SYNDICATE OF DEATH
                               by Maxwell Grant

      As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine, February 1, 1944.

     The disappearance of a would-be assassin covers a crime more sinister than
the police suspected.


     CHAPTER I

     THE last act was coming to its close.
     Back stage, Jan Kranda was pacing a small circle, his eyes fixed on the
floor. His hands were deep in the pockets of his ragged coat, his shoulders
thrown forward in a habitual stoop. There was a twitch to Kranda's lips and his
eyes showed an ugly glare.
     Over by the switchboard, the electrician nudged the stage manager and
gestured toward Kranda:
     "Look at the guy working up for his big scene. You wouldn't think he'd
been playing it for a solid year."
     "That's why he's good," retorted the stage manager. "Give him a part and
he lives it. He ought to be out there right now."
     The manager thumbed toward the stage, where Rex Troy, the leading man in
"The Impostor," was hamming in the gorgeous costume of the Prince Regent.
Popular though Troy was with audiences, his fame didn't carry back stage.
     "He's supposed to be tossing woo at the Crown Princess," sneered the stage
manager. "Instead, he's checking on the dames in the audience. Now he's getting
back to business. There goes the old 'Come hither' gesture to the princess."
     "Pretty near time for Kranda's cue," reminded the electrician. "You'd
better tell him."
     The stage manager walked over and stopped Kranda's pacing with a shoulder
tap.
     "Prince Charming is waiting," said the stage manager. "Ready to be shot
at, in his pretty red uniform with the brass buttons and gold braid. Give him
an extra one for me tonight, will you?"
     Kranda blinked momentarily, then ended his lip twitch with a grin. He
began to move his hands in his coat pockets.
     "Forgotten the gun again?" grinned the stage manager. "Well, the show
closes tonight. Why don't you choke Troy for a change. I'll tell the guards to
hold back until I cue them."
     Kranda shook his head and gave a short, tense laugh.
     "I'll get the gun," he said. "I left it on the table in my dressing room.
The blanks are in it, so I won't hold the show long enough to matter."
     Hurrying to his dressing room, where the door was open, Kranda plucked up
an old-fashion Colt that was lying on the table. Turning, he came back at a
rapid pace. As Kranda passed, the stage manager noticed that he was tense
again, his eyes showing a determined glint, but all that went with Kranda's
part as Heinrich, the mad assassin.
     On stage, Rex Troy was going through the ordeal of a prolonged clinch with
Claire Winthrop, who played the part of the Crown Princess. Across Claire's
shoulder, Troy was watching the wing where Kranda was to appear.
     "Jan is late again," muttered Troy. "He delights in being late. He knows
it annoys me."
     "Thanks for the sweet words," murmured Claire. "But don't flatter
yourself. I detest this love scene worse than you do."
     At that moment, Kranda appeared at the wing, brandishing his revolver. The
"book" called for the Prince Regent to drop the Crown Princess at sight of the
mad assassin. Rex dropped Claire fairly enough, with a fling that brought
snickers from the audience; then confronting Kranda, Rex exclaimed:
     "Heinrich!"
     Aiming between the brass buttons of Rex's scarlet uniform, Kranda fired
point blank. At the second shot, Rex gave a dramatic backward stagger, but
Kranda kept on shooting. He put in more than the one extra that the stage
manager had requested, for he fired until the hammer was clicking on empty
chambers.
     By then, Claire had begun to shriek. The palace guards swooped on stage,
seized Kranda and dragged him off through a doorway. His stagger turning to a
sag, Rex Troy was finishing with a realistic sprawl that left him prone upon
the stage. Turning to the crumpled form in scarlet, Claire stooped and tried
vainly to rouse the victim.
     Off stage, the guards were releasing Kranda. As he turned and stalked to
his dressing room, one called after him:
     "Don't forget the party tonight, Jan. It won't be a party unless you show
up."
     Inside the dressing room, Kranda swung the door shut behind him. Planking
the revolver on the table, he sank into a chair and stared at his reflection in
the mirror. For the moment, Kranda was wild-eyed, as though viewing the face of
an actual assassin. Then, as his face relaxed, he tilted back his head and
began to laugh.
     "A surprise party," cackled Kranda. "A surprise party for me - the only
real actor in this show!"
     Leaning forward, Kranda spoke to himself in the mirror, giving a gesture
below the level of the dressing table, so that it wouldn't show in the
reflection.
     "The surprise is out there," Kranda told himself. "Only they won't know it
until the curtain falls. Rex Troy had his surprise first, only it didn't last
long. A funny thing, when those bullets dented him, he acted as phony as he
always did with the blanks.
     "That scarlet uniform is a help. The blood won't show until after the
curtain falls - maybe not even then. I'd like to see what happens out there,
but it wouldn't be good judgment. I'd better wait and be myself" - with a
smile, Kranda reached for a jar of cold cream - "yes, I'll remove my make-up
and be myself -"
     His fingers dipping the cold cream, Kranda halted in alarm and stared
sharply at his mirrored image.
     "I can't be myself, just yet!" he exclaimed. "I almost forgot! I have to
take a final bow - as Heinrich! What a fool I was, not to remember. But you
reminded me" - with a smile, Kranda bowed to his reflection which politely
returned the nod - "and I thank you for it. I must go out, before they come for
me."
     About to rise from his chair, Kranda gave a nervous blink. He wasn't
staring at his lone reflection; two other faces had moved into the mirror. Both
were men who wore tuxedoes: one, a dark-eyed chap whose hair was sleek and
black; the other a long-faced fellow whose hair had a reddish tinge too
reminiscent of Troy's scarlet uniform.
     It was the dark-eyed man who spoke first. His face, smooth but sallow,
showed a gloat.
     "We've come for you already, Kranda." The speaker drew back his coat and
showed a badge on his tuxedo vest. "Now you're coming along with us."
     Kranda tried to stammer, but couldn't.
     "My name is Graff," announced the man with the badge. "I'm from
headquarters. Come along."
     As Graff's hand clamped Kranda's shoulder, the actor made a snatch for the
revolver on the dressing table. He didn't find it, for Graff's red-haired
assistant was already picking it up, in the folds of a handkerchief.
     "Nice work, Melvin," complimented Graff. "That rod is evidence and so are
any finger-prints we find on it. And this gun" - Graff exhibited a stubby
revolver of his own - "is loaded like yours was, Kranda. So let's go - quietly."
     Brought to his feet, Kranda finally managed to stammer the question that
was coming to his mind:
     "But how - but why - why didn't you -"
     "Don't ask questions," snapped Graff. "Right now we want to get you out of
here."
     "Yeah," put in Melvin. "There's liable to be a panic when they find that
Troy is croaked."
     "And you're the guy responsible, Kranda," reminded Graff. "Troy's friends
might try to lynch you. We've got to protect you."
     "Troy's friends," sneered Kranda. "He hasn't any."
     Graff shoved his stubby gun into his pocket and thrust the muzzle through
the cloth, pressing it against Kranda's ribs. The move silenced Kranda
instantly and Graff nodded for Melvin to open the door. Between the two
tuxedoed men, Kranda found himself marching toward the stage door; as he passed
the wing, he managed a brief glance toward the stage.
     Claire Winthrop was facing the audience across the body of Rex Troy.
Dramatically, she was beginning her closing lines:
     "Dead! He is dead - and all my hopes have died with him -"
     Two minutes more, by Kranda's calculation, and the facts of murder would
be known. Maybe Graff and Melvin were right, getting him away to headquarters
before chaos followed the discovery of Troy's death.
     His own part as Heinrich kept drilling home to Kranda. Having played the
assassin for a solid year on Broadway, it wasn't surprising that he should stay
in character. Heinrich hadn't fought or argued with the palace guards; he'd
contented himself with the satisfaction of a deed well done. It behooved Kranda
to do the same.
     There was a car parked just outside the stage alley. With a nudge of the
pocketed gun, Graff thrust Kranda into the front seat while Melvin was
clambering in from the other side to take the wheel. In less than Kranda's
estimated two minutes, the car was on its way, carrying the captors and their
prisoner.
     Something was lacking in Kranda's whirling thoughts. He realized suddenly
what it was - a siren. There wasn't any on this car, or at least Melvin wasn't
using it, though he should have been, considering that he and Graff were in a
hurry to take a murderer to headquarters.
     Out of that mental whirl, Kranda suddenly remembered the question that
Graff had cut short earlier. Abruptly, Kranda put it:
     "Why did you let me kill Troy? You wouldn't have been there, waiting for
me, if you hadn't guessed what I was going to do."
     "We didn't guess," returned Graff. "We knew."
     "He means we found out," added Melvin, "while we were waiting to talk to
you."
     "We saw the gun," explained Graff. "Rods are kind of our specialty" - in
emphasis, Graff gave a nudge through his pocket - "so we took a look to see if
you'd already loaded the blanks."
     "And we found the real slugs," completed Melvin, "so we left them to see
what happened."
     Amazement spread across Kranda's made-up face. As he turned his head from
side to side, he saw that his captors were responding with wise but friendly
smiles. The thing was like a dream, to find these headquarters detectives
treating Kranda - an actual killer - the way the palace guards did with
Heinrich after dragging him off stage.
     Very suddenly, the answer dawned on Kranda.
     "You mean - you aren't detectives?"
     "That's right," returned Graff. "We aren't. I'm Brodie Graff and this is
Red Melvin - to make the introduction complete. We came around to talk to you
about a deal that means dough to everybody."
     "And when Brodie found you were pulling a deal of your own," put in
Melvin, "he decided to let you go through with it. If you wanted to rub out
this guy Troy, why should we care?"
     "That's it," snapped Brodie. "We figured you for a pal so we did the right
thing by you. I was rigged for the headquarters gag in case I had to convince
the door man to let us inside. I pulled it on you rather than waste time
getting into the clear."
     As Kranda received the hand that Brodie thrust toward him, Red spoke a
reminder:
     "Tell Jan about your proposition, Brodie. Being a pal, he'll want to hear
it."
     There wasn't a doubt that Jan Kranda wanted to hear whatever Brodie Graff
offered. Luck had tossed Kranda with the very friends he wanted, gentlemen of
crime. Back at the theater, death could take its bow; Kranda no longer feared
the consequences.
     In the opinion of Jan Kranda, these men who had so deftly whisked him from
a scene of murder were just the sort who could plan a way whereby he would
escape the penalty of crime!


     CHAPTER II

     THE curtain struck the stage and rose again to show Claire Winthrop gazing
sadly beyond the prone form of Rex Troy. Impressed with the realism of the
scene, the audience furnished waves of applause that brought a smile from
Lamont Cranston.
     It was seldom that Cranston smiled, but at present he had good reason. In
the box where he sat with Tracy Singledon, he had wondered how an intelligent
audience could enjoy Troy's exaggerated portrayal of a mid-Victorian hero.
Perhaps at last, Troy was receiving his just due. Lying silent on the stage, he
was getting more applause than when he had strutted through his part as Prince
Regent.
     The humor of the thing was lost on Singledon. He was all business and
always business. Singledon was beckoning for Cranston to leave the box.
     "Let's get back stage," suggested Singledon in a brisk tone. "Troy will be
coming off by the time we get there. He will probably want to go along and meet
Professor Bartlett. Troy is buying an interest in Bartlett's invention, like
the rest of us -"
     There was a sudden interruption as a girl came through the curtains of the
box and thrust a note into Cranston's hand with the exclamation:
     "Lamont! Read this!"
     The girl was Margo Lane, who had promised to meet Cranston back stage
after the show. A brunette of the calmer type, Margo seldom displayed her
present excitement. Tilting the note so that the box lights fell upon it,
Cranston read these lines:

     Dear Claire:
     Forgive the shock that I have caused you. It was not hatred but the misery
of injustice that made me kill Troy. If you are blamed, use this note to
exonerate yourself.
              Jan Kranda

     The curtain had fallen again upon the final tableau. As Cranston gazed
toward the stage, Margo explained how she had received the note.
     "An usher handed it to me," said Margo. "He said it was left for Claire.
Don't you understand, Lamont? Rex Troy is dead! Jan Kranda used bullets in the
gun to-night!"
     Singledon snatched the note from Cranston's hand. His face, usually bluff
and expressionless, had become a study in mixed emotions.
     "Not a word about this note!" exclaimed Singledon. "We must make sure that
Kranda really wrote it. It may be a forgery. Perhaps someone else killed Troy -"
     "Nobody killed Troy," interposed Cranston. "Look!"
     He waved toward the stage where the curtain was beginning another rise. As
it came above the level of the actors, both Margo and Singledon stared in
amazement. There stood Rex Troy, hand in hand with Claire Winthrop. Both were
bowing, but Troy was acting as though accepting the applause as entirely for
him.
     Taking the note from Singledon, Cranston folded it and put it in his
pocket. Somewhat chagrined, Singledon led the way backstage. Following with
Cranston, Margo queried:
     "How did you know Troy wasn't dead, Lamont?"
     "I have seen too many men stop bullets," replied Cranston, calmly. "I
would have recognized the symptoms, Margo. Troy faked his fall in his usual
poor style."
     "Then the note was just a hoax?"
     "I'm not sure, Margo. Kranda didn't come on stage to take a final bow
along with the rest of the cast. Rather odd, considering this is closing night."
     All was hubbub back stage with everyone exchanging mutual congratulations
except Kranda, who was scarcely missed amid the excitement. Rex Troy was
surrounded by a knot of actors who were burying their past animosity toward the
leading man by offering him hearty hand-shakes. Margo suddenly found herself
alone and wondered what had become of Cranston and Singledon.
     The first to rejoin her was Singledon. He had stopped to make a call from
the backstage phone. Pushing his way through to Troy, Singledon shook hands and
drew the actor aside.
     "I just phoned Rupert Suffolk," stated Singledon. "He says that Bartlett
won't be ready for another hour."
     "But the party will be starting by that time!" exclaimed Troy. He gave a
gesture toward the actors as if they were now his audience. "I can't disappoint
these people."
     "I'm sorry," apologized Singledon, "but you know how Bartlett is. Still,
this is only to be a preliminary demonstration of the cathodoscope. There will
be others later."
     "I certainly hope so," snapped Troy. "For an invention that is supposed to
be a finished product, the cathodoscope has hardly lived up to its advance
notices."
     "Bartlett is anxious to have it work perfectly, Troy."
     "He should be. Frankly, Singledon, I am beginning to lose interest.
However, I shall be guided by your opinion of tonight's demonstration. Give me
a call tomorrow."
     As Troy stepped away, Singledon turned to Margo. With a shrug of his broad
shoulders, Singledon let his worried features relax into a smile.
     "You never can tell about actors," observed Singledon. "However I can't
blame Troy for being temperamental on a night like this. Tell Cranston I've
left to pick up Suffolk and the other investors. He can meet us at Bartlett's -
but not for another hour."
     Hardly had Singledon left before Cranston returned. Margo gave him the
message and Cranston received it with a nonchalant nod. Stepping to the
telephone Cranston put in a brief call of his own, then ushered Margo out
through the stage door. As they went, Margo noticed that Cranston looked back
with a parting glance at Troy who was still the center of congratulations.
     "Do you think it's safe to leave Troy?" bantered Margo as they walked down
the stage alley. "Aren't you afraid that Kranda may be lurking in his dressing
room, ready to make good his death threat - if there really was one?"
     "Kranda isn't in his dressing room," returned Cranston, calmly. "But he
may have meant what he said in the note."
     "You found something in the dressing room?"
     "I found these." Cranston opened his hand and Margo saw six cartridges,
all with bullets. "They were in a box with a lot of blanks. These were on top."
     "Do they fit Kranda's gun?"
     "I don't know. The gun wasn't there. Kranda must have taken it when he
went out with his friends."
     "His friends?" echoed Margo. "What friends?"
     "Two gentlemen in tuxedoes," defined Cranston. "The stage manager saw
Kranda go out with them, arm in arm. Don't try to figure it out, because I
haven't, except that I'm sure Kranda intended to deliver more than smoke with
his fire."
     The mystery deepened for Margo. She could appreciate that the discarded
bullets tallied somewhat with the note, but Kranda's departure in the company
of persuasive friends was a puzzling factor, particularly if Kranda had changed
his mind about murdering Troy. Margo was still debating the question mentally
when Cranston halted her at a corner.
     "Shrevvy will be here in a few minutes," remarked Cranston. "He's bringing
Vincent in the cab."
     To Margo the news spelled action. When Cranston traveled in Shrevvy's cab,
he usually did so as his other self - The Shadow. That tonight might mark the
beginning of another of The Shadow's strange adventures was emphasized by the
fact that he had summoned Vincent also. Among the tried and trusted agents who
served The Shadow, Harry Vincent rated tops.
     Before Margo could express enthusiasm over the coming expedition,
Cranston's quiet tone intervened.
     "It's all a hunch, Margo," he said, "but I have an idea that all trails
may lead to Bartlett's. We may learn more if we arrive there first."
     "What is this invention of Bartlett's?" queried Margo. "The thing
Singledon called a cathodoscope?"
     "It can best be termed an amplified x-ray," explained Cranston, "so
intensified that it gives clear vision of objects on the far side of a solid
obstruction. If it lives up to Bartlett's claims it should be worth a million
dollars to the right people - or the wrong."
     The pause before the final words drove its full emphasis upon Margo.
     "By the wrong people," queried Margo, "do you mean criminals?"
     "Exactly," returned Cranston. "I'm willing to invest in the cathodoscope
on the chance that it may really work, just so I can keep it under the proper
auspices. Tonight's demonstration was to be the test. But this delay that
Singledon mentioned, coming right after the Kranda incident, produces an
uncertainty."
     "You mean crooks may be after the cathodoscope already?"
     "Yes, even though they are taking a long way around. One thing at least is
certain. Professor Bartlett needs the special protection that I can best give
him as The Shadow."
     A cab wheeled up to the corner, its door opening as it arrived. Cranston
helped Margo in with Harry and closed the door as he followed. From the empty
seat he plucked a black cloak and a slouch hat that awaited him. By the time
the cab had swung the next corner, Lamont Cranston had faded into an invisible
passenger, whose sable-hued form blended with the interior of the cab.
     The whispered laugh that Harry and Margo heard was an anticipation of
events to come. Seldom did The Shadow's hunches fail; rather they grew, with
uncanny precision that he was evidencing on this occasion. Singledon, Suffolk
and the others who were due at Bartlett's would be preceded by a mysterious
visitor in the person of The Shadow.
     Along with anticipation there was an added significance to The Shadow's
whispered mirth. It told that his keen brain had already analyzed the possible
reasons for the sudden disappearance of Jan Kranda, the character actor whose
scheme of murder had somehow gone astray!


     CHAPTER III

     IN HIS uptown apartment, Professor Lucien Bartlett was saying goodnight to
his daughter Elaine and a small group of friends. The evening's party was
something of a brief farewell, since Elaine was leaving on a late train for a
vacation in New England.
     An elderly man whose sharp eyes contrasted with his wrinkled face, Lucien
Bartlett was of a type commonly classified as peculiar. For months he had never
left the apartment except to visit his laboratory, a single room on the same
floor. Only on rare occasions did Elaine bring visitors to the apartment and
she was very careful to pick the limited few that she knew her father would
trust.
     The curious feature on this occasion was that Bartlett lacked his usual
worry. On the contrary, Elaine, usually the brightening influence, was
definitely troubled. Elaine was an attractive blonde with a genuine smile that
sparkled like her clear blue eyes, but tonight her attempts to be cheerful were
obviously forced.
     From Elaine's glances toward the clock it was plain that time was on her
mind. Noting those glances, Bartlett nodded.
     "Nearly midnight," he remarked. "You'd better be starting, Elaine. Only
half an hour until train time."
     "But I can't leave you alone," protested Elaine. "I thought your visitors
would be here before this -"
     "They will come," assured Bartlett, "and my demonstration will convince
them. Come, Elaine, bring your friends to the laboratory and let them see how
safe I will be."
     Bartlett led the group down the hall to a door opposite the elevator. The
door had two locks, both intricate, that Bartlett opened with special keys. As
he swung the door outward he pointed to a huge inner bolt that gave triple
security; then, as the professor stepped across the threshold, Elaine's friends
peered curiously at the cathodoscope.
     The famous invention stood on the rear half of a large table that occupied
the center of a windowless room. The device was about three feet square and
resembled a complicated x-ray camera. In front of it was a large skeleton frame
from which Bartlett drew down a metallic curtain. Further in front he placed a
little stand on which he set a few odd objects: a book, a vase and a wine glass.
     With a crablike gait, Bartlett started toward the rear of the room, then
halted and gave a wheezy laugh as he returned.
     "I forgot myself," he chuckled. "I was about to begin my demonstration,
thinking you were the visitors who are to witness it. Good-bye, Elaine, and
have a good vacation. Hurry now and catch that train."
     The three young friends who stood beside Elaine noticed the anxious glance
that the girl gave through the doorway. Apparently Elaine wanted to make sure
that all was as secure as her father claimed it was. One glance was enough, for
the room was utterly devoid of hiding places.
     Closets were lacking, likewise windows. In one corner stood a workbench
but there was nothing underneath it. On the bench were spare parts for the
cathodoscope along with a supply of tools. In another corner was a small table
stacked with boxes containing special electric bulbs. A wheeled stand supported
a dictaphone which Bartlett used when making notes that Elaine typed for him.
The shelf under the stand had a supply of cylinder records.
     Except for a few folding chairs the room had no other furnishings. The
filing cabinet where Elaine kept the notes was in the apartment along with the
typewriter. Though he made copious notes Bartlett never included any data vital
to his great invention, hence he did not need to keep the filing cabinet in this
strong room that served him as a laboratory.
     Approaching Elaine, Bartlett gave her a good-bye kiss and urged her gently
into the hall. He drew the door shut and the locks operated automatically. There
was another clatter as Bartlett thrust home the heavy bolt, closing himself
tightly in his stronghold. With a sigh of relief, Elaine turned to the elevator
where one of her friends was vainly pushing the button.
     "Out of order again!" exclaimed Elaine. "That's the one trouble with this
apartment house. Well, there's no use waiting for the elevator to make up its
mind, which it does most unexpectedly. We'll have to use the stairway."
     There were four flights down to the ground floor and Elaine took them on
the run, her friends following with her bags. As luck had it, a taxicab was
parked in front of the apartment house, which was unusual at this hour. Elaine
didn't waste time cheering over her good fortune. Her fears for her father
forgotten, she sprang gladly into the cab, grabbed the bags that her friends
tossed after her, and told the driver to hurry her to Grand Central Station.
     As the cab swung the corner, Elaine looked back at the six-story apartment
building. She saw the lights on the fifth floor that represented her father's
apartment, for she had left them on in expectation of his visitors. Even more
assuring than those lights was the blank area of solid wall that represented
Bartlett's strong room, where he would remain secure until those visitors
arrived. They were men who could be trusted.
     One of them, Tracy Singledon, was the man who had promised to promote
Bartlett's invention. He had been friendly from the start, the big bluff man
whose ability at interesting other investors was unquestioned. If anything,
Singledon was too gullible. He believed whatever they told him and often they
failed to live up to their claims. Yet Singledon took all disappointments in
his stride; as he put it, they simply taught him to be more careful.
     A direct contrast to Singledon was Rupert Suffolk.
     Careful from the start, Suffolk had at first impressed Elaine unfavorably.
He was a suave man, wise in manner, noted for his foresight in financial
matters. Until recently Suffolk had specialized in real estate, but finding
himself overloaded, had decided on other ventures, hence his sudden interest in
the cathodoscope. Once convinced that Bartlett had a real invention in the
making, Suffolk had become more than cooperative.
     Learning that Bartlett needed a combination strong room and laboratory,
Suffolk had provided one in this apartment house which he owned. Since the
place was being remodeled, the room was fixed to Bartlett's specifications.
Elaine's father had been allowed to provide his own locks, products of his
inventive skill. The door, equipped with pivot hinges built into the frame, was
the final word in burglar-proof equipment.
     Other faces came to Elaine's mind as she settled back reflectively.
     Rex Troy, beau ideal of the matinee trade, wanted stock in the
Cathodoscope Corporation. Elaine had seen Troy perform in "The Impostor" and
had met him back stage with her father. She hadn't liked him as an actor or an
individual, but perhaps the contrast with Jan Kranda was the reason.
     As a character actor, Kranda was perfection. His portrayal of Heinrich had
greatly impressed Bartlett.
     Quickly these recollections swept through Elaine's mind. The cab had
covered a mere five blocks during her mental process. And now Elaine was
thinking of another man, a newcomer in the group of investors. His name was
Lamont Cranston, and there was something in his very silence that had struck
Elaine as impressive.
     In the smoke of the cigarette she had lighted, Elaine could picture a face
that was moderately hawklike. She could see two eyes that gazed from an
impassive countenance; eyes that were hypnotic in their steadiness.
     Suddenly her cab stopped with a jolt. Half turned about, Elaine stared
through the window and caught a glimpse of Cranston!
     A moment later the illusion was gone.
     Though Elaine didn't realize it, the eyes had recognized her. They had
simply changed direction to study the driver of Elaine's cab. The Shadow's new
survey was inspired by an undertone from the front seat of his own cab.
     "Take a look at that hackie, boss," Shrevvy was saying. "He's a phony, one
hundred proof. Even the boys from Brooklyn know the lights around this triangle.
And that hack of his is non-McCoy. It's an Indy with a repaint to make it look
like a company job."
     To The Shadow, the face behind the wheel of the other cab was as familiar
as Elaine's. It looked like a pop-up from a rogue's gallery photo. It belonged
to a denizen of wrong places known as "Creep" Crawley who was very much wanted
on a dozen minor counts.
     The far door of Shrevvy's cab flipped open. Harry Vincent hunched out into
the darkness to cover the remaining ground to Bartlett's. As Harry responded to
The Shadow's whispered order, Margo crouched back in the seat. She was obscured
by The Shadow as he reached to close the door while Shrevvy was easing his cab
back into the traffic lane to swing around the triangular intersection.
     The tail-lights of Creep's pirate cab had vanished along a side street
when Shrevvy completed his tour of the triangle, but the trail was as good as
closed. The Shadow's cab was a special in more than paint, geared for the high
speed and turn-table twists in which Shrevvy, its hand-picked driver, starred.


     CHAPTER IV

     FROM the moment that he triple-locked his laboratory door, Professor
Bartlett had concerned himself with the cathodoscope. All day he had been
rehearsing for the coming demonstration but his interest was not jaded. Indeed,
Bartlett relished the short time yet at his disposal. It appealed to his precise
mind as an opportunity to establish his invention by word as well as deed.
     The interior of the lab disclosed a very curious scene.
     Standing behind the cathodoscope, Bartlett looked like a cross between an
ostrich and an old-time photographer. His head was buried in side flaps and
hood that extended back from the machine. Down from those flaps ran a hose that
ended on the dictaphone, where the running cylinder carried a record that was
perpetuating Bartlett's comments.
     The cathodoscope was buzzing steadily and from its projector a flood of
brilliant but flickering light was bearing steadily upon the metallic screen.
The glow produced a peculiar scintillation of colors that formed a whirling
pattern but there was no perceptible change in the texture of the screen itself.
     From within the observation box the effect must have been different, or
Professor Bartlett was exercising his imagination for the old man's voice
wheezed a joyful monologue.
     "Screen structure fading," spoke Bartlett into the dictaphone tube.
"Registration four projection units. Begin time record from here and check at
six."
     The buzzing continued and so did the revolutions of the dictaphone
cylinder. Bartlett didn't need a stop watch because the running time of the
record could itself be checked later. However he disliked wasting any of the
record for he filled in time with minor comments.
     "Fading effect continues... Screen now appearing to actually dissolve..."
A short pause then Bartlett exclaimed hurriedly: "Objects shaping beyond the
screen... Usual blur greatly lessened, probably because of improved
polychromatic regulator... All objects clearly visible. Step-up to six and
check time..."
     There was a click beneath the flaps as Bartlett pressed the button adding
the projection units. Immediately the buzzing of the cathodoscope increased.
Next Bartlett's hands moved out from under the flaps and began to reach for
gadgets on the side of the machine proper.
     "Stereometer adjusted," announced Bartlett briskly. "Check seconds until
three dimensional effect registers... Now!" Another pressure of a little lever
and a peculiar whirring rose above the buzz of the machine. "Kaleidograph
increased to double norm. Colors appearing but blurred... Red cover of book
registers... Blue design on vase still indistinguishable..."
     Under went the hands again and the pressure of a button caused the buzz to
drown the whirring sound. Bartlett's voice came excitedly:
     "Eight projection units! Check time!"
     On the screen, the whirl of many colors was actually taking forms that
resembled the objects on the other side. That was the effect that a bystander
would have gained, but to Bartlett, looking squarely through the cathodoscope,
the sight must have been greatly intensified. He was forgetting all about the
time checks in the enthusiasm that swept him.
     "Colors of objects plain!" Bartlett was fairly shouting into the
dictaphone... "Bad blur due to loss of focus... Ready for focus change - no,
hold to full! Fault lies in objects being too close to screen. The range of the
cathodoscope has automatically increased!
     "The door of the room is visible as background... Actual range is probably
double previous estimate... Holding all units on full for final observation
representing maximum intensity..."
     As described by Bartlett the scene through the cathodoscope was something
of a triumph. The screen had literally obliterated itself. The objects that
first had commanded full attention could now be forgotten, since the locked
door though dimly registered was forcing itself into the finished picture. But
there was more to come, enough more to astound professor Bartlett.
     "Objects are showing beyond the door!" Bartlett's voice shrilled above the
thrum of the machine. "Moving objects... Human figures... They must be coming
from the elevator! They are coming closer and the door is fading. One - two -
three men - and they appear to be on this side of the door which is impossible
because I bolted it!
     "Two are moving aside. I can see them through the solid wall, but it now
forms a background. Wait! The door I see must belong to the elevator, the walls
part of the hall... No, the single figure is enlarging which means it is coming
closer. Its face is just above the blurred objects on the table -"
     Bartlett broke off with a high-pitched gasp that carried a triumphant note.
     "The face is mine!" he shouted. "The cathodoscope has developed powers of
reflection which are unexplainable. This may mean that it is fourth
dimensional!"
     That ended Bartlett's observations. In his excitement over viewing his own
image through the solid screen that intervened the professor had forgotten the
two figures that had sidled away from the revealing rays of the cathodoscope.
But the men in question had not forgotten him, as they proved.
     They were closer than Bartlett imagined, so much closer that they were
behind him. They clamped their hands on the professor's frail shoulders and
whipped him out from the observation box so heartily that his head thwacked the
cross-bar that supported the top flap. Reeling from the impact, Bartlett slumped
into the heavy hands that gripped him.
     "Out like a light."
     The man who made the comment evidently referred to Bartlett, but he could
have meant the cathodoscope as well, for his companion had just turned off the
instrument. A singular hush filled the room as the whirling colors vanished
from the screen obliterating the outline of a human head and shoulders that had
formed amid the dazzle, like the smaller objects on the other side.
     Vaguely, Bartlett heard a voice that droned through the layers of his
fading consciousness:
     "Make it fast. Somebody is buzzing the prof's apartment. We figured three
minutes for the switch but maybe we can clip it."
     Downstairs Harry Vincent was ringing the apartment bell. Getting no
response from the telephone beside it, he knew that Bartlett must be in his lab
for The Shadow had informed him of the inventor's habits. There was no bell for
the locked room so Harry rang the janitor's instead, which was the recognized
procedure. It was half a minute before a sleepy voice inquired from the
receiver:
     "Who's there?"
     "I came to see Professor Bartlett," answered Harry. "He's expecting me."
     "Who else is with you?"
     "Nobody else."
     Apparently that was the wrong answer, because the janitor hedged for a few
moments. At last, he spoke in a suspicious tone:
     "Professor Bartlett was expecting a party."
     "I'm the party," volunteered Harry, promptly. "How about letting me in to
see him?"
     The janitor clattered the phone receiver without saying whether he would
or wouldn't grant Harry's request. That left two ways of getting into the
apartment house, the choice depending upon how rapid an entry was necessary.
The first way was to smash the glass pane of the front door and operate the
knob from the other side, but before taking such a violent course Harry decided
to study the situation better. Stepping out to the sidewalk he looked up at the
windows of Bartlett's apartment, having learned its location from The Shadow
during the cab trip.
     All looked serene. There were no signs of moving figures beyond the
half-drawn window shades. In all probability Bartlett had gone to the strong
room. Forcible entry to the building seemed unwise compared to a practical but
slower expedient, so Harry took the second way. He simply stepped into the
entry and pressed all the buttons that he saw.
     Chances were that some apartment dweller would buzz for a visitor to come
up without inquiring who it was. It worked as Harry hoped; as he repeated the
rings, a clicking came from the door lock. Shoving the door open, Harry entered
the apartment house and made straight for the elevator. He was pushing its
button when the janitor appeared from a door that led up from the basement.
     The janitor looked true to type, the sort who would put up a hot argument
with strangers belonging to the lower intelligence brackets. A brief look at
Harry stirred the fellow's inferiority complex. Recognizing a visitor who rated
in the class that called on Professor Bartlett, the janitor became apologetic.
Without inquiring how Harry had gotten this far, the janitor cocked his head
and looked at the elevator door.
     "Guess it ain't running," he said. "It kind of quits every now and then."
     "Very convenient," observed Harry. "Usually with passengers in it, I
suppose?"
     The janitor shook his head.
     "Only when it's empty," he said. "Trouble seems to be in the push buttons
on the different floors; short-circuit or something. That's why we haven't been
able to get it fixed right. Keep pushing and she'll work."
     Harry morsed the button with combinations of dots and dashes while the
janitor nodded approvingly. After a minute he decided to quit and use the
stairs, but as he turned away, the elevator rumbled in its shaft. Facing the
door he waited expectantly only to hear the rumbling stop.
     "Sounded like it went up," remarked Harry. "What does it do, go to the top
when you push the button here at the bottom?"
     "Yeah," replied the janitor. "That's what it does, only don't ask me why.
It just went from the fifth to the sixth, but anyway it's working again. You'll
see."
     The janitor took over the button business with such an air of confidence
that Harry waited for results. At the end of three wasted minutes, the elevator
began a downward rumble, but before it had quite reached the ground floor, there
was a heavy banging at the door of the building. Turning, Harry recognized Tracy
Singledon, having met the promoter a few times with Cranston.
     Past Singledon's broad, bluff face was another, peering across a shoulder.
It belonged to Rupert Suffolk, fitting a description given by The Shadow.
Suffolk was an easy man to describe, with his sharp thin features tending
toward the sallow. He was about Singledon's age, but lacked the gray hair that
characterized the other man. Still, there was suspicion of dye in the gloss of
Suffolk's crop and his black mustache, clipped eyebrow-thin, looked as though
it had undergone a tweezer treatment to dispose of any stray gray.
     Behind that pair were other faces representing more investors. Whatever
their comparative importance, Suffolk rated tops at present because he owned
the building. Seeing him, the janitor gave instant service, admitting the
visitors while Harry was opening the elevator door.
     Nodding to Singledon, Harry announced:
     "Mr. Cranston asked me here. He's been delayed but he'll be along later.
Maybe we'll need him to help us out of the elevator if it flukes half way up.
Something's wrong with it."
     Suffolk thrust himself to the fore.
     "Don't worry about the elevator," he snapped. "It has been properly
inspected. I own this building so I ought to know. Get in and we'll go up."
     Inside, Suffolk pressed the automatic button and the elevator took them
smoothly to the fifth floor. The first to step out, Suffolk strode across the
hall and banged hard at the door of the strong room. A faint buzzing sound
subsided; shortly there came the clatter of opening locks and bolts.
     The door thrust wide. As Harry and the rest stepped from its swinging path
they were greeted by a thin-faced man with birdlike eyes, whose head gave a
prompt bow from between unevenly stooped shoulders. With the wheezy greeting
that characterized Professor Bartlett, he sidled in crablike fashion to reach
the door and close it after the others passed through.
     Here again, Harry Vincent was relying on The Shadow's description and
Professor Bartlett fitted it to a dot. One look at the room with its smooth,
windowless walls, satisfied Harry that any qualms regarding the professor and
his famous invention belonged in the realm of imagination.
     Whatever crime's purpose, it lay elsewhere, along the trail that Elaine
Bartlett had taken and which The Shadow had so promptly followed. Such at least
was Harry's opinion, and his judgment was stiffened by long experience in The
Shadow's service. What the future might hold was uncertain, but Harry could see
no immediate menace for Professor Lucien Bartlett.
     If Harry Vincent had thought in terms of past instead of present he might
have formed a different conclusion.


     CHAPTER V

     THIS wasn't Grand Central.
     Elaine Bartlett was convinced of it as the cab swung into the doorway of
what looked to be an old garage. Worried about catching her train, she leaned
to the front window and demanded:
     "Where are you taking me, driver?"
     "Grand Central, lady," Creep Crawley tried to make it sound convincing.
"This is the entrance to the lower level. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
     "Why, no -"
     Elaine wrinkled her forehead, puzzled. She was trying to visualize Grand
Central Station and this didn't fit at all. Suddenly the answer sprang to mind
and she blurted it all in one breath.
     "There isn't any entrance to the lower level. Cabs can't get down there at
all. If this is a hoax it's gone far enough -"
     It had gone too far.
     Veering the cab sharply, Creep adroitly placed it between two cars that
were parked at the side of the narrow garage. Elaine, seeing two men in
overalls washing and polishing the car on the right, sprang from the door on
that side, hoping to attract their notice.
     She did. The man who was polishing the windshield flipped aside the cloth
and revealed a gun. At sight of the menacing weapon, Elaine darted past the
rear of the car only to encounter the washer, who flipped his sponge back into
its pail and likewise displayed a handy revolver.
     Elaine found herself boxed from two directions, surrounded.
     There was something professional about the set-up that made it all the
more appalling. It wasn't the cat-and-mouse technique that vicious characters
would ordinarily use; rather, it was smooth team-work that bordered almost on
indifference. No haste, no worry, just a case of someone being ahead of
Elaine's next jump. The deliberate hesitation by the man who was closing the
door was a definite invitation for Elaine to waste her breath and energy in a
mad dash that would lead her nowhere.
     A feeling of utter horror swept Elaine. She felt more at the mercy of
these captors than if they had already laid hands upon her. Rooted, the girl
watched the man at the door as he tantalizingly inched it with a pausing hand.
He was leaving an eight foot loop-hole that wouldn't be there if Elaine tried
to reach it.
     Out of darkness came the high-pitched shriek of tires, bright headlights
flashed from a wheeling cab that twisted in from the street. Before the man at
the door turned, the vehicle took a flying lurch down the ramp.
     To Elaine, this seemed the climax of a death-plot in which she was the
target. Frozen in the path of the hurtling cab, she hadn't a chance to escape
it. The men dove away panic stricken. The cab swerved enough to let Elaine's
abductors get clear. Then, with a jolt that nearly lifted it from the concrete
floor, the cab came to a stop, sudden and short. Only by inches did it fail to
reach her, but the cab's spectacular halt wasn't intended as another mode of
terrifying the helpless girl.
     A rear door flew open on the side toward the men who brandished guns.
Thanks to the momentum the cab had given him, a cloaked figure was catapulted
through the door in a flying leap that turned him into a streak of blackness.
With that amazing figure came a laugh that must have started a few moments
before, for its shivering echoes followed in his wake.
     The men who heard it knew that laugh. Desperately they tried to bring
their guns in play, but they hadn't time. Elaine saw the black streak
materialize into a cloaked shape with a pair of gloved hands that flayed heavy
automatics down from the level of a slouch hat.
     Those strokes drove Elaine's two captors back to their knees, then flat on
the floor where they coiled with guns falling from their hands unfired. The
Shadow kicked the weapons under the car all in the same stride that he used to
reach Elaine. Lifted from her feet by the swift sweep of a cloaked arm, Elaine
landed inside the cab's open door.
     Having literally hurled Elaine from danger, The Shadow was gone as quickly
as he had arrived, off in another whirl as important as his first mission.
     The Shadow's next job was to handle Creep Crawley.
     From the moment that he recognized The Shadow, the fake cabby began
thinking in terms of his own security. Wise as well as dangerous, Creep Crawley
was making the most of his handiest weapon, the cab itself.
     While The Shadow was battering down the crooked garage hands, Creep
whipped the cab back, making a sharp turn as he did. Another twist of the wheel
and he was starting the cab forward in the general direction of the outer door,
a maneuver which prompted The Shadow to toss Elaine into Shrevvy's cab and make
a quick fade of his own.
     To ram Shrevvy's cab would have been fatal for Creep. Instead, he risked
spurting through the narrow gap between Shrevvy's cab and the parked line of
cars. Maybe Creep hoped he'd run down The Shadow in the process, but the
cloaked battler was already gone. So Creep put his all into the getaway.
     Slicing through an opening that was half a foot shy, Creep won his point
through stubborn folly. In allowing too much on Shrevvy's side he hooked the
jutting front of a sedan with his own rear fender. Instead of trying a back and
forth maneuver, Creep smacked his foot right to the floorboard, burying the
accelerator. His fender took two yards of bumper from the big sedan, but the
cab was away. It climbed the ramp like a squirrel taking to a tree and made a
wild veer out into the street. Seeing the cab coming, the frantic door tender
jumped the running board and rode away with it.
     Quick stabs from The Shadow's gun shattered the air. If the ripping fender
had delayed Creep a few mere seconds, his flight would have been halted.
Instead, the luck was all with Creep.
     Seeing Creep make the grade, Shrevvy went into quick maneuvers. He was
turning toward the ramp when The Shadow boarded the cab and dropped in beside
the driver's seat, leaving Elaine in back with Margo. Out of her whirl of
surprise Elaine was even more befuddled to find another girl involved, but she
settled back with the full assurance that Margo must be a friend. Where the
chase might lead or how long it would last, Elaine didn't care. She knew she
was in good hands.
     Rounding a corner that Creep might have swung, Shrevvy veered and stopped
at sight of a strew of luggage lying in the middle of a darkened street.
Elaine's bags, chucked from Creep's cab. Creep wouldn't have tossed out the
baggage simply to lighten ballast. The bags proved that he had taken another
course, probably down the secluded avenue that Shrevvy had just left.
     Supporting his theory, The Shadow saw heavy traffic on the next avenue,
marking it as a corner which Creep would avoid. Also visible was a subway
entrance which fitted nicely with The Shadow's plans. Turning to the rear seat
he gave brief instructions with the result that Margo hurriedly clambered out
taking Elaine with her. While the girls were gathering the bags and starting
for the subway, Shrevvy reversed his cab back to Creep's logical trail. With
The Shadow riding in the rear seat, the pursuit was on again.
     Within five blocks, Shrevvy spotted the cab he wanted. It was pulling away
from a lunch room on a side street as though its driver had been innocently
engaged for the past half hour, the cab bearing the company emblem and license
tag that Shrevvy had mentally identified with Creep. Since he was staging a
sneak, Shrevvy went into one of his own with The Shadow's approval.
     Apparently Creep was reversing the trail for it was leading back in the
direction of the apartment where Professor Bartlett lived. But it wasn't until
the other cab neared the final corner that it made a left turn in sufficient
light for Shrevvy to observe the thing that startled him.
     "Say, boss," said Shrevvy through the connecting window, "Didn't Creep
clip that bumper on the other side?"
     "I heard it," responded Cranston. "From the clatter, I don't think it
improved Creep's fender."
     "That's what's bothering me," declared Shrevvy. "Look at that left rear on
the hack ahead. It ain't even scratched!"
     "It looks like new," was Cranston's comment, "and so does the cab."
     "Say -"
     Shrevvy cut off with a string of expletives as the other cab swung to a
stop in front of Bartlett's. This was a genuine company cab which explained why
Creep had been handling a repainted Independent. Shrevvy hadn't figured that
Creep's license plate was as phony as his cab but it evidently was, because it
was identical with the number on this one.
     The driver was getting out as Shrevvy pulled to a stop. He was an honest
looking fellow who stared inquiringly at Cranston when the latter stepped from
Shrevvy's cab.
     "Say, mister," the cabby asked, "D'you know who wanted a cab here? I got a
call over at the hash room where I eat saying he'd be waiting here, but he
ain't."
     Cranston nodded nonchalantly.
     "An acquaintance of mine," he said. "An impetuous chap who was in a great
hurry this evening. He must have taken another cab right after he phoned you."
     The cabby grimaced, then turned around to deliver his tale of woe to
Shrevvy who looked sympathetic, particularly when he caught a nod from
Cranston. It wasn't The Shadow's policy to pass up the slightest clue, and this
driver, whose cab had been duplicated, might provide one. At least he had been
under observation by certain men of crime to become a victim of vehicular
imposture.
     Cranston had come a long way around to reach his original goal where he
had at first expected crime to strike. Though Creep Crawley had managed to
trick the trail he had done The Shadow a favor in decoying Shrevvy back here.
     As for any pride that Creep might feel, it was more than offset by The
Shadow's rescue of Elaine, whose kidnapping was Creep's real assignment. Where
clues were concerned, there would be others when the police took the fake
garage men into custody. The Shadow's shots could not have passed unnoticed,
nor the finding of two unconscious men with revolvers lying by their loosened
hands.
     Thus Lamont Cranston could proceed to his appointment with Professor
Bartlett.


     CHAPTER VI

     CRANSTON'S knocks at Bartlett's strong room door produced the usual
clatter of receding locks and bolts. When the door swung open, Cranston was
greeted by the bowing figure of Professor Bartlett as polite as ever. But the
real greeting came from Singledon who called triumphantly above the buzz of the
cathodoscope.
     "It works, Cranston!" Singledon shouted. "Come see for yourself! How about
it, professor? Can you step up the projection units for another demonstration?"
     "Of course," acknowledged the stoop-shouldered man as he sidled back into
the room. "Let me arrange it first and I shall show Mr. Cranston everything he
wants to see."
     The arrangements required Bartlett's usual ostrich act. The others looked
on with interest, Harry included, but Cranston's eyes roved elsewhere. He was
taking in the details of this room, studying its security. If ever a strong
room deserved its reputation, this one did, with its smooth crackless walls and
solid unscathed door.
     The dictaphone interested Cranston with its record on the cylinder.
Evidently Professor Bartlett had been using the dictaphone this evening. Noting
that Rupert Suffolk was fully engaged in conversation with Tracy Singledon and
that everyone else was watching Bartlett, Cranston stooped to the shelf below
the dictaphone and picked out an unused record. Next he was drawing the record
from the disk itself to compare it with the unused one.
     Only Harry Vincent observed this action, and he saw the finish only. Harry
chanced to glance in that direction just in time to see Cranston slide a record
back on the cylinder of the dictaphone.
     Shortly afterward, Bartlett's face emerged from the flaps behind the
cathodoscope. The professor's voice proceeded with a crackly announcement:
     "As you know, the cathodoscope is an amplification of the cathode ray. I
have so intensified it that this device gives a clear view of objects on the
other side of a solid barrier. It has been my ambition however to show such
objects in three-dimensional form with color, the two features being
inter-related.
     "I have accomplished this through experiments with a simple instrument
known as the kaleidoscope, which for years has been regarded as a simple toy
wherein glass particles fall into myriad patterns. My first step was to employ
particles of metal so thin as to be transparent instead of the customary bits
of glass. My next was to ionize those particles on the theory that so treated
they would show differentiations according to color.
     "The result fulfilled my expectations. Where the cathodoscope differs from
the usual x-ray machine is wholly in this discovery. Literally the colors fall
in line under the proper ratio of projection units and kaleiodograph norm. Of
course there is the stereometer, which I designed to insure the three
dimensional effect and the polychromatic regulation which governs the ionized
metallic particles.
     "But results speak better than technicalities" - thin lips registered a
dry smile - "so if you will first study the arrangement of the objects beyond
the screen and then look through the cathodoscope, you will see for yourself,
Mr. Cranston."
     Cranston looked at the objects beyond the screen, the red book, the blue
vase and the empty wine glass. As he turned toward the front of the
cathodoscope, he heard Bartlett's voice again:
     "While you watch you will see me change the positions of the objects. Be
ready for it, Mr. Cranston, but on no account touch any of the regulators."
     Cranston's response was a single word, which he undertoned without moving
his lips. The only person who caught it was the man for whom it was intended,
Harry Vincent. The word was:
     "Count."
     Pressing the various buttons, Bartlett stepped away. Cranston was looking
through the instrument, his hands below the flaps. All eyes were on Bartlett
except Harry's, his were watching Cranston's fingers. Silently both Cranston
and Harry were counting from one to ten in perfect unison, a trick they had
often practiced. What Cranston's fingers were doing were marking off the tens
so that Harry could check any slight deviation.
     Through the cathodoscope, Cranston could clearly see the objects in full
color with three dimensional effect. Then, without warning, a hand came into
the scene and moved the objects to new positions. It was at that moment that
Cranston's thumb raised itself and lowered when Bartlett's operation had
finished. Shortly afterward the professor came back to the controls and turned
them off.
     A smile and a gesture signified that Bartlett wanted Cranston to check the
new position of the actual objects. Cranston did so and nodded that they
corresponded with the changes that Bartlett's hand had made.
     Passing Harry, Cranston raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry. Harry
undertoned:
     "Three to seven."
     The reply that Cranston gave was something of a jolt to Harry though he
did not show it. What Cranston said was:
     "Five to eleven."
     In brief, the cathodoscope was a fake.
     The experiment had missed on two counts when checked by one man through
the cathodoscope with another watching Bartlett's shifting of the objects.
Harry had seen the professor's hand move into action two seconds before
Cranston witnessed it through the machine and Bartlett had shifted the objects
in four seconds while Cranston was tallying six!
     Of the others present only one man looked dubious. That man was Suffolk
whose sallow face habitually wore a "show-me" expression. Tonight however
Suffolk's manner was intensified to use one of Bartlett's pet terms. Suffolk
wanted to see what others thought for he was watching other faces closely.
Meeting Suffolk's glance, Singledon became troubled.
     "Anything wrong, Suffolk?"
     "Nothing at all," returned Suffolk, suavely, "except that I'd hoped to see
a more practical demonstration. Suppose I wrote something and sealed it in an
envelope. If I held that envelope in front of the cathodoscope could somebody
look through and read the message?"
     Suffolk finished by turning to Bartlett whose face promptly became
troubled. Then:
     "It would not be a good test," wheezed Bartlett. "I prefer three
dimensional objects. An envelope is flat."
     "But could you read the message?"
     "With proper adjustments, yes," replied Bartlett. "It would take a long
while though to arrange it. Of course" - he canted a close look at Suffolk -
"you can make tests of your own if you prefer, provided they come within the
proper range."
     "Just what is the proper range?"
     "The present adjustment of the cathodoscope. For instance" - Bartlett's
smile came happily - "why not pour some wine into the glass and study the
effect through the cathodoscope? I have some wine here" - he went to a corner
and picked up a bottle - "so let Mr. Singledon fill the glass -"
     Bartlett stopped suddenly as he glanced at the label on the bottle. He
muttered the word "Sauterne" and put the bottle back on the table.
     "That bottle is empty," apologized Bartlett. "This one is full. Here you
are, Mr. Singledon, but wait until I adjust the cathodoscope to suit the
molecular activities of liquids."
     Stepping to the machine, Bartlett pressed a button on the side, then
glanced at the dictograph. He paused to draw the record from the cylinder and
place it carefully in a box.
     "I made some important notes tonight," explained Bartlett. "I must put
this record in the filing cabinet in the apartment. Go right ahead with the
wine experiment. Everything is ready."
     Bartlett ambled from the strong room while Singledon was uncorking the
wine bottle. With a troubled air, Singledon looked toward Suffolk.
     "You're a shrewder man than I am, Suffolk," declared Singledon. "I mean
that as a compliment of course. I must admit that I have invested unwisely in
certain inventions whereas you have been successful in your real estate
transactions."
     "Inventions are less certain," returned Suffolk. "At least you are more
experienced in judging them than I am."
     "But I feel responsible, Suffolk. I interested most of these gentlemen in
the cathodoscope. Besides, I promised a full report to Rex Troy. I want him to
be satisfied."
     "If Troy wants to be satisfied he could have come here. He will take your
word for it, Singledon."
     "Our word might be a better way to put it."
     "Of course." Suffolk nodded emphatically. "If anyone is unconvinced, I
think he should say so."
     Reassured, Singledon started to pour the wine, but none came from the
bottle.
     "Poor Bartlett is so absentminded," smiled Singledon. "He gave us the
wrong bottle. The other must be the full one."
     Suffolk picked up the bottle that Bartlett had laid aside and discovered
that it contained wine. He raised his thin eyebrows as he glanced at the
Sauterne label, then reached for the empty bottle. Its label bore the word
"Port".
     "Bartlett expects us to use a dark wine," observed Suffolk, "but there
isn't any Port. I suppose we shall have to use Sauterne, which is a white wine.
It shouldn't make any difference."
     Stepping over to the glass, Suffolk filled it with Sauterne. He pressed
the switch that started the cathodoscope and stooped to look through the
projector. A moment later, Suffolk was snapping his fingers excitedly.
     "Come here, all of you!" he exclaimed. "Look through and tell me what you
see."
     Singledon was the first to look. He popped out again, in consternation.
     "Why, the wine is dark! It looks like Port instead of Sauterne. What do
you suppose is wrong?"
     For answer, Suffolk removed the glass from beyond the screen. He gestured
for Singledon to take another look, which Singledon did. This time, Singledon's
face emerged with anger written across its entire breadth.
     "The glass of wine is still there!" bellowed Singledon. "I'll find
Bartlett and hold him to account for this! It's an imposture, an absolute
fraud!"
     Singledon was starting toward the door but he waited for others to verify
his claim. Along with the rest, Cranston and Harry were looking through the
cathodoscope and seeing the glass that wasn't there, when Singledon returned
and found the catch that lifted the top of the machine.
     It was Suffolk who saw the inside first.
     "A movie projector," he ejaculated, "with a colored film - no, several of
them. It throws the images on the screen, that's all. No wonder Bartlett had to
set the things the way he wanted to make us think we were looking through!"
     The device was understandable at a glance. The reels that Suffolk pointed
out were interchangeable and controlled by the buttons of the fake
cathodoscope, which could be shifted to whatever picture was required. The
flickers of the films supplied the illusion of the cathodoscope in question,
that was all.
     Not all so far as Bartlett was concerned. Singledon led the squad of
angered men who hurried out to apprehend the swindling professor. From far down
the stairs they heard the clatter of departing footsteps followed by the slam of
the front door. Bartlett hadn't trusted to the unreliable elevator to
outdistance the crowd that had detected the imposture.
     From a hallway window, Suffolk pointed to the street five floors below
where Bartlett was making a mad scramble into a waiting taxicab. Cranston
likewise saw the last stages of the professor's agile dash. As Suffolk hustled
to the stairs to shout that a chase was useless, Cranston turned to Harry.
     "Bartlett forgot himself," observed Cranston, dryly. "That rheumatic gait
of his couldn't be shaken off at a few moments' notice. I would say that
Professor Bartlett is just about as real as his cathodoscope."
     By then the cab had swerved the corner, but Harry had seen enough to
understand Cranston's comment. The fraud of the fake cathodoscope had been
outdone by another. The man who had fled in the cab was an impostor
masquerading as Professor Bartlett.
     It wasn't necessary to name the impostor once the fact was known. Only one
actor in New York could have done so creditable a job, from the pure dramatic
standpoint. At least the departure of the false Professor Bartlett afforded a
partial solution to the disappearance of another missing man.
     It told what had become of Jan Kranda!


     CHAPTER VII

     ATTIRED in a gaudy dressing gown, Brodie Graff was lounging in a luxurious
apartment, reading the morning newspaper. His dark eyes flashed a satisfied
sparkle as they alternated between two columns on the front page.
     "Nice work, Red," approved Brodie. "Did you leave one of these with
Kranda?"
     "I'll say," returned Red Melvin, from an easy chair. "The guy needed a
quick convincer after what happened last night at Bartlett's."
     "You mean after we left?"
     "Yeah. When Kranda was staging his act."
     Brodie's eyes hardened as they narrowed. Sharply, he demanded:
     "What did happen?"
     "Nothing happened," explained Red. "That was the trouble. You know the
sweat Kranda was in when he began thinking about Troy. Well, the least he
expected was to hear some crack about Broadway's Beauty Boy being bumped off.
Only there wasn't any."
     "I thought Kranda would figure the news hadn't spread and let it go at
that."
     "He would have, Brodie, if Singledon and Cranston hadn't come to
Bartlett's. Kranda saw both of them in a box at the theater. He thought sure
they'd mention it."
     "How did you handle it?"
     "You mean when Kranda got back last night? I told him they'd left the
theater before the final curtain. That kind of quieted him, but he began
another yip this morning. I was glad when the fake sheet showed up with this."
     By the "fake sheet" Red referred to the newspaper. He emphasized the word
"this" with a gesture to the column at the left of the front page. There, big
headlines announced the tragic death of Rex Troy which the police classed as a
grudge murder engineered by a fellow-actor, Jan Kranda. Well down the column
the story stated that the police had been unable to pick up the killer's trail.
     "That part was a real help," stated Red. "Kranda wanted me to go out and
buy copies of all the other newspapers, like he was going to keep a scrap-book
or something. I couldn't tell him that Nicky's press was only geared to turn
out this one."
     "So what did you tell him?"
     "I told him it wouldn't be safe to go mooching around a lot of newsstands
- not even for me. I said I'd bring another sheet as soon as something new
develops. That means to-morrow, don't it?"
     Brodie nodded.
     "We'll have a fresh one every day," he assured. "Not on account of Kranda,
but because of this."
     Brodie pointed to the scareheading on the opposite side of the page. It
announced the kidnapping of Elaine Bartlett, who had been spirited away while
riding to Grand Central Station. According to this account, police were already
investigating ransom notes that had been received by friends of the girl's
father who had also left town.
     "I said that guys like Singledon were hushing up the fake invention,"
explained Red, "not wanting it to be generally known that they had fallen for a
sucker game. Kranda didn't argue that one."
     An angry glare spread over Brodie's face. He started to crumple the
newspaper. Then remembering that he had a special use for it, he smoothed the
front page and his manner as well. Only his voice remained testy.
     "The kidnap story didn't have to be a phony," snarled Brodie. "The way we
had it greased for Creep, the job was slated for a cinch."
     "It couldn't be a cinch," argued Red, "not with The Shadow busting into
it."
     "Yeah," admitted Brodie. "I guess Creep was lucky to get clear. Those guys
at the garage don't matter; they were just stooging and Creep is wanted anyway.
It was lucky Creep got clear though, so he could bring Kranda back where he
belonged."
     Red eyed Brodie steadily as though to weigh the effect of a coming
statement. Then, coolly, Red put it:
     "Creep didn't bring back Kranda."
     Brodie vaulted up from his chair. His hands began by shoving the
chair-arms and finished with a sweep that carried them to the lapels of Red's
coat. So tight was Brodie's clutch that Red could picture its effect if
transferred to his throat. Red was trying to rise from his own chair but
couldn't because Brodie shoved him back. However Brodie didn't switch to
throttling tactics because he wanted Red to talk.
     "You mean Kranda took a cab himself?" demanded Brodie. "Right from
Bartlett's to his hide-away?"
     "It wasn't Kranda's fault," explained Red. "He thought it was Creep's cab.
Only Creep hadn't gone back to Bartlett's like he was supposed to."
     "And why not?"
     "He thought The Shadow would tag him. He needed a decoy, so he stopped off
and phoned the lunch room and gave the other guy a call to Bartlett's -"
     "You mean the guy that owns the cab that Creep's was rigged to look like?"
     "That's right. Creep figured he was using the old noggin and it struck me
he was pretty smart."
     It didn't impress Brodie the same way.
     "Smart for Creep," sneered Brodie, "but not for us - or Kranda. Suppose
The Shadow had caught up with that bona fide cab and found Kranda in it? Where
would we be?"
     "Right here, I guess," returned Red. "Where else?"
     "I'll tell you where else," snapped Brodie. He began tallying on his
fingers as he made his points. "First The Shadow would have marked Kranda as a
phony and started to make him talk. Next Kranda would have talked when he found
out he hadn't knocked off Rex Troy after all. He'd have named you and me and The
Shadow would have shown up at the hide-away where you were expecting Kranda."
     Brodie's picture was so graphic and logical that Red began to wince at
thought of it. Noting Red's reaction, Brodie pressed home his conclusion.
     "If The Shadow had given you the heat," declared Brodie, "you'd have
brought him right here, Red. Guys do that when The Shadow turns it on. If he'd
said: 'Where will I find Brodie Graff?'" - Brodie yanked Red to his feet as a
slight imitation of The Shadow - "you would have said: 'In Apartment 2-D at the
Amarillo Arms, right back of the Hercules Warehouse.' Now wouldn't you, Red?"
     "I guess I would have, Brodie."
     "So you're asking where we'd be right now. One place we wouldn't be is
here, because The Shadow would have taken this joint over."
     Straight-arming Red back into his chair, Brodie whipped off his fancy
dressing gown and went to the closet to get his coat and vest. Uneasiness
flickered in Red's watery eyes as he watched the process.
     "You wouldn't be going over to talk to Kranda, would you, Brodie?"
     "And why not? Somebody's got to talk to him."
     "That's just the trouble. The Shadow may be hep by now. He might be going
there too."
     "You locked Kranda in his furnished room, didn't you?"
     "Yeah and here's the key." Red produced the item mentioned and handed it
to Brodie. "Only locked doors don't bother The Shadow - least so I've heard."
     "You're beginning to use judgment," complimented Brodie. "Still, somebody
has got to talk to Kranda and I know just the guy." Brodie paused and his gaze
became reflective, like his smile. "I should say, just the guys."
     Instead of reaching for his hat as Red expected, Brodie stepped over to a
mirror and smoothed his coat. In the looking glass he saw the fake newspaper
that he had tossed aside, so he turned, picked up the paper and folded it under
his arm.
     "Kranda can wait a while," decided Brodie. "If The Shadow does get hep,
he'll case that rooming house until dark, because that's the time The Shadow
moves in on guys like Kranda and scares their guts green. Anyway, Kranda don't
know where you went, Red."
     "But he knows who we are, Brodie."
     "So do a lot of other dopes," argued Brodie. "We won't be silent partners
in this set-up much longer. The Shadow's specialty is calling them a couple of
rolls ahead. It's bum stuff worrying if he's finding out about you when you
ought to be concentrated on keeping him from finding you. Sometimes the best
bet is to find The Shadow first."
     "You mean we're going to try to spot The Shadow before he spots us?"
     "That's right." Brodie beckoned Red to an alcove at the rear of the room
and lifted a picture from the wall. "Creep's idea of using a decoy duck isn't
so bad after all. I think we can go it one better and we'll go The Shadow one
better on that invisible hokum. We'll show him how it can really work."
     Under the picture was a nail-head which Brodie pressed four times. A
rumble sounded and the entire wall moved slowly upward on hidden grooves deep
in the corners. Raising the picture, Brodie held it so the nail caught the cord
and carried the picture up with the wall. There were other pictures hanging in
the alcove along with an ornamental mirror and an Oriental prayer rug, but none
of them encountered any obstruction because the wall was topped by an ornate
molding which had a decided bulge. Most of the molding traveled upward too,
except for a thin outer edge that was permanently fixed to the ceiling. As a
result there was a decided gap through which the hanging objects passed.
     Even more interesting was the gap that lay directly behind the rising
wall. A doorway yawned in a mass of brick, revealing a shaft from which the
rumble came. From that shaft descended an elevator which stopped at the
opening. Entering the car, Brodie and Red rode down one floor and stepped out
from the other side into a narrow, concrete-lined passage. They were in the
Hercules warehouse which adjoined the Amarillo Arms; the secret elevator shaft
was built in the wall of the warehouse itself.
     Brodie pressed a button and the elevator went up to its regular place, two
floors above. As the car rose, the wall of Brodie's empty apartment descended
from its groove between walls. The timing of the elevator and the wall were
perfect for a very simple reason.
     The wall of the alcove was actually the counter-weight for the secret
elevator!
     A clever device this; too clever to have been designed by either Brodie
Graff or Red Melvin.


     CHAPTER VIII

     PROFESSOR LUCIEN BARTLETT gave his head a sudden tilt and listened. He
could hear sounds from the door of the stone-walled room where he had been a
prisoner since the night before. Those sounds represented the manipulation of
locks very much like those in Bartlett's own strong room, but the only trouble
here was that the locks were on the other side.
     The door opened and two men entered. One was Brodie Graff, the other Red
Melvin, and Bartlett recognized them as the captors who had brought him to this
square-walled cell. But it was obvious from the quick darts of the professor's
eyes that he was hoping to see a third man who wasn't present.
     Brodie and Red exchanged grins that made Bartlett dubious. He was almost
ready to believe that his cathodoscope did have mirror qualities, because only
through the machine had he seen the approach of a face so like his own, the
face that he was looking for again. Then, forgetting his private mystery,
Bartlett drew himself erect and met Brodie and Red with a glare of defiance.
     "Read this, professor," suggested Brodie, suavely. "Maybe you'll quit
being stubborn."
     Brodie handed over the fake newspaper, indicating the paragraph that told
of Elaine's disappearance. The glare faded from Bartlett's eyes as he read the
headline:

                        INVENTOR'S DAUGHTER KIDNAPPED

     "Don't let it worry you, prof," suggested Brodie in a friendly tone. "It
isn't worrying us." Brodie's chuckle was echoed by Red. "What is worrying us" -
the suave voice went hard - "is that routine you've handed us about not working
any more on your invention. We've been afraid to shut you up with it for fear
you'd smash it.
     "Only I don't think you will." Brodie timed his words to the moment when
Bartlett finished reading the column. "I've got an idea you'll play ball just
on account of your darling daughter. What do you think?"
     Bartlett's answer was a slow, prolonged nod that gradually lost its
reluctance.
     "Bring him along, Red," ordered Brodie. "We'll put him in the big room and
let him get to work."
     The big room was similar to the little one from which they brought
Bartlett. It had a door that locked from the outside; its interior consisted of
bare walls with no windows. The chief difference lay in the furnishings. Whereas
the little room contained merely a cot, a table, and chair, the big room was
stocked with Bartlett's cathodoscope and its spare parts, plus tools,
work-bench and other equipment that meticulously duplicated the contents of his
own strong room.
     Clutching the newspaper in one hand, Bartlett rubbed his chin with the
other, as he looked about in that quick, birdlike way of his.
     "Don't worry where you are, prof," remarked Brodie. "It's what's here that
counts."
     "So I was thinking," observed Bartlett, dryly. "It was very obliging of
Rupert Suffolk to supply me with a strong room for a workshop in that apartment
house of his. Is it possible that he has gone into the business on a wholesale
scale?"
     "Wouldn't you like to know?" Brodie put the question smoothly; then his
voice gone harsh, "Or would you?"
     Bartlett gave an indifferent shrug. Then, as though accepting his
surroundings along with the terms, he stepped over to a table and began to
tinker with the cathodoscope. Again, Brodie inserted a suggestion.
     "Better get that thing working right," Brodie advised. "Red and I may be
taking it along for a very special job."
     Only momentarily did defiance return to Bartlett's eyes; then, realizing
the possible consequences to Elaine, he wilted. There was a crackle of appeal
in his voice:
     "I can't promise you results. The cathodoscope is not a portable
instrument, nor is it perfected. As a matter of fact it is very delicate -"
     "And so is your daughter," put in Brodie. "So you'd better get it working
- by tonight."
     "If you will only let me talk to Suffolk! He would understand. I've often
told him the limitations of the cathodoscope and its problems."
     "I'll do all the talking that's needed," argued Brodie. "In fact, I've
already done it. Your job is to deliver, so get busy."
     "It's impossible. It would take you hours to adjust the cathodoscope. It
might save time if you took me along and if the machine didn't work, I could
explain why."
     "No dice, prof. Get that thing in operation and we'll do the rest."
     "I might be able to improve one of the earlier models." Bartlett cast a
hopeful eye toward the work-bench. "They're portable and easier to operate,
though I can't guarantee full results."
     "Will they give a look-see through a solid wall?"
     "Yes, but they lack the polychromatic feature, which forced me to enlarge
the apparatus. You will obtain images but only in black and white, not in
color."
     Brodie's eyes narrowed wisely.
     "Black and white will do," he decided. "It will show us just what we want
to see. But remember, prof, you've got to deliver!"
     "I'll do my best."
     "It had better be good!"
     With that, Brodie left, beckoning for Red to follow. The last that
Bartlett heard from them was the clatter of locks and bolts outside his prison
work-shop. With a worried glance at the newspaper, Bartlett laid it aside and
set to work at his bench. But there were moments when a peculiar glitter came
to the professor's eyes indicating that his mind was on more than the
improvement of his portable cathodoscope.
     Though Professor Bartlett had been cut off from the world, he still was
able to speak for himself. In fact he had been doing so for the last ten
minutes, through the medium of the dictaphone statement that he had recorded
the night before.
     The record was running on a machine in the corner of a private office,
which obviously belonged to Tracy Singledon for he was sitting behind the big
desk in the middle of the room. Lamont Cranston was in charge of operations; it
was he who had brought the record to Singledon's office.
     "Most amazing!" exclaimed Singledon, the moment that the record was
completed. "Why, to hear this, I would suppose that Bartlett had built a
genuine cathodoscope. Wait though" - Singledon's broad face became perturbed -
"I begin to see the answer. Bartlett made this record simply to aid his build
up. It was just another of his cute convincers."
     "In that case," remarked Cranston, "he wouldn't have wanted to take it
along with him."
     "But he left it where you would find it - somewhere in his apartment."
     "He never took it to his apartment." Cranston's lips flickered a smile.
"What Bartlett took to his apartment was a blank record that I placed on the
dictaphone after I removed this one. When I say Bartlett" - Cranston emphasized
the afterthought - "I mean his double, of course."
     "His double?"
     "Yes. It wasn't Bartlett who gave us that demonstration. I suspected that
fact almost from the start. What I didn't quite anticipate was the impostor's
sudden departure."
     "Bartlett's double!" exclaimed Singledon. "I can't believe it possible!"
     "You should have seen him get into the cab. He shed about twenty years
from Bartlett's life."
     "But who in the world could have passed himself as Bartlett well enough to
fool all of us - that is all except you, Cranston?"
     "A man we know," replied Cranston. "He just happened to be on my mind at
the time, so the connection was something of a coincidence."
     "Jan Kranda!"
     Singledon thumped the desk as he uttered the name. It was characteristic
of Singledon to be slow to grasp a point, sudden to accept one when it did
drive home.
     "Play that record again," insisted Singledon. "I want to check it
carefully for intonation and compare it with my recollection of Bartlett's
voice - or Kranda's - last night."
     Cranston started the record over. Behind the desk Singledon sat with eyes
half-closed, nodding as he pictured the scene in Bartlett's strong room. There
were moments when he raised a finger, checking some slight deviation that he
noticed. The record was half way through when the telephone bell rang. Opening
his eyes, Singledon reached for the phone but at the same time made a revolving
motion with his other hand indicating for Cranston to keep the record going. As
he talked over the phone, Singledon kept one ear cocked, still listening to
Bartlett's voice from the amplifier connected with the dictaphone.
     Singledon's phone conversation was brief, mostly a matter of answering
questions yes and no. While he talked he made notes on a pad. When he finished
he turned and gestured for Cranston to turn off the dictaphone.
     "That's enough," asserted Singledon. "I am convinced. Check my notes
Cranston and you'll agree. I caught at least a dozen differences between
Bartlett's voice and Kranda's. That's why I told Suffolk not to call in the
police."
     Cranston's raising eyebrows requested an explanation which Singledon
promptly gave.
     "That was Suffolk on the phone," said Singledon. "He thinks we ought to
have the police arrest Bartlett as a swindler - if they can find him. But when
he asked if I thought we'd better wait, I said yes."
     Cranston nodded approval.
     "This might clear Bartlett," declared Singledon, "unless he personally
hired Kranda to go through with the final test that he was afraid to try
himself. But that is hardly logical, since Bartlett knew us better than Kranda
did."
     "Don't forget the note that Kranda wrote," reminded Cranston. "It might
have a bearing on the case."
     "An excellent point, Cranston! I see the game. The note was a forgery,
planned to put Kranda into difficulty so that he would go through with his
impersonation of Bartlett."
     "Unfortunately I have had the note checked by several handwriting experts.
They compared it with specimens of Kranda's writing and all agree that the note
is genuine."
     Cranston didn't add that the several handwriting experts consisted
entirely of himself and his other personality, The Shadow. That fact however
merely added to the assurance in his tone and Singledon took it all for granted.
     "That gives us a double mystery," affirmed Singledon, "and we can hardly
afford to be unfair to Bartlett or Kranda - or both. Suppose we wait a few days
and see what develops. I am sure that Suffolk and the others will agree."
     It suited Cranston. He shook hands with Singledon and left, taking along
the precious dictaphone record that at least gave indication of Bartlett's
innocence in what so far seemed a swindle scheme. Outside the office building,
Cranston called for a cab and one wheeled promptly from the other side of the
street.
     Shrevvy was the driver and he had a report.
     "I found that guy who drives the company hack," informed Shrevvy. "He's
not such a dope after all. He figured there was something phony about Kranda."
     "Did he say why?"
     "Yeah." Shrevvy went into his most descriptive style. "I says he didn't
make out so bad on that bum call after all. So he reminds me it was my idea
saying for him to stick around a while. So I says I hope he got a long haul out
of the deal and he says yeah, only the old geezer couldn't make up his mind
about it.
     "Kranda hops into the cab and says to hurry up and take him there. The
hackie asks where and Kranda says not to bother with putting on an act; that's
his job. Anyway, Kranda puts across the notion that the big idea is to get
going somewhere, so this company coot figures he's got nothing to lose so long
as he remembers to start the meter, which he does."
     Shrevvy paused to take a breath.
     "Of course Kranda was thinking it was Creep at the wheel," resumed
Shrevvy, "so he keeps on getting annoyed when the guy insists on being
inquisitive about where the ride is supposed to conclude. At last Kranda must
have wised that Creep isn't handling the helm, but Kranda don't know his own
address.
     "So he gets the company character to drive him around an unseemly
neighborhood where all the houses look alike except that most of them have been
torn down about fifty years ago to make room for obsolete office buildings.
Finally Kranda recognizes a brownstone job that he says is it, and that's where
he terminates."
     Shrevvy shoved a slip of paper through the connecting window and Cranston
read the address as relayed by Kranda's cab driver. In casual tone, Cranston
remarked:
     "You've notified Burbank of course."
     "Yeah," returned Shrevvy, "and he's putting Hawkeye on. That means the
joint is being satisfactorily cased in the parlance of the guys who reap the
weed of bitter fruit."


     CHAPTER IX

     AT DUSK, a light truck pulled up in front of an old office building and
two men alighted from it. The truck bore the name of a company that dealt in
office supplies, hence it wasn't surprising that the pair should unload a
squatty filing cabinet that they carried into the building, whereupon the truck
immediately pulled away. Nor was it odd that after carrying the cabinet up two
flights of stairs, the men should take it into an empty office far down the
hall at the very rear of the building.
     Once inside the office, however, the men pulled down the shades of the
side-wall windows and turned on the lights. The pretended truckers stood
revealed as Brodie Graff and his side-kick Red Melvin. From the bottom drawer
of the two-tier filing cabinet, they brought Bartlett's portable cathodoscope;
from the top drawer, a square-shaped carrying case containing items that went
with it.
     Using the file cabinet as a stand, Brodie aimed the cathodoscope toward
the back wall while Red brought items from the carrying case as called for. Red
plugged it into a floor socket. He then proceeded to hand over items as Brodie
called them from a list provided by Bartlett. Red became puzzled when Brodie
finished by asking for the filter screen.
     "Guess it isn't here," declared Red. "The only thing left is a picture
frame with a hunk of newspaper glued onto it."
     "That's it," informed Brodie. "The prof told me about it. The thing is an
improvement. The paper is coated with a special powder. Hold it in the light
and you'll see it glisten."
     "Why didn't he give us the screen off the super-dooper?"
     "It's too big for this rig. The regular screen has a sheet of thin
parchment."
     "Why didn't he use the same on this?"
     "Because he didn't have any. It isn't the paper that counts, it's the
powder coating. Any piece of paper will do, so the prof used the first thing he
found."
     Putting the frame in place, Brodie turned on the cathodoscope. As the
instrument buzzed, it projected an enlarged image of the half-page of newspaper
against the wall, but gradually that picture faded. As Red turned out the room
lights, the rear wall showed a vague pattern representing bricks.
     "It's working all right," confirmed Brodie. "The wall won't show anything
except outlines, the way we're looking at it now. What you've got to do is look
through the cathodoscope and get the focus."
     Brodie was beginning the operation as he described it. In a few minutes,
he gave a pleased chuckle.
     "There it is, Red. See for yourself."
     Looking through the cathodoscope, Red was almost startled. Instead of the
wall, he saw the interior of a room he recognized. It was a room in an old
house that backed against this office building, the very room occupied by Jan
Kranda.
     As Professor Bartlett had stated, the view through the portable
cathodoscope lacked color and depth, but it was quite the equivalent of the
average motion picture. The scene even had an actor; Jan Kranda in person,
pacing back and forth between the door and a window on the opposite side of the
furnished room. Red was staring fascinated when Brodie tapped him on the
shoulder.
     "The guy's restless," said Brodie. "It's time to phone him. I'll watch
while you give the two-three."
     With Brodie back at the cathodoscope, Red went to the office phone and
dialed a number. He listened while it rang twice; then hung up and dialed
again. Watching, Brodie saw Kranda become alert; when Red gave three rings and
another hang-up, the actor pounced over to his own phone and stood ready to
snatch it. Again, Red dialed and Kranda was on the wire instantly.
     "What'll I tell him?" whispered Red.
     "Tell him he's going to move," returned Brodie. "Have him put on the
Bartlett make-up so he can travel with you."
     Red passed the word along and through the cathodoscope, Brodie saw Kranda
gesture as he answered. Apparently Kranda had some objection and Brodie
promptly guessed it.
     "Tell him the prof isn't wanted," ordered Brodie, "so he'll be safe
enough. If Kranda don't believe you, have him read the newspaper that's lying
on his table. And by the way" - Brodie paused while Red was relaying the order
- "have him tear that front page up and burn it in the metal waste basket over
by the door. Don't bother to say why - just tell him."
     Brodie had analyzed Kranda correctly. The actor had become fear-haunted
and was in a mood to cooperate without question. He burned the paper as
ordered, then opened a small suit-case and began to put on his make-up. Brodie
watched for a few minutes, then popped up from the cathodoscope with a
satisfied chuckle.
     "He'll take twenty minutes easy for that job," declared Brodie, "He was a
half hour last night and he's not working much faster. Our plan is in the bag."
     "Yeah," agreed Red, "only you haven't given me all the dope on our plan. I
was busy when you phoned Suffolk and spilled it."
     Brodie gave a disapproving glance when Red mentioned Suffolk's name.
Hastily Red corrected himself.
     "Call him Mr. Big then," said Red. "Only the way we've been working, doing
contract jobs for Suff - I mean for Mr. Big - there's not much use in trying to
cover among friends."
     "It's a question who to call friends," reminded Brodie. "Take Creep
Crawley for instance. If he knew anything about the set-up, that we've been
running a contract business as a front, we couldn't be using him right now. Or
could we?"
     "I guess we couldn't," conceded Red. "Say, though - if Kranda is expecting
me, what's he going to say when Creep shows up instead?"
     "He isn't going to see Creep. When I phoned Creep I told him to sneak in
by the side alley and come up through the window. That's partly in case The
Shadow shows up."
     "But The Shadow will pick up Creep's trail for sure!"
     "That's the idea. He won't stop Creep because he'll figure Creep is pals
with Kranda."
     "But when Kranda spots Creep coming in the window -"
     "Kranda won't spot him, Red. Creep will wait for the rap at the door. When
Kranda goes to answer it, thinking it's you, Creep comes in the window."
     "You mean somebody's coming up to see Kranda?"
     "Of course. It's part of Creep's job to decoy The Shadow around through
the side alley - only Creep don't know it. Then The Shadow won't spot the other
guy?"
     "Who is the other guy?"
     For answer, Brodie gave a Machiavelian chuckle and gestured Red to the
cathodoscope which was keeping up its steady buzz and producing vague blurs
amid the brick pattern.
     "You watch it, Red," suggested Brodie in a tone of assurance. "Tell me
everything that happens - only maybe I'll call the shots first. This is one job
that can't lose."
     Crime's drama had begun to unfold. Over the sill of Kranda's window
appeared a pair of hands accompanied by a shrewd face. Seen through the
cathodoscope, the hands were grotesque, the face distorted, like things from a
nightmare. But that was due to the limitations of the machine; it registered
the window like a picture on a movie screen observed from a bad angle.
Nevertheless, the newcomer was menacing enough.
     The man at the window was Creep Crawley. Greedily he eyed Kranda, as would
some jungle creature on the stalk for prey. Busy with his make-up, Kranda did
not guess the presence of this unexpected visitor who kept darting glances
toward the door beyond.
     "Creep is on the job," Red informed Brodie. "He's watching the door, like
he's expecting somebody, the way you said -"
     The somebody must have knocked, for Red saw Kranda get up and go to the
door, like a character in a silent movie. Simultaneously, Creep wormed across
the window-sill and came into full view. Creep was wearing a sweater and a
slouchy cap instead of a cab-driver's regalia. He looked what he was, a
lurking, deadly thug, as he slid his hand to his hip and drew a revolver.
     By then, Kranda had opened the door. What happened there was enough to
make Red forget Creep. Naturally Red was anxious to see the arrival who was
substituting for himself, but he wasn't at all prepared for the denouement that
came. Red thought the cathodoscope was tricking him, when he ejaculated:
     "Rex Troy!"
     "That's right," declared Brodie, with a chuckle. "I phoned Creep and told
him to call Troy. Creep said he was a cabby and that he brought Kranda here
last night; that if Troy wanted to find out what it was all about, he'd better
drop around."
     Red Melvin wasn't listening. What he saw intrigued him more. Kranda was
backing in from the door, followed by Troy, whose amazement had turned to
indignation. Though he knew this must be Kranda, Troy recognized the face of
Bartlett, its make-up nearly complete. In Kranda, Troy saw a master of
duplicity who had been using his actor's skill to further a swindle scheme.
     As for Kranda, he mistook Troy for a ghost of a murdered man, come to
wreak vengeance on his slayer. It wasn't until Troy began mouthing accusations
on the swindle score that the frozen terror relaxed from Kranda's face.
     Noting it, Red piped to Brodie:
     "Kranda is wise! Next he'll be guessing we found his gun and put blanks in
place of those slugs! We gotta do something, Brodie -"
     "We have done something," interposed Brodie. "What do you suppose Creep is
there for?"
     Red had forgotten Creep. Staring anew, he saw the lurking man come to
action. Angrily, Troy was attacking Kranda who was fighting back with a surge
of his old hatred, but the balance lay with Creep. Lunging forward he was
thrusting his gun straight at the struggling pair, while Red voiced the details
to Brodie.
     "Creep's aiming at Troy! No, it's Kranda he's after! Say - he's going to
croak Kranda!"
     "That's right," announced Brodie, blandly. "He doesn't want Kranda to blab
any more than we do. Creep will knock off Kranda and pin the job on Troy."
     Before Red could express his admiration, he saw Creep reach Kranda.
Keeping behind the victim so that Troy couldn't see him, Creep shoved his
revolver up beneath Kranda's arm. A few more seconds and crime would have
delivered the verdict in the struggle. But before Creep could fire, another
arbiter swept into the fray.
     So suddenly that Red thought the cathodoscope had lost its focus, a wave
of blackness poured in from the window and whirled across the room, enveloping
the group near the door. As it finished its fling that swirl developed into a
human form cloaked in black.
     The Shadow had arrived just in time!


     CHAPTER X

     WHEN The Shadow lashed into the human tangle, the effect was like a
miniature tornado. Under the swing of gun-weighted fists, three men flew apart
like puppets. Troy and Kranda landed in opposite corners, wondering what had
heaved them there, which left Creep to bear the brunt of The Shadow's full fury.
     With a back-hand swing, The Shadow drove Creep's gun hand upward carrying
it right to the fellow's chin. The effect was odd, for it happened just as
Creep started to pull the trigger. First, the gun popped at the ceiling; next,
Creep staggered under the punch from his own fist; finally, the gun dropped
from Creep's loosening hand as he reeled groggily around the room.
     Creep still maintained some portion of his scattered wits, for he was
groping toward his other hip, as if to draw another gun. Red was reporting this
to Brodie who became so excited that he snatched Red away from the cathodoscope
and took a look himself.
     "The guy is slap-happy!" exclaimed Brodie. "Sure he has another gun, but
he's giving it away! I told him to go heeled with an extra in case he ran into
trouble."
     "You mean you counted on Creep fixing The Shadow?"
     "Kind of," snapped Brodie. "Or on The Shadow fixing Creep after Kranda was
finished. Only this way it's all off. If The Shadow croaks Creep, Kranda will
still be around to talk!"
     It wasn't all off.
     That was just what happened now.
     Creep Crawley, crook by trade, was reeling right into The Shadow's hands.
Meanwhile, Jan Kranda, a victim rescued by The Shadow, was stirred with a
sudden yen for crime that put gratitude from his mind.
     Maybe Kranda didn't realize he'd been crime's target. Possibly he wanted
to prove that he was good enough to belong to a crooked set-up. Or it might
have been that Kranda wanted another crack at Troy and considered The Shadow as
an obstacle. Whatever his thoughts, Kranda was never to reveal them.
     As the first folly in the chain that led to his doom, Kranda snatched up
the gun that Creep had lost. Kranda's snarl was the only warning that The
Shadow received, but it came in time. About to clutch Creep, The Shadow wheeled
to see Kranda charging straight at him brandishing the revolver that he had
grabbed from the floor.
     With The Shadow's turn, Kranda started shooting. It wasn't Kranda's fault
that he didn't clip The Shadow. Before he could fire another, The Shadow
reached him. Up went Kranda's gun-hand, the muzzle of the weapon spouting flame.
     Those bursts of gunfire rallied Creep Crawley. Halting his blind stagger,
the crook saw blackness tangled with Kranda. That blackness represented The
Shadow, the target that Creep now wanted, but even when the figures twisted,
Creep didn't care. Using his extra gun, Creep jabbed two shots; one for Kranda,
the other for The Shadow.
     Kranda took both bullets.
     Like a man stabbed in the back, Kranda buckled from The Shadow's clutch.
Having lost his human shield, The Shadow did a quick whirl under Creep's gun
and caught the assassin with a twisty drive that hoisted him screaming toward
the ceiling. The jolt sent the gun from Creep's paw, and he clawed frantically
at space as The Shadow revolved him in a dizzy whirl.
     Just then Troy gave a warning shout, the first sign of life he'd shown
since the break-up.
     The Shadow saw why.
     Close to the window was Kranda, one hand pressed to the small of his back,
bracing it, while the other still gripped the revolver that The Shadow had let
him keep, rather than delay a meeting with Creep. Still ruled by his frenzy,
Kranda was determined to finish his feud with The Shadow. His gun-hand was
steadying for the trigger pull, his face wore a gloat of confidence. Backed by
the belief that The Shadow could not reach him before he fired.
     Again Kranda was wrong.
     The Shadow had an excellent missile right at hand in the form of Creep
Crawley. Already in momentum, Creep needed to be aimed, that was all. So The
Shadow released him straight at Kranda, with a force that should have knocked
out one and flattened the other.
     Only by firing at that instant could Kranda have outmatched The Shadow,
but Kranda didn't fire at all.
     Kranda was through, more so than even The Shadow supposed. As Creep scaled
from The Shadow's flinging hands, Kranda sagged suddenly to the floor and coiled
there dead. He wasn't on hand to stop Creep's arrowing body, so the open window
received it instead. Out into night went Creep Crawley sending back a trailing
scream that ended with an echoing smash on the cement of the alley, three
floors below.
     Out of this maze of incidents, The Shadow grasped the major factor, Rex
Troy had been framed. Before Troy knew what was happening, he was in the grip
of a cloaked friend who was hurrying him out through the door and downstairs to
the street, where The Shadow's own cab was waiting just around the corner.


     IN the office that they temporarily occupied, Brodie and Red were packing
the portable cathodoscope. Between them they had witnessed everything that
happened in Kranda's room. As Brodie put it, Troy wasn't important enough to
matter, now that both Kranda and Creep were permanently silenced. He'd been
necessary to start the ball rolling and it had finished its trip.
     The Shadow had become the pressing problem. Having witnessed his rapid
arrival at Kranda's, both Brodie and Red were wondering how long it would take
him to cover the rest of the neighborhood. So they weren't wasting time in
making their exodus.
     Brodie simply pulled a cloth cover over the cathodoscope while Red packed
the lesser appliances, including the powdered filter screen into the box. Going
down a flight of back stairs, they reached a blind alley that led away from the
rooming house on the next street.
     It was only a block to a subway station, so they made for it. The rumble
of a train greeted them as they reached the platform. A minute later the pair
were on board congratulating themselves on having completely slipped The Shadow.
     That guess was wrong.
     The Shadow had other eyes in this vicinity. The proof lay in The Shadow's
early but timely entry into Kranda's window. Someone must have spotted Troy's
arrival at the rooming house and hurriedly flashed word to The Shadow while he
was climbing the wall from the alley.
     Around the corner from the old house, The Shadow was sending the cab away
with Troy. Bewildered, Troy was repeating instructions aloud.
     "I was home all evening..." Troy said it as if he meant it. "It amazes me,
to hear this about Kranda... It seems impossible that he could pose as
Bartlett..."
     Police sirens were shrieking in the distance, on the approach. Word of the
shooting had been phoned into headquarters. Nevertheless The Shadow remained
near the corner until a stooped man with a wise, wizened face arrived with
quick pace. The man was Hawkeye who trod tipped off The Shadow to Troy's
arrival.
     "Two guys ducked for the subway," reported Hawkeye. "Spotted them while I
was rounding the block. They were carrying a couple of bundles and they must
have come from the office building in back of Kranda's."
     The Shadow ordered Hawkeye to clear the neighborhood before the patrol
cars arrived. Merging with darkness, The Shadow took his own course to the
building that Hawkeye mentioned. It wasn't long before a flashlight was
blinking in an office which contained a single item of furniture in the shape
of a brand-new file cabinet.
     Through long training, The Shadow had developed two senses: those of
distance and direction. Almost to the foot, he could have given the location of
this office in reference to Kranda's room.
     Already confident that Bartlett's cathodoscope was an actual invention and
not the fake that it had been branded, The Shadow recognized that this could
have been an observation post despite the solid wall that intervened.
     Turning to the wall in question, he saw emblazoned on the wall was a
tribute to the ingenuity of Professor Bartlett.
     Like a projected lantern slide, The Shadow saw an enlarged replica of a
quarter-sheet of newspaper. It was the result of Bartlett's so-called "filter
screen." The frame with the piece of newspaper hadn't been necessary with the
portable cathodoscope. Bartlett had sent it as a clue for someone like The
Shadow.
     The powder which Bartlett used was a luminous substance. Unnoticed while
the cathodoscope was in operation, the glow remained now that the office was in
total darkness. But that wasn't the limit of the professor's ingenuity. He had
traced circles in the luminous coating.
     The Shadow saw the headline:

                         INVENTOR'S DAUGHTER KIDNAPPED

     A ring was traced around the word "inventor" eliminating the apostrophe
and the "s" that followed. There was another ring around the word "kidnapped."
     In two words, Professor Bartlett was telling the world that his plight was
the same as Elaine's. What The Shadow wanted was a trail to Bartlett. The
professor managed it unwittingly.
     For The Shadow recognized that this was not a bona fide newspaper account.
Those glowing headlines on the wall told him that Bartlett was being fed with
the delusion that his daughter was in criminal hands. It was clever, this stunt
of faking front page news, but it was a system that could be worked two ways,
now that The Shadow knew of it.
     The luminous print was fading as a departing laugh sounded in the darkness.


     CHAPTER XI

     LATE the next afternoon a group of men were gathered in the lounge of the
Cobalt Club discussing the fate of Jan Kranda. They were the men who had
planned to invest in the cathodoscope; they had been invited here by Lamont
Cranston for a final conference.
     Formerly, Tracy Singledon had carried the most weight. It was he who had
really organized the plan to further Bartlett's invention, back at the time
when it had been nothing more than an idea. In fact Singledon more than anyone
else had seemed confident of the cathodoscope's success until the night when
the machine had been branded as a hoax.
     Since them, Rupert Suffolk had taken over, though his business consisted
merely in clearing up loose ends. At present, Suffolk was speaking in a tone of
final authority as he described an interview that he had held that afternoon
with the police commissioner.
     "Of course the hoax will have to be made public," decided Suffolk, as
though speaking for the entire group. "The police have established the fact
that Jan Kranda and Lucien Bartlett were one and the same. They were puzzled
why Kranda was posing as the professor, so I had to tell them that he was
leading his double life in order to swindle us."
     Suffolk looked around the group as though expecting objections. Stopping
upon Troy, Suffolk's eyes made a keen survey of the actor's face. Troy's own
eyes were fixed as though controlled by some hypnotic force and, when Suffolk
followed the direction of Troy's gaze, he saw that it went straight to
Cranston. If Troy had something to say on the Kranda matter but was keeping
silent, Cranston could well be the cause.
     Another moment and Suffolk might have tried to break the peculiar spell by
a sharp remark addressed to Troy. Suffolk's lips were actually opening when
Singledon interjected a query:
     "Didn't the police say something about Kranda being murdered by an
accomplice?"
     "Yes." Suffolk decided to forget Troy for the moment. "A fellow named
Creep Crawley, a wanted criminal. They think he visited Kranda to get money,
which Kranda naturally didn't have. Their argument developed into a fight and
they canceled each other off."
     "You mean Kranda shot Crawley too?"
     "No, Kranda was pitching Crawley from the window when the fellow managed
to shoot him. But Crawley wasn't the only accomplice Kranda used."
     Singledon's eyes showed surprise along with interest as he inquired:
     "Who else was?"
     "The girl who posed as Bartlett's daughter," returned Suffolk. "But the
police don't consider her a party to the murder. I'd like to find her though" -
Suffolk's tone went bitter - "because she helped talk me into providing that
strong room to serve as part of Kranda's sham theatricals. It cost me a lot of
money, that job."
     Most of the listeners looked sympathetic. Noting it, Singledon made a
prompt offer in Suffolk's favor.
     "We have a small sinking fund," reminded Singledon, "that we can use
toward reimbursing you, Suffolk. It won't be sufficient, but I know a way to
add to it."
     Suffolk's expression, briefly indifferent, turned to one of polite
expectation, but as he noticed Singledon's narrowed glance, Suffolk showed a
sudden but belated tendency to become wary. Already Singledon was putting the
proposition:
     "We can sell that movie equipment that Bartlett - I mean Kranda - used in
perpetrating the hoax. If you will let me have the keys, Suffolk, I shall be
glad to go over there this evening and remove the apparatus. I can take it to
my office and keep it there for appraisal."
     Again Suffolk showed talent in switching words while they were almost
coming from his mouth. About to decline Singledon's offer, he detected that it
wouldn't go well with the others who had taken Suffolk's cash loss quite to
heart. So Suffolk became effusive in his thanks and in the course of things
handed over a well-stocked key-ring that belonged to Bartlett and which Kranda
had left behind when he fled as the false professor. The keys were jingling
into Singledon's pocket when Suffolk took another look for Cranston.
     By then Cranston was gone and Troy with him. They were proceeding out
through the foyer of the Cobalt Club with Troy walking stiffly, mechanically,
his eyes fixed straight ahead. As they reached the street, Shrevvy's cab pulled
up and Cranston opened the door for Troy who entered.
     There was a snap of Cranston's fingers through the window as the cab
pulled away. With it, Troy lost his stare and looked around surprised. Suffolk
was right; Cranston had thrown a hypnotic grip on Troy from the moment that the
meeting began. It was a follow-up of last night's effort, which had first
clouded Troy's mind as to his visit to Kranda.
     This second treatment had about obliterated Troy's recollections. It was
better that way than having the issue clouded instead. The Shadow wanted Troy
out of the picture entirely and he would be from now on, as was indicated by
Cranston's confident expression as he walked back into the club.
     Stopping at the desk, Cranston picked up a telegram that had just arrived.
It was from Margo Lane and it read:

     HE LIKES SAUERKRAUT AND HE HAD A DOG NAMED ROLLO.

     The telegram should have been mirth-provoking but it wasn't. Cranston's
expression became serious as he stepped to a phone booth and called the city
room of the New York Classic. Soon a reporter named Clyde Burke was on the
wire. Combining two thoughts into one, Cranston gave the result to Clyde.
     "It makes a good story," acknowledged Clyde. "But it won't make the front
page of the Classic. You know what a tabloid front page is like, chief. If we
don't have a good picture we just spread a few big headlines and let it ride."
     "It isn't for the Classic," declared Cranston. "It's to go in a box on the
front page of the New York Leader. You know somebody there who would snap it up?"
     "Sure thing," agreed Clyde. "A conservative sheet like the Leader is
always a sucker for human interest stuff. Only where will I tell them this
piece came from?"
     "Phone Vincent," ordered Cranston. "Have him make a long distance call to
his home town out in Michigan and tell the police chief to corroborate it."
     "Suppose they wire the mayor instead of the police chief?"
     "It won't matter. One man holds both jobs. But he wouldn't have either if
Vincent hadn't refused to run against him at the last election."
     Stepping from the phone booth, Cranston saw Suffolk and the rest coming
out to the foyer. Singledon was with the group but he was glancing around
eagerly, apparently looking for Cranston whom he suddenly saw. Coming over,
Singledon beckoned Cranston into the club library and motioned him past some
curtains in the doorway. Keeping watch toward the foyer, Singledon broached in
a hushed tone:
     "I still think Professor Bartlett is an actual person, don't you,
Cranston?"
     "I could hardly think otherwise," replied Cranston, "considering the
evidence on the dictaphone record."
     Singledon nodded; then:
     "There is more to it than that, Cranston. Once Bartlett took his daughter
to the theater to see 'The Impostor.' I was there that day and I think you were
too, Cranston. Wasn't Kranda playing his usual part?"
     "I believe he was."
     "And afterward Troy introduced Bartlett to Kranda, when the professor came
back stage. That should settle the question."
     "I would say it does."
     "But it brings up something else. Why didn't Troy remember it and say
something tonight?"
     "He may have forgotten the incident," speculated Cranston. "So many people
come back stage to see him, you know. But you didn't forget it, Singledon."
Cranston's eyes fixed on the man. "Why didn't you speak up?"
     In reply, Singledon gripped Cranston's arm while with his other hand he
produced the keys that Suffolk had given him.
     "Because I think that Suffolk knows all about Bartlett," declared
Singledon in a tense undertone. "I think he knows where Bartlett is - and the
girl too. The man who controls Bartlett controls the cathodoscope!"
     There was an accusing note in the final sentence that Cranston couldn't
fail to catch because it was intended. Nevertheless he made his query casual:
     "You mean Suffolk?"
     "I mean Suffolk," affirmed Singledon. "I believe he built the strong room
as a weak link. It is the only place from which Bartlett could have disappeared
- yet it is the last place that anyone would suspect."
     Cranston was visibly impressed by Singledon's logic. Though he already had
analyzed the strong room as a weak link, he was pleased to have the suggestion
come from some one else. Similarly it was good policy to let Singledon carry
the theme that was the natural sequel.
     "This business of a dead crook being found with Kranda brings the game
into the light," argued Singledon. "Think of what criminals could do if they
owned the cathodoscope!"
     "They could look in on anything," agreed Cranston, "including the most
private conferences."
     "More than that, they could use the cathodoscope to study the mechanism of
a bank vault and its combination!"
     "So they could!" The idea seemed to startle Cranston. "Why they could even
count the funds and see if the robbery would prove worthwhile!"
     "Burglar alarms would be easy for them," added Singledon. "All the
criminals need is a commanding brain -"
     Breaking off suddenly, Singledon muffled the jingling keys as he thrust
Cranston deeper beyond the curtain. Over his shoulder, Singledon had spotted
someone coming toward the library. Quickly he whispered:
     "It's Suffolk! I think he's looking for us!"
     Cranston gave a nod as he glimpsed Suffolk through the narrow space
between the curtain and the doorway. Singledon was right; Suffolk was glancing
around with an expression more shrewd than perplexed. But he didn't come
further toward the library, which looked gloomy and empty. Instead, Suffolk
stepped suddenly into a phone booth. Singledon heard the nickel plunk as
Suffolk rattled the door shut.
     "I guess he's calling the commissioner," said Singledon in a relieved
tone. "It would all be part of his bluff, you know."
     This time Cranston's nod was slower. It was like a balance scale, weighing
something, in this case Singledon's words. But it was evident from the nod's
gradual halt that Cranston might be forming a different opinion regarding
Suffolk's call. Cranston's eyes were calculating in their coldness and they had
a probing power that made Singledon eager. His voice carrying a low quaver of
excitement, Singledon opened his broad hand and tapped the keys he held.
     "Suppose you come to Bartlett's strong room with me, Cranston! We'll do
more than appraise that fake cathodoscope. We'll look around and see what we
can learn."
     "An excellent suggestion, Singledon."
     "But hadn't you better say goodnight to Suffolk when he leaves? You can go
around through the other door and meet him when he comes out through the foyer.
I'll join you later, only don't tell him that you talked to me."
     "Of course not. I'll be waiting for you, Singledon."
     Going around through the front of the long library, Cranston was at the
outside door when Suffolk arrived. Abruptly, Suffolk remarked that he had
called the commissioner's office but had received no reply. He added that the
matter could wait until morning now that everyone was satisfied - including
Singledon.
     With the words "including Singledon" Suffolk scanned the lobby and
finished with a straight, slit-eyed stare at Cranston. Then, turning on his
heel he left the club. Cranston watched casually until Suffolk's big limousine
had pulled away, then turned about expecting to see Singledon. Singledon had
come out the other way, not daring to venture past the phone booths until
Cranston had finished his five-minute chat with Suffolk.
     There was a muffled clink as Singledon shoved his hand into the pocket
where he had planted Bartlett's keys. His voice was still tense, but it carried
confidence:
     "The sooner we move, the better."
     "Let us say the soonest," corrected the nonchalant Mr. Cranston, "and the
soonest is right now."
     Shrevvy's cab, making a timely return from a rapid delivery of its recent
passenger, Rex Troy, was sweeping the curb ahead of the doorman's whistle when
Lamont Cranston and Tracy Singledon stepped from the Cobalt Club to start their
mutual adventure.


     CHAPTER XII

     BRODIE GRAFF tossed Red Melvin a stub-nosed revolver as he pocketed a
similar shooting iron of his own. Red gestured toward the telephone table where
Brodie had tossed his fancy dressing gown after discarding it in favor of coat
and vest.
     Only one person was likely to phone Brodie and Red knew for certain that
only that one person could induce Brodie to leave these premises. But that
didn't answer all that Red wanted to know, so he asked the rest:
     "Where is Mr. Big sending us?"
     "Over to Bartlett's strong room," replied Brodie. "We'll go in through the
house next door, as usual."
     "Why should we go there?" demanded Red. "We don't want that fake
cathodoscope, do we?"
     "A couple of other fellows do," informed Brodie. "Their names are
Singledon and Cranston. They're going to look it over."
     "So what?"
     "They'll be looking over the strong room too."
     "And what will they find? I'll tell you in one word: Nothing."
     Brodie gave an unconvinced smile.
     "When two smart guys get working together," he declared, "they sometimes
manage to build up a hunch. We're going to be on deck in case these two smart
guys turn out to be - too smart."
     Despite the importance of the mission, Brodie wasn't in a hurry. Red
discovered that when they started off on foot instead of by car. But it wasn't
overly far to Bartlett's old apartment, so Red approved of Brodie's policy. On
foot they could use alleys that a car couldn't navigate. As for Cranston and
Singledon, however much they guessed, they couldn't do it all at once.
     Red's analysis was right.
     Already at the apartment house, Singledon was unlocking the strong room
door, but in stepping across the threshold, his interest - like Cranston's -
was first concerned with a fancy junk-pile in the corner. That pile consisted
of the fake cathodoscope which at least had salvage value. After about ten
minutes of appraisal, Singledon suggested a check-up of the room itself.
     Walls, floor and ceiling all showed solid characteristics, even under
Cranston's expert scrutiny. All bore the same composition, a plaster finish
that had the consistency of cement. The finish was new and perfect, without
even a crack at the corners or along the lines where walls met floor and
ceiling.
     Since the room had no windows the only weak spot had to be the door but it
proved as solid as they came. When Singledon pulled the door shut and thrust the
heavy bolt, there wasn't the slightest sign of a crack. The door frame was
literally welded to the wall with the same composition material that lined the
entire room.
     "That door opens outward," said Singledon, suddenly. "The hinges must be
on the outside. Maybe they're the weak spot. Let's look!"
     Unbolting the door Singledon and Cranston stepped into the hall to find
that another hope was exploded. The door had pivot hinges, upright rods fitting
into deep sockets in the top of the door frame and the sill beneath. The only
way to get at the hinges would be to batter the door apart.
     Singledon gave a helpless shrug:
     "What next?"
     "We might find the workmen who did this job," suggested Cranston. "They
would know the answer if there is one."
     "Suffolk farmed the job to some small contracting company," recalled
Singledon. "A fly-by-night outfit operating under the name of Nuway
Constructors."
     "Did they do business the new way?"
     "No. They did it the old way. They went broke. One reason Suffolk shows
profits when he remodels an apartment house is because he makes contractors
underbid each other. The lowest man gets the job and loses his shirt - to
Suffolk."
     Cranston was mentally noting the name "Nuway Constructors" for future
reference, when Singledon began to muse aloud:
     "I feel positive, Cranston, that Bartlett could help us solve this mystery
if we could only locate him. He must have seen things happen here - or maybe his
daughter did!"
     "I don't think Elaine could have," said Cranston. "She left early with
some friends. I had Margo call them the next day, but they were merely
acquaintances of the past few months."
     "If Margo Lane knows Elaine Bartlett," exclaimed Singledon hopefully, "she
might be hearing from her - unless" - Singledon's enthusiasm went off-key -
"unless Elaine was kidnapped as we fear."
     "Margo didn't know Elaine," stated Cranston. "I merely told her to say she
did. But there was something Vincent mentioned, about the elevator being out of
order before I arrived."
     Singledon nodded.
     "So it was," he said, "except when it went from the fifth floor up to the
sixth and then quit again."
     "Who would have been using it from the fifth floor to the sixth?"
     "Why, nobody -"
     Singledon paused, catching the point of Cranston's query. What had seemed
a mere freak action by the elevator began to have a significance more potent.
An idea struck Singledon.
     "Let's try the elevator," he suggested, gesturing Cranston into the car.
"We'll go up and see what happens."
     Nothing happened except that the car gave a slight jolt as it reached the
top of the shaft; but Cranston, looking upward, pointed to the grilled top of
the elevator cage.
     "Look at that glow," he said. "There's a skylight above the back half of
the elevator. The top of the cage looks as though it will open. Let's try it."
     The top of the elevator loosened when Cranston found the catch that held
it. Down it came like a trap door on a rear hinge, allowing direct access to
the skylight which yielded in turn when Cranston pressed it. Next, Cranston and
Singledon were climbing up through the double aperture and out to the roof.
     Adjoining the roof of the apartment house was that of an empty building
only four stories high. When the two men looked over the edge of their roof
they saw a ladder lying on the other.
     "That's it!" exclaimed Singledon. "They took Bartlett out this way,
cathodoscope and all. The skylight is large enough and so is the opening in the
elevator top!"
     "Quite plausible," agreed Cranston, "but we still haven't learned how they
reached Bartlett in the first place."
     "Let's go back and have another look." Singledon's tone was grimly
determined. "Maybe we'll stumble across the answer."
     Singledon did stumble across it. He nearly lost his footing going down
through the trap door; wildly he grabbed the skylight with one hand and managed
to get a foot between it and the elevator. Hanging like a comedy acrobat,
Singledon's head was poked across the top of the elevator when Cranston gave
him a helping hand. But instead of letting Cranston haul him out, Singledon
gave a tug.
     "Look, Cranston!"
     Singledon gestured over the top of the elevator and Cranston wormed his
head and shoulders down through the skylight to gain the same view. What they
saw was a curious but simple arrangement atop the elevator itself.
     The cable that drew up the counterweight came across a pulley to reach the
top of the elevator. But instead of being bolted permanently, it ended in a hook
that fitted into a ring in the elevator top. Next to the regulation pulley was
an extra one, with a second cable bearing a loose hook.
     "That's peculiar," declared Singledon. "Who ever heard of an extra
counterweight on an elevator?"
     "It doesn't look like a counterweight," returned Cranston. "The cable runs
clear out of the elevator shaft. I can see another pulley off among the beams."
     "Let's change those hooks," suggested Singledon. "Apparently that's what
they're made for."
     "Good enough," decided Cranston, "but hang on up here. Only the brake will
be holding the elevator."
     They switched the hooks and Singledon dropped down into the elevator.
Cranston followed and Singledon gingerly pressed the button for the fifth
floor. The elevator descended normally and they opened the door.
     There, across the hall, they saw the answer to the riddle of the strong
room.
     The door of the strong room had vanished. So for that matter had a section
of the hallway wall. Instead of a stretch of wall paper, Cranston and Singledon
viewed the bricks and plaster that lay beneath.
     "How did that happen?" queried Singledon as he blinked. "Why it looks as
though something sliced the surface off the wall and the door with it!"
     Cranston pointed upward. From a slit in the ceiling hung the bottom of the
door, flanked by the outer surface of the door frame, while on each side
stretched the thin shell that formed the normal wall of the hallway. That
surface was composed of plywood coated with wall-paper.
     By being in the outer half of the door frame, the door was able to go
upward with that section of the frame, all on line with the papered veneer of
the hallway. In brief, the sealed room operated in reverse. People who knew the
secret could enter it, but once closed it became intact on the inside.
     The arrangement was identical with the trick wall in Brodie Graff's
apartment at the Amarillo Arms, the wall acting as a counterweight for an
elevator heavy enough to operate it. That added a clever angle, since the wall
itself had too much weight for investigators to budge it by themselves. Two men
wouldn't ordinarily have been enough to crack this riddle.
     Two men had done it.
     Conversely two men were ready to nullify the find. Attracted by the rumble
of the elevator, Brodie Graff and Red Melvin were sneaking across the roof to
reach the top of the shaft. One look was all Brodie needed to discover that the
counterweight had been switched.
     Telling Red to grip him, Brodie leaned down into the shaft and caught hold
of the pulley through which the cable ran. This cable, of course, was the one
that had the wall as its counterweight since the elevator was at present one
floor below. Looking past Brodie's hanging figure, Red questioned:
     "What're you doing, Brodie?"
     "Setting the gaff," was Brodie's answer. "We didn't have time to fix it
the other night and it's better that we didn't."
     "How come?"
     "Because we wouldn't have had any customers - at least not the sort we
wanted."
     "You mean the two wise guys?"
     "Check. Now lay off the chit-chat and save your breath to haul me out of
here."
     Down on the fifth floor, Singledon was still admiring the amazing wall
when he noticed that Cranston had turned toward the elevator. Though the door
was closed, there was a slight space between its sections. Apparently Cranston
had heard something for his head was tilted at a listening angle.
     Singledon listened too, but heard nothing. At last there came a creeping
sound, but it seemed remote. Singledon turned and looked toward the end of the
hallway where the stairs were out of sight beyond a turn. Cranston did the same
for the sound did give the illusion of coming from that direction.
     "What could it be?" queried Singledon. "Somebody going upstairs?"
     "It might be from the roof," returned Cranston. "A sound would carry down
the stairs just as it would come down an elevator shaft."
     "Let's go up in the elevator," suggested Singledon. "That will put the
wall back where it belongs and if somebody is sneaking up to the sixth floor,
we'll be there ahead of him."
     Singledon opened the elevator door and it gave its customary clank. As
Cranston was stepping through, Singledon shook his head.
     "Better hold it," said Singledon, "until I can get over to the stairs. The
rumble of the elevator will be a sure give-away. Anyone on the stairs would
start right down again."
     At Cranston's approving nod, Singledon started for the stairs. It wasn't
until Singledon had passed the turn that Cranston slammed the door of the
elevator and started up. As he rode, he kept looking up toward the dull glow
from the skylight, which grew in size until the elevator stopped with a heavy
jolt.
     All that while the wall of the fifth floor hall was coming down into
place, door and frame with it. There was no one present to witness its descent,
since Cranston was in the elevator while Singledon was on the stairway. But
there were things that Singledon heard as a lone witness to a stalking tragedy
that reached a sudden climax.
     First, the jolt that marked the end of the elevator's ascending rumble.
Next, a clang of the elevator door as it opened on the sixth floor. Only a few
moments later - and this occurred as Singledon neared the top of the steps -
there was a huge clack from within the elevator. By then, it was too late for
human aid.
     Rounding the turn on the sixth floor, Singledon saw the horrendous finish.
To the tune of a sharp clatter from the elevator shaft, a hand made a frantic
grab for the partly opened door. That hand and the arm with it were suddenly
slashed from sight by the top of the elevator as it came ripping down, car and
all.
     Such was Singledon's last glimpse of Cranston.
     Carried with the plunging elevator, the lone passenger was dropped to a
fatal journey. Gaining speed, the rattling sound trailed to a finish six floors
below where it struck the concrete of the basement level with a crash that shook
the building.
     Dashing down the stairs, Singledon fairly shrieked the news of tragedy as
tenants opened their doors to learn the cause of the crash. He became the
leader of a throng that reached the basement pell-mell and flung themselves at
the door of the shaft, to hurl it open. But that couldn't help Cranston.
     The elevator was a jam of twisted wreckage in which no one could possibly
have survived. Through the battered and broken metal, Singledon saw an equally
distorted body so grotesquely out of shape that he wondered how he could
identify the mangled remains, once they were removed from their crushed prison.
     People who stared with Singledon termed the crash an accident; since they
knew that the elevator had faults. Singledon was too aghast to state what he
had learned about that elevator; in fact, he suddenly went silent, his broad
face grim with an expression that boded vengeance for someone in return for
Cranston's death.
     In contrast were the reactions of two men who were loping through an alley
a few blocks away. Brodie and Red had gained ample leeway; they were almost at
the ground floor of the empty building next door when they had heard the clamor
of the fatal smash and they hadn't stopped to talk it over.
     For the first time now they were exchanging words. It was Red who spoke
first.
     "That's the end of two wise guys," said Red. "They got what was coming."
     "At least one of them did," assured Brodie. "I hope it was both, but you
can't be sure. Maybe only one was in the elevator."
     "Supposing one then. Which one?"
     "I've got ten bucks says Singledon," puffed Brodie, as they jogged through
another alley. "Are you on, Red?"
     "Why not? Sure, I'll take Cranston. It's a fifty-fifty any way you look at
it - unless it was both of them."
     "Bet's off if it turns out to be both," decided Brodie. "This is one time
double is nothing."
     Out of the alley, Brodie and Red settled into a normal pace, their problem
of murder reduced to a ten-dollar bet with settlement reserved until tomorrow.


     CHAPTER XIII

     RED MELVIN was in a cheery mood when he sauntered into Brodie's apartment
the next morning. The first thing that Red produced was a fresh copy of the
faked newspaper with its special front page. He spread the Leader so that
Brodie could see its headlines.
     "Nicky did another good job," said Red. "He says it's a cinch now that we
only have to fool the prof instead of him and Kranda too. It only means faking
one column."
     Brodie snatched the newspaper from Red's hands. Scanning the front page
hurriedly he began to paw further through until Red stopped him. What Red
handed Brodie was a small clipping cut from a genuine copy of the Leader.
     "Here's what you're looking for, Brodie. It was at the bottom of the
column that Nicky killed. I told him to chuck it until he heard more from you."
     The clipping which had made the front page had a small head which read:

     CRASH KILLS CLUBMAN

     Under that ran a brief account of an elevator accident in an apartment
house, naming Lamont Cranston as the victim and stating that his body had not
yet been extricated from the wreckage. Red supplied an added bit of information
when he said:
     "You owe me ten smackers, Brodie."
     "It's worth it," declared Brodie, "just to know that the gaff came through
one hundred per. It was fixed to slap the extra pulley right out of sight for
keeps, cable and all. The way we used it last night was working it strong. It
wasn't meant to drop the elevator, even though it could."
     "I get it. You mean Suffolk figured the cops might look around too much
and spot it anyway."
     Brodie gave a short nod and reached for the newspaper again. He studied
the front page story that Nicky had substituted for actual news. It told that
an intensive search was under way for Elaine Bartlett, missing daughter of the
notorious Professor Bartlett who in turn was wanted as a big-time swindler.
     "Nice work," complimented Brodie, "cutting out the Kranda item and putting
this in its place. Let's show it to the prof and watch him sweat the way I've
been doing for the last half hour."
     Bartlett was in his laboratory working on the cathodoscope. The professor
looked both worried and weary, so Brodie decided that pressure on one score
would relieve the other. He handed the fake newspaper to Bartlett, pointing out
the column that concerned Elaine.
     "Read it over, prof," urged Brodie. "I'll give you ten minutes to loaf and
after that I'll look in to see if you're really working. It's a good cure for
worry, work is, and I'll tell you why.
     "Your daughter isn't having too tough a time just yet, but she may begin
to find it different if you don't play ball. We want that big cathodoscope made
portable and workable because it's time we were raking in some profits."
     With Red in his wake, Brodie left the lab, confident that his ultimatum
would produce the required effect on Bartlett. So it would have if the
professor had confined his reading to the column that Brodie indicated. But
Bartlett couldn't miss the boldfaced stick of news that occupied a box near the
top of the front page.
     It was the type of item that delighted the frock-coat editor of the Near
York Leader and it found one reader who appreciated it. The paragraph read:

     WHAT - NO MUSTARD?

     Hot dogs go with sauerkraut, but not in Michigan. There the sauerkraut
goes to the dogs, according to a certain mayor who prefers to remain anonymous
rather than be laughed out of town before his term of office expires. The mayor
who is fond of sauerkraut left a gallon of it in his office in charge of his dog
Rollo. When he came back he found Rollo finishing the last of the sauerkraut and
looking around for more. Rollo's master admits that when a dog eats sauerkraut
it's news, but he also says: "If you print this story, nobody will believe
anything they read in your newspaper." Do you?

     Professor Bartlett tilted his head to the level of his lower shoulder. He
was the gentleman to whom Margo had referred in terms of sauerkraut and Rollo
in her telegram to Cranston. Margo had gained those facts from Elaine after
receiving a request for personal data on Professor Bartlett.
     The story pleased the professor.
     It was too strong to class as a mere coincidence, particularly with the
reference to "Rollo's master" rather than the mayor. Having once been master of
a dog named Rollo and being personally fond of sauerkraut, Bartlett studied the
final statement. He particularly liked the challenge: "Do you?"
     Professor Bartlett didn't. His eyes went back to the story about Elaine.
Carefully he compared its typography with that of the other columns.
Immediately, Bartlett began to notice minor differences, enough of them to
convince him of the fake. The chuckle that Bartlett gave was proof that he had
fully grasped The Shadow's message.
     Something was brewing in Bartlett's mind. Ingenuity pleased the old
professor and stirred him to ideas of his own. Convinced that Elaine was safe,
Bartlett might have loitered at his work in defiance of Brodie, but that wasn't
Bartlett's way. He was calculating that anyone who could nullify one fake story
with another - as The Shadow had - would be ready to gather in a reply from any
source. In fact, Bartlett was quite sure that his unknown friend had received
his first appeal in the shape of that luminous enlargement of the kidnap story.
     So Bartlett did the unexpected. He set to work upon his cathodoscope
without a moment's delay. When Brodie looked into the lab, a few minutes later,
he heard the buzz of the machine and saw the professor stooped behind it. Brodie
departed feeling that Bartlett had taken a hint to heart.
     As soon as Bartlett heard the locks click, he poked his head from cover.
Wheeling the machine to the opposite wall, he started it full blast. Gradually
the wall disappeared and in its place, the professor saw a street scene. He
noted a bus going by and checked its number. Across the street was a sign
reading "Delicatessen" with a cigar store next door. Bartlett added these
details to his sheet of paper.
     Professor Bartlett was accumulating valuable data for The Shadow, the sort
that Brodie would consider impossible. Facts that could lead The Shadow to this
neighborhood if and when he received them.
     If and when!
     How little chance The Shadow had of getting any further information was
right then a subject of discussion between Tracy Singledon and Harry Vincent.
They were talking it over in Singledon's office, Harry having come there at
Singledon's request.
     "I'm pretty sure it was an accident," Singledon was saying, "but it was
just as bad as if it had been planned. We were looking for something, Cranston
and I. What's more, somebody else knew it."
     Harry maintained a discreet silence, signifying that he wanted to hear
more.
     "I haven't told the police," continued Singledon, "because if I did, I
would be playing into the enemy's hands. It is better for me to say little - in
fact nothing - until I learn if my suspicions are well rounded. Do you agree?"
     Harry agreed with a nod.
     "I'll see you later then," concluded Singledon. "At the morgue probably,
when we go there to identify the body. Up to an hour ago they were still prying
the elevator apart to get at it."
     Leaving Singledon's, Harry took a roundabout trip to an old office
building where he eventually stopped at a door that bore the legend:

     NUWAY CONSTRUCTORS

     There, Harry gave a scheduled series of raps and the door opened to reveal
an office that must have been recently abandoned. The place was in considerable
disorder, befitting the term "fly-by-night" which Singledon had used to
describe the defunct company. The chaos had been furthered by a man who was
burrowing through piles of papers that the Nuway crowd had left behind and it
was this man who gestured for Harry to close the door and help him with the
task.
     Harry did close the door, without diving out through it, as would be
customary upon meeting a ghost.
     The man who had taken over the Nuway office was Lamont Cranston!
     Knowing where Harry had been, Cranston put an opening query:
     "Has Singledon found out yet?"
     "Not yet," replied Harry. "They're just getting the body free. Meanwhile
Singledon isn't saying much."
     "That's to be expected," Cranston acknowledged. "If he told of our
discovery, Suffolk would simply act amazed, and next thing Singledon would be
blamed for not going in the elevator with me. As a matter of fact I'm not going
to do much talking myself when I get back in circulation."
     "You mean they'd blame you because the janitor was killed?"
     "That's right. He must have been sneaking up the stairs to see what was
going on. Singledon thought he heard sounds from the stairway. Of course I'd
heard voices from the shaft, so I took it the creeping sounds were from the
roof. That's where the men sneaked after they fixed the elevator."
     Cranston gave a reminiscent pause. There was regret in his tone as he
proceeded.
     "I had a hunch what was going to happen. While I was riding up that one
floor, I pulled down the trap in the elevator top and hoisted myself right
through. Just as the jolt came I grabbed the sides of the skylight."
     "And the elevator peeled right away and left you hanging there!"
     "Not quite that quickly, Vincent. Just as the elevator stopped, the door
slapped open and somebody hopped inside. I thought it was Singledon until he
made a grab for my legs. I tried to kick him right out of the car, but I
couldn't quite send him to the door. Right then the elevator dropped. He tried
to go out through the door but couldn't make it."
     Cranston resumed his sorting of the Nuway papers and Harry helped. Most of
the papers were circulars or letters from other concerns that were ignorant of
Nuway's nearness to the state of bankruptcy. Soon, however, Cranston and Harry
were working through form letters that were part of Nuway's own propaganda. One
thing was definitely lacking on all such sheets; there was no mention of
individual names. Nuway Constructors weren't people, they were a company.
     Cranston was carefully examining the printed matter that Nuway had shipped
to its slim clientele. He was identifying type by point and style. Turning to
the stack of unpaid bills, he looked to see if a printer was among them, but
any such bills were conspicuously absent. In fact, the search had narrowed down
to all but a single desk drawer, when Harry gave a sudden laugh.
     "Here's something the mayor would appreciate," said Harry. "One of those
gags for impressing your home-town friends. Here's a fellow who prints
headlines at a dollar a dozen, across the top of a regulation newspaper.
     "I remember when that stunt began at the World's Fair. They've run it
since in print shops along Broadway. You get a big headline that says: 'Joe
Doak Cheered by Broadway Crowd' - only that's all there is to it. No story goes
with it."
     Harry stopped to look at the advertising card that he had found in the
desk. It was gone; Cranston had taken it from his hand. What Cranston was
looking for was the name of the printer and he found it.
     "The one link we wanted," announced Cranston. "This printer worked for the
phony gentry who were operating Nuway Constructors. I think he may still be
working for them, but not with headlines, only."
     "You mean he's faking front page stories!" exclaimed Harry. "The sort that
Bartlett flashed to you."
     Cranston nodded.
     "We'll work on this," he decided. "It may prove our best lead. But we'll
handle it cautiously, Vincent, until we're sure that we've drawn danger away
from Bartlett."
     Cranston left the rest for Harry's own interpretation. Realizing that
Bartlett must be in the very danger that Cranston was defining, Harry could
foresee more problems than the picking up of a single trail.
     What those problems were and what they might produce, only The Shadow knew.
     Or did he?


     CHAPTER XIV

     RUPERT SUFFOLK sat at the lunch table and looked across at the two men who
were with him. Suffolk's eye was as cold as that belonging to the fish-head
which glared up from his blue-plate special. Lunch being finished, Suffolk was
ready to discuss the theme that had inspired this get-together.
     The other two men were Tracy Singledon and Lamont Cranston. From Suffolk's
manner, his companions were persons who deserved suspicion rather than himself.
Suffolk was one of those high-pressure characters who always forced the issue
on someone else.
     "Let's get to the point," broached Suffolk, crisply. "Just why did you two
go around to Bartlett's place without telling me about it?"
     "Bartlett's place?" inquired Cranston, blandly. "I thought there wasn't
any Professor Bartlett."
     "Kranda's place then," snapped Suffolk. "There wasn't anything that you
could learn there. By tinkering with that elevator, you caused me a lot of
trouble."
     "We didn't tinker with the elevator," put in Singledon, promptly. "We were
using it in normal fashion, at least Cranston was, when the cable snapped."
     Suffolk turned his fishy stare toward Cranston.
     "So you were in the elevator?" queried Suffolk. "How come you didn't take
the plunge with it?"
     "The elevator had a door," explained Cranston. "When I heard something go
snap, I opened the door and stepped out. What would you have done?"
     "The same thing, I suppose. But where did the janitor come into it?"
     "When I was getting out. I suppose he thought he could stop the thing from
falling. He shoved me out of the way and sprang in before I could stop him."
     Whether Suffolk believed Cranston's synthetic version was a question. At
least it had Singledon's support, for he had listened to it with nods when
Cranston had dropped around to see him soon after the janitor's body had been
identified. So Suffolk finally shrugged.
     "Since it was an accident, we may as well call it closed," decided
Suffolk. "The janitor's death was fully covered by insurance so there won't be
any lawsuits. Otherwise I'd have to subpoena both of you when the case came to
court."
     "Maybe you wouldn't be held responsible anyway," put in Singledon. "What
about the contractors who installed the elevator?"
     "Nobody installed it. The elevator was there when I bought the building. I
had it inspected, that was all."
     "But you remodeled the apartment house -"
     Suffolk shook his head.
     "I gave out a contract for building the strong room," he said, "and since
the strong room has nothing to do with the elevator, your argument is
eliminated, Singledon."
     Rising, Suffolk reached to another chair to get his hat. As he was turning
away, he remarked:
     "I'll be home all evening in case you want to reach me. If you really
think we missed anything in this Kranda business, it would be nice to let me
know."
     With Suffolk gone, Singledon took a long draw on his cigar and turned to
Cranston.
     "He knows we suspect something." Singledon gestured his cigar hand toward
the door to indicate Suffolk. "He's trying to coax out what we really know
about Bartlett."
     "Or Bartlett's daughter," amplified Cranston. "Assuming that Suffolk
already has the professor in protective custody, he'd be more anxious to learn
where the girl is."
     "If we only knew ourselves!"
     "I do know." Cranston reached into his pocket. "You were a good guesser,
Singledon. Elaine Bartlett is with Margo Lane."
     Singledon's eyes almost popped as Cranston brought out a telegram.
     "You mean they really knew each other after all?"
     "I introduced them," replied Cranston with a smile. "I told Margo to meet
Elaine that night we went to Bartlett's."
     "But - why?"
     "Because I suspected trouble. I was playing a hunch, Singledon. That note
of Kranda's mentioned Troy, who in turn linked with Bartlett, since Troy was
one of the investors."
     Singledon nodded slowly. Then:
     "But why didn't you tell me earlier?"
     "I was waiting to hear from Margo," explained Cranston. "I told her to
change Elaine's vacation plans, which Margo did. They went to New Jersey
instead of New England, but I left the rest to Margo. Now she's coming back,
with Elaine."
     Cranston handed the telegram to Singledon. It had been sent from Atlantic
City and it stated:

     FRIEND WORRIED ABOUT PARENT. ARRIVING MY APARTMENT FIVE THIS AFTERNOON.

     Folding the telegram, Singledon clamped it back in Cranston's hand.
     "Put it away," urged Singledon. "It would be terribly serious if Suffolk
should learn that the girl is coming back."
     "I think he should learn," objected Cranston. "It would be the one way to
make Suffolk show his hand."
     The idea astonished Singledon at first, but gradually he nodded. Still,
there was doubt on his face, particularly when he saw Cranston produce a
picture post-card and a fountain pen.
     "What are you doing, Cranston?"
     "Sending a post-card to Suffolk - from Elaine."
     "Saying that she's coming back?"
     "Telling him that she is back and where he can find her."
     "But you know what that will mean, Cranston!" Singledon's tone was
horrified. "Suffolk will send his strong-arm men to Margo's apartment. They
will grab Elaine at five o'clock!"
     "At six o'clock," corrected Cranston methodically. "I checked on the mail
deliveries along the route where Suffolk lives. This post-card won't reach him
until almost six."
     Cranston had finished the postcard, printing it in small-letter imitation
of a feminine style. The blue ink was still wet when Singledon read the lines.
The card was addressed to Singledon at his home and it stated:
     "Am in New York and must see you. Am sure I can explain what happened and
I believe you are the one person who should understand. Please come to the
address below as soon as possible... Elaine B."
     Under Elaine's abbreviated name, Cranston had meticulously added Margo's
address and apartment number. Taking the card from Singledon, Cranston affixed
a stamp and reached for his hat. He gestured for Singledon to come along, which
Singledon did. Walking from the restaurant, they reached the nearest mail-box.
Showing the card to Singledon again, Cranston asked if there should be any
addition. Singledon shook his head, still puzzled, so Cranston dropped the card
in the slot.
     "Don't worry about Elaine," confided Cranston. "We can get there ahead of
Suffolk or his crew."
     "So we can!" exclaimed Singledon. "Why, we can be there at five o'clock!"
     "Five thirty will be soon enough," decided Cranston. "I'll phone Margo and
tell her to expect you. I may be detained until after six."
     "But that might put me on the spot, Cranston."
     "You can stay out of sight until I get there. If Suffolk does kidnap
Elaine, we'll have a trail to Bartlett for one thing and proof against Suffolk
for another."
     "Provided nothing happens until after six o'clock!"
     "You've caught the idea," complimented Cranston. "Our statements to the
time we mailed the post-card will prove just how and when Suffolk learned that
Elaine was back in town. That is, he can't know until he gets the card."
     "And this will counteract Suffolk's only hold over us," added Singledon.
"He would press that elevator accident as something to our discredit if he saw
fit. But it won't count - not against this convincer of yours, Cranston."
     As they parted, Cranston mentally summed the situation and saw a variety
of prospects. He was depending much on Bartlett's delaying tactics with the
cathodoscope as a way to force another kidnap threat against Elaine as the
earliest opportunity. Of Bartlett's cooperation The Shadow felt quite certain
along with his analysis of how the professor would perform.
     Sometimes even The Shadow could be wrong!


     CHAPTER XV

     BRODIE GRAFF was hanging up the telephone after a very illuminating chat
when he heard a knock at the apartment door. It resembled the familiar rat-tat
that Red Melvin usually gave, and since Red had been getting careless of late,
Brodie didn't suspect another visitor. His surprise came when he opened the
door and a sharp-faced man bowed himself right through. Brodie's eyes sparkled
hot for a moment, then his manner turned bland, as he spoke, with only a trace
of surprise:
     "Wibby Taggart! Am I glad to see you!"
     "Same to you, minus the baloney," rejoined Wibby. "Sit down, Brother
Bones, and tell me what's been cooking since we tried to go legit and found out
why better men go broke."
     There was a cheery expression on Wibby's roundish face, as pleasant as his
conversation. He had the manner of a first-class salesman and a middle-aged
appearance that gave his words weight. But Brodie didn't fail to notice the
quick movement of Wibby's eyes as they appraised the sumptuous furnishings of
the apartment.
     "I guess it was bum stuff, our trying the contracting dodge," said Brodie,
in a rueful tone. "They say a confidence worker always takes a trim when he
tries to level a deal. I figured you were one exception -"
     "Lay off the you-know-what," interrupted Wibby. "Let's dish turkey,
without the stuffing. My trouble was taking another con man for a partner,
meaning you."
     "But you said it was smart to underbid."
     "I didn't tell you to fold Nuway, did I? We'd already let one company
flop, and found it didn't help. We needed Nuway to play the low bids while we
developed that new outfit, Integrity Contractors Incorporated, that we were
talking about."
     Brodie tilted back in his big armchair and gave a long, genuine laugh.
Quick to sense a point, Wibby suddenly joined with a chuckle.
     "I guess that was pretty strong," said Wibby. "For us to start a company
called Integrity. Still, we were only using the double-talk that the honest
guys do - and their methods."
     "That's why we were licked," returned Brodie, ending his laugh. "I saw it,
but how could I tell you? You were sold heavily on the idea of becoming a
respectable citizen."
     "Weren't you?"
     "Sure thing," rejoined Brodie, glibly. "But I wasn't dope enough to pass
up a ten-strike when a big guy propositioned me, one day in the office."
     Shrewdly, Wibby studied Brodie's face and then demanded sharply:
     "Rupert Suffolk?"
     Brodie nodded. As Wibby pondered, Brodie added:
     "Ask Red Melvin if you don't believe me. He's due here any minute, Red is.
Anyway, you ought to know that it was Suffolk. We did most of our work for him,
so we ought to be on his steady pay-roll."
     Wibby's face brightened instantly.
     "You're counting me in?"
     "I have been all along," replied Brodie. "Only I couldn't spill it, while
you were in a goody-goody mood. You're over that, aren't you?"
     "I guess I never really meant it, Brodie. You know the way I am. I can
stand for anything except a double-cross. If you give me the real low-down, and
nothing but the low-down, I'm with you from now on. But if you hold out on
anything -"
     Brodie waved his hand in interruption. Rising from his chair he beckoned
Wibby into the alcove and pressed the picture nail that raised the wall. Wibby
stared, quite amazed, as the elevator came down. As they stepped into the car,
Brodie laughed.
     "Neat job, isn't it?" inquired Brodie. "Suffolk had me do a better one on
Bartlett's strong room. It took the door right up with it. That's how we
grabbed the prof."
     "So that was it," said Wibby. "I wondered why you were so anxious to
handle that contract. You know, though, what was in my mind?"
     "No, but I'd like to."
     "When I read about that elevator crash, I thought you'd taken it on as an
extra job without telling me. What's more, I figured maybe you'd been showing
some profit for yourself by ringing in cheap materials."
     "Without telling you?" Brodie's tone was grieved. "I wouldn't do that,
Wibby. With you I've always been on the up."
     They were on the down at that moment, arriving on the ground floor of the
warehouse. To prove his sincerity, Brodie took Wibby directly to the improvised
lab where Professor Bartlett was at work. They didn't disturb the old inventor
because he was busy powdering the parchment screen that belonged to the
full-sized cathodoscope. All Brodie did was pick up the newspaper that Bartlett
had discarded. Carrying the faked Leader out with him, Brodie spread it for
Wibby's benefit as they arrived back in the apartment.
     "A neat fake, isn't it, Wibby?"
     "I'll say!" Wibby read the lines in admiration. "Who's doing it for you?"
     "A printer named Nicky, that Red knows."
     "I mean who's writing the stories?"
     "I am," boasted Brodie. Digging in his pocket he brought out some
typewritten sheets. "Here's tomorrow's copy. The hunt for the girl is spreading
without result. That's the sort of fuel that powers Professor Bartlett."
     "A neat cover, since you haven't managed to grab the dame. Any idea where
she is?"
     "Back here in town," chuckled Brodie, "or she will be at five o'clock.
She's parked with a girl friend named Margo Lane."
     "Now would be the time to put the grab on her."
     "She can wait," decided Brodie. "This stuff" - he gestured his typewritten
copy - "will hold the prof for a while. Wait a minute, here's Red."
     Answering a rap at the door, Brodie admitted Red, who was a trifle
astonished to see Wibby back in the clan. When Brodie explained that going
straight no longer appealed to Wibby, Red gave an appreciative grin, then asked:
     "You told Suffolk that Wibby is in?"
     "I'm going to call him now," replied Brodie. "It will be jake like
everything else I suggest. Meanwhile, Red, hustle this copy over to Nicky's
print shop and get back here."
     "What's the hurry?"
     "The prof has rigged the superdooper. We're taking it with us at five
o'clock, so we can be on the job at half-past."
     Red seemed to understand, but Wibby didn't. A bit puzzled, he remarked:
     "I thought you were postponing the dame proposition, Brodie."
     "That's right, Wibby. This is a different job, and a big one. Malbray's
Fifth Avenue jewelry shop, right after it closes at five thirty."
     "Maybe you're too ambitious, Brodie. The alarm wires in that place must
look like the inside of a radio set."
     "The cathodoscope will pick them out," assured Brodie, "and give us the
safe combination too. Go along with Red, Wibby, and he'll drop you wherever
you're staying. Stop back around seven bells and you can help appraise
Malbray's stock. Lucky you showed up today, Wibby. You're in time to be counted
in on the first profits."
     Leaving with Red, Wibby rode by car until he reached a corner of Eighth
Avenue, where he decided to drop off. As soon as Red had driven out of sight,
Wibby entered a drug store and went to a phone booth. Dialing a number, he held
a sustained conversation which he confined to a confidential undertone. When
Wibby left the phone booth, his round face showed satisfaction in its perpetual
smile. Apparently Wibby agreed with Brodie's statement that he was having luck
today.
     Wibby Taggart was luckier than he realized. If he had stayed with Red
Melvin, he would have been riding straight for trouble.
     Not that Red diagnosed the symptoms when he got out of his sedan near
Nicky's print shop, which was just off Broadway. There was another car parked
across the street, but the day was gloomy and it was getting too near dusk for
Red to notice that the other car had occupants.
     Nor was it odd that when Red left Nicky's he should fail to notice that
the other car started shortly after he pulled away. Traffic, like the gloom,
was too thick to give it much attention. After a few blocks, Red did look back
and notice that a car was following him, but it swung away at the next corner.
It didn't occur to Red that a cab which immediately came into the street behind
him was working a relay system with the trailing car.
     What worried Red most was that it was after five o'clock and Brodie would
probably be sore if he showed up late. Accepting the lesser of two evils, Red
decided to be a little later, but save time in the long run by stopping at the
garage where the truck was kept, a few blocks this side of the Amarillo Arms.
     As Red pulled in he saw the truck pulling out. It stopped to pick him up
and Red joined Brodie and a picked crew hired for the coming foray. Brodie had
simply decided not to wait, but he wasn't irked because of Red's delay. In the
truck was the cathodoscope, the full-sized job, all in working shape. That was
enough to keep Brodie in a happy humor.
     When the truck swung from the garage, the tenacious cab trailed it, only
to slide away after several blocks to let the original car cut in and resume
the relay. The dusk was really thick and dimmed-out headlights weren't easily
discerned along these streets.
     The Shadow's agents, requesting samples from various printing shops, had
brought in evidence that fitted with the printed matter found in the Nuway
office. The Shadow had picked Nicky's as the place.
     Off on the first big crime in which the cathodoscope was to function as a
profit-maker, Brodie Graff and his crew were inviting an unwelcome guest:
     The Shadow!


     CHAPTER XVI

     THE knock at Margo's door sounded patient and sincere, but it really
startled Elaine. Not that the blonde was normally a startly type. She'd simply
begun to gather the jitters from the time when Margo had first suggested a
return to New York. Arriving at Penn Station, the five o'clock rush had
swallowed the girls like an octopus gathering fodder with its tentacles. It had
finally disgorged them at Margo's apartment and now, while Elaine was changing
her traveling dress for something more comfortable, someone was already at the
door.
     "Slide into a dressing gown," suggested Margo. "I'll see who it is. Lamont
said Mr. Singledon might call at half past five, but it isn't that late yet."
     "Wait a minute." Elaine was slipping into the dressing gown. "I'd better
be on hand. It might be Mr. Suffolk."
     "No," said Margo, with a smile. "We aren't expecting Mr. Suffolk - at
least not yet. But since you're decent, you may as well stand by and share
whatever surprise there is."
     Margo opened the door and admitted a bowing man, whose face was mostly
curves including its smile. From his appearance he might have been anything
from a vacuum cleaner salesman to a census taker. Wibby Taggart prided himself
on the fact that he had never looked like a con man during his long career as
such. Indeed, it was his deep-dyed appearance of respectability that had given
him the idea of going into legitimate business.
     "Whatever it is, keep it," asserted Margo. "We're bad insurance risks, the
credit companies have blacklisted us, we don't need kitchen utensils because we
eat out, and if you're collecting for charity, mark us down among the needy
cases. Besides, we're expecting a visitor."
     "Of course you are." Wibby was turning his hat between his hands as he
stepped across the threshold. "I am he."
     "That's a good opening line," conceded Margo. "Most salesmen would have
said that they were him. So don't tell us you're working your way through
college. You're educated already, well enough to recognize a hint."
     Wibby ignored the hand that Margo flourished toward the door.
     Sitting down in a chair, he let his hat fall in his lap as he tilted his
head and looked from girl to girl.
     "Which one of you is Miss Bartlett?"
     Elaine gave a slight gasp that Margo covered with a quick remark.
     "Neither of us," said Margo. "Didn't you see the name Lane on the door?
Step right out and read it."
     Patiently Wibby transferred his hat from his lap to the table and raised
his other hand. In the same tone he repeated:
     "I asked which of you was Miss Bartlett?"
     This time the gasp included Margo. In his raised hand, the smiling
gentleman held a stubby revolver, which had dropped from his hat. His hand
waved very carelessly, but in its arc the moving gun muzzle kept covering both
girls very efficiently. Wibby's tone sharpened to a pointed word:
     "Which?"
     Margo caught her breath.
     "I am Elaine Bartlett," she affirmed. "Tell me what you want."
     "How forgetful of me," said Wibby, rising. "I just remembered that Miss
Bartlett is a blonde. So I'll take her instead." He gestured the gun toward
Elaine and kept it pointed. "You're coming with me, Miss Bartlett."
     "But I'm not dressed -"
     "Get dressed then." Wibby swung to cover Margo, "and make it fast if you
have any regard for Miss Lane."
     Elaine took the hint and shuffled from the dressing gown into the dress
that she had taken from her suit-case. All the while Wibby politely paid strict
attention to Margo, though she didn't appreciate it. Wibby's eyes, when steady,
had a glint too much like his gun.
     "I'm ready," gasped Elaine, suddenly. Then, in a defiant tone, she added:
"But I'm not coming if you do anything to Margo."
     "I'll leave that to you," returned Wibby. "Put her right in that chair and
bind her with those suit-case straps. Tightly, you understand - and promptly."
     Receiving a nod from Margo, Elaine complied. The strapping completed,
Wibby suggested that Margo's neckerchief would make an excellent gag. He
approached to make sure that Elaine really tied the knots. Finding them
satisfactory, Wibby picked his hat up with his gun hand.
     "Come on, Miss Bartlett." Gently, Wibby grazed Elaine's elbow with his
hat, giving the blonde a sudden shiver. "Our car is waiting downstairs."
     Wibby wasn't joking about the car. It was waiting out front, a big
limousine with a chauffeur. There was another man in back and Elaine recognized
him as she settled between him and Wibby, whose gun gave a prod through the hat.
     The waiting man was Rupert Suffolk!
     Without the slightest nod to Elaine, Suffolk leaned forward and spoke to
the chauffeur in a crisp tone:
     "Amarillo Arms. And hurry, it's already half-past five!"
     The time was more significant than Elaine knew. It also represented the
closing of Malbray's Jewelry Shop. Clustered in a small rear alley, Brodie
Graff and his companions were using the cathodoscope on a heavy steel door.
     Things were working faster than Brodie hoped.
     "That's enough," declared Brodie, as he shut off the power from a box of
batteries. "Drill right through there, Red. That will fix the lock."
     "What about the burglar alarm?"
     "There isn't any," chuckled Brodie. "Not on this door. You know, Red, this
cathodoscope is too good. It faded the door right out, so I could hardly see it."
     "What about my mitt?"
     "It looked like something through an x-ray, what I saw of it. Now let's
see you use it with that drill."
     The drill bit right through. A few minutes later, Brodie and company were
moving into the dim-lit hollow of the jewelry emporium, wheeling the
cathodoscope with them. Behind them loomed the blackness of the alley, showing
through the open doorway.
     Shifting blackness, had anyone looked back to notice it.
     Wheeling the cathodoscope in among the counters, Brodie's crew finally
brought it in front of the large vault that held a wealth of rare gems. Here
there was no need to shield the glare that flickered out from beside the
parchment filter screen that fronted the cathodoscope. Plugged to a floor
socket, the machine began to buzz and in half a minute, Brodie's voice was
speaking, awed:
     "Say - look!"
     Like Brodie, Red and the rest weren't the sort to appreciate the beauty.
They thought in terms of wealth, but the sight was gorgeous nevertheless.
Caught by the cathode rays, tinted by the ionized fragments in the
kaleidoscopic attachment, brought to full effect by the three-dimensional
projector, the contents of the safe displayed a glitter that seemed something
from another world.
     The cathodoscope was probing into the gems themselves, producing results
that went beyond the ordinary limits of the spectrum. It was a galaxy to dwarf
the wildest technicolor dreams. Noting the effect, Brodie brushed the others
aside; poking his head beneath the flaps, he began to check on tumblers that
floated in the foreground.
     Those tumblers represented the combination of the safe.
     "Three to the left - five to the right -"
     Brodie was calling it off mechanically as he watched the tumblers fall.
     "Hold it, Red! It's open!"
     Brodie's followers, four in all, were crowding closer, eager to get their
paws on the trophies within the vault, when something interrupted the procedure.
     The Shadow!


     CHAPTER XVII

     THE SHADOW was among them.
     They learned it when something very solid spun among them, driving down
their lifting gun hands with hard, cracking blows from a brace of swinging
automatics.
     Flung out to the flanks, members of the crew came up to hands and knees,
hoping to aim at The Shadow before he used his favorite stratagem of rushing
one batch at the expense of the other. Often, The Shadow would grapple foemen
and turn them as human shields against a group of their friends.
     This time it was different.
     All that remained of The Shadow was his laugh!
     The thing was incredible. It made a literal fact out of The Shadow's famed
invisibility.
     Bolder men than Brodie's hirelings would have scattered rapidly under
similar circumstances, which was just what The Shadow wanted this tribe to do.
They were slow because they were too dumbfounded to move, a thing which worked
peculiarly to their advantage. For in that moment's lull when crooks should
already have been in flight, Brodie shouted something that spurred them to new
battle.
     "He's still there!" voiced Brodie. "You can't see him because of the
cathodoscope. Pile into it, all of you, and get him!"
     Brodie set the example by charging in from his flank, while Red led the
drive from the opposite side. But The Shadow, actually invisible in the
bewildering polychromic dazzle from the cathodoscope, was quick to prove that
he had other ways of dividing an attacking force.
     Something slashed across the glittering maze of light. Brodie and two
thugs met head on by the vault door, swinging hard in their direction.
Continuing the twirl with which he slung the door wide open, The Shadow wheeled
in among the other trio which included Red.
     Guns spurted and with quick results. The Shadow's shots came first and
sent two men reeling, their guns spouting wild. Only Red managed to get clear,
with a dive past the cathodoscope. Immediately he was picked up by a wild
stampede led by Brodie.
     But Brodie wasn't waiting, nor were the men with him. They were on their
way to the rear door, taking Red along.
     As Brodie and the others clattered by, The Shadow swung to follow them,
ready to drop them like a scooting flock of shooting-gallery ducks. All The
Shadow needed was the proper angle and he was wheeling to it, when lights
suddenly flooded the jewelry store.
     In from the front surged a covey of police headed by that pride of the
Manhattan force, Inspector Joe Cardona. Somebody had tipped off the
constabulary regarding this unlawful event, and Cardona had arrived with a
picked headquarters squad sooner than usual. Too soon in fact for The Shadow.
     Brodie's swirl of terror-stricken crooks had almost reached the rear door,
whereas The Shadow was an open target for police guns. Plainly visible in the
strong light, he was mistaken for the chief malefactor and shots began to
whistle his way. His only course was to follow Brodie's throng, which he did
with a long, tripping dive out to the alley, just as Brodie turned to slam the
steel door. Fear did for Brodie what brains wouldn't have. He gave a frenzied
howl:
     "The Shadow!"
     Crooks staged the rat act. Thinking themselves completely trapped, they
piled on the blackened figure that had plunged into their midst. The Shadow's
guns, coming upward, managed a few stabs before they were slashed from his
hands. Then crooks were shooting at anything black, which included most
everything around them, while they grabbed for The Shadow's cloak.
     Twisting, The Shadow managed to rip loose from the cloak as he came half
to his feet. Even without guns, he might have routed this fear-insane tribe if
he hadn't tripped across a sprawled form. The Shadow took a crash landing that
must have jarred him badly, but it wasn't enough to satisfy the fear-crazed
brain of Brodie Graff.
     Continuing his maddened sequence, Brodie kept jabbing with his gun and
encountered unexpected luck. He didn't have an actual target until a rolling
figure propped upon an elbow and inadvertently came into Brodie's path of fire.
Brodie's last two shots were delivered with crazed accuracy and they found their
mark. The elbows caved as the lifeless form sagged back.
     Then, with police whistles blaring everywhere, Brodie and Red were making
for their well-stashed truck, taking one man, the last left from the fray,
along between them. Their companion was staggering badly, but they managed to
shove him into the rear of the darkened truck before they climbed into the
front and sped away.
     Cardona and his squad never did take up that chase. They had to shoot it
out with two wounded crooks near the vault and do some alley work on another,
since these were the breed of thugs who died hard and insisted upon finishing
up the hard way. Finding suddenly that there wasn't anyone left to tell where
the rest had gone, Cardona went to look at the vault.
     The first thing was to turn off the cathodoscope, which Cardona did, by
trying all the buttons that he found. No longer blinded by the preternatural
brilliance of the gems, Cardona looked inside the vault. What he saw brought
surprise to his swarthy face.
     Traced on the rear of the vault was a pattern that Joe found duplicated on
the door front. It was an excellent sketch of a street scene, showing a
delicatessen, a cigar store, a truck with the name of a dry cleaner and a
passing bus marked with a number. Pointing across the street to a spot marked X
was an arrow, which bore the written words:
     "Use the cathodoscope here."
     Though Joe Cardona didn't know it, this explained why Professor Bartlett
had hurried his invention. Bartlett had cooked up his own idea of cooperation
with The Shadow. Confident that his mysterious friend would show up at the
scene of crime, Bartlett had traced a more potent message on the luminous
powdered front of the unnecessary parchment screen.
     A graphic message for The Shadow, who figured in it after all, for as
Cardona stared at the diagram he noted that a dimmed silhouette was imprinted
across it in life size! At first Cardona took it that The Shadow had sent the
message; then it dawned on him that the cloaked mystery merchant must have been
right here, blocking off the penetrating ray, which had thereby implanted his
profile upon the message.
     Somehow, it shook Cardona's confidence in The Shadow.
     "Funny business," gruffed Cardona. "Looks like The Shadow tried to blot
out somebody's message. Say, wasn't that The Shadow who chased out ahead of our
shots? I wonder -"
     Cardona's faith was further shattered when he reached the alley and found
a cop training a flashlight on a huddled form beneath a tangled cloak with a
slouch hat close beside it. Lifting the cloak, Cardona prodded the body over
and stared at an ugly, unintelligent face.
     "That couldn't be his nibs," decided Cardona. "It looks like The Shadow
ditched this get-up for a bluff. He's used to clipping crooks, not bluffing
them, so it must be meant to fool us. Well, the wise birds always said he'd go
crooked himself some day, so this must be it."
     Turning on his heel, Cardona went back for another check-up of the diagram
which The Shadow had so nearly obliterated. Joe was sure he could soon identify
the neighborhood; when he did, he intended to move quick.
     Things were already moving at the X mark to which Bartlett's arrow
pointed. Suffolk and Wibby had reached Brodie's apartment and had escorted
Elaine into the alcove elevator. All the while, the girl had retained a
stubborn silence whenever Suffolk tried to talk to her, so he had given it up.
The break came after they reached the door of Bartlett's prison laboratory,
which Wibby unbolted to admit Elaine.
     Seeing her father, Elaine reached him with a happy bound, only to break
into sobs as he put his arms around her. Elaine didn't try to tell her story;
she simply bemoaned her failure.
     "I had hoped I could help you," she choked, "because while I was free,
there was a chance for you. But I only walked into another trap."
     Bartlett was staring across Elaine's shoulder, his eyes considerably
puzzled. The door was wide open and Wibby was putting his gun back in his hip
pocket, while Suffolk was advancing very cordially, gesturing sympathetically
toward Elaine.
     "Let her have a little cry," said Suffolk. "I don't think she'd have come
with us except under pressure. Besides, I've reached a state where I won't
trust anybody, except Taggart here." Suffolk waved his hand at Wibby, then
added: "He tells me he was double-crossed too."
     "So I was," affirmed Wibby, "by Brodie Graff. He gypped me when I tried to
run an honest business. I thought Suffolk was the brain behind it and when I
went to have it out with him, I found he was being framed too. So I looked up
Brodie -"
     "And you found him," inserted a dry, cold voice from the doorway. "Yes,
Brodie told me. He said you would be useful to us and maybe he was right."
     Elaine turned with the rest and thought her tearful eyes were tricking her
when she saw Margo Lane standing in the doorway. But it wasn't Margo who was
talking; the voice came from behind her. That was proven when Margo landed
suddenly on hands and knees, sprawled forward by a heavy hand that shoved her.
     In the doorway, training a stub-nosed revolver squarely on the clustered
group, stood Tracy Singledon, his face shaping an unpleasant gloat that marked
him as the master hand of crime!


     CHAPTER XVIII

     THOUGH one man against three, Singledon held the edge. He guessed that
Bartlett and Suffolk were unarmed, so he concentrated his aim on Wibby, whose
hands came up automatically before he could think about the revolver on his
hip. Looking for another face, Singledon chuckled when he didn't see it.
     "So Cranston isn't here," remarked Singledon. "He said he had some
business and, if it's where I think it is, it may be giving him trouble."
     "If you mean Malbray's," put in Suffolk, boldly, "your crowd may find some
trouble too. I phoned a tip-off to the police just before Taggart and I brought
Elaine to find her father."
     "Maybe the police won't arrive there soon enough," jeered Singledon. "Your
fault was, you didn't leave here in time. The rule works two ways, you know. It
was very helpful finding Miss Lane bound and gagged; you made a mistake in not
trusting her."
     From Suffolk's expression it was plain that he recognized the mistake, but
Singledon continued:
     "You weren't supposed to reach her apartment until after six o'clock,
Suffolk. Cranston sent you a postcard just to test you out, thinking that you
were behind this game. So when I found Elaine gone, I knew that Wibby must have
talked, because otherwise you wouldn't have known. So I came here on a hunch,
bringing the Lane girl."
     Footsteps were sounding in the corridor, slow laboring steps, but
Singledon gave them little attention, knowing whose they represented. In a few
moments, Brodie and Red arrived, practically carrying a companion who was
doubled up between them, his arms hanging down from his lowered head and
shoulders.
     "Lay him there," ordered Singledon, gesturing to a corner close to the men
he held helpless. "Then cover these people for me. My arm is growing tired."
Pausing, Singledon waited until Brodie and Red fulfilled the instructions.
"From the looks of things, I take it you met up with the police."
     "We met up with The Shadow first," returned Brodie. "If it hadn't been for
the coppers, he'd have chopped us right down. Old reliable Cardona barged in and
queered The Shadow's set-up."
     "Thank Suffolk for that," laughed Singledon, his mirth hitting a bitter
note. "By the way, what happened to The Shadow?"
     "He got his from us," affirmed Brodie. "Out in the alley. Only by then
there wasn't anybody left but me and Red, along with one other guy."
     Brodie gestured to the huddled man in the corner, whose grotesque sprawl
made it doubtful that he could be counted among the survivors.
     "I suppose the police have the cathodoscope," remarked Singledon. "Well,
it doesn't matter, since they would soon have guessed we were using some such
device. Since they have nothing that can neutralize its efficiency, we shall
use another after Professor Bartlett builds it."
     A gleam of hope flashed in Bartlett's eyes as he remembered his luminous
diagram. But the hope died as Bartlett realized the police would be too late.
The professor could foresee that he and Elaine would be allowed to live, but he
saw little chance for the other prisoners.
     Singledon must have caught that brief flash, for he said:
     "You are right, professor. The others will die. Suffolk first, then
Taggart -"
     "Just for trusting a double-crosser," broke in Wibby. "That means you,
Brodie. Telling me that Suffolk was the big-shot, like you told the other
suckers - and that includes you, Red."
     It had just dawned on Red Melvin that Singledon wasn't Suffolk and vice
versa. Red's lone virtue was his dumbness and he didn't like being complimented
on it. That was enough to convince him that there was merit in Wibby's argument,
which in turn squared the man who gave it. Turning savagely, Red shoved his gun
at Brodie, who wheeled in time to aim back.
     Muzzle to muzzle, the pair were glaring like a couple of pugnacious
wolves. But before any of Suffolk's group could move, Singledon had them
covered with his own stubby gun. He was watching them, too, though he gave
quick darty glances toward Brodie and Red.
     There was just enough to keep Singledon fully occupied. He didn't notice
the one man he had forgotten, that crumpled nobody brought in by Brodie and
Red. Singledon didn't see that the pitiful figure had come to life and was
creeping around in back of Suffolk's group. Nor did anyone else realize it
until Wibby felt a hand clutch at his hip pocket.
     A moment later, the figure was on its feet, reeling back against the wall,
gripping a stubby revolver. Steadying, the man looked at the gun he had acquired
from Wibby's pocket and in that moment gauged its possibilities. But before the
reviving man could use the weapon, Singledon saw him.
     "Cranston!"
     From Singledon's half-startled shout, he recognized that Cranston must be
The Shadow. That same thought might have occurred to Brodie, but certainly not
to Red, who was by this time thoroughly confused. What handicapped Brodie was
the belief that he had pumped bullets into The Shadow, back in the jewelry
store alley. He couldn't realize that The Shadow had rolled right out of his
cloak and left it draped on a wounded thug who had propped up to take Brodie's
shots.
     Standing static in their amazement, Brodie and Red were out of things,
each with his gun tenaciously fixed upon the other. The duel lay between
Singledon and Cranston. It began without delay.
     A quick shift from Singledon brought a prompt shot from Cranston. The
bullet whizzed wide and Singledon promptly returned one from his own revolver,
only to miss Cranston by inches. In the corner to which she scrambled, Margo
felt a surge of hopeless horror. She knew that Lamont must still be as groggy
as his blood-streaked face proclaimed, otherwise he wouldn't have missed.
     At least Cranston was shifting for shelter behind Bartlett's work-bench
which was well away from people, but his faltering gait told that he was very
weak. Singledon saw it and gestured his gun, bringing another wild shot from
Cranston. On the move, Singledon fired back, but missed again, thanks to a
slight hesitation by Cranston that made his opponent overaim.
     Reaching the work-bench, Cranston steadied slightly. By then, Singledon
was behind Bartlett's portable cathodoscope against the opposite wall. Brodie
and Red were watching the slow duel, each enough mistrustful of the other to
keep their guns as they were.
     "Try again, Cranston," baited Singledon. "You'll miss, as badly as you did
when you picked Suffolk as the man who stole the cathodoscope."
     Cranston's gun stabbed - and missed.
     There was a quick jab from Singledon's revolver and Margo saw Cranston
slump. But his drop was intentional, ahead of Singledon's aim. It put Cranston
down behind the work-bench with his aiming hand propped on the top.
     "I picked you, Singledon." Cranston's tone was slow but steady. "Almost
from the start."
     "At the theater, I suppose," gibed Singledon. "When we thought that Kranda
murdered Troy."
     "Yes, you really gave yourself away right then, though I didn't connect it
until later. You did some phoning right afterward, probably to Brodie."
     Singledon didn't answer. Cranston's shrewd guess annoyed him. Brodie was
equally embarrassed, but Red popped out with it, unexpectedly.
     "Yeah, so he did!" exclaimed Red. "Only I thought it was Suffolk who
called Brodie. We were going to proposition Kranda, but when we found what he
was planning, we played it strong."
     "Shut up!" snapped Brodie. "Let Singledon talk."
     What talked was Cranston's gun, delivering its fourth shot. As before,
Singledon tallied a quick response. Both shots were misses.
     "I tested you all along, Singledon." Cranston's tone was slow, but calm.
"I watched you when I ran Bartlett's record. I listened to your arguments
against Suffolk. I baited you into that trip to Bartlett's strong room."
     Singledon tried some baiting of his own. He shoved his shoulder into sight
but ducked it just as Cranston fired a fifth shot. As usual, Singledon jabbed a
bullet in reply, but Cranston had eased back to shelter.
     "You discovered everything too easily," continued Cranston. "And why not -
since you were pinning it on Suffolk? But that wasn't the only reason you
revealed the secret of the strong room. You wanted to gain my confidence, to
get rid of me. That elevator didn't drop by accident. Your stooges fixed the
pulley."
     Singledon's face was livid, as Margo saw it, though he was keeping it from
Cranston's sight. Angrily, Singledon tried to dispute Cranston's claim.
     "If you had me marked," sneered Singledon, "why did you send that
post-card to Suffolk to make him show his hand tonight?"
     "The card didn't go to Suffolk," returned Cranston. "I wrote it in a
favorite ink of mine that disappears. All the mail-man found was a blank card.
I was eliminating Suffolk, though you didn't know it. I was making you show
your hand, Singledon."
     Singledon showed his hand right then. Like a man gone berserk he popped
out from cover and charged across the room, veering so that Cranston's aim
would be blocked by his own shelter, the work-bench. Jerkily, Cranston shifted
clear of his barricade to take advantage of Singledon's rush, but his aim was
still too slow. Watching for it, Singledon made a quick sidestep as Cranston
fired.
     One inch wide, that shot, and it left Cranston in the open. He was
standing flat-footed with his gun hand aiming again, while Singledon
approached, his own revolver lifting slowly.
     "Six shots for you, Cranston," reminded Singledon, "but only five for me.
That's what I've been working toward all during this duel. One shot left and
it's mine. I am going to kill you with it."
     Singledon's gun was level when the stab came. It was amazing to all but
one witness, that fatal shot. Amazing because it spurted from the wrong
direction. The shot was from Cranston's gun!
     A seventh shot for Cranston to nullify the sixth that Singledon never
fired. For with it, Singledon curled to the floor, his revolver dropping from
his hand. With a bullet through his heart, the man of crime could hardly hope
to hold his gun.
     With that blast, Brodie and Red forgot their unfinished dispute. It was
Brodie who wheeled first, hoping to avenge Singledon's death. It was simple
enough to Brodie. Singledon must have counted wrong. Seven shots were one too
many in Brodie's league.
     Cranston was still one ahead. Brodie was charging forward and he wasn't
aiming in a hurry. Coolly, Cranston topped one surprise with another, by
delivering an eighth shot that pitched Brodie face-flat on the cement. As
Brodie struck, Cranston aimed at Red.
     There wasn't any challenge from Red Melvin. He wasn't taking chances with
an inexhaustible gun. Frantically, Red flung his revolver at Cranston's feet
and reached as high as he could stretch. Scooping Red's bouncing gun, Cranston
turned to Wibby and handed back the miracle weapon.
     "I recognized the model," said Cranston. "Fairly common, these eight-shot
specials, but very few people know about them."
     "It fooled me when I bought it," admitted Wibby. "I picked it up in a
hock-shop."
     A huge crash sounded from the corridor. It was followed by the sound of
rushing feet which ended when Inspector Cardona appeared with the cream of his
special squad.
     "We saw the start of it," explained Cardona. "We were looking right
through the wall with that crazy machine. We thought they were going to get you
sure, Mr. Cranston. That's why we hopped around and busted through a partition
in the warehouse. I'd like to know the rest of it."
     Inspector Cardona heard the rest. The laugh of The Shadow!


     THE END