TEAR-DROPS OF BUDDHA
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," May 1945.
A fantastic smuggling scheme involves The Shadow in his most dangerous
assignment - to solve the secret of twelve, glowing tears!
CHAPTER I
THE clerk at the Hotel Argonne shook his head.
"Sorry, no more rooms."
Ted Trent turned and looked at the triple line of bags that flooded the
center of the lobby. Then he took another look for Cecil Grenshaw. No matter
how much the clerk might mean it, Grenshaw was the sort who could make him
change his mind.
Fixing such matters had been Grenshaw's specialty in the Orient; he
certainly shouldn't have lost his touch in New York.
Just then Ted saw Grenshaw, turning from the hat-check room just outside
the entrance to the cafe lounge - Grenshaw, with his florid face, his pince-nez
glasses with their gold chain, and the gray hat and coat that Ted had last seen
him wearing in Sydney, Australia.
Grenshaw - except that his manner was hasty and nervous, which didn't fit
with Grenshaw at all. He was sliding something into an envelope, which he
sealed as he came toward Ted, and with every step, the florid man darted quick,
furtive glances back and forth across the lobby.
In fact, Grenshaw didn't see Ted at all until he bumped right into him;
then, in response to the shoulder-clap that Ted gave him, Grenshaw almost
caved. His face took on an apoplectic expression that caused Ted to grab him
with a pair of brawny, steadying hands.
"You're all right, Mr. Grenshaw?"
Then, as the man steadied, Ted added:
"You remember me, don't you? Ted Trent, the second mate on the Bohemia?
I'm the fellow who helped get the crew together and unload that shipment, down
in Sydney."
Grenshaw's wits were coming back. He recognized Ted's broad, tanned face
with the friendly grin that made those features rugged rather than rough;
handsome in a weatherbeaten way. Ted's eyes, too, had an honest look that
Grenshaw recalled.
"Yes, I remember you," said Grenshaw. "Only you were in the merchant
marine when I saw you last. Now that you aren't in uniform -"
He hesitated, only to see Ted's smile remain.
"I'm only waiting my chance for a skipper's berth," explained Ted. "Things
broke my way faster than I expected, including my getting back to old New York.
Remember how I laughed when you said I'd find you at the Hotel Argonne - and I
said when, about five years from now?"
It was Grenshaw's turn to smile.
"Well, here I am," continued Ted, "all inside a couple of months. But
there's something else" - Ted's face went serious, but with a dash of pretence
- "and that's the promise you made. You said if there was anything I really
needed, I could always call on you."
Holding the letter in one hand, Grenshaw reached for his wallet with the
other. Ted smiled and shook his head.
"I have money," Ted said. "I want something it won't buy. I want a hotel
room, if your influence can get one for me."
A strangely calculating expression crept over Grenshaw's face. He began to
chuckle in that rich, but easy style which had made Ted like him when they first
met. Drawing Ted aside, Grenshaw gave another quick look around. Then:
"They won't let you transfer rooms," confided Grenshaw. "Not with all the
reservations they've taken. It happens, though, that I've been called out of
town. This letter" - he gestured the envelope - "is to a friend of mine,
explaining it. Now if you'd like my room -"
"Would I!"
"Only you'll have to keep it in my name," continued Grenshaw, riding over
Ted's interruption. "Don't let the hotel know the difference. Now here's the
key -"
Producing the key, Grenshaw started toward the elevator with Ted; then he
apparently decided that the subterfuge might be detected if he and his
substitute appeared too openly together. Again, those furtive glances that Ted
didn't quite understand. Then Grenshaw looked eagerly at the mail-chute which
was too conspicuously near the elevator.
Like a man making a momentous decision, Grenshaw thrust the letter into
Ted's hand with the room key, and put urgency into his tone:
"Be sure to mail this letter immediately when you get off at the fourth
floor. You'll find the mail-chute right by the elevator. It's highly important,
so don't neglect it. By the way, I'm leaving most of my luggage in 408 but don't
worry; I'll let you know where to send it."
With that, Grenshaw was on his way out through the lobby, dodging the
stacked suitcases as he hurried toward the door. Puzzling over Grenshaw's
haste, Ted entered a waiting elevator and rode up to the fourth floor. There he
remembered to mail the letter and in looking to see if Grenshaw had applied a
stamp Ted saw that the envelope was addressed to one Niles Naseby, Valdemar
Apartments, New York City.
Who Naseby was, Ted neither knew or cared. He was more interested in the
rare gift he had received, a hotel room in visitor-packed Manhattan. When he
put the key in the lock it wouldn't turn the proper direction.
It was unlocked.
So quickly did Ted open the door that he caught the girl flat-footed on
the threshold. Evidently she'd intended to hurry from the room; then hearing a
key in the lock, had turned to hide somewhere. At least that was Ted's first
impression. Then the girl smiled.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she exclaimed. Then, her eyes large and frank with
inquiry: "You're Mr. Grenshaw?"
Ted nodded slowly, so the girl wouldn't grasp the fact that he had
hesitated.
"I knocked, but no one answered," the girl continued. "So I came in,
thinking I could leave these tickets on the writing desk." Fumbling, the girl
brought a small envelope from her hand-bag. "They're for the Masked Ball down
in the Village. A friend of yours sent them."
The girl stepped back into the lights of the room. She changed the subject
with a quick gesture.
"When I saw the room," she added, "I was afraid you might blame me. So I
just thought I'd leave -"
Ted had forgotten the room because of the girl. He found that he liked
blondes, though he hadn't known it. This one was different, because of her
eyes. Like most blondes, and like Ted himself, she had blue eyes. Probably it
was the way blondes stared that had caused Ted's prejudice against them. Blue
eyes didn't have the soulful touch that tapped Ted's responsive chord. They
needed something else - like the frankness of Ted's own gaze - and this girl's
eyes had it.
"About the room." Still gesturing, the girl was watching Ted. "It was like
this when I found it. Who disturbed it, I don't know! Only they - well, I'd say
they -"
"I'd say they did a good job," supplied Ted coolly, as he studied the room
for the first time. The luggage that Grenshaw had mentioned was plentiful, and
its contents strewn everywhere. "Yes," added Ted, "a very good job."
Shirts, suits, socks and shoes weren't all that had been tossed around.
Papers were flung all over the floor; books were lying about wide open, with no
regard for their expensive bindings. Nor had they stopped with Grenshaw's
belongings; cushions were missing from chairs; drawers had been yanked from
bureaus; sheets, blankets, pillows ripped off the bed where they belonged.
Ted looked at the girl, who had stepped between him and the door. She
placed the little ticket envelope in his hand, watching him with those same
frank eyes. With the light still on her face, Ted was liking it still more. It
was a round face, with the slightly saucy upturn of the nose discounted by the
earnest lips above the firm chin.
"Honestly, Mr. Grenshaw -"
"Honestly, I'm not Mr. Grenshaw," interposed Ted, deciding that one dash
of truth might lead to more. "I'm Ted Trent, a friend of his. And your name is
-"
Ted put a questioning rise to his tone in hope it would bring a
spontaneous result. It did, though not the sort he expected. Clutching Ted's
arm suddenly, the girl pointed past him and exclaimed:
"Look out, behind you, Mr. Trent!"
Wheeling, Ted saw a rustle of window curtains in the far corner of the
room. Though the light wasn't too strong there, he could have sworn he caught
the glint of a revolver muzzle pulling instantly from sight.
Ted circled the room, following a wall that the muzzle couldn't cover. He
picked up a light chair that the ransackers had carelessly left undisturbed and
flipped it so the legs extended in front of him. It was an old animal tamer's
stunt, but it could be used for repelling boarders as Ted proved when he
stabbed the chair-legs through the curtain.
Any hapless gunner would have found his hands full keeping himself from
going out the open window; but there wasn't any gunner. A warm, drizzly breeze
swept Ted's face as he lurched half through the window, chair first.
Ted hauled back and looked along the outside ledge. It was very dark at
the corner, enough to have hidden anyone who might be rounding it. Only a floor
below was a roof to which an intruder could have dropped and with a chimney and
some ventilators forming dim but huddled objects in the gloom, Ted realized it
would be impossible to pick out a human figure.
And from the way the wind flipped the drapes as Ted drew back, he began to
think the whole thing might have been imagination. The wind blew draftily. Ted
heard a door slam behind him and turned quickly.
The blonde, who had started Ted after an imaginary intruder, was gone. So
neat and prompt was her departure that Ted was sure she'd completely hoaxed him.
But it was the wind, not the girl who had slammed the door, for when Ted
Trent reached the corridor, he heard the distant clang of a closing elevator.
CHAPTER II
IF Ted Trent had wanted to take up an adventurous trail, he should have
followed Cecil Grenshaw, who was unquestionably the focal factor in the whole
situation.
How far Ted could have carried such a trail was another question. Others
were already having trouble with it.
Two muffled men, dressed in turned-up raincoats and dark hats, were hard
on Grenshaw's heels as soon as he left the Hotel Argonne. All the while that
things were happening up in room 408, Grenshaw and those unwanted hangers-on
were skirting the adjacent blocks.
Grenshaw was looking for a cab, but on a night like this, they were almost
as scarce as hotel rooms.
A cab would have been a boon to Grenshaw, for with quick work and a clean
take-off, he could have shaken his trailers.
Bundling his coat, the hunted man tightened his grip on a walking stick
and took to an alleyway. With surprising agility, he made a sharp turn to the
left and ducked into the shelter of some old-fashioned steps where he waited
with lifted cane.
The two men arrived on the quick, took a look toward the nearby corner and
headed that direction. Out from the steps, Grenshaw reversed his course through
the alley and reached the original street. By then his pursuers were coming
back along their street, searching without success. After a brief conference
held in low, guttural tones, they took a route leading to a building in back of
the Hotel Argonne.
There, a figure dropped suddenly to meet them. He was a man in a dark
jersey, a cap pulled down over his eyes; a type of character who many years ago
was the reason why people never went to the Bowery. But from his talk, it was
plain that far from being a throw-back to the bad old days, this individual's
appearance was purely coincidental.
His garb, in a sense, had more of the Alpine touch, considering that he
had just completed a descent from a hotel ledge to a roof and thence downward
by windows. His accent, too, was European, though its exact nationality was
smothered.
"Grenshaw is gone," the man reported. "He has given the room to a friend
named Trent."
"You searched the room?"
"I did not have to. A girl was there - she did not name herself and I
watched her look all."
The other men took it that she hadn't found anything. They muttered some
unkind words about Grenshaw, then separated and went their way, after the man
in the jersey slipped a revolver to one of his less suspicious-looking friends.
That gun muzzle at the window curtain hadn't been a product of Ted Trent's
imagination!
A few blocks away, Cecil Grenshaw had luckily found a cab. Riding to
another part of town, he alighted in front of a small restaurant that included
a dozen tables, a bar, and a large back room where Grenshaw didn't go.
This place, called The Cave, was a front for a horse parlor which occupied
the back room. Nodding to the bartender, he casually ordered a drink and glanced
around as though he knew the place quite well.
There were very few customers, so few that the one waiter took time out to
make a phone call from a booth at the rear. After the booth was vacated,
Grenshaw went there and pondered a few moments; then he let his florid face
relax into a smile.
Grenshaw's own experience with Ted; the chance meeting with a former
acquaintance who had looked him up, gave him the idea that he could do the same.
Dialing the number of the exclusive Cobalt Club, Grenshaw asked for a
member named Lamont Cranston and soon had him on the phone.
"Hello, Mr. Cranston," drawled Grenshaw. "I don't suppose you'd remember
Cecil Grenshaw, from Calcutta... What's that? You recognize my voice? Well,
well..."
Going off into his most affable chuckle, Grenshaw finally rallied and
became serious.
"I'm finding a bit of trouble, you know," Grenshaw confided. "A silly
notion, perhaps, but I fancy I'm being followed... What's that? No, no... I've
gotten all over those jitters I had at the time of the Calcutta riots...
"Been through worse things since... Burma... Singapore... What's that?" In
the peculiar light of the phone booth, Grenshaw's face became a distinct purple.
Then, forced through his teeth, came that indulgent chuckle of his: "Did you say
Bildapore? No, I've been staying quite away from those troublesome native
states...
"Yes, quite a mess, the death of the ex-rajah... If he could be called the
rajah at all... No, I was down in Ceylon when it happened... Gem-trading?" Again
that chuckle, but less forced. "Impossible in these times, old chap..."
With that dismissal, Grenshaw again lowered his voice in confidential
style, reverting to his original theme:
"About this bit of trouble... I'm in a little pub called The Cave... Hate
to leave here alone, you know" - Grenshaw gave a tap with his heavy-headed
walking stick - "even though I'm carrying my Penang Lawyer... The police? Well,
yes, I might inform them, only -"
Halting with a trace of reticence over what might merely be a false alarm,
Grenshaw immediately registered pleasure. His old acquaintance Cranston was
announcing in calm style, that he would drop by at The Cave within the next
quarter hour. Ebullient with thanks, Grenshaw finished the call and hung up.
Scarcely out of the phone booth, Grenshaw became a changed man. Swelling
with fresh bombast, he gazed contemptuously at the few seedy customers, rapped
the bar with his big-headed cane, and called for another double brandy.
Immediately after swallowing the drink, Grenshaw's expression became shrewd,
and he revealed his full mood with an artful glance toward the phone booth.
Grenshaw was wondering now why be had told so much to Cranston; or rather,
why he had let Cranston put those leading questions to which answers would be
expected in return for coming favors.
Grenshaw was cunning at playing a game two ways. He'd demonstrated it with
Ted Trent; he could do the same with Lamont Cranston, more conservatively of
course. Things looked safe here at The Cave, with no followers in sight. Since
he expected Cranston shortly, why couldn't he use this obliging friend as a
sort of rear guard against possible trouble?
Such was the question obviously in Grenshaw's mind when he scrawled
something on a slip of paper, summoned the sad looking waiter and gave him the
message along with a dollar bill.
"If somebody asks for Mr. Grenshaw, give him this," ordered Grenshaw.
"Only first make sure his name is Mr. Cranston. Keep an eye for him."
The waiter nodded as he watched Grenshaw stride pompously from the little
cafe. He kept watching in case the man came hurrying back. But Grenshaw
evidently found the drizzle to his liking, for he didn't return and when a few
minutes had passed, the waiter sidled into the phone booth, as he had when
Grenshaw first arrived.
From his pocket the waiter drew two slips of paper; one bore the phone
number that he had called before; he was using the slip for reference again. By
the time a gruff voice answered, the waiter had Grenshaw's slip open and ready.
"It's Johnny," the waiter informed, "Over at The Cave. The guy just went
out."
"Yeah?" The gruff voice became sharp. "Where?"
"To the Black Star Pier," informed Johnny, reading from Grenshaw's slip.
"Entrance D."
"He told you?"
"Gave me a note for a friend who's coming here -"
"How soon?"
"In about ten minutes."
A laugh as confident as it was ugly, was the only response to Johnny's
words. It terminated the conversation for there was a sharp click of the other
receiver. Johnny's sad eyes went blank; then turned troubled. He resolved to
say nothing further, as his tight lips indicated.
Johnny the waiter hadn't yet seen the man who was going to make him talk.
At ten minutes to the dot, a tall stranger sauntered into The Cave and
glanced casually about. Johnny guessed that this was Mr. Cranston and
immediately busied himself at clearing off a corner table, hoping the arrival
would sit down elsewhere or patronize the bar.
It happened that Grenshaw's absence was something demanding immediate
explanation where Cranston was concerned. Though placid in their gaze,
Cranston's eyes were the sort that looked for clues automatically and Johnny's
turn-away was therefore comparable to the hiding tactics of an ostrich.
Before the waiter could sidle toward the kitchen, a hand tapped his
shoulder; turning, Johnny was face to face with the impassive features of
Cranston.
Those masklike features accentuated the steady eyes that covered the
waiter with a hypnotic punch. As calm as Cranston's face was the even tone that
came from his straight lips:
"You have a message for me -"
Gulping, Johnny fished for it, found the wrong pocket, and made a quick
shift to give Cranston Grenshaw's paper. Unfolding the sheet with one hand,
lifting it to eye level, Cranston read it without apparently taking his eyes
from Johnny. Then:
"The other paper."
Johnny gave. He'd betrayed himself by that fumble. An odd burn came to
Cranston's eyes as he read the phone number. He spoke again, his words
accusing, even though they showed no change of tone.
"You called this number -"
"Yeah." Johnny gave a nervous nod. "They said the guy owed money, that was
all. He'd been here and I was to pass the word if he showed again. They didn't
say nothing more -"
Wrenching his eyes from the terrifying gaze, Johnny spilled dishes with
his nervous hands. Trying to gather his wits as he fumbled with the tableware,
the waiter protested hoarsely:
"I wouldn't have told them where Grenshaw was going if I'd figured it
meant trouble for him. I said he'd left a message, only I didn't say who for.
The guy at the other end hung up on me and I didn't like the way he did it. I
won't say no more, not to nobody -"
The few patrons in the place were staring at Johnny, wondering why the
waiter was talking to himself. Johnny looked up, met their stares with blinking
eyes. It wasn't that Johnny was talking to himself; he was simply talking to
thin air. Johnny's listener had gone.
Outside The Cave, Lamont Cranston slid his arms into a black cloak; then
he pulled a flexible slouch hat on his head and merged with the darkness of the
drizzle.
Lamont Cranston had become his other self, The Shadow!
CHAPTER III
IF that old feeling of confidence hadn't so stirred Cecil Grenshaw, he
wouldn't have walked head on into disaster.
Picking the Black Star Pier as a place for a meeting that he didn't intend
to keep, was Grenshaw's notion of an inspiration. Fundamentally, Grenshaw
shouldn't even have heard of the Black Star Pier, let alone know where it was
located.
It happened, however, that Grenshaw did know about this pier; that he'd
seen it from a cab while riding the express highway. He'd also noted its
dilapidated condition, the deserted status of the neighborhood, which wasn't
surprising since only a few ships had used this pier in the last half-dozen
years.
One ship in particular that wasn't named the Bohemia, a fact that brought
another short laugh from Grenshaw's scoffing lips.
It was just another example of this man's liking for the double twist;
never just a single arrow for the bow, nor a lone wing for the bird.
Here, in sheltering darkness, Grenshaw could watch the patchy, gray, pier
front. If figures appeared there, which was totally unlikely, he'd simply stay
where he was and let Cranston walk into trouble.
Not too much trouble, of course, because Grenshaw wasn't entirely the cad.
He'd just love to strike about with the big head of his cane, provided the
opposition wasn't too formidable. Memories of places like Rangoon, Macao and
Madras were sweeping Grenshaw's mind as he weighed the big stick that he'd
bought in Penang where it was termed a 'lawyer' because it was used for
settling all arguments.
Yes, Grenshaw had been in tougher spots than any New York could furnish -
or so he thought.
Ten minutes more and Grenshaw would drift away from this forlorn pier,
letting Cranston arrive to survey so vacant a scene that he'd think he had been
hoaxed. That would be all the better, because it would cover up Grenshaw's brief
indiscretion in mentioning certain facts over the telephone.
Fear could loose men's tongues, and Grenshaw, egotist though he was,
reluctantly admitted that he was no exception. Fear, he assured himself, was
the twin of caution, and with that bit of philosophy, Grenshaw stepped back
deeper into the sheltering doorway he had chosen as a temporary observation
post.
There, Grenshaw's terrors were realized beyond his imagination.
An arm crooked savagely around his neck; hands snatched the Penang lawyer
from his grip. He was pulled roughly through a creaking door and planted in a
chair so hard that it cracked under him. The door slammed sharply, a rusted
bolt grated, and Grenshaw was isolated in an office of the old pier, under the
control of three captors who meant business.
They were the same three who had lost Grenshaw's trail before he headed
for The Cave!
From behind the flashlight that locked Grenshaw's face and showed every
detail that registered there, there came a raspy voice that summarized the
prisoner's plight.
"You walked into it, Grenshaw," the voice said. "You couldn't have picked
a better spot. The boss gets two calls and we check in right after the second.
We were nearer to this pier than you were. Get it?"
Grenshaw got it and nodded as far as the choking arm would allow him.
"They aren't in your hotel room," the voice continued. "So either you've
got them or you gave them to somebody. Which?"
The arm relaxed so that Grenshaw could answer. His words came in gulps:
"Gave - what?"
A snarl accompanied the arm that tightened cruelly at Grenshaw's efforts
to stall. Then other hands were digging into Grenshaw's pockets, probing the
lining of his coat, tapping the heels of his shoes to see if they were solid.
One hand came into the light, carrying Grenshaw's thick, old-fashioned watch. A
smash and the time-piece broke apart, scattering its works. Grenshaw's purple
face paled. These fellows knew what they were after.
"Big enough to hold the jewels," a voice sneered, referring to the watch
case. "Only they aren't in it. Who has them, Grenshaw?"
"Has - what?"
This time the stall didn't even bring a laugh. A finger moved forward in
the light, reached Grenshaw's forehead and began to flick away the beads of
sweat that were swelling on Grenshaw's brow.
"Kind of like tear-drops, Grenshaw," scoffed the voice. "That's what we're
looking for: tear-drops, twelve of them. That's all. We're not hurting anybody,
provided that we get them."
So pointed was the statement that Grenshaw took it at face value. He
glanced shrewdly at his captors. If they'd known his proclivity for playing a
game within a game, these men might have doubted Grenshaw's spontaneous
response. Instead, they took him at his word.
"Naseby has them," Grenshaw gulped. "Niles Naseby has the teardrops. If
you don't know who Naseby is -"
"We know, all right," came the sharp interruption, "and if you didn't mean
it, you wouldn't have mentioned Naseby. Or would you?"
Before Grenshaw could reply, he was interrupted. At a gesture of one man's
hand, another swung Grenshaw's own cane against the base of the prisoner's
skull. The power of the Penang Lawyer demonstrated itself with that impact.
Prosecutor, judge, jury, all in one, it decreed death and executed the sentence
simultaneously.
Forward, backward, then Grenshaw's head was flopping from side to side as
the three men gathered their lifeless burden and lugged it out through another
door, leading to the pier itself.
Nor did they stop when they reached the pier end.
Three men of murder shoved off in a clumsy row-boat that was waiting
there, taking their victim with them. There were muffled, clanky sounds of lead
and iron weights, as they were hitched to Grenshaw's body. Then, from somewhere
past the pier end came a splash that was barely louder than that of an oar.
Silence after that. The boat was drifting, not down stream but up, for the
tide was coming in from the bay. Out in the drizzly blackness, the boat and its
load of killers was blotted as effectively as the corpse that they had
consigned to the Hudson.
It was fortunate for that ghoulish crew that the night was pitch-black and
that the tide was carrying them. Grenshaw's time limit had passed, the
difference that he had allotted for Cranston's arrival at the pier. If Grenshaw
had either stalled longer or doubted the word of the men who claimed they were
seeking twelve mysterious tear-drops, but without intent to kill!
Neither by sight nor sound could a cloaked arrival called The Shadow gain
an immediate clue to those departing slayers, but his technique at picking up
leads was rapid. Smudges on a grimy pane indicated that someone had used the
office door as a peephole; a flashlight, which The Shadow pointed through the
glass, produced a glitter from the scattered works of Grenshaw's smashed watch.
The door on the far side, unbolted, gave the route by which Grenshaw's
assassins had left the office. By simply breaking the grimy pane of the near
door, The Shadow could have drawn the bolt and found a clear course through;
but that wasn't necessary. Gliding away, the cloaked figure made a rapid detour
around the bulky building and out on the pier itself.
It was The Shadow's foresight that caused him to leave certain evidence as
it was, on the chance that such evidence would be proper for the police to
investigate. His foresight was proved when The Shadow reached the pier end.
There, the slap-slap from the incoming tide was broken only by a rattly scrape,
so slight that it would have escaped ears less tuned to trifling sounds.
Licking downward, The Shadow's flashlight found the offending object that
was clattering against the pilings. It was the very object that The Shadow
expected to see and from his unseen lips came a solemn, whispered laugh;
mirthless in its regret for a man whose death was his own fault, yet whose life
The Shadow had hoped to save: Cecil Grenshaw.
The thing that was bobbing in the water was a bulbous-headed cane, the
type termed a Penang Lawyer.
CHAPTER IV
TED TRENT signed his name to the fancy guest card that bore the title
"Casino Monaco" and decided it would do. The card was about the only thing that
Ted had found that might prove a lead to Cecil Grenshaw, the man who hadn't
returned.
Not that Ted expected Grenshaw to return - as yet.
It was only about twenty-four hours since Grenshaw had invited Ted to take
over his room and the man from Sydney and other points East had specified that
he might not be back for a while. But considering how Grenshaw's room had been
ransacked and adding to that the presence - and departure - of the very
mysterious blonde, Ted felt definitely that he ought to have some sort of a
report for his benefactor.
Besides, Ted hadn't forgotten the waving curtain and the distinct
impression of a gun muzzle sliding behind it. If enemies were gunning for
Grenshaw, it might be Ted's general business to find out who they were.
So the blank card, all numbered but lacking a name, seemed like a good bet
for Ted's initial quest. If it didn't work out, he could use the tickets to the
Masked Ball. Ted still had the envelope that the girl had given him and on it
was a printed advertisement of the Kit-Kat Costume Shop, offering suitable
outfits for the Bal Masque, with the added information that the shop stayed
open until eight o'clock.
And besides, there was that letter that Ted had mailed. He remembered the
name of the addressee: Niles Naseby, Valdemar Apartments. If it became too
tough, pinch-hitting for Grenshaw, Ted could take up the matter with Mr. Naseby.
At the present, which was six o'clock, a trip to the Casino Monaco was in
order.
Finding the Casino Monaco proved easy. The place was simply another joint
along Night Club Row, but apparently something of a newcomer. From the moment
that he entered its rococo preserves, Ted sensed that the place was aptly
named. It reminded him of a place he'd visited while in the merchant marine:
the casino at Monte Carlo.
Not that the Casino Monaco looked like a gambling hall, but neither had
the preserves at Monte Carlo, until you entered the gaming room. They looked
like a "front" and so did this, with a peculiar and almost nostalgic similarity.
The people helped the analogy, not just in the polite way that they bowed
around the bar, but by their foreign appearance. The waiters were really too
polite, giving that hush-hush effect of something upstairs that everyone was
supposed to know about and visit before departure.
Here, however, people didn't chat about their wins and losses, whereas at
Monte Carlo, they did.
There was a little talk, though, about a certain gentleman known as Count
Zurich. At intervals, Ted caught the first name 'Bela' and took it to be the
Count's. Not that Ted was any master at the art of deduction; he was simply
checking the signature on his guest card, a very imposing scrawl with
elaborately exaggerated letters that under repeated study and the aid of a few
brandies, writhed themselves into something that could be spelled 'Bela Zurich'.
Meeting Count Bela Zurich was the next step. How to manage it was the
problem.
Ted's guest card had stood the test so far, but it might not do to strain
it. If you rendered yourself too conspicuous about the gaudy Casino Monaco,
with its gilt walls and lavish dining rooms, you might get bounced without
benefit of meeting the proprietor.
Count Zurich was probably on the second floor, somewhere past the doorway
that barred the top of the imposing marble stairs that Ted kept watching until
he began to fear that he might be attracting notice by that very process.
Ted went to a table and ordered dinner, forgetting the stairway except at
those occasional intervals when somebody went up or down.
Ted would have profited by looking elsewhere.
Straight across from Ted's table was a man with a calm, steady face that
scarcely flickered a change of expression. He happened to be an acquaintance of
Grenshaw, but one who knew far more than Ted, regarding what might have happened
to their mutual friend.
The man at the other table was Lamont Cranston.
Somehow, Cranston had a way of not being noticed when he so chose. This
was one of those times; for in gazing at Cranston, Ted practically looked right
through him.
Of course, Ted had other matters on his mind. But when they dispelled, it
wasn't Cranston who scattered them.
It happened when the door opened at the head of the stairs and a suave
man, powerful for all his sleek appearance, came bowing into sight in a fashion
which caused Ted to identify him immediately as Count Zurich. Then, before Ted
had an opportunity to really size the sophisticated proprietor, Zurich was put
in the background.
The lady in red took over.
Specifically, the color was a rich maroon, with the deep tint of a fine
wine. Her dress was one of those remarkable creations that ranked with a court
costume. It curved inward to give the mere suggestion of a waspish waist; then,
spreading most remarkably, the skirt formed a trailing wealth of velvet that
eddied like a mild ocean current, as its occupant came down the stairs, with
the lavish hem trailing behind her.
Ted had only one criticism; the gown should have been spotted, black and
yellow. If it had, this creature would have been the perfect leopard lady. Her
hair, dark as jet, gave the proper contrast to a complexion which matched the
delicate tint of old ivory and such a combination was beautifully in keeping
with the lithe figure that actually stalked its course down the marble stairs.
If gentlemen preferred blondes, Ted was suddenly convinced that he was no
gentleman.
Anything could happen at the Casino Monaco - and did.
Opposite Ted's table, the lady in red paused; her dark eyes lighted as
though actuated by the lips that were pressed apart by perfect teeth that
seemed to smile all on their own. Then, addressing the young man who thought
the merchant marine had been going to take him to adventure instead of bringing
him back to it, this ravishing number wig-wagged a cigarette with its
accompanying holder and inquired:
"A light, m'sieu?"
Ted's hands came from his pockets full of match packs. By the time he had
the necessary light, the exotic brunette was seated across from him, looking
over the flame with those same sparkling eyes, and asking, from a drift of
cigarette smoke:
"We have met before - have we not?"
"Why, I" - Ted caught himself. You couldn't say 'suppose so' to a realized
dream like this. "Why, yes - of course. I remember you - but not the place."
"I am complimented." The brunette gave a trifling nod. "Then you remember
my name. Of course, everyone does, because it is unusual." Here, her bare
shoulders furnished a depreciating shrug. "In this country, a name like Mata
Safi is odd."
She was leaning back now, letting the cigarette smoke curl tantalizingly
toward Ted. Then, in that same soft contralto:
"Where we have met does not matter. I seem to remember a friend of ours,
however. Was it" - the eyes became reflective with the pause - "could it have
been Niles Naseby?"
The name didn't register with Ted. If it had, the spotless leopard lady
would have spotted it. She had that way of looking for answers when she put
questions, though Ted hadn't learned the fact - not yet.
Quite unnoticed, as he preferred to be, a gentleman named Cranston was
taking in all phases of this scene, since the sound of voices reached him
plainly. He almost anticipated the next words that came.
"No, we couldn't have met here in New York." Again, Mata Safi supplied a
delightful shrug that reduced Manhattan to absolute unimportance. "You have
traveled" - she rolled the 'l' instead of the 'r' - "as I can very easily
observe. Perhaps in India - or Australia?"
Marvelous technique, that pause between India and Australia. Mata Safi had
covered a few thousand miles in the space of a single second and within that
interval learned what she wanted. Ted's face, remaining blank on 'India',
showed interest with the mention of 'Australia' which was quite enough. All
Mata Safi had to do was press home the name that she connected with both, to
make sure that Ted only linked it with the latter.
"Our mutual friend!" exclaimed Mata Safi. "I remember now! Cecil
Grenshaw!" Then, her eyes displaying a coquettish twinkle, she added: "But why
have you not brought him along this evening? Is it that he is not in town?"
"It is not," returned Ted, "or he is not, if that explains it better. Were
you expecting Gren - I mean Cecil?"
"I do not know." Again the shoulders shrugged. "He was always the wicked
disappointer. It was tonight that we were to go to the masquerade -"
"And that's why I'm here," put in Ted, fishing in his pockets for the
envelope that held the tickets. "Cecil couldn't make it, so I came along
instead."
Mata's eyes became dubious.
"But you are not in costume."
"Neither are you," parried Ted, as he found the envelope.
"All but except the mask," returned Mata, making a hand-sweep toward her
shimmery gown, and finishing by drawing her hands across her eyes. "With this"
- she spread the skirt of the red gown - "I can be Queen Isabella."
"Which makes me King Ferdinand," laughed Ted, "if I can get to the costume
shop before it closes." He passed the envelope to Mata, so she could read the
advertisement printed there. "Of course you must have dinner first -"
"I have already dined," interposed Mata. "With my friend the Count,
upstairs in the private dining room. Ah, Conte Zurich" - she gave another
meaning shrug - "he is a bore, so frightful!"
Finishing her cigarette, or all she wanted of it, Mata Safi tamped the
rest daintily in an ash-tray as she looked around and inquired:
"And what is keeping us here?"
Nothing was keeping them at the Casino Monaco, not even Ted's fleeting
recollection of another girl who had plunged him into this alluring adventure,
the blonde of undeclared identity who had been at the Hotel Argonne.
So Ted was on his way from the Casino Monaco, with Mata Safi sweeping
along beside him, her shoulders buried in a fur evening wrap that a waiter
hurriedly produced the moment that she waved her finger.
Only Lamont Cranston could have stopped the departure, but he didn't. This
double link to Grenshaw's past would wait until later. Finding this couple at
the Village Masquerade would be quite simple at the proper time.
Cranston had another call before then.
CHAPTER V
NILES NASEBY lived in the penthouse at the Valdemar Apartments and prided
himself on the fact that he could be reached only by search warrant or
helicopter.
Great, therefore, was the surprise of Naseby when he looked up from his
overstuffed chair to see a calm-faced gentleman facing him from the other side
of the living room.
Naseby was as overstuffed as his chair. Shoving himself to his feet he
lunged his unwieldy bulk toward the unwelcome visitor, bellowing an angry
challenge. Naseby stopped when the intruder brought a gun in sight from behind
the back of an undersized secretary named Homer and let the muzzle yawn in
Naseby's own face.
Sliding his weak chin down into his collar, Naseby looked upward under his
dominating brow and inquired rather weakly:
"Who are you?"
"Lamont Cranston is the name," announced the visitor. "Don't blame your
secretary because I'm here. I met him down in the lobby and persuaded him to
bring me up."
Cranston's gesture with the gun defined the persuader that had influenced
Homer. Naseby decided not to blame the secretary. Still uneasy, Naseby inquired:
"What do you want?"
"Perhaps we shouldn't discuss matters with Homer here," returned Cranston.
"He may not know about the tear-drops."
"So that's it!" Naseby blurted. "Then Homer told you -"
"Only Homer didn't tell me," supplied Cranston as Naseby halted. "Thanks
for doing so yourself, Naseby."
Big pudgy fists writhed as though they would have liked to wrap themselves
around Cranston's neck. That being quite impossible, Naseby subsided.
"The tear-drops," said Naseby, uneasily. "What should I know about
tear-drops?"
"I am asking you," reminded Cranston. "To narrow the subject, let me state
that I refer to the Twelve Tear-drops of Buddha, formerly owned by the former
Rajah of Bildapore."
Naseby's hope of bluffing on the question faded when he looked at Homer,
who was obviously qualified to give some details on the subject that interested
Cranston. Still, Naseby was just nasty enough to hope that he could blame his
plight on someone else.
"So Welk told you," Naseby sneered. "I should have known I couldn't trust
the fellow. Like all artists, Sheridan Welk is too conceited to know how dumb
he is."
"We're piecing this nicely, Naseby," observed Cranston, in his casual
tone. "Since Welk was in the deal, it obviously concerns 'Bombay Moon' which is
another interesting point."
The writhe of Naseby's hands indicated that more than ever he would like
to lay them around Cranston's neck.
"A smart producer doesn't lose his shirt on a single flop like Bombay
Moon," continued Cranston. "Certainly not a big producer like yourself" - he
paused, gave an appraising eye to Naseby's towering bulk - "or should I say a
very big producer?"
It was just the right way to bait Naseby, as the glowering man proved.
"All right, I lost somebody else's shirt," stormed Naseby. "So what does
that prove?"
"It proves that sending a show to Australia is the best way to lose some
more money," returned Cranston, "especially in these times."
"We wanted the show to play the army camps," argued Naseby. "There was a
call for talent in Burma -"
"But not a whole musical show," interposed Cranston, "with enough stage
sets for a dozen scenes. The company couldn't stand the trip, as they proved by
the time they reached Australia."
"So we brought the show back," retorted Naseby, "and took the loss
ourselves. We were being patriotic, all of us."
"Including Sheridan Welk?"
"Leave Welk out of this. All he did was design the stage sets. He knows
nothing about -"
"Nothing about Cecil Grenshaw?"
Cranston's interruption was as timely as the others but by now, Naseby was
taking things more coolly. Folding his arms the big man stood erect, lifted his
abbreviated chin defiantly and demanded:
"What do you know about Grenshaw?"
Just to deflate Naseby, Cranston told him.
"Grenshaw operated from Calcutta," reviewed Cranston. "He handled various
transactions - let us say of a highly speculative sort - with the rulers of
certain native states, including Bildapore."
Naseby's lip twisted.
"Of course Grenshaw did very little business in Bildapore," resumed
Cranston, "which was why he was chosen for big business when it came along. You
probably remember when Thangra, the self-styled Rajah of Bildapore, was
denounced as an imposter."
"Everybody remembers it," argued Naseby, "but they didn't believe it at
the time."
"Thangra must have believed it," said Cranston. "because the real rajah,
Abdullah, eventually won his throne."
"Only because Thangra committed suicide -"
"Which was the only way out," completed Cranston. "But there is still the
question of what happened to the Twelve Tear-drops of Buddha, the finest gems
in all India."
"They never belonged to the Rajah of Bildapore," insisted Naseby. "You
can't produce a scrap of evidence to prove it."
"Twelve Tear-drops." The gun muzzle was moving closer, Cranston with it.
"Four rubies, four emeralds, and four diamonds - any single gem in the lot
worth the ransom of a legitimate ruler, which leaves out Thangra."
"There's nothing to prove -"
"Nothing to prove the existence of those tear-drops? Nothing except the
gems themselves. I want them, Naseby."
The gun muzzle moved mere inches from Naseby's chest. The big man cowered.
Naseby's final argument was hoarse with fear.
"You'd murder me to get those gems, wouldn't you?"
"Somebody murdered Grenshaw to get them," was Cranston's calm reply. "I
would prefer to take them out of circulation and place them where they
rightfully belong - for your protection, Naseby."
That point went home. Mention of murder brought a horrified, goggle-eyed
stare from Naseby. However, Cranston was neither deceived nor convinced by the
expression. Among other things, Naseby fancied himself an actor and would be
apt to register an artificial mood. At least he was trying to hide certain
traces of guilt, but how deep they went was another question.
Perhaps Naseby could only blame himself for oversight where Grenshaw's
affairs were concerned. Yet with a stake like Buddha's Twelve Tear-drops, this
man of greed could readily have fancied himself a master of murder.
Possibly Naseby sensed that Cranston thought just that. Under the
persuasion of the gun muzzle, the bulky man showed symptoms like those of
Johnny the waiter. Right or wrong, Naseby was anxious to alibi himself with
this cool, calm-mannered gentleman who acted like a self-appointed instrument
of vengeance working in behalf of Grenshaw. Then, with a nervous wrench, Naseby
halted the hand that he was moving toward his inside pocket.
"Grenshaw isn't dead," argued Naseby, "or if he is, maybe you're the man
to blame. Of course that's your business" - Naseby was hasty to curb any show
of animosity - "and where business is concerned, I always mind my own and let
others do the same."
Cranston's gun point nudged toward Naseby's pocket. With a grimace at his
own stupidity, Naseby shoved his hand into the pocket, produced the envelope
and handed it to Cranston. With one deft hand, the tall visitor drew out the
contents, which proved to be a coat check from the cloak room of the Hotel
Argonne.
Cranston gave the slightest of nods.
"From Grenshaw, of course."
"I suppose so," gruffed Naseby. "Grenshaw was staying at the Argonne.
Maybe it has something to do with those gems you mentioned. Never having heard
of Buddha's Tear-drops before tonight, I naturally wouldn't know."
Cranston's appraising eye surveyed the penthouse windows. Their very
structure proved that this living room was a citadel. Small panes, divided by
heavy metal frames, were definitely bullet proof, judging from the color and
thickness of their glass. The clamps that held those casements shut, were as
strong as the bars on prison cells.
The question of Naseby's protection was thereby settled. He needed none
where Cranston was concerned; at least none beyond the lowering of Cranston's
gun, in case it should go off accidentally. Cranston obligingly put the
automatic in one pocket, the coat check in the other.
Hands still in his pockets, Cranston strolled to the door and paused there.
"A trifle theatrical, all this," conceded Cranston, calmly, "but you seem
to prefer the dramatic. Suppose we drop the curtain until the next act, when I
return, bringing the package that Grenshaw expected you to collect.
"It wouldn't do for you to go to the Argonne yourself. Like Grenshaw, you
bear the mark of a hunted man. Those windows for instance" - with one hand,
Cranston gestured, but that hand came from the pocket with the coat check -
"could be your insurance against enemies. Or they might be just part of the
false front that goes with your personality."
At Cranston's gesture, Naseby had turned to fake a horrified look in the
direction of the windows. Now, he was swinging around again to challenge his
visitor's concluding statement. This time, Naseby's glare was completely wasted.
Only the closed door faced Naseby. Lamont Cranston had departed on the
next stage of his self-appointed mission.
CHAPTER VI
THE anger that swept Niles Naseby stirred him to immediate action.
Pouncing across the room, the big man reached a corner table, snatched open the
drawer, scattered papers right and left, and brought out a revolver.
Brandishing the gun, Naseby started for the door, brushing Homer aside.
Yanking the door open, he halted in a little ante room. In front of him was the
closed door of the elevator shaft; from it came the rumble of a descending car.
Naseby now realized that Cranston had listened all the while he was here;
that hearing no sound of the elevator, the calm visitor had known it awaited
him. Savagely, Naseby slammed the penthouse door, charged back across the
living room and reached the telephone.
There would be a way to intercept Cranston yet! The night watchman was on
the switchboard and Naseby intended to have him flag the passenger from the
automatic elevator.
A few joggles of the phone hook and the watchman's voice responded.
"Listen, Dorgan," snarled Naseby. "There's a man named Cranston coming
down the elevator. You know what he looks like, don't you?"
"Yes, sir," replied Dorgan. "I saw him go upstairs with Homer."
"All right," continued Naseby. "Now whatever you do, don't let him leave
here. Understand? Cranston has a gun, so it may be difficult to stop him, but -"
Odd clicks interrupted Naseby. Then:
"It's all right, Naseby." The calm tone was Cranston's. "Dorgan has a gun,
too, so you can depend on both of us."
"Why, you -"
The rest of Naseby's utterances were lost in furious incoherence, which
Cranston calmly interpreted for Dorgan's benefit.
"Nice of you, Naseby," Cranston continued, "to call the switchboard and
tell Dorgan to look out for me. I'm glad I arrived in time to take over for
him. But really, Naseby, you shouldn't be so disturbed on my account."
Naseby was doing everything to the telephone except bite it. Cranston's
tone, though still even, became a trifle louder so that Dorgan, standing by the
switchboard, wouldn't hear the disturbances across the wire.
"I'll stay right here," added Cranston, "watching the switchboard while
Dorgan goes around the block and hunts those enemies of yours - if any. It's
really his job you know, since he's the watchman here. Meanwhile keep your door
and windows locked and you won't have any trouble. I'll call my friend the
police commissioner and have him send over some detectives to work with Dorgan."
Naseby heard most of it, even though Cranston intended the words for
Dorgan. The finish was the yank of Naseby's line from the downstairs
switchboard. Flinging the telephone aside, Naseby turned vehemently to Homer:
"He's blocked us! He's too smart, this Cranston. He talked Dorgan into
looking for somebody lurking around the neighborhood and the fool fell for it!"
The worried expression that came over Homer's weak face produced a snort
from Naseby.
"You're as bad a fool as Dorgan, Homer. You look as though you suspected
trouble yourself" - Naseby's eyes narrowed - "or do you?"
"No, no," replied Homer, hastily. "I'm sorry, sir. If I hadn't gone out,
well, Cranston wouldn't have met up with me -"
"Just why did you go out, Homer?"
"Only to get some cigarettes. That was all. But if Cranston sent Dorgan
around the block, who's on the switchboard now?"
"Cranston says he is." Angrily, Naseby clicked the phone hook with no
response. "But it's obvious he isn't. He's on his way to the Hotel Argonne and
he'll be there before Dorgan gets back to the switchboard."
"Perhaps if I went downstairs, sir -"
Homer was on the way to the door as he spoke, only to be recalled by
Naseby's snarl.
"And walk into another trap?" demanded Naseby. "How do we know Cranston
hasn't posted someone else on the switchboard - or even cut the wires? A man
would do anything with those gems at stake -"
Pausing, Naseby noted an unusual glint in Homer's eye. It was easy to
understand.
"I didn't tell you about Grenshaw's letter," observed Naseby. "Did I,
Homer?"
A head-shake from Homer.
"You've been opening too much of my mail lately," continued Naseby, his
voice becoming smooth. "That's why I didn't let you see it. Tell me, Homer, how
much do you know about the Twelve Tear-drops of Buddha?"
"Not very much, sir. Only -"
"Only what, Homer?"
Naseby's handling of his revolver was as smooth as his tone. Perhaps he'd
learned some of that technique by watching Cranston, for his manner was deft as
he pressed the gun toward Homer's chest, stopping it a few inches short.
"Maybe you've been talking out of turn. Perhaps you met Cranston purposely
and helped him frame his game -"
What interrupted Naseby wasn't anything from Homer, for the frail
secretary was too disturbed to speak. What Naseby heard was a clatter from the
window; with it, he felt a sweep of incoming air. Turning, he found himself
covered by a dark-faced man who was swinging across the sill.
In contrast to Cranston's easy calm, this intruder had a certain dash. His
gray hat was rakish, tilted at a slant, so that he gave Naseby a one-eyed
glance. About all that Naseby could tell of the man's face was that it was
darkish and mustached.
More important was the man's gun as he came through the window. The
gleaming revolver pointed squarely at Naseby. Naseby didn't understand the
epithet the man delivered, for it came in a foreign tongue, but it evidently
meant that Naseby was to drop his gun, which he did with very ill grace.
The man with the gray hat waved for Homer to pick up Naseby's weapon,
which Homer did. Then:
"You have learned about the Tear-drops?" inquired the man, his tone
foreign in accent. "Where Naseby has put them?"
"Naseby didn't even get them," blurted Homer. "All Grenshaw sent him was a
package check."
"A package check?"
"Yes. From the cloak room at the Argonne."
"Very good. The gems must be in the package."
"I'm afraid they are, boss," admitted Homer. "Only it won't do us much
good. A man named Cranston made Naseby give over the check."
Hope was flushing Naseby's puffy face as he darted glances from Homer to
the man who answered to the title of "boss." Even in his present stress, Naseby
found it easy to piece the details of Homer's treachery. He'd gone out tonight,
Homer had, to meet this chief of his; in fact he'd probably steered him
upstairs, while Dorgan was busy at the switchboard. Only Homer had then met
Cranston, who had taken over pro tem without knowing about the other intruder
in the house.
But that Gray Hat wasn't exactly in the house. He'd stationed himself on
the roof to await a signal from Homer, a simple signal, the opening of one of
those formidable casement windows. Homer's chance to give both the signal and
means of entry had been delayed until after Cranston's departure. He'd managed
it while Naseby was shouting over the telephone with Cranston at the
switchboard.
And the reason that Naseby hoped was this:
However angry Naseby himself had felt toward Homer, the rage of Gray Hat
should be far greater. Naseby expected the man to raise his gun with Homer the
target, which would force the traitor to hasty self-defense. Then would be
Naseby's chance for a break.
Only it didn't happen that way.
The mustached man's chuckle was suave. He seemed quite pleased by the turn
of events. Naseby couldn't understand why until the fellow produced a flashlight
and proffered it to Homer in exchange for Naseby's gun.
"Use this, Homer," ordered Gray Hat. "Signal to our friend Rouge, who is
across the way. He will then telephone to Noir, who is at the Hotel Argonne."
"You mean waiting for Grenshaw?"
"Waiting for anyone who may be looking for Grenshaw." The reply was suave;
the speaker fingered his mustache. "Grenshaw has gone away, you know. But send
the signal, Homer. There will still be time."
Homer leaned from the window and coded the necessary blinks which were
tallied back by tiny flashes from the street. By then, the suave man had seated
himself in Naseby's most comfortable chair, to watch the bulky man from under
the tilt of the gray hat.
So idly was Gray Hat toying with his gun, that Naseby felt he could storm
some more.
"You'll gain nothing from those Tear-drops," insisted Naseby, boldly. "You
won't even be able to sell them. They're worth far more to me than they are to
you."
Gray Hat shrugged.
"You think so?"
"I know it," retorted Naseby. "If you're going on what Welk told you,
you're taking the word of a worse double-crosser than Homer."
"You may be right about Welk." The man with the gun lifted his face to
study Naseby closer, but at the same time, he pressed his mustache with thumb
and forefinger, thus hiding much of his face. "Yes, you may be very right. We
must call on Welk, Rouge and I."
Naseby was straining forward, hoping to learn his visitor's identity. That
thumb and forefinger kept baiting him, drawing him closer. The other hand, which
now held Naseby's gun, the intruder having pocketed his own, was idle, almost
limp in the way it held the weapon.
Naseby lunged.
Like a snake's head, the gun muzzle reared. The flame that spurted from it
had the sharp dart of a poison fang. Naseby took the stab right in the heart and
his body slumped to the floor heavily. Rising, Gray Hat pushed the sprawled form
aside with his foot and turned to Homer.
The traitor was standing horrified.
"Don't worry, Homer." The murderer's tone had all its former suavity.
"Naseby knew too much, like Grenshaw."
"Like Grenshaw?" Homer's horror increased. "Then you mean -"
"Soon they will be dragging the river for Grenshaw's body, and they will
find it. But it does not matter now."
There were clicking sounds from the telephone receiver which was lying off
its hook. Dorgan was back at the switchboard.
"Answer it," ordered the murderer. "Say that Cranston has just killed
Naseby - with Naseby's own gun."
Picking up the telephone, Homer gulped that very information to Dorgan;
then clattered the receiver on the hook. His dilemma at that moment was
complete.
"Dorgan is coming up," expressed Homer. "Coming right up. I've got to
think of something to tell him. Maybe you can help."
Gray Hat helped, with Naseby's gun.
This time the revolver coughed twice, both stabs punching the center of
Homer's back at close range. As the traitor coiled with a sinking groan, the
double murderer wiped the gun handle with a handkerchief and tossed the weapon
between the two bodies.
Swinging across the sill, the man with the gray hat used his handkerchief
to push the casement shut. Then he was gone, leaving the scene in the living
room to tell its own false story!
CHAPTER VII
ENTERING the lobby of the Argonne, Lamont Cranston heard the distant wail
of an approaching siren and smiled. Coincidences of this sort were common in
Manhattan.
There wasn't one chance in a million or more that Niles Naseby would
despatch the police to this scene. All Cranston had needed was enough leeway to
reach the Argonne first and the Tear-drops of Buddha would be his.
People like Naseby didn't publicize their claim on stolen gems. They
usually tried other ways to get back something that someone else had lost.
Over his arm, Cranston was carrying a cloak and hat that he didn't intend
to check. Being black, they were inconspicuous against Cranston's evening
clothes, those regalia that formed the habit of The Shadow. That arm was turned
away when Cranston stopped at the cloak room counter and tapped with a coin that
he held together with Grenshaw's package check.
Service was very poor, here at the Argonne cloak room. Nobody answered
Cranston's summons and looking for the reason, he saw it.
It was seldom that people checked shoes in a hotel cloak room. When they
did, they didn't leave them with their toes pointed upward in a corner under
some coats.
Unhitching the hinged counter, Cranston slapped it upward and stepped
through, letting it fall behind him. Brushing coats aside, he saw the man who
served the check room, sitting with his hands tied behind him. The fellow's
face was pale, what little Cranston could see of it. The man was heavily gagged
with a muffler.
Pulling the gag free, Cranston flourished the package check in front of
the man's eyes. With sirens howling outside and police whistles blowing in the
lobby, it was evident that something was amiss at the Hotel Argonne. It would
be much better to explain things to this attendant and learn his story, here in
the solitude of the cloak room, than to get mixed in the hubbub of the lobby.
Apparently the bound man couldn't see the check number in the gloom, so
Cranston pulled him to his feet. Without waiting to be unbound, the fellow
lowered his head and butted forward, letting out a wild howl:
"Help - police - there's a thief here -"
Two brawny cops came charging through where the counter should have been.
They too were shouting.
"It's the murderer!"
"That fellow Cranston!"
This was no time for that fellow Cranston to hesitate. How or why the
police were on his trail could be discussed later with the proper parties.
Right now the cops were thinking that to shoot first and ask questions later
would be their best policy. Their only trouble was that they had to spread in
order to avoid the bound attendant who came toppling between them.
With one hand, then the other, Cranston swept packages from the shelves at
each side of the cloak room. A few of those packages were the size of suitcases
and as heavy. The two patrolmen took the miniature avalanche and ducked while
Cranston was twirling back among the coats.
Odd how a minor detail could impress a photographic mind in the midst of
all that action.
This was the detail:
On the shelf at the left, where packages were neatly arranged in numerical
order, there had been a small but noticeable gap corresponding with the number
of the check that Cranston had acquired from Naseby!
Somebody had come and gone, within the past few minutes, taking the
precious package and leaving the attendant bound and gagged in the process. The
interval could not have been long, otherwise the attendant wouldn't have
mistaken Cranston for the person who had grabbed him.
Mistaking Cranston for himself would be difficult right now. In that twist
into the recesses of the cloak room, he had slid his arms into the black cloak
and clamped the slouch hat on his head. Finding The Shadow would be difficult,
visually speaking, but if the police began whacking around with canes - of
which there were several in the cloak room - or shooting up coats at random, it
wouldn't take them long.
What The Shadow wanted was a quick way out and he played a hunch to find
one.
Whoever had waylaid the cloak room attendant must have maneuvered it from
these depths. How the lurker had gotten in here was the question, particularly
on what The Shadow was sure must have been very short notice. Shoving his hands
high in the deepest darkness, The Shadow found what he hoped would be there, a
small grating, which served as a ventilator.
The thing was clamped from above, that was the trouble, and to shove it
loose The Shadow needed help. Fortunately, assistance came in the person of the
attendant who was now free of his bonds and was shouting that he knew where the
marauder had gone.
As the fellow lunged ahead to blaze the trail for the police, The Shadow
hooked the grating and hauled himself up to it. Then, down came The Shadow's
feet, squarely on the shoulders of the astonished man who arrived among the
coats; using this improvised springboard, The Shadow drove his own shoulders
hard upward, knocking the light clamps free. Then, with a spin of his feet, he
turned his human springboard into a living missile that came reeling out from
the coats to block the charging police.
By the time the blundering was over and guns were shooting up through the
narrow shaft, The Shadow was out of it and out of the Hotel Argonne too.
Dropping into an alley, he merged with the customary blackness that so often
shrouded his rapid and mysterious departures.
It was some twenty-odd blocks from the Hotel Argonne to Greenwich Village.
The Shadow was forced to make something of a detour in the waiting cab that took
him there, because police cars were cluttering the Argonne's neighborhood.
However, Shrevvy, The Shadow's practiced driver, was used to such vehicular
obstacles and knew how to dodge them. Tonight, however, The Shadow made Shrevvy
cut those tactics to a minimum.
There was no time to lose in reaching the next destination, the studio of
an artist named Sheridan Welk.
It wouldn't have helped to stop and phone the police. The time lost would
be enough for The Shadow to reach there first. Finding Welk's studio was easy,
for it was well-known in the village. Nicely stocked with skylights, it reared
a full floor above the adjacent buildings, with side windows toward the flat,
chimneyed roofs of those older houses.
The entrance to Welk's studio was just two doors from a place called the
Kit-Kat Costume Shop. Next to Welk's, on the other side, stood a similar
studio, but older, vacant, and not so well equipped with skylights. However,
the two formed the only twin job of their particular type, which made them all
the easier to pick out.
Lights were visible from Welk's frosted windows when The Shadow literally
twisted from the passing cab. It was amazing, the way his cloaked figure could
whirl from a car door, skim the curb, and finish its spin into a designated
doorway. Playing the side-pockets was what Shrevvy termed it, although the
cabby never needed to look back to learn how his chief had made out.
This trip, The Shadow not only went straight through the doorway, but
turned his drive into a climb up the steep stairs, two steps at a time. There
were three such flights to go, each with a landing, and The Shadow was making
such short work of them that it seemed certain that the precious seconds would
add up in his favor.
Until The Shadow arrived at the last turn. At that point, he heard a hand
give a final rap on the door of Welk's studio, and with it, the clattering of
the opening door.
Another instant and a sharp-pitched voice told that Sheridan Welk had
admitted the wrong visitors, just too soon!
CHAPTER VIII
THINGS happened as rapidly as The Shadow hoped they wouldn't.
Coming up the last stretch of stairs, The Shadow saw Welk's head and
shoulders, a bearded face above an artist's smock, reeling back into the studio
under the surge of two opponents, one a man with a gray hat; the other heavy,
stoop-shouldered, and shaggy-haired.
A few steps more and The Shadow could have picked the right targets with
his ready automatic, but by then, the trio had reeled into the studio. The
Shadow saw Welk twist and fling a hand toward the wall; with it, the lights
went out as Welk pressed the switch.
Then, from the blackened studio came two sharp gun-shots; drowning their
echoes, The Shadow heard a girl's wild scream. As he reached the top of the
stairs, there was the clatter of a window, indicating that someone had escaped.
Just to certify that question, The Shadow delivered a taunting laugh that
invited Welk's murderers to come back and deal with him instead of some
helpless fugitive.
The two men took the challenge.
Piling out into the path of The Shadow's gun, they were asking The Shadow
for one of his mathematical demonstrations proving that odds of two to one
always worked in strict reverse. But before they even showed their faces, let
alone their guns, The Shadow heard footsteps come up to the landing just below
him.
Flattening against the stairs, The Shadow let a knife sizzle past him. It
buried itself in the top step, just a few inches above his head, and he was
rolling over as it burrowed there. The old Kentucky riflemen used to have a
trick of lying back against a tree and propping a long gun between their feet;
and The Shadow could duplicate it very nicely with an automatic, taking care of
course that his feet weren't where the imaginary barrel would have been.
He did the stunt right now, but the man on the landing had recoiled with
the knife throw and was loping down the steps again, his cap pulled over his
eyes. The Shadow's bullet just skimmed the fellow's sweatered shoulder.
The sweater was black, worn by the same man who had looked into Grenshaw's
hotel room, the time Ted Trent met the blonde. He was the man who answered to
the name of Noir, a point on which The Shadow was not yet informed.
Upstairs, Noir's running mate, the shaggy-haired man called Rouge, was
thrusting a big red face from Welk's studio. A quick snarl came from behind him
and a man in a gray hat pulled Rouge back into the dark. The door slammed and
its bolt clattered home as The Shadow completed his roll and pumped two shots
from the head of the stairs.
The Shadow's shots splintered the door but not where it counted. He
supplied that detail when he reached the door itself, shooting the bolt away
with the woodwork. Wheeling into the room, The Shadow crossed to the dim light
of the big side windows and let his automatic rove the next door roof.
If Rouge and Gray Hat had gone that direction, The Shadow could have
stopped them before they reached the low roof door in the second house away.
But there were no signs of the two fugitives, nor the one who had taken the
roof route earlier.
Turning, The Shadow saw from this new angle that the lowest skylight in
the studio was dangling. Reaching it, he thrust his head through and saw only
the closed panes of the twin studio. Welk's murderers had gone that direction,
clamping the next door skylight behind them. With the start that they had
gained, tracing them by clues would be better than pursuit.
Besides, there might not be too much time to pick up clues around Welk's
studio.
Turning on the lights, The Shadow studied Welk's body. They'd made quick
work of the bearded artist, those murderers who had reached their goal so
shortly ahead of The Shadow. The third man was obviously the one who had stolen
Grenshaw's package from the Argonne cloak room and had evidently left it
somewhere on the way here. At least The Shadow had outraced that member of the
murder clan.
As for Welk's death, it mattered little more than Naseby's. Or than what
had happened to Grenshaw.
Crooks to the core, all three had paid the penalty. It was important now
to locate others whose concern was crime before they concentrated on
undeserving victims.
Finding nothing more than a pack of cigarettes in the pockets of Welk's
smock, The Shadow stepped to a rack that bore a coat and vest. In those he
found a wallet containing some money and the usual identification papers.
Nothing, though, that linked with Grenshaw or jewels.
There were other clothes hanging in a dressing room, among them a blue
dress belonging to the girl who had fled with a scream. On a table rested a
hand-bag; going through its contents, The Shadow found only one item of
identification. It was a card that bore the name and address:
SUSAN BIGELOW
14 Mayhew Place
So far The Shadow had followed the practice of leaving all clues on each
scene of crime.
Here, however, the policy was unwise.
Persons unknown were intent on murdering all persons known who had any
inkling as to the presence in America of certain rare gems called the Twelve
Tear-drops of Buddha. To attach an innocent party to that business might be the
equivalent of signing a death warrant.
Though an old hand at stopping murder, The Shadow couldn't point with
pride to his recent box-score. At least he could insure the future by covering
the identity of potential victims. The less clues the better concerning Susan
Bigelow, the model who had made a rapid escape while murderers were busy
killing Welk.
So The Shadow bundled the blue dress and its accompanying garments into an
old suitcase that was large enough to accommodate the purse as well. The
suitcase bore Welk's initials, but it was unimportant.
Having learned the name of Susan Bigelow, The Shadow wanted to know what
she looked like. Stepping out into the studio, he stopped at a canvas that had
toppled face down from its easel when the model had run into it during her dash
from the platform where she had been posing.
Sirens were howling outdoors as The Shadow lifted the large painting.
Whatever Welk's faults, he rated as an exacting artist and this painting,
practically completed, formed as accurate a description of the missing model as
the eye could demand. To The Shadow, the girl represented a newcomer in the
case, but Ted Trent could have told him differently.
Those vivid blue eyes, peering from a rounded face beneath a wealth of
fluffy hair, belonged to the very blonde who had met Ted in the doorway of
Grenshaw's much mauled hotel room!
Maybe Ted wouldn't have recognized Susan with her hair down, but that was
also outside The Shadow's present range of calculation, since he linked Ted
with a brunette named Mata Safi. To The Shadow, the painting was just another
clue that might divert the police from their quest of finding missing
murderers, so he rolled the canvas and thrust it through the handle of the
suitcase.
Then, hearing heavy laboring footsteps on the stairs below, The Shadow
crossed the studio and stepped out through the window which had accepted Susan
into the balmy night. Reaching the second roof, he found the open door and
descended creaky stairs that led past some store rooms until it reached the
door of the costume shop on the ground floor.
There, The Shadow paused with his hand on the knob. Without even turning
it, he could hear the sound, though faintly. It came from another door at the
rear of the Kit-Kat Shop. Turning his own knob silently, The Shadow entered a
grotesque place where devil masks, cat's heads and other weird contrivances
could be seen on the high shelves that caught the light from a transom.
Swiftly, smoothly, The Shadow moved between the counters and reached the
back door. As he opened it in his previous silent fashion, he heard muffled
police whistles, rapping clubs, and other sounds relating to law and order. All
were remote, because this door opened on a narrow rear passage, tucked between
buildings, that led to a side street well away from the front of Welk's studio
building.
Though the passage was pitch-dark, The Shadow could trace someone moving
through it, for he caught the click of high heels that reached the street and
turned there. Since Susan's own shoes were among the appurtenances of the
suitcase, The Shadow could account for her stopover in the Kit-Kat Shop. She
had simply supplied the deficiencies of costume that Welk required with his
models, and since the Kit-Kat Shop specialized in masquerade costumes, Susan's
next stop would logically be the Masked Ball that was being flung in this very
neighborhood, according to the small talk that The Shadow, as Cranston, had
heard between Ted Trent and Mata Safi.
Crashing that affair appealed to The Shadow too, since everyone else was
going to be there.
Reaching the side street, The Shadow paused only to toss the suitcase and
the rolled painting into Shrevvy's cab as it cruised past; then, striding
boldly to the entrance of a lighted building, he became the last late-comer to
buy the only remaining ticket to the Bal Masque.
The orchestra was stopping as The Shadow joined the fringe of masqueraders
in the ground-floor dance hall. What stopped it was a whistle that the customers
mistook for the start of an old-fashioned Paul Jones, until they saw that a
uniformed patrolman was on the blowing end.
"Everybody stays indoors!" the policeman ordered. "Nobody on the street
until further notice. There's been a serious crime committed in this
neighborhood and we're looking for the culprits. We don't need help from
nobody, and that means you!"
The cop gave a general gesture as he turned and it was by sheer
coincidence that his hand finished its wave directly toward the last person who
had entered: a man dressed in black cloak and slouch hat. Immediately a sweep of
laughter stirred the ball room, accompanied by a round of jests.
"So the police don't need anyone - not even The Shadow!"
"Whoever that fellow is, he picked the right outfit for the right night."
"I'll bet the cops are passing up their best bet."
"Say, Mr. Shadow, what crime is this they're talking about?"
"Only The Shadow knows!"
The last statement was nearly right. Only The Shadow did know, with the
exception of a masked blonde who had reached the Masked Ball just before him!
CHAPTER IX
If the demure girl in the Quaker costume hadn't raised her mask, Ted Trent
wouldn't have recognized her. He'd been looking for her most of the evening, and
maybe she knew it, for she was looking his way when she gave the mask a lift.
Above the smile that was forced for the occasion, the girl showed those blue
eyes that Ted had not forgotten; then he noticed that tendrils of blonde hair
were peeking from the Quaker bonnet.
At that moment, the chap with the black cloak and hat cut in and relieved
Ted of Mata Safi, his present partner. Equipped with a red mask that matched
the maroon gown and wearing a tinsel crown, Mata was an excellent Isabella. As
King Ferdinand, Ted hadn't made out so well at the Kit-Kat Shop. His costume
was too big and the crown kept sliding down and pushing his mask below his
eyes, which was why the Quaker Lady had recognized him.
"I thought you'd be here," the blonde said, sweetly, as Ted cut in and
took her from an irate partner. "Only why didn't you phone me? You had two
tickets."
"Phone you?" exclaimed Ted. "Why, I don't even know your name!"
"How stupid of me to forget to tell you. lt's Susan Bigelow. You'll
remember it, won't you?"
"And the phone number?"
"The address is easier to remember. Number Fourteen, Mayhew Place."
"Far from here?"
"Not very." Changing the subject abruptly, the blonde asked: "Why didn't
you notice me when I smiled at you earlier?"
"Why - why, I guess I didn't -"
"Don't say you didn't see me! I looked your way at least a dozen times. I
hope you haven't forgotten me because of that Lady in Red. Who is she, by the
way?"
"Her name is Mata Safi. I'll introduce you to her later."
"How thoughtful of you!"
The blonde's sarcasm was purposely mild; since she was depending upon Ted
for an alibi, she didn't want to antagonize him. Then, anxiously, she inquired:
"You haven't told anyone that you met me at Grenshaw's?"
"I'm not supposed to be at Grenshaw's," returned Ted, with a smile. "The
room is still his and we don't want any argument with the hotel. So we can both
consider this our first meeting."
That suited the blonde perfectly. But it wasn't quite to the liking of a
lady in red, who was watching the conversation from a distance. Mata Safi was
much more interested in the "first" meeting between Ferdinand and the Quaker
lady than she was in talking to her black-cloaked dancing partner, who seemed
to prefer silence.
As the dance ended, Mata was quick to find a phone booth, where she
hastily dialed a number. When a voice answered at the other end, she spoke
quickly in French:
"Rouge et Noir."
Very apropos, those words, signifying "red and black." They could apply to
Mata and her recent partner where the colors of their costumes were concerned;
but that wasn't all.
The number that Mata had dialed was the same unlisted number that Johnny
the waiter had called from The Cave. In tracing it, The Shadow had found that
it was located in a house next door to the Casino Monaco.
Again, the passwords that Mata had spoken were appropriate. The terms
"rouge" and "noir" applied specifically to the red and black numbers on a
roulette wheel, the gaming device with which the name Casino Monaco was
associated.
The Shadow had called that number today, but the receiver had hung up when
he said "Hello." That was because he hadn't known the countersign, but he was
learning it now, for in the darkness beside the corner phone booth the cloaked
masquerader was listening to all that Mata Safi said.
Just to check on listeners, the Red Lady had left the booth door open, but
she wasn't expecting an eavesdropper to be almost at her elbow. When she drifted
glances from the phone booth, Mata directed them out to the dance floor.
"So, you are back already, Bela?" There was purred query in Mata's tone.
Then: "You say you did not leave at all?... Good, that makes it much the
better... I then have something to tell you. There has been crime here in the
village, near the masquerade...
"What sort of crime? I do not know... The young man, this Ted Trent? He
knows nothing... But the girl, the blonde one, she may know... Yes, she is here
too, but I did not see her until the police told us to stay...
"About fifteen minutes ago, it was... The police? They are gone now... No,
I do not suppose that they will worry about any of the masqueraders... Yes,
Bela" - Mata's voice reduced to a hiss as she leaned close to the telephone and
her eyes glittered through the mask slits - "whatever it is you wish to know, I
think the girl can tell you... To find her? It is very easy; she is wearing
plain gray, a Quaker lady costume."
As she spoke, Mata was watching the girl in question, who was just
beginning the next dance with Ted. It was plain that the blonde inspired the
snake's sparkle from Mata's eyes, as well as her verbal suggestions to Bela.
And then:
"The pierrot and the cavalier," said Mata, repeating something that she
heard from the telephone. "Good, I shall watch for them... Only remember, this
Ted knows nothing... Should he be important, I will find out..."
There was something quite alluring in that final sentence, which might
have intrigued Ted had he heard it. Apparently, Mata Safi believed that she
could swing Ted's sentiments to the brunette side of the ledger when new
occasion offered.
An hour after Mata made that phone call, the masquerade ended.
People were taking off their masks and getting their first full views of
faces that had bothered them all evening, which applied particularly to Mata
Safi and Susan Bigelow. Brunette and blonde were crossing swords with glances
while Ted stood by, wondering why he was forgotten. In Ted's experience, people
who liked him invariably liked each other, but the rule didn't hold tonight.
A growing buzz among the unmasked patrons suddenly ended the daggery looks
that the two girls were tossing. Like Ted, the ladies in red and gray turned to
learn the stir. The customers were annoyed because one of their number had
departed without the courtesy of unmasking.
He happened to be the masquerader who had appeared in the costume of that
famous crime hunter, The Shadow!
Maybe it was just part of his act, whoever he happened to be. But the
rumors that were buzzing linked back to the talk of crime an hour earlier. Such
talk worried another patron, the blonde who wore the Quaker costume. Then,
sensing that The Shadow's departure had been a smart precedent, the girl called
Susan Bigelow decided to copy it.
Spotting the blonde just before she reached the door, Mata Safi gripped
Ted's arm and said:
"Come quickly!"
Mata gave a gesture as she spoke and it was meant for two new patrons who
had shifted in from the door, their masks still covering their faces. Only Mata
recognized them as newcomers who had joined the throng: one, heavy and
stoop-shouldered, wore a harlequin costume that answered to the term of
pierrot; the other, thin and limber, was in cavalier attire that fitted him
worse than Ted's regal robes.
The finish of Mata's hand sweep indicated Susan, the girl in gray, while
under her breath, Mata spoke, the phrase:
"Rouge et Noir!"
"What's that?" asked Ted. Then, a bit puzzled: "Why, where's Susan?"
"This way -"
There was firmness in the slender hand clamp that Mata laid on Ted's arm,
but her fingernails, long, tigerish though they were, couldn't penetrate the
thick velvet of the kingly costume. Mata was trying to draw Ted toward another
exit, but by then, he saw Susan, pressing toward the door.
"There she goes! Come along!"
In the swirl of departing patrons things happened fast.
A badly matched pair of joymakers, pierrot and cavalier, suddenly gathered
Susan from either side and started her into a waiting cab. Spreading a path
through other masqueraders, Ted Trent came lunging fists first, in the fashion
of a dock fighter. Ted's only trouble was he came too fast.
As he reached the pierrot and harlequin, they met him on the recoil,
hurling Ted back involuntarily. The reason was that Susan was already in the
grip of the missing masquerader, The Shadow!
He'd whirled in from nowhere, hooking Rouge and Noir with well-planted
punches that would have laid them on their haunches if Ted hadn't stopped them
by arriving too soon. But Ted, in his hot-headed effort to stage a rescue,
thought that Rouge and Noir were attacking him by design, and at The Shadow's
say-so.
Ted made a break through and let his fist ride at the fighter in black.
Out of sight, out of mind were Rouge and Noir, but that was only Ted's
opinion. Behind him flashed two weapons, a pierrot's revolver and a cavalier's
dirk. They were aimed for Ted's back, to hew him down and clear the path to The
Shadow.
Fortunately, The Shadow was swifter.
A gun-weighted fist ascended with a backhand uppercut that lifted Ted chin
first, scaling him back between those converging weapons. The pierrot tripped
across Ted's landing form and stumbled headlong into the cab, but the snarling
cavalier turned to complete his knife thrust toward Ted's prone figure.
Twisting in its gloved fist, The Shadow's gun released a well-aimed spurt.
Luck was Noir's this time.
The cavalier's scrawny knife-hand was literally wrenched from the bullet's
path by a tigerish female clad in red, who had followed after Ted. The snarl
that Mata Safi gave was venomous as her fingernails went for Noir's throat.
Just ahead of The Shadow's gun-jab, Mata had saved Noir's knife-hand, if not
his life.
Mata wasn't getting thanked for it. Noir was trying to fling this flaming
hell-cat into the taxicab, so that he could get back at The Shadow, foolish
though that was. Rouge, however, was smart enough to yank his comrade into the
cab, which promptly whipped away with slamming door. Then came an engulfing
horde of neutral masqueraders, suddenly imbued with the notion that something
ought to be done about something.
Since they'd seen The Shadow use his gun, they took it that he was in the
wrong, this mere masquerader who had usurped the title of crime's Nemesis. In
the midst of disorganized brawlers, The Shadow disrupted them further, by a
rapid whirl wherein every startled opponent could have sworn that the
brandished gun was meant just for him.
The crowd stampeded so completely that the street was cleared like magic.
Into a cab that halted with shrieking brakes, The Shadow shoved Ted's groggy
form and followed. Shivery mirth halted costumed folk in their tracks, stunned
by the conviction that this had really been The Shadow!
There were two persons, however, who hadn't waited for that denouement.
Seeing that Ted was safe, they had streaked in opposite directions, rather than
be questioned later. One streak was gray, the other red. The blonde and brunette
who vied for Ted's favor, were postponing their rivalry until some future
occasion.
At present, the blonde predominated; for when Ted woke up and found
himself in a speeding cab, all he said was: "Susan!"
A voice spoke beside Ted, a calm voice from a man who introduced himself
as Lamont Cranston. Disclaiming all heroism, Cranston simply stated that Ted
had blundered into his cab, out of a free-for-all that was injuring the
reputation of a dance hall known as the Village Mill.
Ted acknowledged all that with a nod; then, his recollections clearing, he
exclaimed:
"But I've got to find her! Susan Bigelow! I know her address - Fourteen
Mayhew Place."
Cranston repeated the address to the driver.
A quiet street, Mayhew Place. Seeing the number twelve on a lighted
entrance, Ted sprang from the cab expecting to find fourteen next door. It was,
but it wasn't numbered because there wasn't any house.
There was merely a triangular landmark, wedged between two old-fashioned
buildings, and fronted by a picket fence upon which Ted leaned as he stared at
this quietest spot in a very quiet neighborhood.
Number Fourteen was an old Colonial cemetery, with a dull bronze plate
stating that it had been preserved by the Society of Revolutionary Dames. But
what Ted Trent stared at was the nearest tomb-stone, with its flat surface that
caught the light from the house next door, revealing the inscription:
In Memory Of
Susan Bigelow
Who Passed to Glory
A. D. 1769
CHAPTER X
TED TRENT had to hand it to Lamont Cranston.
The best that Ted had managed in New York was to borrow a hotel room - and
on a snide basis at that - whereas Lamont Cranston had promoted a whole suite
and a large one.
Nor was this five-room job in a tourist-packed hostelry like the Argonne.
Cranston had promoted it at the Hotel Ramorez, a swank spot that overlooked
Central Park.
As a hide-out, the Ramorez suite was ultra de luxe. The term "hideout"
applied, because Cranston was badly wanted by the law and could afford to take
Ted into confidence only because his friend was close to the same dilemma.
The newspapers told it this way: Two nights ago, Lamont Cranston had
entered the penthouse of one Niles Naseby, noted theatrical producer and recent
sponsor of the quarter-million flop 'Bombay Moon.' Backing his threat with a
lethal weapon in the form of an automatic pistol, Cranston had forced Naseby to
yield a package check covering an item left in the cloak room at the Hotel
Argonne.
Leaving the penthouse, Cranston had despatched Dorgan, the night watchman,
on a fool's errand in order to nullify the switchboard. Returning to the
penthouse, he had deprived Naseby of his own revolver; had then wantonly slain
him with that same weapon, and had followed this crime by shooting one Homer
Bellfinger, Naseby's secretary, in the back.
All this had been pieced from Dorgan's testimony, plus the accusation that
Homer had made across the telephone, immediately following Naseby's murder.
There was another factor. Homer had lived long enough to talk - but not
too much.
If the actual murderer had planned it that way, he couldn't have struck
better luck. While coughing facts to Dorgan, Homer hadn't gotten past the
Cranston theme before he succumbed.
Or it might be - this notion was Cranston's - that Homer, not knowing he
was through, had purposely shipped the burden onto Cranston on the chance that
a murderous lurker was waiting with a few more shots for Homer and Dorgan both,
in case the right tale wasn't told.
Anyway, it was Homer's dying testimony that had sent the police to the
Hotel Argonne in time to discover Cranston in the very act of robbery for which
he had allegedly gone there.
The cloak room attendant, one Elliott Bruce, was thoroughly reliable
except in one particular. Having been throttled by hands emerging from the
overcoats; then bound and gagged by those same hands, he supposed that the man
who next came into sight was the criminal.
That man answered to the exact description of Lamont Cranston, wealthy
club-man, friend of the police commissioner, noted world traveler, and a lot of
other things that could make life such a bore that turning to crime would be the
only way to relieve the distressing monotony.
Where Cranston had gone next, nobody knew, so the police traced things
backward.
And what they found out!
The cloak room attendant remembered that the package had been checked by
Cecil Grenshaw, an exporter from Calcutta, whose business of shipping Chutney
and other products of India had fallen off because of the war. Grenshaw hadn't
been seen since the night he left the package, but his room had been occupied
by a younger man whose friendly habit of smiling innocently at chambermaids had
caused them to remember him.
The description of the false Mr. Grenshaw tallied so perfectly with Ted
Trent that he was afraid to look at himself in any of the mirrors in the
Ramorez suite, on the chance that he would scream: "You're wanted!"
That wasn't all.
In checking on Grenshaw, the police had learned that he had left a note at
his favorite bar, The Cave, advising Cranston to meet him at the Black Star
Pier. The finding of Grenshaw's broken watch in the office of that pier had led
to a dragging of the river. Too heavily weighted to be hauled far by the tide,
Grenshaw's body had eventually been brought up with the grappling hooks.
This made it look all the worse for Cranston and certainly didn't favor
Ted, the unknown, whose occupancy of Room 408 at the Argonne had all the
ear-marks of an attempt to cover the facts, as well as the time, of Grenshaw's
death.
How Cranston could smile about all this, Ted didn't know. He was smiling
right now, as he showed a newspaper to Ted.
"Well, fellow accomplice," declared Cranston, "they haven't linked either
of us with Welk's murder even though we were right in the vicinity."
Ted gave a grunt.
"At least that's a help."
"I'm not so sure." Folding his arms, Cranston gazed from the window.
"Since every accusation has a flaw, the more flaws the better. Unfortunately,
Welk knew so many eccentric characters who didn't like him, that the police
will be a long time tying his case in where it belongs. It would be best to
give them a tip-off, except -"
"Except for Susan, or whoever she is?"
"That's one reason. The main reason, in fact, is she can only give us a
lead to the Twelve Tear-drops of Buddha."
Another grunt from Ted.
"What about Mata Safi?" Ted demanded. "Or that phoney Count Zurich who
runs the Casino Monaco?"
"They are being watched," assured Cranston, quietly, "but neither one has
made a move. Zurich never leaves the Casino Monaco. Mata is there part of the
time, the rest at her hotel."
"And what hotel is that?"
"The Ramorez."
"You mean - right here?"
"Two floors above," replied Cranston with a nod. "But she never makes
phone calls except when she orders flowers - or drinks."
Ted was incredulous.
"How do you know all that?"
"My man is on the switchboard," smiled Cranston, "and his name isn't
Dorgan. It's very easy to place competent help these days" - he paused as Ted
gave a startled look when someone rapped at the door - "including waiters."
Cranston was right. It was a waiter, bringing dinner, and looking at the
fellow, Ted realized that he was far more intelligent in appearance than the
usual hotel servant. The waiter delivered a sizeable package along with the
tray and Cranston gave him a similar bundle in return. This wasn't the first
exchange of the sort, as Ted now remembered.
The flat package contained photographs, and Cranston began to study them
as soon as the waiter had left. Cranston invariably glanced through such
collections while he ate, but Ted hadn't inquired why. Now, he was to learn.
Cranston's eye stopped on one photograph, and he laid it aside. Stepping
to the closet, he drew out a canvas and began to unroll it. The canvas revealed
a rounded face with blue eyes, saucy nose and solemn lips, along with a wealth
of blonde hair that streamed down over very lovely shoulders. Pausing there,
Cranston turned the canvas into the light.
"Recognize her?"
"Why, it's -"
"A. D. 1769," said Cranston, with a nod. "But without the Quaker costume.
Compare it with the modern version, the photograph."
Ted looked at the photo. It was the portrait of a blonde wearing an
evening gown cut to about the distance at which Cranston had stopped unrolling
the painting. The two were identical; in fact, the photograph might have been a
camera shot of the painting rather than the girl who had posed for both.
Rolling the canvas, Cranston pointed it toward the photograph.
"Turn it over," he told Ted. "Find out who she is."
On the other side, Ted found a typewritten paper pasted to the photograph.
It gave the girl's name as Janice Moreland, daughter of Heywood Moreland,
retired banker, who lived on Central Park West. It listed other data, including
the college that Janice had attended, along with her favorite sports, which
included tennis and yachting.
Ted's admiration of the photograph was exceeded by a kindred sentiment
toward Cranston's ingenuity in acquiring the picture and its accompanying
information. All Ted could say was:
"How did you ever manage it?"
"Simply enough," returned Cranston. "Nobody with all those looks could
have been a regular fugitive from a photographer. So I sent people to the
better photo studios, asking for pictures of stand-out blondes. It was to be an
advertising contest and all that, requiring permission to use file photographs,
of course. That meant including names with the pictures."
Looking at the other photographs, Ted saw that all were blondes. Recalling
the other packages, Ted decided that Cranston must have looked over about five
hundred before uncovering the proper candidate in this game of Find the Lady.
"Janice Moreland," mused Cranston. "I begin to understand why old Heywood
Moreland had his last stroke."
"You mean his life was threatened?" asked Ted.
"No, I mean his fortune," replied Cranston. "I have an idea that he was
one of the backers of Bombay Moon."
"I thought the show was Naseby's."
"It was, but Naseby never lost his own money on anything. An ex-banker is
just the sort of backer he could take over. Now with Welk as the link -"
"Why Welk?"
"Somebody of his caliber must have done the elaborate stage sets that were
used in Bombay Moon, even though the show folded so quickly that nobody took
credit. But there is no use speculating, when we can probably get the right
answer."
"From whom?"
Gazing from the window, Cranston studied the dusk that was settling over
the Park, as though appraising its quality. The sky was cloudy, promising the
sort of dark night when murderers - real or alleged - could safely be at large.
It was when he had finished that survey that Cranston answered Ted's query
with the simple but conclusive statement:
"From Janice Moreland."
CHAPTER XI
Who could pass up a half-price chance to buy a yacht with a quick re-sale
value?
Certainly not Janice Moreland, when she heard the offer over the
telephone. But half an hour later, when the yacht-owners walked into the
Moreland living room, Janice forgot all about boats.
Meeting Ted Trent, the girl began to stammer excuses that ended abruptly
when he introduced Lamont Cranston.
Then the girl really froze.
Thinking of the murders, Janice was looking at the telephone, wondering
how she could reach it, when Cranston calmly intervened:
"You should thank me, Miss Moreland, for saving you the trouble where
Niles Naseby was concerned."
Those blue eyes showed indignation; then softened suddenly. But the girl's
tone was cold and hard.
"You are right," Janice admitted. "I could have murdered Naseby."
"And Welk?"
"Not Welk." Janice shook her head. "He was only Naseby's tool. I think you
should know, considering how close you were to the case."
Cranston's steady gaze said neither yes nor no. As if to prove her point,
Janice produced a set of colored photographs from a cabinet and spread them on
the table.
"The stage sets from Bombay Moon," she said. "Of course you recognize
them."
"I didn't see the show," replied Cranston. "it closed too soon."
"Notice anything unusual about the stage sets?"
"Yes." Cranston nodded. "They aren't stage sets."
Staring over Cranston's shoulder, Ted began to understand. Somehow, the
proportions were wrong. These magnificent contraptions: a Hindu throne, fine
screens composed entirely of gold filigree; huge vases formed of precious
mosaics; tapestries of woven silver adorned with jewelled hems - all gave the
impression of an art collection rather than the trappings of a theatrical show.
Other photographs were similarly out of line. They showed suits of
jewelled armor; decorative tables with inlaid tops; incense burners and
decorative table-ware. No stage props needed the fine design that showed in
these close-up photographs.
"I found these at Welk's," explained Janice. "They are the originals; he
made the copies that matched them."
Cranston nodded as though he understood. Janice went on:
"It was his loss on Bombay Moon that broke my father," explained Janice,
"but he couldn't blame Niles Naseby. It had all been pure speculation, with all
expenses accounted for. Backing a show takes money; dad knew that when he went
into it.
"There was one thing, though, that kept preying on his mind before we sent
him to the sanitarium. He kept muttering that he and Naseby never should have
listened to Welk. He said artists never could be anything but extravagant.
Somehow it impressed me that Naseby must have worked his crooked business
through Welk.
"So I decided to find out what I could about Welk. I heard he needed a new
model, so I applied, without telling him who I was. I needed a name and address"
- the girl's frown lessened to a half smile - "so I found them. I took the job
with Welk."
As Janice finished, Cranston gestured to the photographs.
"You found out why he copied these?"
"They had something to do with sending Bombay Moon on tour to the Orient,"
replied Janice. "That's all I know."
"But the stage sets matched them perfectly."
"Yes. I saw the show on its last night in New York. Everything was
arranged differently, but the props were the same."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Cranston. "I can understand why Naseby wanted Welk
to duplicate the private furnishings from the palace in Bildapore."
Ted stared at the name.
"Bildapore! Say, that's where those munitions came from!"
Cranston's inquiring eyes turned Ted's way.
"It was in Sydney," explained Ted. "There was a shipment from Bildapore,
where they have a native munitions factory. Grenshaw was in charge of it and
wanted it unloaded in a hurry. I helped him out."
"That's odd," put in Janice. "It was in Sydney that Bombay Moon couldn't
even find a theater. They shipped the show back from there."
"Maybe it was Grenshaw's load that came instead," remarked Cranston. "His
munitions or what-have-you."
"Could be," decided Ted. "One came into Sydney, just before the other went
out."
"What happened to the scenery from the show?" inquired Cranston, turning
to Janice. "Has it been heard from since?"
"It was sold in San Francisco," replied Janice. "Not for much, but Naseby
said an outright sale was better than paying an auctioneer's commission."
Cranston gave a casual nod. He was looking at other photographs that
showed jewelled chests teeming with queerly shaped coins.
"It would have been a large commission," he agreed. "Twenty percent on
something close to ten million dollars."
At mere mention of the sum, the others stared amazed. Then Ted forced a
doubting laugh.
"Real treasures couldn't have come through the customs -"
"Why not?" inserted Cranston. "Everything was accounted for, probably to
an exacting degree. Gilt screens, brass coins, plated ornaments, tinsel
tapestries with glass bead trimmings. All those props went out of the country
so they had a right to come back. Very probably the same customs men checked
them going and coming. Grenshaw would have seen to that."
"Then you mean that Grenshaw swindled the new Rajah of Bildapore?"
"Grenshaw at least had a hand in it before the present rajah took over.
But that in turn means that the false rajah, Thangra, arranged it all
beforehand. Naseby's show, Bombay Moon, was designed to his order, through
Grenshaw. Now I know why Naseby could expect a present as fine as the Twelve
Tear-drops of Buddha. All he did was help Thangra loot the palace before
Abdullah inherited what was left of it."
Ted offered an objection.
"But Abdullah would certainly have known -"
"In Bildapore," interposed Cranston, "the rajah is supreme. He renders no
one an accounting of his personal belongings which technically includes
everything. Thangra could have eradicated completely all records of the prized
belongings that he secretly shipped from Bildapore."
"But what about those Twelve Tear-drops?"
"They were different. Thangra had once boasted that he owned them. Later,
it was reported that he sold them, but the buyer was never named."
"So they were Naseby's commission," said Ted, with a head-shake. "A
million dollar clean-up and he was too cheap to sink his own dough in the deal
that made it possible!"
All during this talk, Janice had been trying to weave in a few words. Now
she had her chance.
"Those must be the jewels that Welk was after!" the blonde exclaimed. "The
ones he talked about over the phone."
Cranston was prompt with the query:
"To whom?"
"I don't know," admitted Janice, "but I did hear where they were to go if
anybody managed to get them. To somebody named Schorner."
The name rang home to Cranston.
"Carl Schorner, the jewel appraiser," he defined. "The chap who buys
estates low, buys them out, then sells them high. The last man to be linked
with a job like this and therefore the best."
"Why the best?" asked Ted.
"Because Naseby would never expect to find the Tear-drops with Schorner,"
explained Cranston, "nor would anybody else. It fits, though, because one of
Schorner's money-making dodges is having antique jewelry recut or reset in
modern style. He'd know how to disguise those Tear-drops as well as how to
dispose of them."
Ted's teeth gritted.
"If we'd only known this sooner!"
"There may still be time," declared Cranston, quietly. "Wait until I call
the Casino Monaco."
Making the call, Cranston didn't give his own name, but merely asked for
someone named Vincent. After a brief chat with the man in question, Cranston
hung up with a satisfied nod.
"Count Zurich is in his office," stated Cranston, "and Mata Safi is
playing the roulette wheel. Perhaps those Tear-drops are still at Schorner's. I
won't be long."
With that, Cranston bowed himself from the living room, leaving Janice
staring until she heard the outer door go shut. A bit worried by the girl's
grim expression, Ted put in some good words.
"Don't worry about Cranston," said Ted. "I'm sure he didn't murder either
Grenshaw or Naseby."
"Who would I be to accuse him?" Janice faced Ted solemnly. "Why, it's only
sheer luck that the police aren't accusing me of killing Welk!"
"You mean you were in the studio when Welk was murdered?"
"Certainly. I went across the roof and down through the Kit-Kat Shop.
That's where I found the Quaker costume."
"So you were working me for an alibi," smiled Ted. "I don't blame you; I'd
like one myself."
"We don't need alibis yet," returned Janice seriously. "The person we
ought to worry about is your friend, Mr. Cranston."
Ted came to his feet.
"What fools we were!" be exclaimed. "We shouldn't have let Cranston go to
Schorner's! Suppose he gets into trouble there! Why, the police would mark him
for a murderer, the moment they showed up!"
Nodding, Janice asked:
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to Schorner's myself," returned Ted, bluntly. "Wouldn't you?"
"If you make it 'will' you," replied Janice, "the answer is 'yes.'"
The girl meant it; otherwise Ted wouldn't have given the nod. A few
minutes later, these allies in a new cause were on their way to back up
Cranston in his lone and dangerous mission.
CHAPTER XII
HARRY VINCENT gathered up his chips and stepped from the roulette table to
the door of Count Zurich's office, only to be intercepted by a bowing man who
stood there.
"Count Zurich is busy," the man informed him. "You can see him a little
later."
"But I have to leave," explained Harry. "I wanted to cash in these chips."
"Over there." The bowing man gestured to a counter near the strong door
that barred the route downstairs. "The cashier will pay you for them."
Still playing the roulette wheel, Mata Safi didn't even glance Harry's way
as he left. But that had nothing to do with the thing that bothered Harry. Why
hadn't he been allowed to see Count Zurich?
Once out of the Casino Monaco, Harry walked around the corner to find
Shrevvy's cab. Getting in, Harry played a hunch.
"Anybody come out of a house on this street, Shrevvy?"
The cabby gestured to a house that flanked the rear of the Casino Monaco.
"Over there," said Shrevvy. "About ten minutes ago. Don't know who he was,
but it's funny though. I thought that was the house the chief said was empty."
That was enough for Harry. He told Shrevvy to take him to a telephone and
fast. There was still a chance that The Shadow would phone Burbank, the contact
man who relayed messages from various agents. He might call the Hotel Ramorez,
where Burbank was at present tending switchboard.
Perhaps Harry's last minute tactics had something to do with the fact that
Schorner's jewelry store was so quiet when Ted and Janice arrived there. The
place was open, but in sole charge of a weary-looking clerk, who certainly
couldn't be Schorner. In fact, the store itself looked very pitiful. The only
gems on sale were old-fashioned ones, priced cheaply, to keep up the pretence
that Schorner sold whatever he bought for only a trifle more than what he paid.
Ted wanted to see Schorner and said so. In his turn, the clerk gave the
wrong reply. Instead of saying that Schorner was out, he stated that he was in
the office but didn't want to be disturbed. Ted simply gestured Janice ahead of
him and gave the clerk a shove when he tried to block the way. Opening the
office door, Ted bowed Janice through and followed. Then he wished he hadn't.
Carl Schorner was definitely busy. The trouble was he had visitors who
weren't. One was a man who wore a tilted gray hat, along with a tuxedo. As he
turned his face, he didn't quite obscure it from the light and Ted was startled
to see the suave, mustached face of Count Bela Zurich.
There were two other men here with Zurich. One was heavy, powerful,
stooped of shoulder, which made his shocky red hair the most conspicuous thing
about him. The other was a limber man who wore baggy trousers and a black
jersey, with a cap pulled down over one eye.
Their names flashed home to Ted:
Rouge and Noir!
Just where he'd heard those names, he didn't remember, but there was also
something about the men that reminded him of the pierrot and cavalier who had
kicked trouble outside the Village Mill.
As for Janice, her eyes were startled as she recognized Count Zurich and
the big man, Rouge.
Zurich's smooth laugh had an ugly sound. The Count didn't mind being
recognized by persons whose existence he regarded as superfluous after they had
walked right into a trap. Wherever Zurich went, he carried his trap with him, in
the persons of Rouge and Noir.
They were already crowding Ted and Janice. It was Rouge who planted a gun
against Ted's back while Noir pointed a revolver at Janice. Evidently Zurich
had overruled Noir's preference for knives because of the limber man's
inefficiency with such weapons during his two encounters with The Shadow.
Under the persuasion of those guns, there was nothing for Ted and Janice
to do but stand by. The thrust of Ted's strong jaw, the worried expression in
Janice's blue eyes, showed that they shared the same apprehension. Death might
not be an immediate threat, because Zurich wouldn't want to commit murder on
these premises; but it would certainly be an incident of the future.
Count Bela Zurich just couldn't afford to spare the lives of these two
people who had laid the finger squarely on the pulse-beat of his crimes.
In plain sight, twinkling their story of cruelty, bribery and greed, lay
twelve magnificent gems that answered the description of those baubles of
murder, the Tear-drops of Buddha!
Four blood-red rubies; four glorious green emeralds; four diamonds that
flashed fire of myriad hues. Lustrous stones matched in size, so large that the
average thumb and forefinger could just about have circled each fabulous gem.
The Tear-drops were lying on a bench that seemed part of a miniature
laboratory, presided over by Schorner, a burly, bitter-faced man who looked
quite in keeping with his comrades. Only there was something in Schorner's
attitude that didn't entirely smack of friendship with the suave Count Zurich.
Arms folded, the Count tilted his head toward Schorner. He'd been playing
possum recently, but he saw no reason to keep up the game for the benefit of
Ted and Janice. Indeed, there was a triumphant gleam on the Count's sallow
features, as though this situation struck him as the perfect finale for the
drama he had played.
"Proceed, Schorner," ordered Zurich, in a smooth but foreign accent. "You
were appraising these gems to give us their true worth. We should like to know
how well Naseby bargained with the former Rajah of Bildapore."
With a sidelong glance, Zurich was watching Ted and Janice to gauge how
much they already knew. Their calm acceptance of the facts brought a hard look
to Zurich's eyes. What these prisoners knew, someone must have told them. This
meant that further murder lay ahead for Count Bela and his imported assassins.
What Zurich didn't notice was the glum expression that grew on Schorner's
big, coarse face.
"Come, Schorner!" purred Zurich. "The value!"
"Not as much as you would expect," returned Schorner, bluntly. "I wouldn't
say that Naseby bargained well."
"And why not?"
"All that trouble that Welk spoke about, for several thousand dollars -"
Zurich whirled as he interrupted:
"Did you say thousand, Schorner? You mean million!"
Schorner shook his big head.
"I have tested these Tear-drops," he stated. "They are deceptive, very
much so. But they are not what they are claimed to be."
A snarl now dominated Zurich's tone.
"You fool, Schorner! To treat me as you do your customers! Why, those
rubies alone are worth a ransom!"
"They are not rubies," returned Schorner. "They are garnets. Their color
is excellent, I might say perfect, but I have studied them in the dichroscope
and found them isoprenic."
This made perfect Greek to Ted and Janice, but Zurich seemed to understand
it. From the bench, he picked up an object resembling a microscope, set
horizontally above a handle, much like an old-fashioned stereoscope. Setting
one of the red gems in place, Zurich studied it through the glass.
"You will see two images," stated Schorner. "Their rays are polarized at
right angles to each other and in rubies the shades of red should differ. With
garnets they do not."
Scowling as he tested the remaining red gems, Zurich found that Schorner
was right concerning all of them. Buddha's crimson tear-drops were garnets, not
rubies.
Immediately Zurich pounced upon the four green gems, only to hear Schorner
say:
"Those are tourmalines, not emeralds. I would not have suspected them
ordinarily. In fact, I might still believe them to be emeralds if their
hardness were seven and one-half, the top rating for a tourmaline, and the
lowest for an emerald; that is the dividing line.
"But whoever chose these remarkable specimens was forced to sacrifice
hardness at the expense of color, the thing most needed to perpetrate the
fraud. Those tourmalines have a hardness of only seven, I should say a trifle
under, for a fine steel file will bite them. Make the test yourself, but put
the scratches on the girdles of the stones. It would be a shame to mar such
fine specimens of tourmaline."
Zurich didn't share Schorner's admiration of semi-precious stones, but he
followed instructions with the file and discovered that Schorner was right
again. That brought up the question of the alleged diamonds.
Here, Schorner's admiration was overwhelming.
"Such wonderful zircons!" he exclaimed. "They have given them some heat
treatment that is worth a fortune in itself! They have acquired color, unusual
optical properties, and even a surprising hardness. Why, with this secret we
could go into business as diamond merchants, with only a stock of zircons,
provided we did not sell specimens too large to invite suspicion.
"There is only one thing they lack, the right specific gravity. The pure
diamond should be three decimal fifty-two, which is less than the Rohrbach's
Solution." Schorner gestured to a liquid in a tall glass cylinder. "These
zircons have a higher specific gravity, at least four decimal zero. I shall
show you with the Westphal Balance."
The instrument in question looked like a miniature scales with an
extension arm with a thin cord to which Schorner attached one of the
scintillating gems and lowered it like a sinker into the glass cylinder. Ted
gathered that a diamond, having a lower specific gravity than the solution,
should not have sunk below the half-way point, but this gem did. Still
scowling, Zurich eyed the balance closely while Schorner repeated the tests
with the remaining zircons.
At the conclusion, Schorner shrugged.
"You see?" he said glumly. "We have been swindled, and outright."
As cold as the zircons yet as fiery in their sparkle, Zurich's eyes fixed
on Schorner.
"You mean that I have been swindled, Schorner - by you!"
Schorner's face took on the startled expression of a fish, then grimaced
into what he thought was a smile.
"A very funny thing to say, Zurich," began Schorner, "after I have been so
honest with you."
"Give over." Zurich's tone was hard. "I want the real gems, Schorner."
For a moment real amazement gripped Schorner; then, glancing at Rouge and
Noir, he gave way to resignation. Opening a drawer bequeath his table, he
reached for something that Janice actually thought might be a box containing
the genuine Tear-drops. Instead, Schorner's hand whipped out with a revolver,
pointed straight at Zurich.
It took speed to be quicker than Count Zurich. The suave man's arms had
unfolded. Schorner's gun was matched by another revolver in Zurich's fist.
Muzzle for muzzle, these former partners in crime were halted neck to neck
in a race where death was to mark the finish line!
CHAPTER XIII
TED TRENT found his breath coming back after a prolonged absence. One
glance at Janice Moreland, and he saw a face so tense that it told him what his
own must look like. They had forgotten their own plight to become spectators
awaiting the result of a hair-trigger duel that hadn't quite exploded.
Now Ted was thinking what could happen if it did. It might prove a chance
in favor of Janice and himself, but they would have to act fast. Once shooting
started here in Schorner's back room, Rouge and Noir would accept it as a
signal to dispose of their prisoners.
Unless Schorner should win!
Then Rouge and Noir would think first of avenging Zurich, a break indeed
for Ted and Janice.
Maybe Zurich calculated all that.
Almost indifferently, Count Bela lowered his gun with an apologetic smile.
Schorner, still mistrustful, kept his own revolver leveled.
"I was hasty, Schorner," explained Zurich. "For a moment I thought you had
perpetrated this swindle yourself."
Schorner gave a short laugh.
"That would have been smart, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, very smart," replied Zurich, "and quite easy."
"Easy?" questioned Schorner. "How?"
"These inferior gems" - Zurich gestured at the glittering dozen with his
gun - "could be bought almost anywhere."
Schorner gave his head an emphatic shake.
"It would take a long time."
"But you had a long time," reminded Zurich. "Welk knew about the Twelve
Tear-drops from the start."
"Perhaps. But neither of us had ever seen them."
"That wouldn't have been necessary. The description of the gems could
have been obtained. My man Noir didn't have much opportunity to look at the
originals when he brought them from the Argonne."
Noir was staring at the gems now. Turning to Zurich, the limber man spoke
rapidly but in an odd foreign tongue that made Schorner look worried as he
tightened his hand on his gun.
"It's all right, Schorner," stated Zurich. "Noir says they look to be the
same. Of course if you had arranged things with Grenshaw -"
"I never knew Grenshaw."
"Welk must have told you about him. But I don't think it would have
mattered. Do you know, Schorner" - Zurich stared, then nodded slowly - "I
really believe you have been honest all along!"
That commendation really relieved Schorner. In return, he lowered his
revolver.
"And being honest is a virtue," added Zurich. "The sort of virtue that
deserves a reward - like this!"
It happened in the pause before those last two words. Zurich's gun came up
so fast that it looked like a silvery blur. The muzzle mouthed a scorching
message straight for Schorner's heart before the big-faced man could bring his
own gun into motion. But Count Bela wasn't leaving anything to chance. He'd
read the newspapers with their account of Homer's statement and wasn't going to
make the same mistake of leaving a dying victim instead of a dead one,
particularly when such a victim still held a gun.
Literally, Zurich riddled Schorner clear down to the floor, using every
bullet in his six-chambered revolver.
Along about the fourth shot, Ted Trent found himself. Letting all caution
ride, he swung about, grabbed Janice Moreland, and flung her toward the door.
Rouge and Noir had done the expected. With Zurich's shots they had shoved
their own guns forward, both thinking that Schorner might require solid
treatment. Before they could whip around again, Ted and Janice were away, but
with no more chance of escaping through that closed door than they had of
scooting off through the fourth dimension.
Maybe there was a fourth dimension!
The laugh that filled this rear room seemed to come from nowhere. What it
did was drown the crash that accompanied it, the smash of a back window. Into
this scene where murder again held sway, launched the cloaked figure of The
Shadow!
He'd taken his own time about getting here, this fighter whose other self
was Cranston, particularly after contacting Burbank on the way and getting the
report from Vincent. The Shadow calculated everything, except that Ted and
Janice would commit the indiscretion of putting themselves in line for murder.
There was one thing Ted Trent had learned, not to meddle with the human
buzz-saw in black. The Shadow had demonstrated that his one-man prowess brooked
no interference, even from friends, that night outside the Village Mill. Having
lost Janice once by mixing in The Shadow's business. Ted wasn't chancing it
again. He ripped the door open and flung Janice through, confident that The
Shadow could handle Rouge and Noir - as he had before - now that Zurich's gun
was empty.
It would have worked that way if Zurich hadn't remembered a trick worked
by Welk.
Too late had the artist clicked off the lights in his studio, to gain a
respite against attackers. But quick as Zurich had been with his trigger, here
at Schorner's, he was equally fast with the back room light switch, which
happened to be right over Schorner's bench.
A snap, and the light was off. A sweep, and Zurich heaved the bench,
equipment and all, in the general direction of where he had last seen The
Shadow.
Zurich almost scored a knockout with that lucky fling. As the bench struck
his shoulder, The Shadow's arm came up automatically and he let himself sprawl
away to a corner while he was warding the heavy missile. Tripping over some
obstacle, The Shadow landed among some shelves that came clattering down upon
him, but he turned his sprawl into a dive in the direction of the door, hoping
to block it off.
This took time that Zurich and his men were using to other advantage.
Count Bela couldn't pause to load his revolver in the dark, while Rouge and
Noir had no intention of battling The Shadow without the sturdy backing of
their chief. So closely that they crowded one another, the three went out
through the window that The Shadow had used to crash in upon them.
By the time The Shadow stepped across Schorner's body and reached that
same window, rapid footfalls were fading out of ear-shot.
Pausing at the window, The Shadow focused a flashlight around the room. A
laugh whispered from his lips as he saw the scattered jewels, for from the
distance The Shadow could hear the wails of arriving police cars. They were
coming because The Shadow had ordered Burbank to put in a call to Police
Commissioner Weston, advising him to come here in person. It all would have
fitted with The Shadow's plans, trapping Schorner with a hoard of gems of
incredible value.
Perhaps it still would, even though Schorner lay dead and the gems were
merely cheap substitutes.
But The Shadow didn't intend to stay. He had a better plan. As the police
cars arrived, he moved out through the window. He waited in the alley, until he
saw the light go on in the back room and heard the calls of the police.
It was then The Shadow laughed again.
To punctuate that mirth from the dark, The Shadow used a few gunshots.
Weston's voice shouted an order and police came out through the window and in
from the side alley.
What they saw was a cab, scudding away as though it had just picked up a
passenger. That was all they needed for a reason to follow along a trail by
which The Shadow intended to lead them to a surprising goal, the Casino Monaco,
headquarters of Count Bela Zurich.
It didn't matter that Zurich had gained a start and that The Shadow
intended to lead the police a roundabout way. The Shadow was planning a
surprise at the end of it.
Count Bela liked surprises too.
Only half a dozen blocks away, the suave master of murder was making a
call from the only booth in a lonely drug store while Rouge and Noir waited and
worried in a car out front.
"Hello?" Bela's inquiring tone was oily, but quite different from his own.
"Inspector Cardona? Good... I have a complaint to make, but you must attend to
it immediately... It concerns the Casino Monaco. I have just lost money
there... You ask how? How else except by gambling...
"Yes, gambling upstairs... On a roulette table and a big one, with many
players... But you must hurry, because in fifteen minutes the gambling room
will close... Early? Of course. But it is only during the dinner hour that
roulette is played there... Yes, because that is a time that nobody would
suspect... Good-bye..."
Fifteen minutes was a very short order for Inspector Joe Cardona; he'd be
lucky if he reached the Casino Monaco in that time. Which in turn allowed time
for Count Bela to be back there, completing his own little scheme.
A smart fellow, Count Bela Zurich! He was still confident that he could
outwit the Shadow!
CHAPTER XIV
IT was as calm as ever in the gambling room upstairs in the Casino Monaco,
the only sound the clack of the roulette ball against the metal pockets of the
smoothly revolving wheel. Across the board, Harry Vincent kept watching Mata
Safi.
The alluring lady with the gaze of a Bengalese tiger was quite cognizant
that she was under observation by the handsome, self-contained young man who
stood opposite. Mata Safi liked that. Experience had taught her to be
suspicious only of those men who ignored the captivating charms that Mata had
built into her unconscious moods.
Harry was noticing Mata's eyes. The exotic brunette had a way of letting
her gaze stray, just when she had gained a man's fixed attention. She was
playing that game with Harry, not realizing that he was topping it with a game
of his own.
Mata's eyes invariably ended on Zurich's door as though Mata, too, had
begun to wonder over the prolonged absence of Count Bela.
And now Harry was wondering if Mata had begun to suspect what he was quite
sure existed: that Count Bela had another way out from his office, through the
next door house where he had received phone calls with the passwords "Rouge et
Noir."
In fact, the sum of Mata Safi's knowledge was a subject for speculation in
itself, a matter which The Shadow had delegated Harry Vincent to investigate.
This Oriental Tiger Lily hadn't blossomed into the general scenery until after
the Hudson River had swallowed the unfortunate Mr. Grenshaw; hence her
connection with the case of the Twelve Tear-drops featured the second act in
this drama of death.
Maybe the second act was nearly over; if so, Mata Safi might play a
surprising part in the finale.
Harry snapped from those speculations suddenly, as he caught the gleam in
Mata's eyes. They were fixed on Zurich's door. With a casual half-turn, Harry
saw the reason.
Never more polite, the Count had stepped from the office to mingle with
the patrons, at the same time informing them courteously that the gaming period
was almost ended. Maybe it was just a hunch on Harry's part; perhaps he was
gauging matters from much that had gone before, but he could have sworn that
Bela's whole purpose was the building of an alibi.
And why not?
Here were a few dozen witnesses who would swear on oath that Zurich could
have been nowhere other than his office during the last full hour.
The only thing that puzzled Harry was Zurich's peculiar anxiety to greet
the customers all at once. Around the roulette table he was passing from player
to player, impressing his presence with a smooth rapidity. The explanation of
this came by the time the suave proprietor had completed his round trip.
So suddenly that the effect was startling, the lights in the gaming room
began to blink!
Before the customers could move, Count Bela was at the head of the table,
raising his arms. Then, turning toward the door, he shook his head at the
attendants who were starting to bar it.
"We want no violence," stated Zurich. "If it is the police, we must let
them enter peaceably."
It was the police.
The raid squad was headed by a stocky, swarthy man, Inspector Joe Cardona.
As the patrons drew away from the table, Cardona and his men took over, seizing
the roulette wheel as evidence, clamping handcuffs on the croupiers and other
attendants. Meanwhile, Count Bela had stepped to the office door and closed it;
he was standing in front of the door with folded arms, smiling too calmly.
Something was due to happen very soon and Zurich was hoping it would turn
out exactly as he planned.
Unbeknownst to Inspector Cardona, another raiding crew was arriving
outside the Casino Monaco. Commissioner Weston and the police who had
accompanied him from Schorner's were hard on the rear wheels of the cab that
bore The Shadow.
That cab, piloted by the able Shrevvy, swung past the front of the
gambling club and careened around the corner. Seeing other cabs parked at the
Casino Monaco, the drivers of the police cars thought that the fugitive cab was
among them. Hopping out at Weston's order, the police piled into the building
and up the stairs to the gaming room.
Which in turn suited The Shadow - so far.
Clear around on the rear street, The Shadow was whisking from the cab and
into the empty house which he was sure formed Zurich's private exit from the
gambling club. Under the stress of a police raid, the Count would logically
dash for freedom by his secret route. The Shadow expected to meet the manifold
murderer on the stairs and cut off his escape in final fashion.
It didn't happen that way.
Still standing in front of his office door, Zurich was watching the big
clock in the gaming room as its minute hand reached the exact spot he wanted.
Then, as Cardona strode in his direction, the suave man unfolded his arms and
said:
"Wait!"
There was something sinister enough in that command to halt even an
experienced official like Cardona. For with it, Zurich gave a warning smile
that indicated he was speaking for Cardona's benefit.
Zurich heard Weston's crew on the stairs. The clever Count had timed
things right to the dot on the basis of The Shadow's own activities. As Cardona
halted, trying to guess what was coming, it came.
A dull but heavy explosion sounded within Zurich's office. The door, heavy
though it was, literally bulged outward from the blast. The gaming room rocked
to the shrieks of the excited patrons and in another instant, darkness blanked
the scene. All lights, except those leading down the front stairs, had been
extinguished by the explosion.
In from the stairway door surged a group of dim unrecognizables that
Cardona took to be Zurich's reserves. The ace inspector bawled an order to his
men and they wheeled to meet the invaders. Two groups of police launched at
each other, swinging clubs and guns, intending to beat down all resistance. The
brawl was the perfect break that Zurich wanted.
Calling all patrons, Count Bela led a dash down the front stairs, which
now were clear. Very few followed, for most were tangled in the police melee,
but Harry Vincent managed to skirt the throng. He gripped a full fistful of
velvet and hauled it along with him, down the stairs and out.
Count Zurich, recognized by the downstairs patron, was away in a waiting
car, adding another notch to his alibi. Looking for Shrevvy's cab, Harry
couldn't see it, but he found another and bundled Mata Safi into it.
Upstairs, the rival police squads were learning their identity through a
process of elimination. Bawling mutual commands, Weston and Cardona put a stop
to the melee and ordered their men to break down the office door.
They found what they expected, a complete ruin. Count Zurich had set off a
time bomb, actuated by the closing of the door, to demolish the office and
obliterate all records of his friends and patrons. Quite the customary thing to
do, on the part of a man who ran a gambling establishment.
Only Zurich had gone the usual game one better.
The blast had caved the wall of his office, carrying through to the house
next door. A huge pile of debris showed a gap that looked like the caving of a
normal wall, leaving no trace of the secret doorway that had existed.
Zurich had really built himself an alibi. He hadn't left a trace of
evidence to show that he could have gone in and out of the Casino Monaco. His
flight by the front route was the final touch.
Who, now, would believe that there had been another way out, considering
that Zurich hadn't used it in the very sort of emergency for which it should
have been intended?
Only The Shadow.
Almost at the head of the stairs, he had been met by the full force of the
blast. The Shadow had taken the stairs in one long plunge.
Ahead of the avalanching bricks, The Shadow had rolled into a vacant front
room. There, groggily, he wrenched open a window and tumbled through, almost
into the arms of Shrevvy, who was out of the cab the moment that he heard the
powerful blast. Into the cab and away, The Shadow was again at large, though
too dazed to hunt up Zurich's trail.
The laugh that trailed from the cab window lacked The Shadow's usual
challenge, but it served as a reminder that Count Bela Zurich would still find
a contender in the quest for the real gems that were known as Buddha's
Tear-drops!
CHAPTER XV
COMMISSIONER WESTON sat in his office studying a mass of photographs which
all pertained to the same subject: Lamont Cranston. The commissioner was intent
upon hounding his former friend to the absolute limit, for he was convinced
that Cranston was the cause of everything, including murder.
On the commissioner's big desk glistened the baubles that had made
Cranston go wrong; twelve gems that had turned out to be only semiprecious
stones of comparatively small value. The myth of Buddha's Tear-drops which
Cranston, who knew India and its fabled tales, had been foolish enough to
believe, was dispelled, and Cranston had wrecked his long and estimable career.
Such people as Bela Zurich meant little to Weston in comparison and as for
Mata Safi, the commissioner had never heard of her. The commissioner was turning
one name over in his mind. Savagely, Weston repeated it as he glared from his
window into the gathering dusk:
"Cranston!"
"Well, well, commissioner." The voice was calm, but cheery. "It's quite a
relief to know that you can't forget a friend!"
"Cranston!"
This time Weston's epithet was fierce. Wheeling in his swivel chair, the
commissioner grabbed for a revolver that was lying in his open desk drawer.
But across the desk, Cranston was pointing the same famous automatic at
the commissioner that had allegedly threatened Naseby before the latter was
murdered with his own gun. This, too, was the weapon that Weston believed
responsible for the deaths of Grenshaw, Welk, and Schorner!
There was nothing to do but let Cranston speak.
"You have done nicely, commissioner," approved Cranston, coolly. "As a
press agent, I couldn't have chosen anyone better."
Weston's only answer was a glower.
"Come, commissioner," continued Cranston. "You can't really believe I
murdered Grenshaw and Naseby?"
"And why not?"
"Because in both cases you have witnesses to the contrary."
"What witnesses?"
"In Grenshaw's case, a waiter," explained Cranston. "His name is Johnny
and he works at The Cave. You just didn't question him enough."
"What should I have asked him?"
"About the phone call that he made, telling someone where to meet him. Get
his story and make him tell the number; you will find that it belonged to the
house next door to the Casino Monaco."
Enlightenment reluctantly started to spread over Weston's face.
"As for Naseby's death," continued Cranston, "talk to Dorgan again, and
that chap who operated the cloak room at the Argonne. You'll find them both
reliable."
"I already have," retorted Weston crisply. "They both identified you
absolutely."
"I was depending on that," spoke the ever-calm Cranston. "What you
completely overlooked was the time element. Check it, commissioner, and you'll
find that I couldn't possibly have reached the Argonne so soon after Naseby's
death."
These were vital points, if true, and with them, Weston's speculation that
Cranston stood responsible for the murders of Welk and Schorner would fall of
its own weight. Whoever had committed the first two crimes would be the logical
suspect in the last two. Still, Weston wasn't to be too easily persuaded.
"What brings you here, Cranston?" queried the commissioner drily. "If you
want these" - he gestured to the second-rate gems - "I might as well tell you
that they aren't what you think they are."
"Not Buddha's Tear-drops?" Cranston gave an expression of mock surprise.
"Have you really found that out, commissioner?"
"I have," retorted Weston, "and so has everybody else -"
"Including Count Zurich." Cranston's interruption carried firmness. "Give
that office of his a going-over, commissioner. Count the bricks that he blew
apart last night. You'll find a whole door-load missing; enough to account for
the way out that Zurich no longer wanted."
Weston was suddenly seeing a lot of things, though he didn't say so. He
wasn't going to trust Cranston until after these facts were checked and proved.
"Here's the deal, commissioner," put in Cranston bluntly. "Wherever Zurich
is, you won't find him, but he's still after the real Tear-drops. I can find him
if you give me leeway, which means easing up this man-hunt. I don't want a clear
bill, because it's better to keep Zurich bluffed; but active interference will
only handicap me."
Weston was nodding, but very doubtfully, his eyes on the gun in Cranston's
hand. With a generous gesture, Cranston drew the magazine from the handle of his
automatic and dumped its cartridges on the desk. Then, with a wave to show the
weapon was useless, he arose, turned to the door, and paused as he reached it.
"This is all I did at Naseby's," insisted Cranston. "I went out, and for
all he knew, I held an empty gun. You'll be hearing from me, commissioner" -
Cranston's eyes were fixed toward Weston, but their gaze seemed more distant.
Then, in a parting tone be added: "Later."
Before the door had really closed, Weston was grabbing the telephone with
one hand, his revolver with the other. He wasn't going to let Cranston get away
with this bluff; he'd have him stopped before he reached the downstairs door.
But Weston was forgetting windows. One was rising right behind him and in
from the dusk that framed it came a lean brown man with soft shoes and baggy
clothes, whose tiny eyes had a glint as ferocious as his big bulging teeth. In
his hands, the invader held a length of whip-cord. With a forward spring he
lashed the murderous string over Weston's neck, tightening it with one deft
hand, while the other made a wide sweep to pick up the Tear-drops lying on the
desk!
Weston was choking helplessly when the door hurled itself open and in from
the corridor sprang Cranston, gun in hand!
An empty gun, unloaded in the commissioner's presence, and witnessed by
the brown face at the window!
Contemptuously, the assassin forgot the jewels and reached for a knife,
but his hand stopped in midair.
A spurt from that unloaded automatic laid a bullet right to the brown
wrist!
With a howl like a jaguar, the grinning creature forgot noose, gems and
knife. Clutching that damaged wrist, he bounced across the room, out through
the window, and lurched to a ledge below. Landing like something of rubber, the
brown man reached a waiting car and sped away by the time Cranston arrived at
the window.
But from that window, Cranston saw the face that looked back from the
fleeing car and under his breath, the commissioner's friend breathed a
whispered laugh that formed an echo of The Shadow's.
By the time Cranston returned to the desk, Weston was able to pant three
words:
"What - was - it?"
"A dacoit," specified Cranston, "otherwise a Hindu strangler. I'd better
take along these souvenirs" - Cranston was sweeping up the false Tear-drops of
Buddha - "in case they might tempt others of his breed. I think I know how to
handle them, commissioner."
"Did - did Zurich send that fellow?"
"Of course not. Zurich would have kept these gems if he'd wanted them.
This looks like a new development, commissioner, and a deeper one."
With that, Cranston began to reload his automatic. Weston watched, while
dangling the cord that he had freed from his neck. As Cranston pressed the
magazine up into the gun handle, he said:
"Hear that, commissioner?"
Whether or not Weston heard it, he nodded. He remembered now that when an
automatic was loaded, the first shell dropped into the breech. In removing the
load, Cranston hadn't withdrawn that number one cartridge; instead, it had
remained where it could save Weston's life.
"Somebody must think those are the genuine Tear-drops," declared Weston,
gesturing to Cranston's pocket which held the disputed gems. "Otherwise the
dacoit wouldn't have been sent here."
"Anyone who employs dacoits," returned Cranston, "would know all about the
Tear-drops. The real answer is that these imitations have some value of their
own which we have not yet recognized."
That was all. With a parting wave, Cranston strode to the door, pocketing
his automatic as he went. Pausing there, he turned to state:
"I'll handle the Tear-drops, commissioner, along with the rest of the
deal. I'm really leaving this time, so you'll have to watch the window for
yourself. I would suggest that you reverse your previous procedure. Pick up
your revolver first; then the telephone."
The advice suited Weston. As Cranston left, the commissioner picked up
his revolver and swivelled around to make sure no brown faces were grinning
from the window.
As for the telephone, Commissioner Weston just forgot that he had one.
CHAPTER XVI
LISTENING to the report that Harry Vincent gave, Lamont Cranston turned
from the window overlooking Central Park and gave an emphatic nod.
"It was Mata Safi."
Janice Moreland gave a grim smile at Cranston's words; the smile was meant
for Ted Trent.
"But I can't believe it!" exclaimed Ted. "Mata hadn't any hand in those
other murders. Why should she unleash a dacoit on the commissioner?"
"We can ask her when we find her," replied Cranston. "Nevertheless, she
was in the car outside the commissioner's office. I glimpsed her face and now
Vincent reports that he trailed her there after she'd left him in the cocktail
lounge downstairs."
"And she's missed our dinner date," added Harry, "because she checked out
as soon as she arrived back here."
At least Harry was no longer susceptible to Mata's superior allure, which
made Janice all the merrier because the raven-haired beauty had departed.
Without Harry in the field, Ted might be considering a renewal of what Janice
regarded as more than an acquaintance with Mata Safi. At this moment, however,
Ted's mind was reverting to business.
"Whether the dacoit intended to murder Weston or not," argued Ted, "he was
after the phoney Tear-drops. It doesn't add up."
"The trouble is, it does," put in Cranston. "I would say it adds up to too
much."
Ted's eyes became really puzzled.
"Whatever Naseby's services," explained Cranston, "he could hardly have
expected the Tear-drops in return. Their value is too great in proportion."
"I don't know," said Ted. "To begin with, it meant sinking a quarter
million in Bombay Moon to work the other valuables into America."
"But not of Naseby's money," reminded Cranston, in a tone that Janice
highly approved. "Naseby didn't risk a dollar. What's more, it was too
dangerous for Grenshaw to bring them alone; the real Tear-drops, I mean."
"Then why -"
"Then why the false ones? To cover the very situation that occurred, their
falling into the wrong hands. It couldn't have been an effort to deceive Naseby,
because he knew enough inside facts to retaliate. No, somebody was playing
square with Naseby, but in a singular way."
Crossing the room, Cranston stopped at a table and opened a large square
box. From it he produced an object that resembled a miniature movie projector.
"From the sale of Naseby's belongings," explained Cranston. "I picked this
up because it was different."
It was different, that projector. It had a large face like a clock dial,
consisting of twelve openings. What it looked like was the model for some new
theatrical device, intended to throw a dozen spot-lights all at once. Naseby
was always interested in such gadgets; plenty more had been around his
penthouse.
Why Cranston had chosen this particular contraption was immediately
explained.
"Twelve spots," stated Cranston. "Twelve Tear-drops, or their equivalent.
Let's see how they are for size."
Their size was just right. Every one of the stones that Cranston had
acquired in Weston's office fitted perfectly in a hole of the curious projector!
Even odder was the fact that the cut of those gems was such that there was
only one way in which they could be fitted. Though low in value, these
imitations of twelve priceless gems were taking on an unusual significance.
Placing four red garnets in the first batch of sockets, Cranston set the
colorless zircons in the next four, and finally, the green tourmalines as a
last group. Plugging in the projector, he pressed the switch and the light cast
itself in the form of twelve circles on the far wall of the living room.
Four circles in clusters of three: red, white and green.
But the feature of the spot lights lay in the symbols that appeared. Every
one of those luminous circles contained a large letter of the alphabet!
The red spots showed the letters L H I A.
The letters in the white spots spelled a word: O I L Y
The green circles contained: L D H L
Whatever these letters might mean, the imitation Tear-drops had revealed
their basic secret. On a single facet of each gem, some skilled hand had
engraved a microscopic letter, too tiny to appear as more than a scratch even
under a jeweler's glass. The only way to bring these letters into being was to
use the gems as projector lenses and thus raise the letters to a visible size
by centering them in spotlights that were vast in proportion to the gems
themselves.
The very ingenuity of the thing was impressive; this mode of slipping a
coded message right through the hands that held it in their grasp. Meant for
Naseby and no one else, the very existence of such a message had eluded
criminal minds and escaped discovery by the law.
Only the logic of The Shadow was sufficient to track down this riddle. On
the premise that Mata Safi, of all people, would not have taken the chance she
had unless some vital secret lay at stake, The Shadow had sifted out that very
secret.
A study of these gems and their significance by The Shadow was exactly
what Mata Safi had been ordered to prevent. Some mighty mind had given The
Shadow credit for an ability to guess the existence of the riddle and had
therefore betrayed the fact in an effort to forestall the thing that had not
even been in process!
For in that visit to Weston's office, Cranston had not originally cared
about the imitation Tear-drops. He'd been interested in finding that man of
murder, Count Bela Zurich.
Here was a nut within a nut, the sort of thing that always intrigued The
Shadow. It was to alter his course from this moment on, though the calm Mr.
Cranston did not say so.
What could the coded message mean?
That again was Cranston's question, the answer to be provided by his other
self, The Shadow.
For several minutes Cranston studied the writing on the wall, then made
this calm analysis:
"Those letters promise a multitude of combinations," declared Cranston.
"There seems to be no index to their sequence unless it can be found in the
gems themselves. Though their girdles are cut to an identical size, there must
be a difference in their weight.
"It is a question of karats, which can readily be determined." With that,
Cranston unplugged the projector and turned on the room lights. "So I shall
weigh these semi-precious stones and proceed from there" - he paused and then
delivered the proviso "provided my theory proves correct."
Taking the baubles from their lodging places, Cranston weighed them
thoughtfully in his hand, and finally added:
"Count Zurich must still be found and made to answer for his crimes. I
have persuaded my friend, the police commissioner, to give me a free path to
that objective. After I have reached it, you will hear from me again."
Pouring the code-bearing minerals into a chamois bag, Lamont Cranston
pocketed the latter and bowed his departure, which marked the beginning of the
strangest trail in the whole career of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XVII
JANICE MORELAND gave one of her prettiest frowns and asked:
"How many L's are there in the word 'holiday'?"
Looking up from the newspaper, Ted Trent shook his head. Much though he
regarded Janice as the exception, he was sometimes willing to accept the
argument he'd often heard, that all blondes were dumb.
Ted and Janice were in their favorite restaurant, chosen because it had
booths that were properly secluded; thus Ted could really voice his sentiments.
"Here I'm trying to get some lead on Cranston" - Ted slapped the newspaper
as he spoke - "just on the chance that I can help him even if he doesn't want
it. And you start talking about a holiday!"
"I'm talking about a word," retorted Janice. "It's only a question of
spelling. Besides, you know what Cranston is doing. Vincent told us."
"What Vincent has told us during the past week," declared Ted with a
smile, "could be added on one finger of one hand. Cranston is still hunting for
Zurich, that's all."
"But Vincent told us how he was hunting," reminded Janice. "He's going to
every known gambling resort within a hundred miles of New York, hoping to find
Zurich's men."
"You mean Cranston is hoping they'll find him," corrected Ted, "because if
they do, they'll tell Zurich. Then if Zurich decides to put the clamp on
Cranston, he'll have to show himself. And then the law will bag Zurich" - Ted
snapped his fingers - "just as easy as that."
Janice nodded to agree it was just that easy.
"But suppose Zurich doesn't care about Cranston," suggested Ted, leaning
forward and adopting a confidential air. "What if he's satisfied to let the
police keep hunting Cranston, which they're supposed to be doing anyway? It
keeps the heat off Zurich, doesn't it, and saves him a lot of trouble."
"Eventually, though, he'll have to settle Cranston."
"Yes, eventually, but why now? If I were Zurich" - Ted sat back let his
rugged features form a conniving scowl - "I'd let Cranston keep on playing
hide-and-seek until I found the real Twelve Tear-drops, if they're anywhere
around."
Janice hadn't thought of that angle, but she could see its possibilities.
Her blue eyes were admiring as she said:
"You know so much, Ted -"
"I just use judgment," interrupted Ted, modestly, "and I must admit I
learned a lot from Cranston. But after all, I know a few things on my own."
"Like the number of L's in 'holiday'?"
This time Ted couldn't help laughing. For persistence, you couldn't equal
Janice and there was something cute in her way of being stubborn.
"You win," chuckled Ted. "The word 'holiday' has just one 'L' and no more."
"Then I'll have to start all over," mourned Janice. "Do you know, I really
thought I had it!"
"Had what?"
"The message on those Tear-drops that weren't Buddha's. See?"
Janice handed Ted a sheet of paper which was all scribbled with letters
and little check-marks. At the bottom Janice had inscribed her final finding:
HOLLIDAY HILL
"Where did you get these?" queried Ted. "You couldn't have remembered
them."
"I copied them while Cranston was talking in the dark," explained Janice,
"and see? I marked them according to colors; one, two, three, for red, white
and green. Then I began to think that maybe that was their right order, so I
put them that way -"
"And got this!"
"Not right away, but after I tried words. The first I used was 'Hill'
because it looked so easy. And then along came 'Holliday' which was the only
way to work in 'Day', but now I find it's wrong!"
A sudden idea struck Ted. He said:
"Come on."
Where Ted took Janice proved to be a book store only a half block from the
restaurant. There Ted found a big road atlas and began checking the names of
towns in the states that neighbored New York City.
"Here it is!" exclaimed Ted suddenly. "Holliday Hill and with two 'L's'
just like you needed, Janice! Now for one of those comprehensive guide-books on
that shelf over there!"
The guide proved really comprehensive.
It told all about the town of Holliday and what was better, the famous
Hill a few miles outside. From away back, a wealthy Colonial settler named
Hubert Holliday had built his house upon a hill, so he could watch for Indians
in all directions. Rock being plentiful in that area, the farsighted Mr.
Holliday had constructed his home of stone, so flaming arrows could not ignite
it.
The building had grown into a clumsy castle, long since abandoned, but
still a notable landmark. It was worth a visit because it was in a famous
cavern district, about midway between the Golden Grotto (admission $.50, long
tour $1) and Dunkelkopfer's Cave (admission free but donations accepted) where
a hermit of that name had languished for a brief span of sixty-three years,
learning bird-calls and transcribing the language of all species to an
illuminated parchment now harbored under glass in the State Museum.
"From Golden Grotto to Dunkelkopfer's Cave," read Janice, "mileage
twenty-three point six. From junction with paved highway Number Sixty-eight,
turn two point three miles north to dirt road leading up to Holliday Hill. At
one point four, a sign points to path which may be followed on foot, point
seven, to the castle originally constructed in 1713 -"
"When Susan Bigelow was probably a very little girl," interrupted Ted,
taking the guide book and putting it back on the shelf. "So transcribing the
past to the present, I would suggest, Miss Bigelow, that we pay an immediate
visit to our esteemed friend Hubert Holliday."
"Summon the conveyance," returned Janice, "and don't forget to bring the
bird whistles, Friend Dunkelkopfer."
"Costumes first," suggested Ted. "I'll go back to the hotel and climb into
some dungarees. You can stop at the apartment and pick one of your sporting
outfits."
"Tennis or yachting?"
"We're going to climb a big hill," said Ted, patiently, "where there are
rocks and brambles. Those sort of clothes wouldn't stand the gaff. I know
you've managed with less, but there won't be a handy costume shop waiting at
the end of this crime-hunting excursion."
"I took up riding once," remarked Janice, brightly, "and in some ways
there's nothing rougher, as I found out. I still have the outfit that made me
look the perfect horsewoman that I wasn't. How would that do?"
"Fine," assured Ted, "but don't include the spurs. We're going by car and
the sooner we get there the better."
Less than an hour later, Ted hauled a coupe to a stop outside of Janice's
apartment to find the girl awaiting him. It was well into the evening and with
a hundred-odd miles ahead, some of it over secondary highways, the expedition
promised to be an all-night job.
How tangible the clue that Janice had uncovered, Ted wasn't certain; but
incongruous though it seemed, the discovery of the words "Holliday Hill"
engraved on the spurious Tear-drops of Buddha, was too remarkable to be a mere
coincidence.
Only briefly did Ted Trent feel doubts toward undertaking this enterprise
which in a sense was a privilege belonging to Lamont Cranston. Then Ted argued
that if Cranston wanted others to stay under wraps, he should at least inform
them how to reach him, should they have ideas of their own.
At least Janice Moreland had gained the clue to Holliday Hill quite on her
own and therefore she and Ted had a right to make the most of it. What made Ted
smile was the notion that if Janice had been a better speller, she might have
passed up the clue entirely.
Maybe Ted Trent could improve his own spelling somewhat. From the jaunty
way he drove the car, he apparently thought that Holliday Hill still had some
connection with a holiday.
It didn't.
There was one man who knew, but Ted hadn't asked The Shadow.
CHAPTER XVIII
LIKE some mythical monster, the crumbling gray castle bulked ominously in
the pale moonlight, looming across one's shoulder from whatever angle it was
viewed.
The thing gave Janice Moreland the shudders as she crawled among the
gaunt, dull rocks, hoping to find something worthy of this search. Ted was
right, there were plenty of bramble bushes, but the whip-cord riding habit was
good protection, and its dark tone made her invisible.
Yet Janice would have traded this slow-motion ordeal with its suspense of
the approaching unknown, for a dozen incidents like her quick flight from
Welk's studio. Somehow, the city itself resembled a great enfolding cloak that
carried protection in its folds; but the loneliness of the vast, bleak
countryside created terrors of its own.
Startled, as the bough of a scrub pine brushed her shoulder, Janice
stumbled forward, caught her boot in a rocky crevice and sprawled into a thick
bush that seemed like a horde of invisible claws, plucking at her as some hawk
would snatch a hapless pigeon.
Then Ted was on the scene with blinking flashlight, undertoning for Janice
to hush.
"They've found this place too," informed Ted, "whoever they are. We've got
to get away from this hill before they find us. It will soon be dawn; we've
wasted more time than I thought."
Not Janice.
She'd lived through years during the past few hours that they had spent in
probing stone-clogged cellars and other portions of the ruin once known as
Holliday Castle. This business of searching around the building had been
another of Ted's bright ideas that was leading to nowhere except trouble.
Getting out of it was Ted's job, so Janice left it to him.
Characteristically, Ted chose the toughest way.
Slight blinks of guarded flashlights proved Ted's contention that prowlers
were about, during the circuit that he made to bring Janice to the one part of
the hill-top that they had meticulously avoided until now. It was the brow of
what amounted to a cliff, though Ted regarded it as just a rugged slope.
Maybe that was because Ted was rugged in his own right. Janice certainly
knew she wasn't when Ted helped her right over the brow into what seemed a ride
down a roller coaster without the roller coaster. Ted's arm gripped Janice,
breaking the tumble, until a shaggy bunch of brush ended the mad descent.
All Ted said was:
"That was getting out of it."
"Into it, I'd call it!" emphasized Janice. "What are we going to do now?"
"Work down the slope. It will be easy from here on."
"And what's your idea of easy?"
Ted gave a brief laugh.
"We could have worked down slowly," he explained, "but we were in a hurry.
Now we can afford to take our time."
"You think so?" Pointing through the scraggly brush, Janice indicated
lights that were already working down the slope but in a fashion more
conservative and round-about. "Are we going to have company, or aren't we?"
"They can't be searching for us," argued Ted, "at least not this soon. I
wonder -"
He paused, weighed it a moment, then:
"That message read 'Holliday Hill' but it didn't say Hill-top, or Castle."
"How could it?" queried Janice. "There weren't enough stones."
Ted didn't dispute the point; he merely stuck to his theme.
"This is really the hill, this rugged side," he said. "The rest is just a
back slope. Here's where we should have hunted in the first place."
"For what?"
"For whatever we're supposed to find. Right now, our best bet is to burrow
deeper into this brush, which is about the heaviest on the hill and the most
difficult to reach. We can hope those fellows with the lights find what they're
looking for before they reach us."
The argument was sensible so Janice followed Ted's lead in seeking the
best hiding place. They found a space nicely hollowed in the rock, its front
completely obscured by the brush. It couldn't have been a better nook if made
to order. Then Ted suddenly found that such was its very fault.
"Look, Janice!"
There was enough moonlight to reveal the steel glint at the back of the
tapering hollow, visible only from behind the bushes that otherwise obscured it
from outside eyes. A flat metal surface, set upright in the chiseled rock, Ted's
discovery represented a sizeable door, irregularly shaped yet large enough for
three or more people to enter.
At no spot, however, was there anything resembling a crack or opening by
which this barrier could be moved!
"It's a cave," established Ted. "We should have expected one in this
limestone region with its golden grotto and hermit's hang-out. Right under the
castle, too, which probably means that it's the only outlet, since the other
way is blocked. Only somebody has already converted it to their own use."
"And now others are looking for it," reminded Janice, "and since they must
know it's around, they won't stop until they find it. That means they'll uncover
us first."
"Not if we get into the cave -"
"But how? This isn't one of those Aladdin caves where magic words make it
open."
"Aladdin didn't have a cave."
"Of course he did. That's where he found the wonderful lamp."
"I guess that's right," admitted Ted, "but it was Ali Baba who opened the
cave by speaking words."
"So it was," recalled Janice. "Only he couldn't remember them."
"He remembered them. It was his cousin or somebody who didn't. That story
never convinced me, though."
"Well, here's a sealed cave. You ought to be convinced now."
"I don't mean about the cave," argued Ted. "I mean I never believed that
anybody could forget two simple little words like 'Open Sesame'."
Ted was looking right at the steel door as he spoke that magic couplet. A
moment later he was staring at something else, a deeper space beyond. For with
the pronouncing of those words from the Arabian Nights, the smooth steel door
slithered into the stony hillside, opening a path to safety from the hunters on
the slope.
Ali Baba had nothing on Ted Trent!
CHAPTER XIX
IF Janice hadn't jogged Ted forward, they'd never have gotten through the
door before it closed. Ted was too stupefied to take advantage of the situation
if his companion hadn't come to his aid.
As they shoved past the barrier that almost brushed them as it closed,
they saw the apparatus responsible for the double action. It was a short wave
job, hooked to the mechanism of the door, tuned to pickup and respond to the
famous phrase that was reputed to control the entrance of a fabled cave.
And this cavern surpassed fable.
At the end of a short passage, Ted and Janice came into a lighted chamber
hung with stalactites, stumped with stalagmites, and flowing with rock crystal.
Yet the gorgeous gifts of nature that filled this wonderland were mild compared
with the luxuries that human hands had lavished.
Here were the gold and silver screens, the jeweled tapestries, the other
sumptuous furnishings that had once belonged to Thangra, Rajah of Bildapore.
Their resemblance to the stage sets that Naseby had ordered Welk to duplicate
were scarcely more than coincidental. All these trappings had purposely been
dulled, so they would pass as the theatrical properties homeward bound. Now
installed where they belonged, there was no need for sham. Everything had been
polished to the full, so that the jewels flashed like brilliant stars and the
delicate filigrees shone like lace-work woven by elfin hands.
Most magnificent of all was the rajah's throne in the very center of this
deeply-recessed cavern. On the throne sat a portly potentate, none other than
Thangra, ex-ruler of Bildapore, attired in bejeweled robes and wearing a
gem-studded crown.
Beside him, as watchful guardians stood tawny men in loin clothes, armed
with such formidable weapons as long, curved scimitars and big, funnel-mouthed
muskets. All the pageantry of the Orient was here transcribed in reality,
including the languid creature that reclined on the golden divan near the
rajah's throne.
She rose in alarm as the guards sprang forward. It was Mata Safi, truly
Oriental now, in a costume that consisted of clustered jewels, spaced according
to propriety and connected by strands of beaded gems. More tigerish than ever,
this royal consort would have flung herself between those scimitars and at
least one neck for which the blades were intended, if other intervention had
not arrived.
In a darkened corner just within the passage through which Ted and Janice
had strolled into this death trap stood an unseen figure cloaked in black. How
The Shadow had arrived here was one question; what he did and why he did it,
became two others.
With a quick gesture, The Shadow flung aside both cloak and hat; spinning
to the passage proper, he lunged into the scene as Lamont Cranston, apparently
some one who had simply come along with Ted and Janice. They of all present,
were most surprised to see this madcap rescuer.
All that Cranston retained of his other personality was an automatic,
which he used as a warding bludgeon against the slashing scimitars. Deftly, he
beat off those strokes with criss-cross slashes while Ted was flinging Janice
from harm's way. By then, Mata Safi was able to place her gem-studded form
between the scimitar men and the pair that Cranston had rescued.
Away from the attackers, Cranston beat the blasts of the big-mouthed guns
by diving back to the passage. The sword men followed him while the gun squad
was reloading, but again Cranston had an answer for his adversaries. He reached
the door that answered to the name of Open Sesame and pressed the switch he
found there.
Open Sesame opened without Open Sesame.
From the bramble-covered cavern mouth, Cranston fired quick shots back
along the passage. Oddly his aim was off, for he missed the swordsmen entirely,
but as Cranston, his aim was not supposed to have The Shadow's precision.
At least the process brought results.
Those shots produced shouts from the outside slope. Surging to the battle
came an ill-assorted group who plunged through the opening and blazed shots of
their own at the rajah's retiring scimitar squad.
Unnoticed as they passed him, Cranston simply followed with the surge.
With these new invaders he was trapped in the mesh that Thangra provided.
Reaching the throne room, the arrivals no longer had a chance to overtake the
swordsmen, because they were flanked by the reloaded musketoons held by the
rest of Thangra's bodyguards.
The invaders stopped short and Cranston with them, though he was careful
to stay in the center of the cluster to have the benefit of human shields
should the musketoons go off. As for Ted and Janice, they were staring,
astonished, from the corner where Mata Safi had pressed them.
Those men from the hillside were headed by Count Zurich. With him were
Rouge and Noir and a pair of secondary ruffians who looked quite as murderous
as Zurich's favorite killers. These were the enemies that Ted and Janice had
eluded, only to fall into the iron grip of Thangra, one time Rajah of Bildapore!
It was a tense scene.
From his throne, Thangra looked toward Mata Safi to learn her choice
regarding these trapped foemen. A mere gesture from the bejeweled consort would
have meant death for all. Instead, Mata Safi pointed a slender thumb upward.
Doubt clouded Thangra's heavy brow. He did not approve such mercy; if he
had, he would have delivered it himself. But Mata Safi had an explanation for
her whim.
Jewels undulating with every motion of her vibrant form, this lithesome
creature approached the rajah's throne and delivered a sparkling bow. Then in a
tone as hard as the glint of the gems that clothed her, Mata Safi queried:
"Why give swift death to those who do not deserve it?"
Such language humored the rajah. He waved for his dozen servants to huddle
the prisoners toward the throne. It was then that Ted Trent realized how badly
he had again injured Cranston's well-laid plans.
If left untrammeled, Cranston would have counted on Zurich's band to
cancel off the rajah's crew. Cranston himself could have acted as the final
arbiter, with guns. That fact drove home to Ted, although he didn't realize how
much more effectively Cranston could have managed it while caparisoned as The
Shadow, for Ted had not guessed the secret of such dual identity.
What The Shadow had done was throw away his leading trump. If he'd played
his cloaked self in drawing off Thangra's cohorts, he would have become an
immediate target for Zurich's crew which would have placed him right between.
As Cranston, The Shadow was banking on the future, having eliminated one
faction - Zurich's - by letting the balance swing the other way.
The Shadow, a prisoner like the rest, was trying a double game and
counting on another person whose method was the same: Mata Safi.
Well did the calm-faced Cranston know that Mata was indifferent to the
fate of the throng at large. Her purpose was to save the life of one man, Ted
Trent, if only to gloat her triumph over her blonde rival, Janice Moreland.
To cover that purpose, the gem-spangled brunette had decreed life for all,
rather than arouse the rajah's jealousy. Even now, as she let her cold eyes rove
the group, Mata gave them moments of warmth when they met Ted's gaze.
If Ted happened to be too strained to guess the truth, so was the rajah.
"Before we arrange your torture," announced Thangra, addressing the
prisoners in perfect English, "you may have the privilege of stating how you
learned of my present residence."
Cranston did not deign a reply, but Zurich decided to play policy. Count
Bela wasn't his usual jaunty self, for he was clad in old clothes instead of
tuxedo and gray hat. Being out of character, he could afford to act it.
"On account of Grenshaw's letters," stated Zurich. "We found a few that
he'd sent to this man."
Zurich's thumb nudge indicated Cranston, whose face maintained its calm.
Again, Ted groped for the answer and found it. Cranston must have weighed the
gems and placed them in the order that spelled Holliday Hill; then, after
tracing Zurich, he had faked letters that looked like Grenshaw's and let them
fall into Bela's eager hands.
All toward the crux of bringing two murderous bands into a final fray!
Thangra's eyes were fixed on Cranston. Finding that this prisoner
preferred silence, the rajah spoke instead.
"I was no fool to trust Grenshaw," affirmed Thangra, "because I had no
other choice. The real fool was Naseby, because he trusted me. Twice a fool, to
think that I would let him have the matchless Tear-drops of Buddha as a reward
for helping me import my other wealth."
As he spoke, the rajah removed his crown and slowly revolved it in the
light. The sparkle from the golden band was dazzling, for it was girded
alternately with rubies, diamonds and emeralds, twelve in all. The real
Tear-drops, these, gracing the crown that Thangra wore as ruler of this
underground domain which he had chosen as a substitute for his lost realm of
Bildapore!
"Of course I promised Naseby the Tear-drops," continued Thangra, "but I
said that first I would deliver tokens to represent them. I knew how those
replicas with their secret message would appeal to Naseby's avarice. Having
been told how he could read it, he would do so, and come here in good faith
expecting to exchange the spurious for the real."
Carefully, Thangra replaced the priceless crown upon his head. Rising from
his throne, he gestured for the guards to herd the prisoners to corners of the
cavern. With a gesture calling for Mata Safi to follow, Thangra turned away;
then paused long enough to deliver this ominous pronouncement:
"What Naseby would have experienced, once he came here, you will all
suffer in varying degrees. As ruler of Bildapore I held power over life and
death" - his broad face wreathed in an evil smile, the rajah let his ugly eyes
wallow in their fatty sockets, as he added gloatingly: "And pain."
Then, accompanied by Mata Safi who had so thoughtfully reminded him of his
royal privilege, Thangra, former tyrant of Bildapore, strode from his throne
cavern to plan the delight that was to be his - delight that would depend upon
the anguish that he delivered unto others!
CHAPTER XX
HOUSED in a limestone niche that resembled a crude cell, Lamont Cranston
was waiting steadfastly along with others who were similarly trapped.
The jitters were creeping over Ted Trent, who was in an adjoining
compartment, but he was trying not to show it, hoping that his example would
help Janice Moreland bear the strain.
And then, into this realm of the lost who could only wait, swayed the
creature who had suggested their ill-fate: Mata Safi.
Arms akimbo, shoulders erect, her head raised in a hauteur that suited the
disdain her features registered, Mata Safi began a slow tour of the niches where
the prisoners were segregated.
Cranston's face remained impassive; Ted's was grim. Zurich registered a
sneer and turned away; his followers snarled angrily. Janice was the last to
receive the cold eye and her own glare seemed lost on Mata Safi.
Once a lady with a dash of leopard, Mata Safi now seemed all leopard, with
very little lady.
From his stony cubicle, Cranston watched where Mata Safi went. He knew
that those cold eyes had missed nothing during the tour. In the course of her
rounds, Mata Safi had spied exactly what Cranston hoped, the cloak and hat that
lay otherwise forgotten in the gloom near the outer passage.
She had paused there to gather in those garments. Bundled under one arm,
they scarcely showed as she started what seemed the beginning of another round.
Then, stooping slinkily along the wall, this creature of changing moods arrived
with a warning whisper beside the low stone barrier behind which Ted Trent
stood.
Into Ted's motionless hands, Mata Safi thrust the garments she had found.
Her voice became an alluring purr, actually warming in its tone, as she
confided in the astonished prisoner.
"He is here, The Shadow!" spoke Mata Safi. "Where he has gone, I do not
know, but he left these. If they aid him in the darkness, they will do the same
for you. Watch where I go; then put these on - and follow!"
Soft though those words were, they reached the real owner of the black
regalia, in his coop not too far distant. Watching Mata Safi resume her
mannequin pose and strut in jewelled splendor past the guards, Cranston turned
in Ted's direction just as his fellow-prisoner was about to fling away the
unrequested gift.
Low, calm, but audible was Cranston's tone:
"Wait!"
Ted waited. He owed some courtesy to Cranston after all those previous
mistakes. Noting an upward gesture of Cranston's hands, Ted tossed the bundle
of black. Cranston caught it with a dip that carried him from sight.
If Ted had watched, he would have observed that his friend did not
reappear.
Instead, The Shadow emerged from the limestone niche. Only briefly did his
cloaked form flit like a passing swirl of smoke; then he was lost in the
darkness along the cavern walls.
Lost to the sharp eyes of the rajah's servitors who paced these premises
with scimitars and musketoons. If Ted had tried it, his chances would have been
slim; but this garb of black fitted with Cranston's skill at choosing darkened
paths, an aptitude he always demonstrated as The Shadow.
It was when he had reached the upper end of a lighted passage that The
Shadow openly moved into sight. Eager hands clutched his cloaked arm and drew
him toward a pair of crude stone steps, leading upward to a mass of broken
beams that were tilted like a flock of giant jackstraws.
And Mata Safi, in the dimness that obscured the hard glint of her
clustered jewels, was soft and soulful in the tone she thought was heard by Ted
Trent, the man whose love she coveted.
"There is a way up through the ruins," breathed Mata Safi. "Easy to find
from here, but not from above. It is dawn now, you can find your way out, but
be careful!
"We shall meet later, when I am free of the rajah." Momentarily there was
a hard significance in Mata's voice. "I never cared for him; it was Grenshaw
who persuaded me to act as an inducement in the scheme.
"And why not?" They were on the stairs now and though she halted, Mata
still clung to The Shadow's arm. "I shall see that I gain enough of this stolen
wealth including the Twelve Tear-drops!
"It will be mine" - Mata's words were breathless - "and yours, wherever
you await me! But wait" - the hands clutched tighter - "I know your wish and I
shall grant it before you ask it. I shall save your friends. Believe me."
Mata Safi sent The Shadow up the route that he already knew, for it was by
probing the empty ruin that he had reached the secret cavern.
Blended with blackness, The Shadow paused to watch Mata Safi return
soft-footed toward the passage below. As her sleek form turned the corner, he
swung about and followed, his glide as silent as Mata's feline tread.
There was a doorway just past the turn. There The Shadow saw Mata pause,
her fingers clenching at her hip as though seeking a knife she wished were
there. Then, catlike as before, Mata glided through the doorway.
Again, The Shadow was within observation distance of the thing that
followed. The room, hewn from a side cavern, contained a filigreed desk at
which Thangra sat toying with tiny puppets, representing the victims whom he
intended to torture for his own and Mata's enjoyment. From the rajah's sash
extended the jewelled handle of an Oriental dagger and Mata's fingers crept for
the weapon like a snake approaching an unseeing prey.
Before the blade was half-drawn, Thangra sensed it. Swinging about in his
chair, he saw Mata Safi whip away, carrying the dagger with her. From his other
hip, the rajah hauled an ancient pistol that looked like a miniature of the
blunderbuss guns his followers carried.
Which would have won, Mata's back-hand knife thrust or Thangra's rising
aim, was a question never to be answered. Ahead of both came the whirling
figure of The Shadow.
Plucking Thangra's heavy pistol with one hand, The Shadow sent the rajah
reeling with an elbow sweep of the same arm. Simultaneously, he caught Mata's
wrist with a wrench that flung the dagger one direction and shoved Mata toward
the door. The jewelled creature was momentarily astonished; then, frantically,
she reached her feet and dashed down the passage to the lower cavern.
Stopping the rising rajah with a fling of the fancy table, The Shadow
wheeled from the doorway carrying the borrowed pistolette. Footsteps were
coming in response to Mata's call and too well did The Shadow know why. By
bringing the guards, Mata hoped to dispose of The Shadow along with Thangra
while she tried her own hand at rescuing Ted Trent, the man she realized had
not worn The Shadow's garb.
Thrusting the big pistol beneath his cloak, The Shadow seized a huge mace
that hung just inside the doorway. Instead of turning to meet arriving foemen
with that cumbersome weapon, The Shadow sped for the rough-hewn stairs. The
long-handled mace had other advantages than that of a battle-axe; it was suited
aptly to a test The Shadow saw for it.
With terrific strokes, The Shadow slashed the great blade into the
lowermost of the fallen timbers, chopping huge chunks with every stroke. Then,
as dark faces came glaring from below, he turned and flung the mace at the
lifting musketoons. Thangra's men dived pell-mell with their weapons and The
Shadow, following the fling that he had made, came headlong after the
clattering mace.
Something crackled just above and with it a heavy timber sagged and split
the one The Shadow had chopped. Another great beam toppled sideways, releasing
two others that formed a rough arch across the narrow steps. A stone block
quivered higher up and overbalanced another that formed a support for more
above it.
The very foundations of Holliday Castle were being stirred as if by a
giant's invisible hand, but there were no witnesses to the slow-motion growth
of this gradual catastrophe. Even its sounds were drowned by the strident laugh
that came from the turn below the stairs.
Like a prophecy of a greater force to come, The Shadow had struck into the
midst of Thangra's rallying tribe. Musketoons were swinging to flank him before
he could pass the rising scimitars that barred his path, but The Shadow didn't
wait. He let blast with the rajah's pistolette and the spreading hail from its
funnel mouth cleared a path through which he drove, whirling only to fling the
one-shot weapon at Thangra, who was aiming the pistol's twin from the door of
the side cavern.
Dodging as he pulled the trigger, Thangra merely marred a few minor
stalactites that hung like stony icicles above the limestone passage.
They were after The Shadow, all of them, but he had become a streak of
living blackness, beyond the range of their clumsy guns. Swirling into the
great lower cavern, The Shadow furnished another of his timely laughs, but not
as a taunt for those he had left behind him. Here was new chaos that demanded
his prompt attention.
Mata Safi had freed Ted Trent by calling off Thangra's watch-dogs, but
she'd bettered matters for a clan of undesirables as well. Count Zurich and his
cronies had reached a stock-pile consisting of the weapons that had been taken
from them. Their various shooting irons lay in front of the rajah's throne and
two men had found their guns already: Rouge and Noir.
Turned, that pair were covering Ted and Janice, at the same time watching
Mata Safi as she tried to slink away. Coming up with his own gun, Zurich was
announcing that he'd keep control of those desirable jewels and their human
supplement, when The Shadow's challenge relieved the monotony of the one-sided
issue.
Wheeling savagely to meet this new contender, Zurich and his undesirables
received the rajah's throne all at once. They built them big and heavy in
Bildapore; hence The Shadow could have found no better missile in opening
negotiations. Scattering as the overturning object bounded in their very midst,
none of Zurich's men saw The Shadow traveling in the throne's wake.
Up from the floor, a long black swooping figure scooped the automatics
that had formerly been Cranston's, took another whirl and with it disgorged a
round-house volley that scattered Zurich's crowd still further.
They thought The Shadow would stay around for battle, but with one of his
elusive fades, he came behind Ted and Janice, and started them toward the lower
passage with a command that brooked no argument. Away again, The Shadow still
remained elusive, even to the sharp eyes of Mata Safi, who had reached the
overturned throne and was leaning there, staring one way, then another.
A fierce shout from Zurich changed the tide of battle. Thangra's crowd was
arriving, followed by their master, and this called for all-out action. Two
factions launched into a head-on fray, the long-delayed battle that The Shadow
had originally planned. But it lasted only until Thangra's shouts won out. A
commanding presence, even to his foemen, Thangra produced concerted effort with
his cry:
"The Shadow!"
That was right. The Shadow! He was the menace to all concerned, a fact
that Zurich echoed in loud-lunged style. They looked for The Shadow and heard
his strange, defiant laugh, from some untraceable corner of the cavern.
Mata Safi had heard something else.
That thunder from the upper passage couldn't be the arrival of some new
human horde. Who had started it, Mata could guess, but she had less doubt
regarding the result. Thangra, Zurich and the rest saw a flash of scintillating
gems taking their human carrier toward the exit that Ted and Janice had already
found.
Then, Mata's resplendence was suddenly blacked out, not by the gloom of
the passage, but by a cloaked shape that overtook her.
It was The Shadow, also taking to flight!
As he spun into the passage, The Shadow lashed back two shots to cover his
swift exit, but his foemen weren't deterred by that feeble show of a once
vaunted prowess. They thought they had routed The Shadow and that now was the
time to go after the kill.
They thought and went too late.
Shouts, barks of guns were drowned by the mighty thunder that roared into
the cavern, literally splitting the walls of the wide upper passage. All of old
Holliday's Castle was arriving in a flood-tide of stone and timbers that spread
into a mammoth pool, as turbulent as any tidal wave. Great chunks of stone
formed a flying barrage that cleared the heads of wildly darting men and landed
with titanic crashes to block the lower outlet from the cavern.
Other masses, splitting as they struck, flayed their human targets like
chunks of oversized shrapnel. Dodging rock that was gauged not in pounds but
tonnage, was too serious a pastime even for Thangra and Zurich.
Rajah and gamester were felled and buried with their followers under the
debris that rose until it blocked the passage that had served it as a sluice. A
deep silence settled in this cavern, where excavation would be necessary to
reclaim the lost treasures of Bildapore.
Lost somewhere deep in the dust-clouded pile was the cause of this mighty
climax, the golden crown that contained the fabled gems known as the Twelve
Tear-drops of Buddha.
Far down the slope, Lamont Cranston was greeting men who had arrived with
the dawn, according to his schedule. They were the local authorities, with
Commissioner Weston as a visiting delegate. Nearby were Ted Trent and Janice
Moreland, staring upward like the rest, watching the grayish cloud of dust that
filtered steadily from the brush upon the steep, like the smoking fissure of a
newly formed volcano.
There was one other person.
Clutching the folds of a black cloak that now enveloped her, Mata Safi
didn't even know it was The Shadow's. Half-dazed, she was wondering how she had
arrived here, wondering too how far her testimony would go toward lessening her
guilt as an accomplice in the crimes of others.
After all, she had only teamed with Zurich in order to report his actions
to Thangra. True, she had once launched violence in the form of a dacoit now
buried with the rest of Thangra's followers, but Commissioner Weston was here
and alive to prove that the attempt hadn't clicked.
How far Mata Safi had redeemed her past in relation to a future reckoning
would be a problem for some keen brain to decide by weighing fact against fact
until his unerring mind tipped the final balance.
Perhaps that judge would be The Shadow!
THE END