understood.
She turned, went back into the theater.
The upper box was still empty. Margo waited, no longer worried. Presently,
she heard steps from the corridor behind the velvet drapes.
A moment later, Jimmy appeared. There was a streak of blood on his pale
face. He looked groggy.
Margo uttered a low exclamation. Jimmy, quieted her.
"It's nothing serious. I ran into a little trouble."
He told her a smooth story. He had been held up by an unknown assailant
hidden in a dark washroom. He denied seeing the face of his attacker. He
minimized the whole thing. He wasn't badly hurt. Not a thing had been stolen.
"Probably a sneak thief," Jimmy whispered. "He was scared off before he
could rob me."
Margo withstood Jimmy's scrutiny well. Obeying The Shadow's orders, she
expressed concern over his condition. She asked if he didn't want to take her
home.
Jimmy agreed at once.
They left the theater, took a taxi to Margo's apartment. Margo, waiting on
the sidewalk, heard Jimmy's order to the taxi driver as the cab left the curb.
He gave the hacker his own address.
But Jimmy's loud voice was purely for the ears of Margo. A block from her
house, he changed his order to the hacker. He murmured the address of Marcus
Bellinger.
PITMAN answered the doorbell. He looked amazed as he recognized the late
caller. His amazement grew as he noted the lump on Jimmy's head, the dried
blood on the matted hair above his ear. But Pitman, trained to wooden
composure, said nothing.
He admitted Jimmy, then summoned Marcus.
Marcus Bellinger wasn't as calm as the well-trained Pitman. His mouth
jerked unpleasantly as he recognized his younger brother.
"What the devil happened to you? If you've been in some drunken brawl, I
am not going to intercede again. I'm tired of helping you out of scrapes. Why
did you come here tonight? It's most inconvenient."
"I came here because I'm scared," Jimmy said quietly. "Something damned
queer happened to me tonight."
He told about the assault on him at the theater. He denied catching any
glimpse of his attacker, repeated his theory that the man was a foot-pad who
had been frightened off before he could steal anything. Jimmy proved this by
showing his brother his stuffed wallet.
But there was one thing Jimmy didn't tell. In the taxicab, Jimmy had
learned something ominous. His latchkey had been stolen! Jimmy wasn't deceived
by the fake key that Durkin had inserted on his key pad.
In his haste, Durkin had replaced the key pad in the wrong pocket. A
careful examination of it disclosed to Jimmy that a cunning switch in keys had
been made. His own key was worn; the fake one was brand new.
He was wondering about Durkin's motive for the theft when a voice behind
him made him stiffen.
"Why, James! Dear boy, this is a delightful surprise! How are you?"
Turning, Jimmy found himself gazing into the blandly smiling countenance
of Professor Durkin.
"I didn't know you were in town," Jimmy managed to say.
"Just for a short time. I'm on leave from the institute. Haven't been
well. Thought I'd take a little vacation. Both curative and - er - educational."
"Are you staying overnight?"
"Marcus insisted on it when I dropped in to pay my respects." Durkin
stepped closer. He blinked suddenly.
"Good heavens, James, what has happened? Have you been hurt?"
Jimmy laughed carelessly. He had recovered his composure. He told Durkin
the same vague yarn he had told his brother. Durkin was sympathetic. Marcus
summoned Pitman. He ordered a glass of sherry for his brother.
The whole thing was like a vicious comedy. A comedy of fake and hypocrisy
between three smiling gentlemen.
Jimmy Bellinger knew grimly the Professor Durkin had slugged him. But he
pretended innocence.
Durkin was aware that Jimmy had recognized his peering face at the velvet
curtains in the rear of the theater box. He had intended him to!
MARCUS BELLINGER was under no illusions, either. He had caught Durkin
making a frantic search of the living room of Jimmy's apartment only a short
time earlier. But the advantage was with Marcus. He had worn a mask. He was
certain that Durkin was ignorant of his role of masked burglar.
Not the slightest strain showed in their polite conversation. The talk
brought out a fact that made Jimmy avert his face slightly, to hide a quick
glint in his eyes.
Professor Durkin was planning to leave New York tomorrow!
"A shame, isn't it?" Durkin murmured. "I have to attend a regional
conference of teachers in Boston. However, I expect to enjoy it. Several
interesting papers on the chemical aspects of metallurgy are scheduled to be
read."
Marcus Bellinger lit a cigar. His hand trembled slightly as he threw away
the match.
"Teachers aren't the only slaves," he murmured. "Tomorrow, I'm off myself.
We've taken on a new contract at my Opelina plant. I've got to look over the
facilities and discuss output with my branch superintendent."
"Opelina?" Professor Durkin's voice was playful. "What an odd name! Where
in the world is Opelina located, Marcus?"
"In Alabama. I have a zinc plant there."
Jimmy Bellinger set down his sherry glass. He seemed suddenly amused.
"You can have your zinc and your educational conferences, gentlemen. I can
think of something a lot better. For instance, a trout stream and an excellent
guide. Wood smoke - a canoe - a chance to use a rifle on something bigger than
a rabbit."
"Surely, you're not planning on a hunting trip?" Durkin said softly. "Dear
boy, your head! You've been hurt!"
Jimmy laughed.
"I'm not letting a little thing like a lump keep me away from a date in
the Adirondacks. I'm leaving about noon tomorrow. Do you mind if I sleep late,
Marcus?"
Marcus Bellinger was asking Durkin to spend the night. The professor
accepted.
Then he looked at Jimmy.
"Not at all." Marcus toyed with his cigar. "Since none of us, as far as I
know, has to leave early, why don't we sleep late and enjoy a leisurely
breakfast? What time would suit you?"
No one answered him.
"How about ten o'clock?" Marcus asked.
No one objected.
Soon afterward they retired to their bedrooms. Jimmy had his own room
here. Durkin was given another. Professor Durkin was careful to lock his door.
Having done this, he pulled down the shades on the windows. He examined a small
envelope he took from his wallet.
The envelope contained a ticket. It was a ticket, not to Boston, but to a
point considerably more distant and in an entirely different direction.
The town printed on that ticket was the same one that Durkin had joked
about so mildly when Marcus Bellinger had mentioned it earlier that evening.
Opelina, Alabama!
Durkin chuckled. The glitter in his eyes was very bright. He poured
himself a drink of ice water from a silver carafe on his night table. He fell
asleep quickly. Once asleep, he never moved.
Durkin wasn't the only cunning man in this house. The water he had drunk
was drugged! The lock on his door wasn't as formidable a bar as he had supposed.
Presently, the door opened slightly. A figure crept into the room. The
intruder glided noiselessly past Durkin's bed. He examined the wallet in the
inner pocket of the drugged sleeper's coat.
The intruder left as quietly as he had entered.
DARKNESS filled another chamber in another part of Manhattan. But it was
not the darkness of night. Morning was bright outside. But in this secret room,
unguessed at by police or crooks, darkness was the hallmark of secrecy.
Laughter whispered. A tiny blue light glowed like a star. Then a brighter
light disclosed the polished sheen of a desk. At that desk a black-robed figure
sat.
The Shadow was in his sanctum! Tapering fingers held a framed photograph.
It was the picture The Shadow had removed from the wall of Jimmy Bellinger's
apartment. His laughter held an ominous note as he studied the faces of the two
young men in cap and gown.
He laid the picture aside, picked up a sheet of blank paper. On the paper,
The Shadow wrote a man's name:
"Henry Strode."
A report from Rutledge Mann had told The Shadow interesting things about
this Henry Strode. Rutledge Mann was The Shadow's financial and legal expert.
He was smart at uncovering a devious trail.
Henry Strode had graduated from Barham Institute. He was the roommate and
closest friend of Jimmy Bellinger. Both had been students in the science
classes of Professor Durkin. But their paths had parted after they left
college. Jimmy, with his mother's inheritance, began the careless life of a
playboy. Strode took a job with Marcus Bellinger as a metallurgical chemist.
Strode was brilliant. He made a number of discoveries, all of which were
patented. That was where the rub came in. They were patented under the name of
the Bellinger Metals Corp.
Strode objected to this. He felt he was being cheated. He demanded a share
in the profits, but Marcus Bellinger refused. There was a bitter quarrel. Strode
resigned. The quarrel and his resignation had occurred almost a year ago.
Strode had never been seen since!
Another fact in the report from Rutledge Mann drew a whisper of grim
laughter from the lips of The Shadow. At the time of his disappearance, Henry
Strode had been employed at the Opelina plant of the Bellinger Metals Corp.!
The Shadow turned to other reports.
Moe Shrevnitz reported that Mike Vallon had gone to Pennsylvania Station
and had apparently skipped town.
From Harry Vincent, The Shadow learned that Jimmy Bellinger and Professor
Durkin had both been overnight guests at the home of Marcus.
The Shadow rose from his desk. From a polished cabinet in the dimness of
his sanctum, he produced a large, flat volume. It was an atlas. The Shadow
opened to a map of Alabama. His gaze concentrated on the town of Opelina.
Near the tiny dot that showed the location of Opelina was a crosshatched
area on the map. It looked like a desolate region. Tiny letters showed it was
called the Coosahachie Swamp.
A reference book soon added to The Shadow's knowledge about that swamp. It
was a region of mud, quicksand and mosquitoes. Water moccasins and other
poisonous snakes filled its unexplored area. The Coosahachie Swamp was
unexplored because of evil legends.
Years earlier, it had been a haven for Choctaw Indians. Here was reputed
to dwell the evil Manitou of the Choctaws. Poor whites and Negroes avoided the
swamp as a dangerous place. Its tangled center was as unknown today as it had
been in the ancient days of the Choctaws.
The Shadow's sibilant laughter indicated that he expected to find in that
desolate swamp an answer to cunning crime.
But he had a more immediate task to perform.
Very soon - at ten o'clock this very morning - a messenger was due to
arrive at the home of Marcus Bellinger with a locked money satchel.
The Shadow intended to find out who was waiting to receive that satchel!
The light above his sanctum desk went out suddenly. Darkness filled the
room. There was no sound to indicate that The Shadow had moved from his desk.
But the desk and the room was now empty.
The Shadow had left his sanctum!
CHAPTER XII
THE MAN WITH GLOVES
MARCUS BELLINGER was not overjoyed to see the elegant and dapper figure of
Lamont Cranston in his reception room. He made no bones about concealing his
annoyance. He said:
"How do you do, Mr. Cranston? I'm flattered at so prompt a return visit,
but I'm afraid you've come at an exceedingly awkward time."
Cranston noted that Bellinger was wearing dressing robe and slippers. "I
had no idea you were so late a riser, Mr. Bellinger," he said. "I thought
perhaps you could spare a few minutes before you left for your office."
The head of the Bellinger Metals Corp. continued uninterested. But
Cranston's polite stare at his dressing gown and slippers brought a grudging
explanation from him.
"I don't usually sleep so late. I have overnight guests. My brother Jimmy
stayed last night. So did a friend of mine. I believe you saw his picture the
last time you were here. Professor Durkin."
"Ah!" Cranston showed warm interest. "I've never had the pleasure of
meeting him. Perhaps -"
"Some other time, I'm afraid," Bellinger replied. "Matter of fact, I
suspect that my brother and Professor Durkin are still asleep. Nice of you to
have called."
He moved toward the door. His hand lifted toward a bell cord to summon
Pitman. But The Shadow had no intention of being brushed off that easily.
He held out a package he had brought with him.
"I've brought something about which I'd like to have your opinion. I'm not
sure of its intrinsic worth. As an arms expert, you can clear up my doubts
concerning the genuineness of this collector's item."
He opened the package, showed the "item." Bellinger forgot his haste to
get rid of his unwelcome visitor. His eyes shone with the fanatical gleam of a
collector.
"Gad! What a beauty!" he exclaimed.
It was a Mexican pistol of antique workmanship and design. The weighted
butt was incrusted with silver tracery. It looked like a piece from the private
armory of some ancient Mexican grandee. Lamont Cranston had paid a terrific
price for it. He had long since authenticated its value as a genuine antique
piece.
But to Bellinger, he pretended otherwise. He pointed to the hammer and the
trigger guard.
"Do you think it might be a partially restored piece?"
Marcus Bellinger hesitated. He looked closely at it. "Hard to tell without
a magnifying glass," he muttered.
"I'd appreciate a judgment on it from you," Cranston insisted politely.
"If you could spare a couple of minutes -"
"Very well," Bellinger said. "Come to my study."
But in the high-ceilinged study, he looked in vain for the glass he had
expected to find on his desk. "Wait just a moment. I believe I left the
confounded glass in my bedroom." He left the study with a quick step, closing
the door behind him.
Alone, The Shadow glanced at his watch. The hands were nearing ten
o'clock. He had no intention of waiting in the balconied study while an event
of supreme importance took place at the front door downstairs.
The Shadow moved softly toward the study door. He was reaching to turn the
knob gently when a slight noise became audible on the other side of the door. It
was a brief click.
It was followed by the patter of stealthy feet racing away!
The Shadow tried the door. It was immovable. Someone had turned the lock
knob on the outside, imprisoning Cranston in the ornate study!
THE reply of The Shadow to that challenge from an unknown criminal was
prompt. Whirling, he raced up the carpeted staircase to the study's balcony.
This time he was not interested in hiding behind the parchment maps that
hung from the balcony railing. He darted to the pivoted, stained-glass window,
through which he had made a quick fade on the evening when Mike Vallon had
visited Bellinger in the role of a telephone repair man.
Hanging from the narrow stone window sill outside, The Shadow repeated his
swing to the copper drainpipe. He descended the pipe swiftly, eager to gain the
street in front of the house.
He was grimly aware that within a few minutes a messenger from a telegraph
office was due to deliver a leather satchel crammed with cash that had come
originally from Marcus' own safe!
The moment The Shadow's dangling feet touched the turf at the rear of the
mansion, he whirled. Bent low, he sped unseen through the tradesmen's alley
that connected with the front sidewalk.
Moving quietly down the sidewalk, Lamont Cranston crossed the street near
Madison Avenue. He returned on the opposite side, taking advantage of a doorway
that gave him a partial view of the vestibule of Marcus Bellinger's home.
To approach any closer would have been perilous. Eyes were undoubtedly
watching the street from one of the discreetly shaded windows on the ground
floor. The Shadow didn't care to tip his hand at this juncture.
Presently, he saw what he had anticipated. A uniformed messenger boy
approached the house from Fifth Avenue. In his hand was a heavy leather satchel.
The Shadow waited.
Within the Bellinger mansion everything was quiet. The only person visible
on the ground floor was Pitman. Pitman was arranging the dining-room table for a
delayed breakfast. He spaced the silverware and the crystal glasses with deft
accuracy. His fingers improved the fresh flower centerpiece in the middle of a
spotless damask covering.
He turned to go back to the pantry.
It was at this moment that Pitman heard the front doorbell ring.
He turned at once. Instead of proceeding back to the pantry, he left the
dining room through a side door, started through the dim lower hall toward the
front entry.
A hanging drape twitched slightly as Pitman passed. A figure stepped
soundlessly from concealment directly in the rear of the unsuspicious servant.
The figure wore gloves as a precaution against the risk of fingerprints.
In his gloved grasp was a heavy bronze candlestick. He struck savagely with his
improvised club at the skull of Pitman.
Pitman collapsed without a groan. He had neither heard nor seen his
assailant.
The man caught the limp body of the butler by the shoulder. He dragged
him, with heels dangling, to a sheltered spot at the rear of the staircase that
led aloft from ground floor.
In another second the attacker was hurrying softly through the corridor
toward the front door. He reached it before the messenger boy could ring the
bell a second time.
The door opened on a brief crack.
A politely urgent voice said: "What is it, please?"
"Satchel for Mr. Bellinger, sir."
"Very well. I'll take it."
A hand emerged, took the satchel, swung it deftly inside the door.
"Sign here," the messenger said.
Again a hand emerged. It steadied the receipt pad against the frame of the
vestibule door. A stub of pencil, borrowed from the boy, scrawled the name of
Marcus Bellinger on the receipt form.
"Thank you," the polite voice said. "Here's something for your trouble.
Good-day."
A dollar bill changed hands with swift speed. The door closed almost
before the messenger could snatch at his generous tip. But the boy didn't care.
His eyes were wide with delight as he headed toward Fifth Avenue.
A buck was a sweet tip. It was all he thought of. The averted face of the
man who had signed for the satchel was something he had failed entirely to
notice.
Across the street, The Shadow had seen scarcely more than the messenger.
The vestibule door had hidden the face of the man who had taken the money
satchel. The Shadow had seen only the swift appearance of two hands and part of
a sleeve.
But the hands themselves brought a swift gleam to The Shadow's eyes. They
were not bare hands. Gloves were buttoned tightly on both of them.
The Shadow quitted his watching post. He faded quietly toward Madison
Avenue, recrossed the street, and then headed back. He flitted swiftly through
the tradesmen's alley.
He knew he had a tough stunt ahead of him. The copper pipe would be twice
as hard to mount as it had been to descend. And every second was precious!
The Shadow began to climb.
THE polite man with the gloves wasn't wasting time, either! The moment the
front door clicked softly shut he was on the move.
He darted swiftly toward the rear of the ground floor with the heavy
satchel tight in his grasp. Not far from the butler's pantry was a hinged panel
in the wall. It was a clothes chute. Soiled linen from the dining table was
dropped down this chute to the laundry room in the basement.
The gloved crook dropped his satchel down the chute. It landed in darkness
on a pile of linen. Its fall made only a slight thud.
The moment the money bag left the grasp of the crook, he whirled about. He
knew there was small chance of the satchel being discovered in the next hour or
so. It would be easy to smuggle it out as soon as things quieted down.
He raced for the front staircase. No one saw him mount the stairs or flit
through a corridor along the second floor. His goal was a small reading room
lined with books.
All the windows in this room were supposed to be locked. One of them
wasn't. It was the window nearest to an adjoining bedroom.
Opening it swiftly, the man bellied out to the sill. He closed the window
before he swayed perilously to the left. His gloved hands caught a grip of the
outer casing. His feet moved across to the adjoining sill.
Soon he was indoors again. This time - in his own bedroom!
He locked the bedroom window on the inside. He tiptoed to his closed door
and tried it. It was locked on the outside - as he well knew, having attended
to that himself before he had slugged Pitman.
Panting, the man rested for a few minutes on the edge of his bed to
recover his breath. Then he uttered a shrill chuckle of delight. Perfect! Not a
single miscue!
He walked to his locked bedroom door, began to rattle the knob vigorously.
He cried in a loud tone of surprise and exasperation: "Here! What's this?
Who has locked me in my room?"
His exasperated tone rose to an angry cry. He began to pound vigorously on
the inner panel of his immovable door.
The pounding aloft was heard dimly by a very groggy man downstairs. Pitman
was recovering consciousness. He found himself lying in a disheveled heap back
of the slant of the front staircase, with a large and aching lump at the back
of his head.
His hand touched his head and came away damp with blood.
Dizzily, he remembered what had occurred. He had heard the front doorbell
ring, had started to answer it, then, as he passed a heavy drape, something had
hit him. Pitman groaned. He staggered to his feet. Someone had struck him down.
A burglar!
Still badly fuddled, Pitman staggered to the front vestibule. He flung the
door wide open. There was no one outside.
The door itself showed no signs of a forced entry. What had happened -
Pitman wondered. He held his throbbing head, retreated unsteadily to the foot
of the staircase. He sat down weakly on the lowest step.
Again the queer banging upstairs roused him. This time the noise came from
different directions. More than one man was pounding upstairs. What in the name
of Heaven was going on?
He tottered upstairs, ran to a closed bedroom door on the second floor.
Some of the banging was going on inside this door. Pitman tried to open it,
found it was locked on the outside.
He turned the key with trembling fingers. The rush of an angry man almost
bowled Pitman over. It was Marcus Bellinger!
"PITMAN, what the devil is the meaning of -"
His cry dwindled as he caught sight of the bloody smear on the forehead of
his butler.
"A burglar, sir," Pitman gasped. "He struck me down! He must have locked
you in. He must have locked the others in, too."
The banging from other locked bedrooms brought Marcus racing to the help
of his imprisoned guests. In turn, Professor Durkin and Jimmy Bellinger were
released from their bedrooms.
There was a wild babble of talk among them. Nothing was clear except that
Pitman had been attacked while the others were locked in their rooms.
Then Marcus Bellinger uttered a delayed cry of remembrance.
"Lamont Cranston! I forgot all about him!"
"Cranston?" Jimmy echoed.
He looked puzzled. So did Professor Durkin.
Marcus explained about the visit of Cranston shortly before the strange
attack on Pitman by a burglar. The three men looked at one another. Nothing was
said openly concerning any suspicion of Cranston's presence. But the three
turned as one and hurried to the high-ceilinged study where Marcus had left
Cranston a few minutes earlier.
To their surprise, they found the study door locked. When they flung the
door open Lamont Cranston stared out at them with a puzzled smile.
"I say! This is a bit strange! Is it customary to lock people up when they
call to see you?"
Marcus Bellinger explained huskily about the attack on Pitman by an
unknown sneak thief who apparently fled without stealing anything.
Cranston could offer no better answer to the mystery than any of the
others. He gave a thin chuckle.
"Thank Heaven," he said, "the beggar didn't get his hands on my antique
pistol! I'm glad it was in the study here with me while the scoundrel was
prowling about."
He picked up the weapon from the desk where he had laid it. Again, he
asked Marcus Bellinger for an opinion on its authenticity.
It seemed impossible to get rid of Cranston without answering his request.
Marcus took the weapon hurriedly, looked at it.
"Genuine," he said. "No doubt of it." His frown added without words: "Now
will you kindly get the hell out of here and stop bothering us?"
But The Shadow wasn't finished yet. He said in the slow drawl of Lamont
Cranston: "I'm not satisfied about the gun's weight. It seems lighter than
genuine Mexican. Would you heft it, please?"
Marcus hefted it briefly. "Genuine," he growled.
With a smile, Cranston offered the gun to the other two men. Durkin hefted
it solemnly, said nothing. Jimmy Bellinger did the same.
"Thank you," Cranston murmured. "Sorry to have bothered you." He moved
toward the door. He had found out exactly the information he had come for!
In hefting the gun, the sleeve of each of the three men had slid a trifle
upward, exposing the flesh on the inside wrist. On the wrists of two of those
men, the skin was white and unmarred. But on the third the sharp eyes of The
Shadow noticed a tiny red indentation, a slight pressure mark.
He knew what had caused that mark. Afraid of leaving fingerprints on the
candlestick with which he had struck down Pitman, the man had donned gloves.
The tight pressure of the glove button had left its telltale mark.
The Shadow knew the identity of a master criminal! But the polite smile on
the face of Lamont Cranston gave no hint of that knowledge.
Late that afternoon, a plane took off gracefully from LaGuardia Field.
Lamont Cranston was aboard. It headed southward for Atlanta. There, Cranston
had made arrangements to change to a Birmingham plane.
But Birmingham wasn't destined to be journey's end for The Shadow. Crime
was nearing an ugly showdown. Deep in the mysterious heart of the Coosahachie
Swamp in Alabama, lay the final answer to a riddle of death!
CHAPTER XIII
SWAMP RAT
A CYPRESS tree lifted its branches skyward at the muddy edge of the
Coosahachie Swamp. The trunk of the cypress was rooted in water. Beyond was a
dense tangle of shrubbery. The warm sun of Alabama didn't penetrate into this
leafy morass. There was a dank, almost cold smell in the dimness.
The Shadow climbed the cypress. His figure was a dark blot against the
misshapen branches. At the spot where he rested, a crooked branch made a
convenient fork. Below was the muddy water out of which the tree grew. The
Shadow had tested the depth of that water. It was deep enough.
A .45 appeared from beneath the black robe of The Shadow. He braced the
gun lightly in the fork of the branches. Its hammer was drawn back by a tight
cord. The cord was tied about the gun's butt. This tension cord held the hammer
at full cock.
From the tension cord, another cord dangled. A long one. It reached almost
to the water below. It was thin and grayish. Its core was a train of black
powder!
The Shadow descended from the tree. He was careful to stand on a tussock
of grass, to avoid leaving a telltale footprint in the mud that edged the
water. Sibilant laughter whispered at his lips.
A spark at the end of that dangling fuse would climb steadily. When it
burned through the tension cord on the lightly propped gun, the full-cocked
hammer would be released. A bullet would be discharged.
Other things would happen. The explosion of the weapon would cause a
violent recoil. The gun would bounce backward from its twig support. The muddy
water below the cypress would swallow it from sight.
The Shadow touched a spark to the fuse. He watched it begin to eat slowly
upward. Then he retreated swiftly. Soon, he was on firmer clay ground.
Keeping out of sight, The Shadow bellied through the hot underbrush. He
moved parallel with the edge of the swamp. Soon he parted a thick clump of
bush. In front of him was a rutted, red clay road. It was one of the few that
led to the desolate region of the Coosahachie.
It ended at a bayou at the swamp's edge.
Watching, The Shadow saw a man in a boat. It looked like an ancient skiff,
but it was equipped with an outboard motor. The man wore shabby overalls. He was
fishing with a bamboo pole. He sat motionless, almost asleep.
His name was Rance Klatt. He was a local swamp character who earned a
precarious living by fishing and trapping. His miserable shack was not far from
where his boat drifted. It was built on piles sunk in the muddy bottom of the
bayou.
The Shadow was aware that the sleepy pose of Rance Klatt was a fake. So
was his fishing. The hook on his line was unbaited. Not once in a full hour had
Rance Klatt jerked up his motionless line to examine it.
His real job was to keep an eye out for strangers!
Crouched out of sight, The Shadow removed his black cloak. He was almost
ready to go swimming! Suddenly, he heard the sound. Klatt heard it, too - the
barking roar of a gun from a spot beyond the far curve of the bayou.
That unexpected pistol shot ended Rance Klatt's pretense of sleep. His
empty fishing line jerked out of the water. A whirl brought his hand to the
outboard motor of the skiff. The starting cord woke the engine to a swift roar.
The boat began to head out of the bayou.
KLATT'S boat had hardly faded from sight when The Shadow left his covert.
Leaping outward from a rock, to avoid leaving a muddy print, he made a flat
dive into shallow water. He swam toward the unpainted shack that rose like a
gaunt box on piles from the surface of swamp water.
A cleated ladder led aloft to a sort of rough balcony that circled two
shabby rooms inside. The Shadow, knowing that every second was vital, made his
search swift.
One of the rooms was an unkempt kitchen. The Shadow spent no time there.
In the other room, Klatt's bedroom, he looked for signs to guide him.
The Shadow had a photographic eye. Significant details made an instant
impression on his brain. There was a piece of shabby carpet on the floor, close
to one of the walls.
The Shadow noticed the carpet because it was not lying loosely as a piece
of carpet normally would. It was tacked down at its four corners.
The Shadow dropped to his knees. He forced out the tacks, lifted the
shabby carpet. Laughter bubbled grimly when he saw the floor boards under that
concealing rag of carpet. They were brand-new. They had been fitted into the
floor much more recently than the dingy boards that surrounded them.
The Shadow found a small trapdoor. Lifting it, he uncovered a hidden
recess below.
The first object he lifted out was a paper packet. It was a bundle of
currency. The Shadow leafed through it, totaling it swiftly. The amount was two
thousand dollars.
The Shadow's laughter deepened as he recognized the narrow paper tape that
held the packet together. This was one of the packets of money that had passed
from Marcus Bellinger's safe to Mike Vallon - and from Mike Vallon to a cunning
super-criminal who had slugged Pitman so viciously.
Many things were clear now. Mike Vallon wasn't the only crook to be paid
off - or Chip Ricco, either! Klatt and probably dozens of other swamp rats like
him were on the pay roll of crime!
Other objects emerged from Rance Klatt's hiding place: a bottle of
chloroform; adhesive tape in a thick roll; two pairs of handcuffs, with the
keys to unlock them.
The Shadow whispered the names of victims: Marvin Hobson, who had been
"murdered"; George Eldridge, who had "died" in an accidental plunge from a
skyscraper tower; a young man in Boston; a young man in Atlanta -
All of them brilliant young metallurgists. Some of them employed by Marcus
Bellinger. A few of them recommended by the glittering-eyed Professor Durkin!
The Shadow replaced the evidence swiftly, and retacked the carpet. He
descended the cleated ladder, swam noiselessly back to the shore.
He had hardly vanished before the approaching roar of an outboard motor
became louder. Rance Klatt was returning from a fruitless search of the muddy
outskirts of the swamp. There was a scowl on his swarthy visage. He had found
nothing.
He cut off his outboard, allowed the boat to drift gently near the spot
where he had been on guard earlier.
The Shadow retreated. He crawled along the tangled border of the road,
past a spot where a sharp bend made observation by Klatt impossible.
The Shadow could hurry faster now. He went onward almost a mile. From a
bushy covert, he brought into view a hidden automobile. It was red with dust,
its tires badly worn. It looked like most of the cars in this sparsely settled
region of rural Alabama.
The Shadow's appearance had changed by the time the car was ready to
start. In his place appeared a stoop-shouldered, nearsighted man who wore
silver-rimmed glasses. His clothing was black broadcloth. A master of disguise,
The Shadow had assumed an innocent personality for a grim game of deception.
HE drove boldly down the red clay road to the edge of the Coosahachie.
Parking his car at the shore of the muddy bayou, he waved toward the man in the
outboard skiff.
Rance Klatt poled his boat shoreward, stepped out on a flat rock. "Howdy.
Whut ye want?"
"I'd like to hire you. I'm prepared to pay well. Five dollars."
"Hire me? Whut fur?"
The Shadow explained. He was a professor of biology, on a vacation leave
from his college in Georgia. He had often heard of the Coosahachie Swamp, but
had never visited it. He was eager to collect specimens of reptile and bird
life.
Klatt didn't reply for a moment. His beady eyes were cold. Suddenly, he
grinned. He had a cunning expression.
He began to ask questions. "I s'pose the college folks sent you here? They
know you came here, huh?"
"No. I'm on a vacation. I left no forwarding address."
"Won't your wife git worried, mister?"
"I am not married. I live alone on the campus."
"Hm-m-m - Have you found a place to live hereabouts?"
"Not yet. I was so eager to explore the Coosahachie that I didn't stop to
make any housing arrangements. Nobody knows I'm here. Perhaps you could
recommend a nice place where I could rest."
"Yeah," Klatt said. "I'll find you a nice place to rest."
His teeth showed. He knew a place where the old guy could rest - forever!
"I reckon I'll guide you," Klatt said.
"Excellent!"
The Shadow handed over five dollars.
The outboard boat began to chug across the darkening waters of the bayou.
Soon the water was almost black from the shadow of leafy and overhanging
branches.
"Can we go right into the heart of the swamp?" The Shadow asked in his
thin, counterfeit voice.
Rance Klatt shook his head.
"Reckon ye hain't heerd much about this swamp, mister. This is old Injun
country. The Choctaws lived here. Their Manitou - you know, evil spirit - well,
he lived right plumb in the center. Nobody hereabouts would dare to try to git
in there! A few people tried - and ain't none ever seen 'em since. The
Coosahachie is sure 'nuff haunted!"
The Shadow argued gently in his role of professor. He tried to point out
the foolishness of superstition. Klatt scowled.
"Ever hear of water moccasins? Or swamp adders? One bite an you're a gone
coon! No, siree! I'll guide you around the bayous and the cricks along the
edge, but nowhere else. Besides, they ain't no way to git deeper inside. The
Coosahachie is a jungle o' water an' mud an' brush."
The boat chugged in and out of a dim network of creeks and ponds. Klatt
eyed his passenger narrowly. Presently, he gave a slight turn with his rudder.
The boat approached a thickly grown bank in a long slant. Klatt didn't seem to
be aware of this. He watched the opposite side of the water until the boat
grounded softly on a shelving bank of mud.
A grunt of fake disgust came from Klatt.
"Doggone! Sit still, mister. I'll push off with an oar!"
His exertion was clumsy. The oar slipped. Its end tangled with the thick
growth of bushes on the bank. For a moment, the bushes parted. The Shadow
uttered a murmur of interest.
A PATH was disclosed - a narrow, winding path that led like a brown thread
deeper into the swamp.
The Shadow stepped from the grounded skiff. He pulled the bushes aside
again. "Where does this path lead?" he asked.
"Doggone if I know," Rance Klatt said. "Must be an old Injun trail. Never
seen it before."
He was lying. The Shadow knew that Klatt's clumsy movement with the oar
that had revealed the hidden path had been done deliberately. But Klatt kept up
his pretense of fear.
Finally, after a long discussion and the promise of five dollars more,
Klatt agreed to guide The Shadow as far as the path led.
Klatt led the way. It was a tight, winding trail. The underbrush made
progress difficult. But Klatt pushed steadily ahead.
Soon the dry path changed to a mud trail. Water squished under their feet.
A coral snake whipped out of sight. Klatt recoiled with a nasty grin.
"I don't like this here place," he said.
But he kept going on. Faster. He moved with jerky haste, as if afraid his
companion might want to stop. The path dipped presently. Water overflowed it
from the roots of thickly interlaced bushes. It was a shallow pool. There was
no reason not to cross it.
The Shadow was on his guard when Klatt suddenly stopped and turned about.
The next instant, Rance Klatt dived at his companion!
It was done with murderous swiftness. Muscular hands caught The Shadow
about the thighs, lifted him in a giant heave. The Shadow was hurled forward.
Forewarned, he was ready for treachery. His hand caught the cablelike
thickness of a dangling vine. He held on, spoiling Klatt's attempt to hurl him
headlong. His other hand caught at Klatt's throat, tightening on the killer's
windpipe.
There was a gasping howl from Klatt. Then the two foes fell to the path in
a writhing tangle. It was bitter, ruthless fighting, with fists, teeth and boot
heels. The Shadow missed death by a fraction of an inch as his head jerked
aside from a murderous kick.
So desperate was the onslaught, that The Shadow was unable to draw one of
his hidden .45s. But Klatt was no better off. He got a gun partly out, then a
paralyzing blow forced him to drop it. The Shadow kicked the mud-splattered
weapon out of sight into the green tangle that bordered the path.
It was man against man now - and Rance Klatt was like steel springs. Blood
poured down The Shadow's battered face. His sight was growing dim. Klatt sensed
that his bull-like fury was weakening his foe. He tore himself loose from The
Shadow's grasp, swung his knotted fist backward for a knockout blow.
It was never delivered. The Shadow used Klatt's own wrestling tactics.
Ducking swiftly downward, The Shadow dropped both hands lower. They tightened
about the thighs of the swamp guide.
The Shadow's back was toward the shallow pool of water in the path ahead.
One of his hands shifted its anchorage like a flash. He straightened. Klatt
flew over his head like a wildly gyrating bundle.
There was a splash as he hit the shallow pool. Then there was a scream of
terror that set the teeth of The Shadow on edge. Klatt had staggered to his
feet. He was trying to drag himself from the water, his face pale with horror.
FOR an instant, The Shadow didn't understand the man's frenzy. Then he saw
that Klatt's legs were engulfed to the knees. He was sinking fast. It wasn't the
water that terrified him, but the sleek, oily death that lay beneath the water's
shallow surface.
Quicksand!
Before The Shadow could leap to the assistance of the screaming killer,
Klatt was waist-deep. He hadn't been able to tear out either of his sand-sucked
feet. Now he was half engulfed! Foam appeared at the edge of his writhing lips.
"Help!" he screamed.
The Shadow tried to help him. It was impossible. Klatt had fallen into the
very center of the quagmire. There was no way for The Shadow to grasp him and
still maintain a safe purchase on solid earth.
The Shadow tried to anchor himself to a muddy root and clutch at Klatt
with an extended hand. Useless! The sand that had already sucked the doomed man
shoulder-deep was ruthless in its swift pull.
The Shadow was unable to budge the shrieking victim.
He was up to his neck now. His chin - his mouth - A ripple of water cut
off his cry. For a moment, the top of his head was still visible in the shallow
pool. Then the writhing bed of quicksand slid into oily smoothness beneath the
glimmer of the dark water.
The Shadow stood rigid for a moment. He had done all he could to save
Klatt. Fate had intervened.
His jaw tightened. He didn't retreat. He swung upward and around the
treacherous surface of the death pool, using the knotted vines as ropes.
He continued onward.
It was a vain journey. After long minutes of struggle, The Shadow came
upon a dense screen of underbrush across the path. He pushed the green tangle
aside.
He was staring with sweating weariness at the same creek from which he had
started!
Nearby was Rance Klatt's empty boat, pulled up on a mud bank. The Shadow
had completed a circle on a crooked path that led nowhere. He had survived a
cunning death trap that had probably accounted for other meddling strangers.
But The Shadow was no nearer the heart of the sinister Coosahachie Swamp
than when he had started!
CHAPTER XIV
HEART OF DARKNESS.
THE bow of Rance Klatt's boat rested on the mud flat where Klatt's cunning
rudder twist had grounded it earlier. The Shadow bent and braced his feet to
shove the craft off.
The bow of the motorized skiff was blunt and heavy. It was hard to
dislodge.
The Shadow studied that blunt bow. It was boxed in to hold a bait well.
There was water in the wooden well and a few live minnows. But neither the
water nor the minnows accounted for the unusual weight of the bow.
The whole front of the craft was boxed in. It seemed a reckless waste of
space in so small a boat.
Flame glinted in the eyes of The Shadow. His laughter made a sibilant
whisper under the dark leaves that overhung the mud flat.
He got down on hands and knees in the bottom of the craft, peered
underneath the front thwart. Soon he discovered a panel that could be removed.
Tiny hinges at the panel's bottom showed him where to apply pressure. The panel
swung open from the top.
Hidden objects were disclosed.
The first thing The Shadow drew out was a pair of heavy rubber wading
boots. They were the sort that came high on the thighs, almost to a man's
middle - an invaluable help for swamp travel through this trackless waste of
mud and jungle and shallow streams.
The Shadow laid the boots aside. Deepening laughter indicated his
satisfaction as he withdrew a much heavier object. It was a stout knapsack.
Leather straps indicated that the knapsack was to be worn over a man's
shoulders. From an opening in its buttoned top, a strange, whip-like length of
flexible metal protruded.
Seeing it, The Shadow knew the value of his find. The thin metal rod was a
"whip" antenna. The knapsack contained a portable radio set!
The Shadow removed the receiver. It was compact, beautifully made. The
kilocycle marks on the dial showed it to be a short-wave set. The Shadow was
unable to move the dial to tune the instrument. The set was "frozen" to receive
only on a single channel in the short-wave band.
Under the set were the batteries that had made the knapsack so heavy.
There were also a pair of headphones in a cloth pocket.
The Shadow donned the knapsack. It fitted snugly between his shoulder
blades. Over his head projected the whiplike length of antenna. He listened in
his headphones for the crackle of a wireless signal.
He heard nothing.
However, he hadn't expected to hear anything yet. The purpose of the
outfit was clear to him. The time for action had arrived.
He started the outboard motor holding his speed low, to soften the snarl
of the powerful engine with which the skiff was equipped. The Shadow began a
tour of the network of creeks and bayous that wound in a crazy pattern through
the dimness of the thick-leafed jungle.
He had a compass, and he consulted it frequently. But he used it for a
peculiar reason. He was anxious not to penetrate any deeper into the unknown
heart of the Coosahachie! He was deliberately circling the outskirts of the
swamp.
The headphones remained on his ears. He listened intently every inch of
the way. After a long time, he heard what he expected.
The sharp crackle of a wireless signal!
IT was brief. Just a Morse-code signal. Two dashes - three dots - two more
dashes. It was repeated endlessly.
The Shadow was listening to a directed radio beam from a central sending
point in the heart of the swamp!
He beached the boat, shoved it out of sight under a trailing screen of
bushes. He donned the high wading boots.
He began to move inward toward the heart of mystery, guided by that
constant, warning crackle in his ears. The moment he deviated too far to left
or right, the code signal ceased.
The Shadow continued to use his compass as a check on the radio beam. The
going was tough. But natural obstacles no longer mattered. Mud sloughs, tangled
walls of thorns and vines that were impassable without the sharp blade of a
machete, The Shadow detoured around them all - returning always to the
crackling signal of the radio beam.
He was aware that someone was ahead of him. Unless this were so, why was
there any need of the guiding beam? Somewhere ahead a criminal equipped like
The Shadow was hurrying to a secret goal.
The moment the master criminal reached his goal, the guiding signals would
cease! Knowledge of this spurred The Shadow to faster exertions.
Soon he revised his theory about the unknown man ahead of him. Not one
man, but two! Perhaps three!
Footprints showed unmistakably at spongy spots that two men were ahead.
The footprints of one of the men were deeply sunk. He was carrying a burden.
The nature of that burden became clear when The Shadow scrutinized the spots
where the burden had been laid aside in order to rest the man who carried it.
The burden was a man. A man was being carried. A prisoner!
Deep already in the trackless swamp, The Shadow uttered a burst of harsh
laughter. But almost instantly, as though that sibilant mirth had been
overheard, the code signal in The Shadow's ears abruptly ceased.
The directed radio beam was silent. The men ahead had reached their hidden
goal!
To The Shadow, that challenge was only a spur to renewed effort. He no
longer needed the beam as a guide. Constant checking and rechecking with his
compass had told him the exact line of direction along which his enemies had
proceeded with their prisoner.
But the going was now infinitely tougher.
Detours took longer. Once The Shadow had made them, it took longer to
satisfy himself that he had returned to his proper line of advance.
He was spattered with mud halfway up his thighs. His face was a crisscross
of oozing scarlet from the sharp spurs of briars and thorns. Gnats surrounded
his head in dark, whirling clouds. Their bite was like a needle point of flame.
And always his eyes were wary for the ominous writhing of snakes in his path.
Water moccasins were everywhere. The Shadow caught glimpses of swamp
adders, and a strange crimson-banded reptile he was unfamiliar with. Once or
twice he heard the unmistakable sound of dried peas being shaken in a gourd - a
rattlesnake!
It was darker when he came to a sudden rise of ground. Matted ferns
underneath The Shadow's black-slimed boots made him slip, as he forged ahead.
The late afternoon had changed the depths of the Coosahachie to a premature
dusk. It was getting harder to see.
Soon, The Shadow halted. Ahead of him was an impassable wall of tangled
shrubbery. He tried to detour. Impossible! There was no point at which the
thorn-studded barrier could be forced.
His search took a long time. It told him something new. This barricade of
vines and thorns and interlaced shrubbery was not a natural growth. It was
man-made!
The Shadow proved it by completing a circle back to the spot where he had
started. A circular wall of green! What was inside?
THE SHADOW dropped to his knees. He used his electric torch sparingly to
investigate the inside of that tall man-made barrier. Something within the
hedge made him glad that he hadn't tried a reckless plunge through.
Thin wires ran through the center of the hedge. They were close together
in horizontal strands. No one could pass through those closely hung wires
without touching a strand.
The Shadow suspected a cunning electrical alarm.
He retreated into the swamp's dimness, allowed his gaze to move aloft.
Tall trees grew everywhere. A few of them were lightning-blasted. Most of them
were thick and well-leafed.
The Shadow selected a tree, climbed it carefully after removing his clumsy
rubber boots. He found that it was impossible to get over the hedge by crawling
along a projecting branch. None of the branches projected properly. A cunning
criminal had taken no chances on a blundering stranger crossing his
electrically protected hedge by an overhead route.
The Shadow, however, was no blundering stranger. He crawled to the outer
end of a strong branch. He gauged the distance from his high perch to the
branch of another tree just inside the death hedge.
There was a desperately wide gap between the two trees, but The Shadow
decided he could make it. He saw that the branch he wanted to reach was at a
considerably lower height than the one on which he now rested.
This other branch was festooned with vines. There were more thick branches
just below it.
The Shadow leaped. His black-clad figure hurtled outward and down. The
impetus of his desperate leap carried him toward his goal. His hands clutched
fiercely, caught at the limb toward which he had aimed - slipped!
He fell!
But in the same second that The Shadow fell, his fingers tightened about a
stout vine. It broke the force of his fall. As the vine tore loose from his
grasp, The Shadow's plunging body fell athwart a thick branch below.
Legs and arms anchored him for a desperate instant. Then his hands again
caught a tight purchase. This time, he fell no farther.
He was inside the hedge now! He descended to dark-green turf that was
barely visible in a kind of hushed twilight. He walked slowly forward across a
large, circular clearing - and ran his forehead into something invisible.
A wall of solid concrete!
The Shadow realized why he had been unable to notice that solid wall. It
was painted dark green - the same hue as the surrounding shrubbery and the
spongy turf underfoot.
The concrete wall was the side of the building. Its four sides were alike.
No doors. No sign of windows. Just a blind, concrete building erected in the
heart of a trackless and legend-protected swamp!
Nor was any portion of the sky visible above this hidden clearing. The
trees nearest the building had been utilized for purposes of camouflage. Their
tops had been drawn downward with ropes. They screened the clearing from above.
Neither the building nor the clearing could ever be detected by an aerial
survey.
The Shadow used a tree to climb to the roof of the concrete structure. It
was flat. No sign of any entrance that might lead below. But there was
something projecting from the roof that made the Shadow's eyes gleam.
A directional antenna! Pivoted at the base so that it could be swung
toward any point of the compass!
No wonder no paths were needed through the Coosahachie! Every point of the
compass was an open path to a master criminal, once he had donned earphones and
heard the harsh buzz of his radio signal!
Unable to find any entrance to the building, The Shadow used guile to open
a way. Flitting like a black phantom through the clearing, he selected a tree
close to the one where he had made his daring leap over the high hedge.
This other tree was dead for half its length. Lightning had blasted it.
The Shadow snapped off a dead branch. It was heavy enough for his purpose. He
flung it downward toward the hedge below.
It crashed through the interlaced network of thorns and vines. It fell
across the thin wires inside the tangled barrier.
The result was immediate. The clang of a bell!
It was dim, barely audible. It came from within the green-painted,
concrete structure. But The Shadow had sharp ears. He knew that an alarm had
been sounded.
He was no longer aloft in the gaunt branches of the dead tree. Close to
the ground, a part of the darkness, The Shadow waited.
He watched the building grimly. Nothing happened. No opening appeared in
those sinister blank walls.
When the sudden movement came, it was in the grassy floor of the clearing
a few feet from the building itself!
A SQUARE of turf lifted from the ground. Just below this cunningly
camouflaged trapdoor in the earth ahead, a steel slab lifted. A man emerged
from an underground tunnel.
The Shadow did not recognize him. He had a seamed, unshaven face with
sullen eyes. A swamp rat like Rance Klatt. Another of the crooked natives of
the Coosahachie region on the pay roll of crime!
Behind this thug, another head appeared. This time, The Shadow saw a
scoundrel he knew. Vallon!
A gun jutted from Vallon's fist. He stared toward the barrier hedge from
which the alarm had sounded. He was too wary to leave the open exit of the
tunnel unguarded. His voice snarled an order to the thug.
"Look things over! Watch yourself! If you see anything move - shoot fast!"
The thug crawled through the darkness toward the hedge. There was a long
silence. It was broken finally by an oath of disgust from the thug. He had
found the dead branch that had crashed from above. It was still lying athwart
the wire it had broken.
"False alarm!" the thug called.
He yelled to Vallon what had happened. Vallon's chuckle was as cold as an
icicle.
"O.K.! Get back on the job. I gotta make a report in a hurry. The boss is
jittery."
Vallon's head descended into the square tunnel opening. The thug hurried
across the clearing in order to follow. He never reached his goal.
Black-gloved hands clamped from behind on his windpipe.
Startled, the thug tried to cry out. The yell was choked, unborn, in his
throat. He fought viciously. The Shadow tripped him, fell like a blot of
darkness above his body. Gloved hands at the crook's throat continued their
relentless pressure.
Soon the galvanic kicks of the strangling man ceased. He lay silent and
inert.
The Shadow rose, lifted him, carried him to a covert of bushes. Bound and
gagged, the thug could be of no use to himself or to Vallon when he recovered.
The Shadow's cloaked figure dropped noiselessly through the square opening
in the ground. The trapdoor lowered quietly. The Shadow proceeded through the
blackness of the earth passage.
He saw no sign of Mike Vallon. Vallon was evidently as jittery as his
unknown boss. He had raced swiftly back through the tunnel, taking it for
granted that the thug would follow.
The tunnel ended in a concrete corridor within the building. The corridor
was empty. Dim ceiling bulbs made a dull glow.
At the end of the corridor, a door stood partly open. The Shadow could
hear the quick, harsh voice of Vallon. A soundless advance enabled The Shadow
to peer within.
Vallon was at a desk, talking over a speaking tube. He was explaining
about the cause of the alarm bell.
"An accident, boss. A dead limb dropped. Wind blew it down on the wires.
Jed Skane made sure. He's back at his post. I'm going to the power room to keep
watch!"
He rose. The Shadow had no chance to retreat down the lighted corridor. He
tensed for quick action. But, luckily, Vallon headed in another direction. He
opened an inner door, vanished from sight.
PRESENTLY, The Shadow's black-clad figure glided through the room where
Vallon had reported. He melted through the inner doorway. The Shadow began a
cautious scouting tour.
It was not easy to decide where to go. Corridors branched in many
directions. Evidently a considerable portion of this sinister building lay
underground.
Occasionally, the hollow footfall of a patrolling thug made The Shadow
duck swiftly, fade down a branching passage. But he persisted grimly in his
advance along what he knew to be a main corridor. He stopped at many doors and
listened, but he entered none.
Behind each of those doors where he listened, he heard only silence.
The Shadow was on the trail of sound! He had not forgotten Vallon's remark
about the power room. The Shadow was on the hunt for the steady hum of
electrical machinery.
Presently, he heard it. Through the smooth steel of a closed door, the hum
was unmistakable. Gently, The Shadow turned the knob. The door was not locked.
It opened slowly.
The Shadow was peering into a high-ceilinged room. He could see the smooth
sheen of an electric generator. A dynamo filled the air with a steady thrum.
Nearby were the spinning blades of a machine that looked like an oil-driven
turbine. The Shadow had penetrated to the power room of the swamp stronghold!
There was no sign of Mike Vallon. Puzzled, The Shadow glided across the
room. He was passing the turbine when something dropped on the back of his
gloved hand. It felt like a droplet of water. But it left a crimson stain.
Blood!
The Shadow glanced upward. Over his head was a metal platform like the
grating in a ship's engine room. A steel ladder gave access to it from the
floor of the power room. Another ladder led still higher to what looked like an
emergency door set high in the spotless wall near the ceiling.
As The Shadow's gaze jerked aloft, he saw a crouched figure bound suddenly
into view across the metal grating. A hidden man leaped toward the rungs of the
upper ladder. He climbed with the swift agility of a monkey to the door set
high in the wall.
For a moment the man's face was visible, twisted with fear. Then he
vanished through the upper door. But not before The Shadow had seen who it was.
Marcus Bellinger!
An instant later, The Shadow had mounted to the steel grating from which
Marcus had fled.
The sodden bundle of a man lay huddled there. Mike Vallon! Blood spurted
from a deep knife wound in his back. He had been killed by a savage knife
thrust from the rear.
The Shadow paused only long enough to make sure that Vallon was dead. Then
he raced up the higher ladder. The upper wall doorway admitted him to a long
corridor.
There was no sign of the fugitive head of the Bellinger Metals Corp. But
this dimly-lit corridor was the only possible direction in which he could have
fled.
The Shadow followed warily, his feet soundless on the hard composition
floor. He found that the corridor branched in two directions at its end. A
shorter hallway ran at right angles to a blank wall at either end.
There were two closed doors in the center of each branching hall.
The Shadow chose the door at the left. A glimmer of bright light shone
through the keyhole. Crouching in silence, The Shadow applied his eye.
He was staring into the interior of what was obviously a small but
perfectly equipped laboratory!
Under a bright droplight, a man sat at a desk. His face was pale and
gaunt. There was a feverish glint in his sunken eyes. He looked half-starved,
terrified.
It was Marvin Hobson, the brilliant young metallurgist who had been so
cunningly "killed" in a New York boardinghouse.
Laughter twitched the muscles of The Shadow's throat.
He began the delicate task of noiselessly picking the lock of that chrome
steel door.
CHAPTER XV
HOUSE OF TERROR
THE presence of The Shadow outside the laboratory was not audible to
Hobson. Nor was it heard in an adjoining chamber.
This chamber lay behind the second door that The Shadow had not yet
investigated. Thick rugs covered the floor. Expensive paintings hung on the
walls. There was a large fireplace at one end.
A fireplace in a house without a chimney was a strange object indeed. But
the masked criminal who owned this house wasn't looking toward the fireplace.
His gaze was directed toward a couch.
A man lay helplessly bound there. A gag covered his mouth. Unable to move,
his wide-open eyes peered upward in rigid terror.
The prisoner was Professor Durkin!
The masked man seemed to enjoy Durkin's fright. But he said nothing.
Turning, he crossed the room toward a side wall. He removed a small painting,
disclosing what looked like a peculiar window.
The window was circular. It was made of dull, grayish glass with tiny
horizontal ridges. Completely opaque, it allowed the masked man no glimpse of
what lay beyond.
But the touch of a button changed this. Light glowed in the heart of that
thick, circular window.
The masked man was able to see clearly into the laboratory where Marvin
Hobson sat in hopeless despair at a desk littered with chemical equations.
Hobson turned his head as he saw the circular pane glow. He was unable,
however, to see the masked face. The window allowed only one-way vision. To
Hobson, it was like a gleaming mirror.
He heard a cold monosyllable: "Well?"
Hobson was close to hysteria. His voice cracked shrilly.
"It can't be done! God knows I've tried."
"Try again!" the masked man snarled. "The time grows short."
Hobson moaned.
"Even Strode couldn't do it! The formula is mathematically possible. But
not practically. The combination is too unstable. The metals refuse to combine."
"Strode swore they'd combine. He proved it to me."
Marvin Hobson's tortured voice rose to a shout.
"If Strode was so damned smart, why did you kill him?"
"I don't like to share wealth with other people," the hidden voice purred.
"Listen - for God's sake! The formula won't work!"
"It's got to work! You've been supplied with every element that Strode
said was necessary. He proved that when all those elements and alloys were
properly combined with a little zinc, it could be turned into a metal exactly
equivalent to tin! Do you hear me, you fool? Tin! Our most precious metal of
war! The whole tin supply in Asia gobbled up by the Japs! And I have the
formula to make it - out of a chemical amalgam with zinc - which is available
in the United States, and even though it's a critical metal, the small amount
of it needed for this purpose would certainly be given priority!"
"It can't be done," Hobson cried in despair.
"Return to your room!" the ugly voice whispered.
The circular glass became dull as the light faded. Hobson sat slumped in
despair. Suddenly, he heard a faint sound of mirth. He turned - to confront new
terror!
A black-robed figure had appeared silently in the laboratory. Hobson saw a
grim, beak-nosed face, covered to the lips. The brim of a black slouch hat
dimmed the flame-like gleam of steady eyes.
The Shadow leaped silently. His gloved hand cut off Hobson's cry. Held in
an iron grip, Marvin Hobson found himself listening to a quiet whisper.
It was a whisper that promised safety. It breathed courage and confidence.
Slowly, the fear ebbed from Hobson. He realized that The Shadow was not an
enemy, but a friend.
The Shadow surveyed the laboratory with experienced eyes. He saw chemical
retorts, the bulky shape of an electric furnace. His gaze moved to the desk
where Hobson had sat.
Over the desk, neatly framed, was a chemical and metallurgical formula.
The Shadow asked swift questions of the kidnapped man. While he listened,
he studied with keen understanding the chicken marks of the formula that had
been perfected by Henry Strode.
The Shadow knew before Hobson explained what the trouble was. Strode's
combination of metals and chemicals and alloys was theoretically possible
according to the laws of chemistry and mathematics. But it was not commercially
possible. The combinations were too unstable, the reactions too delicate.
The Shadow's laughter was no more than a silent ripple of his throat
muscles. His gloved finger pointed inquiringly toward a closed inner door of
the laboratory.
Hobson whispered that the tiny room beyond was his living quarters.
"Wait there."
As soon as the inner door closed, The Shadow began to glide silently
through the laboratory in the opposite direction.
ON the other side of the laboratory wall, a masked criminal was again
bending over the couch where the trussed figure of Professor Durkin lay. He
loosened some of the strands that bound Durkin's ankles. He forced him to rise.
Durkin was able to take slow, awkward steps forward in the grasp of his
captor. He was led toward the fireplace.
"I'm going to show you what happens to scientists who are not
intelligent," the masked criminal muttered.
His gloved hand moved. The fireplace swung slowly aside. An opening in the
wall was disclosed.
Leaning against a sort of balcony rail, Durkin found himself looking into
a small room several feet below where he stood. It was empty. A door that led
to it was closed.
Durkin's frightened eyes glued themselves on that door, but it didn't
open. The thing that opened was the floor of the room!
A deep black pit was disclosed. The beam of a flashlight in the grasp of
the masked criminal showed the trembling Durkin what lay below.
He could see the buttery, blue-black sheen of swamp mud. A nauseous smell
drifted upward to his nostrils. The pit was sunk through the center of the
house to the level of the swamp. In that mud were uneasy writhings.
Snakes!
Durkin recognized those dimly slithering shapes. Swamp adders! Water
moccasins! Writhing shapes with lidless eyes!
The black pit vanished as the floor of the death room became solid again.
"You shall be the next candidate to try my little zinc experiment," the
masked man chuckled. "Just to make sure you understand, I shall now show you
the penalty for stupidity."
This time, it was the door of the death room that opened. Through it came
the blind, staggering figure of Marvin Hobson! He had no choice. The roar of
live steam had driven him through that door.
It was now locked behind him. "Die!" the masked man grated. His hand moved
toward a switch to drop Hobson into the pit. Before he could touch it, his hand
quivered. Behind him a burst of harsh laughter was making eerie echoes!
The criminal whirled. A gun gleamed in his grasp. He aimed it convulsively
at the black-garbed figure of The Shadow.
There were twin .45s in The Shadow's hands. One of them spat a roaring
streak of scarlet.
A heavy slug blasted the crook's gun. The masked man staggered from that
terrific impact. Blood dripped from his fingers. He swayed, half paralyzed.
From the helpless figure of Marvin Hobson in the death room below the
fireplace opening, came a fierce yell.
"Kill him! He's Marcus Bellinger!"
The Shadow was lunging swiftly forward.
"Not Marcus! Blackmailer, thief, murderer - James Bellinger!"
The Shadow's rip at the concealing mask proved his words.
THE good-looking face of the playboy younger brother of Marcus was
revealed. Twisted with rage and fear, it was a face hard to recognize. Jimmy
was no longer the suave young socialite who had been so smoothly innocent in
the presence of Margo Lane and Lamont Cranston.
He staggered backward against the railing of the death chamber below. For
an instant, he seemed to be toppling across the rail to the spot where Hobson
was penned.
But Jimmy was a cunning scoundrel. He rolled sideways from The Shadow's
clutch. His head butted savagely at The Shadow's midriff.
The trick failed, but the impact forced The Shadow back. At the same
instant, Jimmy Bellinger's hand whipped from his pocket. He struck in womanish
fashion at The Shadow's face - with his open palm. A fragile glass object in
Jimmy's palm smashed with a brittle tinkle.
Only a desperate, upward jerk of his head saved The Shadow's sight. Acid
splashed against his nose and mouth. The agony of it ate like flame against his
flesh.
The Shadow reeled. Before he could recover, Professor Durkin's fettered
body plunged against him, sending him crashing to the floor. The wily Jimmy had
used Durkin as a battering-ram.
It gave Jimmy Bellinger the vicious instant he needed. His hand flashed to
the switch that controlled the hinged floor of the room below the fireplace
balcony.
The floor vanished from beneath the feet of the unfortunate Marvin Hobson.
With a scream, he tumbled headlong into blackness!
Jimmy Bellinger raced toward freedom. The door to the corridor was open.
But he met an unexpected barrier. A human barrier!
A man had appeared from a hiding place beyond that open door. Brother
against brother, now! Marcus Bellinger!
The Shadow was unable to interfere in that desperate battle. From beneath
his black robe, a coiled length of rope had jerked. He fastened it to the
balcony rail above the death pit. The Shadow slid swiftly down the rope!
The darkness of the pit's bottom turned suddenly bright from the beam of
The Shadow's electric torch. In his other hand jutted the snout of a .45.
His feet were mired in shiny clay, hut he made a desperate grab for the
fallen Hobson. Hobson lay crouched against the wall of the pit, kicking with
spasmodic terror at the writhing bodies of snakes.
An adder struck at Hobson's shoe. Its fangs bit harmlessly at the thick
leather sole.
The roar of The Shadow's .45 dissolved the snake's head into bleeding
paste.
He clutched at Hobson, dragged him upright from the mud. The torch passed
from The Shadow's hand. Hobson held it with quivering horror while the gun of
The Shadow crashed again and again.
Writhing snakes struck blindly. There were too many of them to kill all.
But the feet of The Shadow had lifted suddenly from the nauseous floor of
mud at the pit's bottom. With him rose the terrified figure of Hobson.
Hobson had dropped the torch. His arms clung tightly to The Shadow. The
Shadow moved jerkily up the taut rope. Hand over hand, carefully - quick
clutches - tight holds -
It was desperately hard. Hobson's weight was like lead. He was too far
gone with terror to hold to the rope himself.
Sweat poured down The Shadow's face. His chin was aflame from the agony of
raw acid. But his gloved hands never ceased their grim clutches on the rope.
Upward - an inch at a time -
A gasp from Hobson was the only sound when The Shadow pushed him to
safety. The Shadow uttered no word.
Professor Durkin lay fettered and helpless where he had been flung
viciously by Jimmy Bellinger.
Marcus lay in the corridor doorway. Blood oozed from a bullet wound. Jimmy
had shot his way to freedom.
The Shadow pursued. There was only one direction to go - through the
single, long corridor that led to an upper doorway high in the spotless wall of
the power room!
By the time The Shadow appeared in the upper doorway, Jimmy Bellinger was
halfway down the steel ladder to the grating of the metal platform.
He descended with the snarling speed of a jungle ape. His mad zeal to
escape robbed him of all sanity. He forgot about his wounded hand from which
blood dripped crimson as he clutched at the rungs of the ladder.
He had been hurt more badly than he realized. Dimness swirled before his
eyes. His wounded hand slipped - caught blindly for another grip - missed!
With a shriek, Jimmy Bellinger fell.
His body struck the metal railing of the platform. It bounced outward,
struck the smooth housing of the generator. Then, like a sodden bundle of
flesh, it fell to a sickening doom.
The whirling blades of the turbine took it.
The Shadow watching from above, turned his face away from the sight. There
was nothing he could do. Crime had met its inevitable end.
THE SHADOW returned to the chamber above. He found that Marcus Bellinger
was not mortally wounded. Professor Durkin was gently released from his bonds
by the black-robed foe of crime. Hobson, aware that all danger was past, began
to babble hysterically.
The Shadow's curt voice halted hysteria. His questions brought answers
from men no longer menaced by horrors.
Marcus Bellinger had wrongly suspected Durkin of the disappearance of
Henry Strode and all the others. He had mistakenly thought that Durkin was Mike
Vallon's secret boss. The money that Marcus had paid out to Vallon from his own
safe had been blackmail money!
"I had a secret I dared not permit to become known," Marcus said slowly.
"It concerns a woman. It's something I can't talk about. But I'd have spent my
last penny to keep a fine woman's name from scandal."
Marcus was amazed to learn from The Shadow that the blackmail money had
actually come back to his own home. The Shadow made grim facts clearer.
Jimmy, a playboy and spendthrift, had used blackmail for the funds he
needed to build and operate the laboratory in the hidden heart of the
Coosahachie. Knowing that Marcus didn't suspect him, Jimmy planned to pick up
the last blackmail payment at Marcus' home. He chose ten in the morning because
Marcus normally would have been at his office at that time.
But Jimmy had a more cunning reason for his money stunt. Knowing that The
Shadow was investigating things, Jimmy hoped to pin the burden of guilt on
Marcus if anything went wrong. He almost overreached himself that morning in
Manhattan! Jimmy hadn't expected a late breakfast and the presence in the house
of both Durkin and his brother Marcus. But he had been wily enough to carry it
off - or so he had thought.
Professor Durkin had been somewhat closer to the truth than Marcus.
"I suspected Jimmy might be guilty," he gasped. "I knew his ugly
potentialities for evil from my observation of him in college. Under his
innocent exterior, Jimmy Bellinger was a devil! But I thought that he and Henry
Strode were in cahoots for crime. That was why I planted the college photo in
Jimmy's bedroom. I wanted to force Jimmy into the open by letting him know I
suspected what he was up to. I thought he might lead me to Strode if I scared
him. You see, I thought Strode was still alive."
"No!" The Shadow's reply was grim. "Dead! Like the other victims."
He explained curtly. After Strode had quarreled with Marcus Bellinger
about a share in the profits of his inventions, he went secretly to his friend
Jimmy. Strode hoped Jimmy would finance him, based on a new secret about which
he had told nobody. Jimmy Bellinger learned, for the first time, that there was
a chance to produce domestic tin from a combination of zinc and various other
metals and alloys.
Scenting a billion-dollar profit, Jimmy secretly backed Strode. He waited
until Strode assured him the formula worked. Then he killed him and took over
himself. A brilliant student when he was in college, Jimmy figured he would
perfect the discovery as his own. But he couldn't make the formula work!
It was then that the sinister "accidents" to bright young metallurgists
commenced.
The laughter of The Shadow signified that the menace to innocent victims
was now ended. Professor Durkin, attempting a task too difficult for anyone but
The Shadow, had been captured by Jimmy Bellinger and brought to the swamp as a
prisoner. Marcus, trailing Durkin to Alabama, had also managed to get through
the swamp.
The work of The Shadow alone had averted disaster!
The formula of Henry Strode would be turned over to the government for
more detailed experimentation. In the hands of the government, it would some
day be perfected to practical use.
The Shadow faded to the radio room of Jimmy Bellinger's stronghold, to
summon official help. Soon the trackless heart of the Coosahachie would swarm
with investigating police.
When they arrived, The Shadow would be gone!
Hidden by darkness, The Shadow would vanish until some fresh challenge
from crime brought him back to battle for justice and the law.
THE END