THE TAIWAN JOSS
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," September 1945.
Locked in a luxurious prison, watched at every moment - how did the person
who suspected piracy and murder get out a warning message to The Shadow? What
foul deeds were perpetrated on behalf of a jewel-studded idol whose slaves
posed a deadly challenge for The Master of Darkness?
CHAPTER I
JERRY GIFFORD had a way of clicking his pipe between his teeth that few
people could have imitated even if they wanted. What Jerry was doing was
spelling words in the international code, a sort of reflex from his career as a
wireless operator.
It was a welcome relief, too, since the only clicks that Jerry heard
nowadays were those of his typewriter when he beat out stories along with his
brains, spinning tales that sounded like fiction for magazines that insisted
they only published fact.
To Jerry there wasn't much difference between the two, fact and fiction,
but Kip Ranstead didn't agree. In fact right now Kip was laughing at what Jerry
considered his own most serious piece of work.
Staring from the window of his little office, Jerry glared through the
Manhattan drizzle and managed to keep his temper. As a help toward Jerry's
self-control came the deep throb of a steamship whistle, working up from the
Lower Bay.
Jerry knew those whistle signals and liked to hear them. They reminded him
of a more carefree period of existence when he hadn't thought of literary
achievement as a future. Maybe from the way Kip was reacting to Jerry's latest
story, Jerry should think of literary work as a past.
Then Kip gave his opinion in a tone that was far too frank.
"Nobody would believe this stuff, Jerry," said Kip. "It's more fantastic
than anything written about the Spanish Main."
Swinging from the window, Jerry gave Kip a deep-set stare from under a
frowning brow.
"Only I wasn't writing about the Spanish Main," Jerry argued. "That story
covers piracy along the Chinese coast as it is today - or was until the war
interrupted it."
A smile formed on Kip's sallow, doubting face, a prelude to the head-shake
that followed.
"The Taiwan Joss," declared Kip, staring at Jerry's manuscript. "Even the
idea is ridiculous. Imagine a lot of pirates, of varied nationalities, making
their victims swear to pay high ransom in front of a jewel-studded idol made of
basalt!"
"But they did!" insisted Jerry. "I've talked to some of the victims. They
told me about others who tried to brazen it out and the things that happened to
them."
"Good fiction," acknowledged Kip, "but it goes haywire when you bring in
the renegade sea captain who stole the precious idol. Why didn't the pirates
stop him?"
"Because they couldn't," explained Jerry. "The Japs wanted to fortify the
islands off Formosa so they told the pirates to scram -"
"But the Japs were friendly to the pirates -"
"As long as the pirates preyed on Chinese shipping, yes. But when there
wasn't any Chinese shipping left, that ended it."
With a slower head-shake, Kip tossed the manuscript on the desk.
"You talk as if you believed all this, Jerry."
"Because it's a fact, Kip. There is such a skipper and I know his name. An
antique dealer commissioned him to steal the Taiwan Joss, just as I've stated in
the story. The antique dealer has a special customer who will buy the Joss. And
from there on -"
"Why don't you give names?" interrupted Kip. "That's the only way to prove
a fact story."
"Because if the skipper ever admitted it," Jerry declared, "those pirates
of the Pescadores would swoop down on him. Everybody connected with the thing
would find their lives at stake."
Kip's hands spread despairingly.
"But if the Japs wiped out the pirates -"
"Nobody could ever wipe them out completely," interposed Jerry. "Where the
Joss goes, they follow. I told you that story would be dynamite, Kip, and it is.
I'm afraid even to try to sell it."
"So would I be," returned Kip, drily. "But I'm thinking more in terms of
an editor's opinion. So why not hang on to it? Place it as a fact story after
it stands proved."
The suggestion forced a nod from Jerry, much though he regretted it. From
afar he heard the banshee tone of a plying steamship, a wail reminiscent of the
China coast. To Jerry those sounds represented living creatures with their moods
and emotions, but after all he couldn't expect his readers to understand. Kip
was right; the Joss story should wait. Nevertheless, Jerry gave a final opinion.
"If it ever broke!" he muttered. "If Captain Adalbart came from cover with
that Joss, it would be murder! But that's his problem."
This time Kip Ranstead nodded approvingly. Carelessly, Kip tossed the
manuscript in a wire basket on the desk. Then:
"Here's something to soothe your disappointment, Jerry. I've fixed the
Troxell article for you."
"You mean I can go to the Troxell Theater?" demanded Jerry. "That I can
live there, weeding and sifting all the records compiled by old Oscar Troxell
himself?"
"Absolutely," assured Kip, "beginning with this afternoon. That is, if
you'll agree to the terms."
"Agree to them," laughed Jerry. "They're the sort I would propose myself.
I'm to stay in the place, under strict surveillance, to make sure I don't steal
any of the valuable playbills, programs or other documents pertaining thereto."
"And you are not to leave," reminded Kip, "until you have completed your
research; the material is almost priceless!"
"Why should I want to leave?" demanded Jerry. "Why, this is like taking a
trip back into the past. How long can I stay there, Kip?"
"A week," Kip replied. "All your meals will be served by an old caretaker
who answers to the name of Chichester. He was one of Troxell's staunch
retainers, back in the good old days. You're to have no visitors -"
"Who wants them?"
With that, Jerry reached for his hat and coat, only to be interrupted by
Kip.
"That column of yours," reminded Kip. "The thing you do for the Daily
Shipper. Are you ahead on it?"
Frowning, Jerry shook his head.
"I thought not," smiled Kip, "so I mentioned it to old Chichester. He says
he'll mail it for you. But you'd better tell the office that you're going out of
town. If anybody starts looking you up at the Troxell Theater, the deal is off."
Nodding, Jerry picked up the telephone and called the Daily Shipper to
announce that he was going up state and wouldn't be back for a week. Kip
listened intently to the assurances that Jerry gave the office regarding the
delivery of the daily column, but before the phone call ended, Kip had tilted
his ear to catch something else.
The other sound was the clatter of a horse's hooves halting just outside
the building. As Jerry finished the phone call, Kip beckoned him to the window
and gestured down into the drizzly dusk. There stood a hansom cab, piloted by a
driver with a conventional plug-hat.
"There's your coach and one, Mr. Cinderella," announced Kip. "Right from
the Troxell Theater, to take you back fifty years. Chichester arranged it."
Jerry grinned at the Cinderella simile.
"I'd better get started," he decided, "before somebody turns into a rat.
Thanks, Kip."
Watching from the office window, Kip saw Jerry emerge from the front door
and clamber into the hansom. With a clatter of hooves the thing was off,
bearing Jerry Gifford into the past. On Jerry's desk lay the manuscript he had
forgotten in his enthusiasm, that story of a future menace surrounding a
certain Captain Adalbart.
From the fog-laden dusk came further whistle blasts of the sort that put
Jerry in a reminiscent mood. Kip Ranstead grinned as he heard the sounds, as if
thinking what an odd chap Jerry was, to dwell always in the past or the future,
never in the present except when he was pressed by the urgencies of his
shipping column.
But Kip's grin wasn't pleasant. Had Jerry still been around, he would have
been startled by the way his supposed friend dropped his mask.
Whether or not this was a Cinderella story, somebody was turning into a
rat, at least in looks.
That somebody was Kip Ranstead.
CHAPTER II
INTENTLY Kip Ranstead listened until he heard the last hoof-beat fade into
the far gloom from which the melancholy whistles emerged. Then Kip got busy.
First Kip took the manuscript which Jerry had tossed aside, mostly on
Kip's say-so. Checking rapidly through the pages, Kip tabbed certain details
which he had only casually noted during what had seemed a disinterested reading.
Finding all he wanted, Kip was more than pleased, but the capstone of his
triumph was the object that fluttered from the loosened paper clip that bound
the manuscript. It was an envelope of the sort that Kip recognized.
Picking up the envelope from the spot where it landed on the floor, Kip
chuckled nastily.
This was a return envelope, bearing stamps to the proper capacity, which
Jerry had intended for enclosure when sending the manuscript to the first
magazine that he expected to reject it. The envelope was addressed to Jerry
Gifford, care of the Daily Shipper. Still wearing his ratty smile, Kip reached
for the telephone on Jerry's desk.
At that moment, the telephone bell jangled.
Briefly, Kip's face switched its expression to a hunted one. Then, with
the manner of a man who had played his cards too well, Kip lifted the receiver
and gave a suave "Hello."
A girl's voice responded and Kip immediately became oily, which was not
unnatural, since that was his way with women. He knew the girl, both by name
and voice. She was Janice Courtland, a rather earnest sort, who seemed to have
more than a passing interest in Jerry Gifford, judging from the few times that
Kip had met her.
Kip told Janice that Jerry had gone away on a trip, which suited the story
which Jerry himself had certified. When Janice wanted to know where, Kip said
"up-state" as though that settled it. There was an odd hesitancy, almost a
disappointment in the girl's tone as she ended the call, but Kip decided it was
unimportant.
What was important was the call that Kip himself put through as soon as
the line was clear. From the moment that a man's voice answered, Kip became
confidential.
"He fell for it," informed Kip. "I knew I could swing it... Yes, the
manuscript is here and it has everything we thought was in it... Of course I
talked him out of mailing it. What am I being paid for?"
Evidently Kip's flippancy wasn't appreciated at the other end of the line,
because Kip immediately became serious. He nodded, a sign that he was taking
instructions across the wire.
"Of course I'm mailing it," promised Kip. "That's what I'm here for." This
time there was nothing smart in Kip's emphasis. "Jerry already addressed a
return envelope... Yes, that will make it all the better..."
Plainly, Kip was becoming cagey, his eyes shrewd, like his half smile. But
if he expected to learn what his instructor had in mind, the full purpose behind
the mailing of the manuscript, Kip was due for disappointment. From the tone of
the voice across the wire, Kip sensed that the call was about to end. He became
anxious.
"But what about the dough?" Kip put the query quickly. "That's right, the
thousand bucks... Call you back? But how soon?" Now the anxiety was registering
itself on every line of the sallow face that thrust close to the light of the
desk lamp. "In five minutes? Good... Of course I'll mail the letter first...
That's right. Then the job will be complete... Signed, sealed, delivered -"
Kip was talking to a dead line as he added those unnecessary comments.
After mopping sweat from his forehead, he found that his mouth was too dry to
lick an envelope. After wetting his lips a few times, Kip finally maneuvered
it; then he sneaked from the office, taking care to leave the door ajar behind
him.
There wasn't any mail chute in this small office building, so Kip was
forced to go down one flight to post the letter. Why he should have become so
apprehensive during that short trip was something of a mystery, unless Kip
happened to know too much that wasn't good for him.
Nevertheless, the sallow man was worried, as his manner showed. Maybe it
was the thickening of the dusk and the incessant drizzle, for when Kip stared
out through the downstairs doorway, his apprehension increased. Even Kip's hand
trembled as he thrust the letter in the mail-chute; then, his smile twitching
one side of his face, Kip started up the stairs again, throwing a quick look
over his shoulder.
Somebody might be lurking in that encroaching darkness - almost anybody.
All right, if they'd seen Kip mail a letter, so what?
Everybody who belonged in this building came down to mail letters,
particularly late in the day. Going upstairs was smart, because it meant that
Kip belonged here. In a sense he did belong, because be dropped in to see Jerry
Gifford quite often. All the more reason why Kip should go back to Jerry's
office to make his final phone call, and settle a little question of a thousand
dollars due him.
Certainly no one would be able to trail Kip and listen in on that
all-important call, if some outdoor lurker happened to have that in mind. You
couldn't be too sure of anything when big money was at stake. When Kip reached
the top of the stairs, he looked down to assure himself that his qualms were
unjustified.
No longer able to see the outer door, Kip gained nerve from the lighted
stairway, dim though it was. He had no fears now of shrouded figures stalking
vaguely in the dusk. He was ready to be smart again and suggest more money than
a mere one thousand for the job he had just performed. It might seem trivial,
Kip's part in the peculiar business involving Jerry Gifford, but Kip regarded
himself as a key man.
More than that - and this was the reason for Kip's sharp-toothed smile -
he was in a position to end what he had begun, and quickly, if his further
terms were not met.
Entering Jerry's office, Kip closed the door and heard the latch click
home. Turning to the desk, he was reaching for the telephone when his eyes
narrowed sharply on the spread sheet of a newspaper on which the telephone
rested.
Kip didn't remember that newspaper being there before. Even greater was
his surprise when he recognized it as a late edition of an afternoon journal
that Jerry couldn't possibly have brought here, since he was in the office when
it went on sale. Kip himself had seen such a newspaper but had purposely avoided
bringing a copy here.
Yet here it was, and open at the very page which accounted for Kip
arranging that special excursion which Jerry had taken into the past, as
represented by the Troxell Theater. Even more startling was the fact that the
page was marked, blue-pencilled with a heavy ring around an advertisement which
Jerry of all people was not supposed to see.
The ad was in a column that bore the heading "Personals" and it stated:
Curio Seeker: Rare item you want now available.
Inform P X when to deliver... Adalbart.
Kip's fists clenched, one on the telephone, the other on the newspaper.
Had Jerry returned to mock him with this by-play? No, he had seen Jerry ride
off in the hansom, chartered for this special occasion, so any hoax was the
other way around. Nobody could have entered this building, at least not by the
stairway, during Kip's brief trip down to the mail box. Frozen in the
lamplight, Kip's face registered the fear that lurkers, already in the
building, might still be about. Then, as if timed, Kip's stare fixed itself
upon the window; not the window from which he had seen Jerry start his hansom
ride, but the side window, which opened on a little narrow court, across to an
equally dilapidated building next door. To learn if that window was latched,
Kip strained his shoulders forward and craned his neck upward.
The slighter creak of a floor board was drowned by the greater groan from
the ramshackle desk as its dried wood received Kip's weight. Kip, noting that
the window clamp was tight, remained unconscious of the stir from the gloom
behind him. The figure that moved from the darkened corner beside a bulky file
cabinet did not have to come into the light.
Only its arm did, with the hand so heavily gloved that it looked like a
robot's fist as it drove a long, thin blade straight downward. The steel
disappeared deep in Kip's back, so smoothly, so sharply, that the stopping fist
seemed to have delivered a blow.
Kip Ranstead didn't sprawl; he spread. His head, thudding the desk, skewed
crazily about, showing eyes that goggled with surprise as sudden and complete as
the grimace that remained upon Kip's sallow face. The gloved hand unwrapped
itself from a silver dagger-hilt, revealing a blood-red gem that glittered as a
symbol of death.
The gloved hand reached for the lamp cord and tugged it, bringing darkness
to the room where death had been so swift. From afar came the throb of a great
steamship whistle, somewhere in the fog.
Those tones had always reminded Jerry Gifford of sinister doings off the
China Coast. Maybe he'd felt forebodings of a doom such at this, but if so it
had been in terms of a certain Captain Adalbart.
Instead that doom had struck in Jerry's own office, the victim his false
friend, Kip Ranstead!
CHAPTER III
JANICE COURTLAND brushed the drizzle from her eyes, pressed back her
blonde hair and stared from the doorway where she had found a temporary refuge
from the weather. What she saw, or rather what she didn't see, made her stare
all the more.
Coming along the street, Janice could have sworn that she saw a light from
a window that she thought was Jerry's office, but now it was blacked out. If
she'd seen right in the first place, Jerry must have been there just a few
moments ago, unless Kip Ranstead was the only person in the office.
Janice wasn't at all sure that only Kip had been there when she phoned.
For reasons that she didn't fully understand, Jerry had been avoiding her of
late. Maybe he'd grown tired of listening to a story that he probably didn't
believe.
Whoever had left the office would probably come downstairs, so Janice
decided to anticipate the situation. Crossing the street, she reached the
lighted doorway, only to halt there very suddenly. It wasn't best to think of
doorways and forget the street. That afterthought wasn't quite soon enough. As
Janice peered along the sidewalk, it seemed that others must have expected her
to catch the same idea. That was, unless they were figments of a very vivid
imagination that Janice was ready to believe she had acquired lately.
Down and up the street, toward both ends of the block, figures that were
grotesquely human faded from the blur of the drizzle-swept street lamps into
doorways as convenient as the one that Janice had chosen earlier.
Whether to believe it was now the question.
Comparing her memory of the dissolving figures with other flickers from
along the street, Janice was almost convinced that they were identical. There
was a breeze that stirred the half-mist into a full-fledged drizzle and the
results were strange. Anything from a frayed awning to a flapping shutter could
cast grotesque shadows vivid enough to take on living shape.
Shuddering, Janice moved into the building hoping to forget those fanciful
outside fears. As she turned toward the stairs, she saw a monstrous blackness on
the wall, a downward creeping blotch of growing size, more terrifying than the
evanescent shapes from which she had just fled. With an unrestrained shriek,
the girl stumbled out from the doorway and across the sidewalk; tripping at the
curb, she came into the gleam of headlights that had swung around the corner.
Brakes shrieked now, and a taxi cab veered to a halt. Its driver, thinking
that Janice had merely slipped on the curb while signalling him, was quick with
an apology.
"Sorry, lady," he said. "Hope you didn't hurt yourself. Need any help?"
Managing to gasp that she didn't, Janice sprang into the cab and since it
was a one-way street, the driver started ahead before waiting for her to give
the address. He slackened at the corner for further directions and looked
around to see his passenger staring through the rear window.
In a last glance into the building, Janice had seen no further sign of the
grotesque figure she'd imagined on the stairs. But the figures on the street
seemed more real than before. Huddly in form, they had converged across the
way, coming at an angle toward this very corner. Two, three - perhaps more of
them - then Janice had lost count as well as any sight of those shapes in the
darkness.
Like visual echoes of an over-wrought imagination, such disappearing
creatures, Janice felt that she could laugh at the very thought of them, once
she was far enough away. Hearing the driver's query "Which way, lady?" Janice
managed the firm reply "Uptown" as she settled back in the rear seat.
Then, as the cab found a better lighted avenue, Janice gave more specific
instructions.
"I want the Malaysian Museum," she announced. "I forget just which street
it's on -"
"I know the place," interposed the cabby. "Looks like some old mansion, in
fact that's what it was once. Lots of funny old places around New York, like the
Troxell Theater for instance. Kind of like ghosts those places, particularly
when you see hansom cabs hauling up in front of them, like I did tonight, up by
the theater. They're ghosts too, them hansoms. Funny the way they hang on."
The subject of ghosts didn't appeal to Janice, nor did this talk of
something hanging on. Along the avenue, passing objects didn't seem to have the
flickery effect that made them seem alive, but now Janice had another worry. Two
tiny pin-points of light, starting from a long way back, had grown larger until
they proved to be the headlights of something bigger than another cab.
As Janice's cab swung a corner, she saw that the trailing vehicle was a
closed truck, probably a delivery wagon, but too much like a hearse to be
anything but foreboding. It was hanging on, all right, because it not only
followed around the corner, but took the next turn too.
Why it didn't pass the cab, Janice couldn't understand, unless its
driver's purpose was to drive her crazy, which seemed feasible enough. For all
Janice knew, the truck was carrying a hidden crew in the persons of those
imaginary figures that had cluttered the doorways along Jerry's street.
Somehow, the more that Janice tried to laugh them off, the more real they
became.
Another turn, and this time to Janice's relief, the truck kept on. She
caught a good look at it now, and saw that it bore no name, either on its side
or back. Anyway, its passing marked an end to Janice's qualms, but only briefly.
The taxi driver had taken the wrong street.
"Sorry, lady," he apologized again. "Guess I'll have to stop the clock and
do a little looking. It's somewhere around here, that museum is."
It proved to be somewhere around, but on a street where Janice didn't want
it when they found it. For as they swung into the block. that the driver
identified as the right one, Janice saw the truck swinging the far corner, up
ahead. Instantly, she began to plant huddly creatures in every available
doorway.
"Don't stop here," Janice pleaded, quickly. "Go around the corner to the
back street." She could say this safely, because the truck had turned in the
other direction. "There's an entrance in back, the one I always use."
The driver didn't argue. He took Janice around to the back street where a
row of old houses belied her statement. However the driver didn't want to be
sorry again in case he proved wrong, so be accepted Janice's fare and pulled
away, leaving her on the sidewalk. There, staring at a darkened house front,
Janice found herself in another dilemma.
One thing she wouldn't do: that was walk around the block. Hoping she'd
find a way through the museum, Janice looked for one, only to tangle herself in
a blind alley that ended in a brick wall connecting two of the row houses. Here,
all was so dark that Janice couldn't even picture the lurkers that she began to
imagine. Coming out of the passage in a hurry, she could hear the clatter of
her high heels followed by their echoes.
Apparently someone else heard those sounds too. As Janice turned along the
sidewalk, she fancied that a figure stepped suddenly behind the high steps of an
old house. This time Janice rallied boldly and approached the fancied menace. As
she paused, it seemed that the echoes of her footfalls came from beyond the
steps, but without their usual clatter.
Janice tried it again; a quick halt brought the same result. Then she had
reached the steps, finding vacancy beyond them; yet when she looked up, she was
sure she saw the same figure dodge beyond the steps of the next house. Tired of
this hide-and-seek, Janice cut across the street and looked back.
Again, a bobbing shape seemed to lose itself beside the very steps where
Janice had first imagined it. And that for Janice, was just about enough. She
made for the corner full tilt, intending to stop the first cab that came along.
Spying headlights she flagged them, but they weren't a cab's. They belonged to a
big limousine that came to a smooth stop.
The gentleman who opened the car door was in evening clothes. His face was
calm, impassive, so unperturbed that its very expression quieted Janice's alarm.
In one glance, the man decided that Janice wasn't in a trustful mood and he
handled the matter with a casual courtesy. Instead of inviting her to join him
in the limousine, he stepped out and offered her the car, though indirectly,
for his remark was directed to the chauffeur.
"I'll stop off here, Stanley," he said. "Suppose you help this young lady
find a cab. If you are not successful, you might take her where she wants to
go."
"But I can't take your car," protested Janice. "After all -"
"After all, I'm just going around the corner," the man interposed, his
calm tone unchanged. "It happens to be a one way street, bound in the other
direction, so why should I waste time by having Stanley drive me all around the
block?"
An inspiration struck Janice.
"But that's where I'm going too," she began. "I mean where I was going,
when I changed my mind. You see - well, maybe I'm foolish" - Janice paused to
cook a quick excuse - "but I suppose I should have phoned first. I wouldn't
want Mr. Kremble to put himself out on my account. He might be busy, you know."
Janice drew a breath. "This all must seem very silly, but if you ever met Mr.
Kremble, you'd understand -"
"You mean Mortimer Kremble, of course."
"Why, yes!" In her astonishment, Janice hardly realized that the
calm-faced man had waved away the car and was walking her around the corner.
"He's the curator of the Malaysian Museum."
"Has he ever mentioned Lamont Cranston?"
"No." Janice pursed her forehead as they turned toward a pair of ornate
brownstone steps. "You see, I've only met Mr. Kremble a few times."
"He mentioned you to me," came the reply. "He said that this evening I
would meet Miss Janice Courtland."
"Then you're Mr. Cranston?"
Cranston's smile was a slight one, merely one of acknowledgment, Janice
thought, not realizing that she'd admitted the fact that Kremble was expecting
her. Along with his introduction, Cranston had rung the doorbell and now a
solemn servant who looked like a cross between a butler and a museum attendant
was ushering them into a foyer that had once been the reception hall of a
pretentious mansion.
Other guests were present, people who knew Cranston, and in turn he
obligingly introduced them to Janice. As the girl looked around for Kremble,
one of the guests laughed and gestured to some broad steps that led down into a
deep cellar.
"Kremble is in his dungeon as usual," the guest said. "Now that he's
passed his time limit we're organizing a search party to hunt him up. We'll
probably find him repairing some Solomon Island canoe paddles or buried
neck-deep in chunks of Fiji lava. Anyway, he's all present and accounted for,
when he's down below, since this is the only way to reach him."
Those stairs were vaulted like the entrance to a tomb, but Janice felt no
shivers as she descended with the party. Anywhere indoors was better than the
outside world, where shadowy creatures lurked. Then it struck Janice all at
once that she hadn't even thought of looking for those weird figures that she
was sure had trailed her, to station themselves out front of this museum.
Very oddly, Janice had forgotten all about them, once she had met the
self-possessed Mr. Cranston.
Perhaps Janice would have understood why shadows hadn't worried her, had
she known that when accompanied by Cranston, she was being convoyed by the past
master of all shadowy art, The Shadow himself!
CHAPTER IV
MORTIMER KREMBLE wasn't neck deep in lava, but he had just about reached
the equivalent. Calling for him as they reached the cellar, his guests finally
received a response from beyond a low wall composed of slabs of stone set
against a wooden backing that looked something like a coal bin.
Over the top poked a shaggy head with a thin, gaunt face and rather
bewildered eyes that had to blink a few times before they could recall their
present surroundings. For all the world, Mortimer Kremble looked like a man who
had started to build a house, forgetfully working from the inside, so that if he
finished he would find himself imprisoned.
Only this wasn't a house that Kremble was building. He was just sorting
more of the odd slabs with which he planned to face the bin which at present
formed the store room for the slabs themselves.
Stone plaques over his arm, Kremble climbed a ladder from inside the bin,
placed his free hand on the edge, and vaulted himself down beside his friends.
Though he stumbled so that hands had to catch him, the fault lay in the weight
of the slabs he carried.
Kremble seemed quite spry for a man of his age, but he wasn't as old as he
looked. He proved that when he shook his head, ridding his shaggy hair of the
gray dust that powdered it. Working in the bin was a grimy task indeed, as
Kremble further proved when he set the loose slabs against the wall and stared
at his dust-streaked hands. Then:
"What time is it?" asked Kremble. Tilting his head he added with a
whimsical smile: "I might ask what day it is, the way I lose track of
everything, down here."
Somebody told Kremble that it was still the same day and that he'd only
been playing with the slabs for an hour. The gaunt man smiled again as he took
another look at his hands.
"You wouldn't think I could get so grimy in so short a time," he declared.
"Well, while I wash up, you can study the Cambodian bas-reliefs." He gestured to
the slabs. "I have already arranged some of them, but it's ticklish business
with the rest."
They studied the slabs while Kremble was gone.
Apparently from some old temple wall, the flat slabs depicted various
scenes, like a story told in pictures. Curious creatures composed those
figures, probably representing forgotten deities of the Far East. The story
however lacked continuity which was probably why Kremble was having trouble
piecing it. Though his friends were interested in the subject, none of them
seemed to have any suggestions, not even the steady-eyed Mr. Cranston.
Soon Kremble was back, washed and dusted, but shaggy as ever. He ushered
his guests about the spacious cellar which was stocked with Javanese war drums,
Annamese ceremonial masks, and other assorted curios, all safely harbored in
stone-walled store rooms. At the extreme rear of the cellar, the party came to
the only room which had gained the status of a museum exhibit.
Here, passing a stone simha or laughing lion, they entered. Fitted with
the trappings of a Buddhist shrine, with a motif more Siamese than Hindu, this
room was remarkable for its walls, which were adorned with marvelous creations
in hammered brass and bronze. The side walls were composed of screens,
decorated with life-sized dancing figures, but the back wall formed one great
square, ornamented with the vast coils of a great serpent that continued across
the closely-fitted sections and terminated in a great head, its wide-open mouth
sufficiently large to swallow a human being.
Only this serpent was more ludicrous than horrible; its bulging eyes and
the great fangs of the brazen mouth produced a jolly effect. Even funnier was
the way it thrust that head through the arch of its own coils, so that the wide
mouth, with its interior of beaten brass, was on a level with the persons who
faced it.
Maybe this carving was supposed to frighten people in the land where it
came from, but it didn't terrify Janice. In fact, the fanciful crest above its
big-eyed head reminded the girl of Kremble's shaggy hair, and she wondered if
the museum-keeper could open his mouth that wide, proportionately.
Kremble didn't try. Solemnly, he explained that this great brass wall had
constituted the only solid remnant of an earthquake-ruined temple on a pnom, or
hill near Hanoi; that it had been removed by a party of French archeologists and
shipped to America in the early days of the present War. Having acquired and
installed it here, Kremble considered this wall as the basis of what would
become a "forbidden temple" after he had added enough more trophies of the same
kind.
This was a nice lead-in to the subject paramount in Kremble's mind, so the
shaggy man waxed to his theme as he led the way upstairs to the more delicate
exhibits of ivory and silver which featured his main rooms. Taking his visitors
into a room that was rather comfortable but barren, Kremble seated them around a
conference table and continued his harangue.
"As you all know," said Kremble, in his earnest tone, "I was always a
collector of Orientalia, my purpose being eventually to donate my possessions
to some museum. At last I realized that my own exhibits of Malaysian art
constituted a museum in themselves. Also I found myself living in this sizeable
mansion, my family scattered and a group of servants dependent upon me either
for wages or pensions.
"With taxes and expenses rising, it meant that I must sacrifice some of my
belongings to preserve the rest, which in turn would defeat my whole purpose. So
realizing that my whole interest lay in Malaysian antiquities, I adopted the
intelligent course of turning my mansion into a museum, appointing myself
curator, and hiring my servants as attendants."
With that, Kremble sat back, arms folded and a satisfied smile upon his
lips. Janice noted the approval on the faces of his guests, all substantial
gentlemen who evidently understood the financial complications of this modern
era. Two faces, however, differed from the rest.
One was Cranston's.
Impassive as ever, Janice's new-found friend was calmly studying the
reactions of Kremble's listeners, as though in some way wedding them.
The other man was sharp-faced; his name was J. Dazley Theobald. Just what
Theobald's thin-lipped smile expressed, was as puzzling as how he had ever been
given his name, or why he had dropped whatever the "J" stood for and decided to
emphasize "Dazley" instead.
Contempt, envy, indulgence - Theobald's smile might have meant any of
those as applied to Kremble. Perhaps the self-appointed curator recognized it,
for his comments became pointed.
"There are other collectors," declared Kremble, "who would like to
specialize in Malaysian art, now that I have set the pace. They are forcing up
the prices on rarities which I could ordinarily acquire. To compete with them,
I have decided to raise an endowment fund for the purchase of further items.
That is why I have invited you here this evening."
Bowing, Kremble received nods of approval from his friends and Theobald
joined the general show of assent. A query was put regarding the amount
required, where-at Kremble merely spread his hands as though leaving it up to
the contributors. So they began a huddle of their own, allowing Kremble to bow
himself from the room, giving Janice a chance to follow.
In the foyer that had once been a hallway, the girl overtook the curator.
Eagerly Janice inquired:
"Have you learned anything?"
"Not a thing, Miss Courtland," replied Kremble, wearily. "No one seems
even to have heard of a Captain Adalbart."
"But there is such a man," argued Janice. "I know, because I've met him.
He was in the copra trade -"
Kremble interrupted with a hopeless spread of his hands.
"Such men are more apt to use wrong names than their right ones," he
declared. "That is why I have avoided all personal dealings with them. Whatever
they might sell would necessarily be stolen; that is anything except copra,
which itself is doubtful because it is untraceable. But I am thinking of
Polynesian relics."
Janice wasn't bothering about Polynesian relics.
"But Adalbart said he knew the Pirates of the Pescadores," the girl
insisted. "He was sure he could deal with their leader Malabar, the Gay Man
From Afar."
Old Kremble repeated his tired smile. Persistently, Janice drew a slip of
paper from her purse and began to unfold it.
"But here is the note, Mr. Kremble -"
"I am afraid you have lost your money," interposed Kremble, unhappily,
"which is most unfortunate, since you lost your uncle too."
"My uncle is safe," returned Janice. "I'm convinced of that, even though I
haven't heard from him. That's why Adalbart should return the money."
Nodding sympathetically, Kremble laid a kindly hand on Janice's shoulder.
"Good-night, Miss Courtland," he said. "Come back again soon. If finance
is your only trouble, I think something can be arranged. We have work here,
cataloging the collection, that will not require waiting for the endowment fund.
"In fact" - Kremble's tone became confidential - "no endowment is
necessary in itself. I am merely hoping to win over a few collectors who would
keep inflating the market with their foolish bids. You understand, of course?"
Knowing that Kremble must mean Theobald, Janice nodded. She only wished
she could feel so kindly toward Adalbart. All Janice said was:
"Adalbart knows where to reach me, even if no one else does. I've seen to
that, at least. My problem is reaching him. So thanks, Mr. Kremble, for wanting
to help."
Realizing that Kremble would have to return to the conference, Janice said
good-night. It wasn't until she was outside the mansion museum that she realized
her haste had made her forget the possibility of lurking figures that had
dropped from her fears after she had met the resolute Mr. Cranston.
Only that gentleman had not forgotten them.
In the mansion, Cranston was shaking hands with Kremble and promising to
consider a contribution to the endowment fund. In his other hand, Cranston was
carrying a flexible briefcase, which Janice had not even noticed, so
inconspicuously had Cranston handled it earlier.
"Other business tonight," said Cranston, in his parting with Kremble. "If
some of my investments prove as good as my broker anticipates, I'll need to
endow something."
Just a trifling gesture of the briefcase indicated that it contained the
papers pertaining to those investments, which it didn't. What it did contain
became apparent when Cranston reached the darkness of the outside steps.
Under the sweep of quick hands, the briefcase disgorged darkness in the
shape of a black cloak that settled over its owner's shoulders and was promptly
matched with a slouch hat that completed this sable attire.
Or to put it properly, Cranston literally vanished on Kremble's front
stoop. At least that blending with darkness was the equivalent of vanishing.
Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow!
CHAPTER V
MIDNIGHT found Jerry Gifford deep in the task he had so long sought, that
of studying the private records of Oscar Troxell and learning what had caused
the man to tick, which was reasonably important considering that many
authorities considered Troxell as the greatest theatrical producer of the
century.
Though Troxell had died a dozen years ago, his premises had been preserved
exactly as they were. Now, except for those who had charge of the place, Jerry
was probably the first person who had invaded the elaborate apartment above the
Troxell Theater, which had been the producer's own realm.
Even the trip up had been something out of this world. The hansom driver,
he of the plug hat, had delivered Jerry to an elderly man in overalls who
looked like the original stage hand of the fifty-year-old theater. In turn,
this ancient had conducted Jerry around the corner to an old building where
they had gone to the basement and found what looked like the door to a store
room.
There had been an elevator behind that door, the sort that operated with a
pull cord and was large enough for about four people, probably on the theory
that more than that many would be unsafe, hence a cramped car would set the
capacity limit.
Upstairs, Jerry had met old Chichester, the faithful retainer mentioned by
Kip. A withered character, this Chichester, who looked like a fashion plate of
1890 with his winged dollar, shoestring necktie, and dappled waistcoat. But
Chichester had a sharp eye and a firm grip and looked capable, for all his age,
of frustrating anyone who might have designs on the books, playbills and
documents which went under the general title of the Troxell Memorabilia.
Lost from the world, the apartment was the finest place for anyone to
study that memorabilia and having digested a quantity of Troxell's diaries,
Jerry was now looking around with new appreciation of his surroundings.
The living room etched its every detail on Jerry's memory, though there
were details in plenty, from floor to ceiling.
The flooring was a parquetry in seven varieties of wood forming mystical
designs, while the dado and matching cornice had alternating panels of dull
gold and hand-painted flowers. The doors and windows were paneled with painted
miniatures of famous stage sets and the ceiling was done to represent a lightly
clouded, delicately sunset-tinted sky.
A mantel of white marble bore hand-painted decorations, yet nowhere in
this room that was all murals, could Jerry see a duplication of any pattern.
Above the mantel was a massive mirror framed in carved mahogany that matched a
great cabinet opposite, the latter being the repository for Troxell's records.
Artificial fruit and flowers were present in respective bowls, and most
amazing was a mechanical bee that would occasionally interrupt Jerry with a
buzz as it flitted from one flower to another, actuated by some unseen device.
There were cages too, with artificial birds that now and then broke into song.
Along with a few ornate chairs that looked modest in comparison, the room was
furnished with ottomans, divans, and other antiques that Jerry couldn't
classify.
On the mantel rested a fine old music box and now that Jerry was resting
from his labors, Chichester entered and started a tinkling tune that belonged
to the same past as the room. Then, apparently in keeping with old Troxell's
formula, the servant brought a lacquered tray with decanters of Scotch, sherry
and other drinks, along with their appropriate glasses.
Deciding on the sherry, Jerry lounged back on a divan and spoke to the
servant:
"You've been here long, Chichester?"
"Twenty years, sir," replied Chichester drily. "That is, twenty years with
old Mr. Troxell."
There was something sad in the servant's tone, as though time hadn't
counted since his master's death. But there was another point that bothered
Jerry, though he couldn't quite trace it at the moment.
"Then you remember the stairway," continued Jerry. "The one with the
inlaid silver symbols in the ebony banister."
Chichester nodded mournfully.
"Too bad Mr. Troxell closed it," continued Jerry, quoting reminiscently
from the notes that he had just read. "Did he dismantle it later, as he said he
might?"
"He did, sir."
"No wonder," observed Jerry. "When a valuable actress like Elsa Wintersham
tripped down those stairs and sprained an ankle too badly to play Desdemona, it
must have been annoying indeed."
"It was, sir." Chichester cleared his throat. "Old Mr. Troxell was very
disturbed. So was Miss Wintersham; she told me so herself, quite heartily."
Jerry frowned as though he had forgotten something. He knew now what had
struck him as odd in Chichester's earlier statement. It was the use of the word
"old" as applied to Oscar Troxell. Not far past middle-age when he had died from
a sudden heart attack, Troxell should never have been "old" in Chichester's
estimate.
Now something else was backing that theory of Jerry's. He shot home the
tester.
"There was another Elsa," recalled Jerry. "I think she played Shakespeare
too. You must have remembered her, too, Chichester, Miss Elsa Glenn."
Chichester nodded as he poured Jerry a refill on the sherry.
"You saw both of them on the stage, Chichester?"
"Indeed, yes." Chichester smiled as though he had never missed a show in
the Troxell Theater. "Often, sir."
"And how did they compare?"
"They were different, sir, too different to judge. I would class Miss
Glenn as melancholy, while Miss Wintersham was sprightly. Of course that is
only an opinion."
"Of course. What was Jerome Joplin like? How did he do as hamlet on that
gala opening night here at the Troxell Theater?"
"He was immense, sir." For once Chichester chuckled, as he replaced the
stopper in the decanter. "I don't mean in size, but in ability. Why, the whole
week was as much the rage as the opening night!"
As soon as Chichester departed with the tray-load of decanters, Jerry
picked up one of Troxell's diaries and thumbed it through. He'd proved one
fact, and fast; namely that Chichester was strictly a phony.
Whatever else he'd been, Chichester had never acted as Troxell's servant.
He had made a further slip as a follow-up to the term "old" applied to Troxell.
Chichester should have referred to Elsa Wintersham as "Mrs." which she herself
did, after the death of her husband within two years following their marriage.
That was why Jerry had put the testers.
First the business about that other Elsa, Miss Glenn. What Chichester
didn't know was that Elsa Glenn was the maiden name of Elsa Wintersham; that
the two Elsas were the same. As for the gala opening night when Jerome Joplin
had played Hamlet at the Troxell Theater, there never had been such a night.
Joplin wasn't a Shakespearian actor, he was a comic opera star of the
Gilbert and Sullivan period. Due to a dispute with Troxell, Joplin had refused
ever to play at the latter's theater and had remained true to his word. The
diary that Jerry had been reading was replete with Troxell's spite where Joplin
was concerned.
Which brought Jerry right back to himself.
Too well did Jerry recognize that his sojourn here was arranged with
motives other than those implied. He should never have trusted Kip Ranstead, a
press agent of very doubtful background, with the business of planning it. At
least not after he'd been telling Kip about the Taiwan Joss.
Evidently Kip had talked to someone who knew how to fix things right, or
had started his own venture which included selling Jerry out. Because right now
Jerry was really out, meaning that he was out of circulation.
All the fell things that Jerry had predicted as possibilities could really
happen without interference, if Jerry himself wasn't around to stop them.
Murders were in the making and Jerry knew the order of their progress.
Rising from the divan, Jerry walked out to the elevator door and found
that it lacked a call button. Going back into the fanciful living room, he
strolled to a window and found that its filigree decorations were the
equivalent of bars. The window wouldn't have helped much anyway, for it opened
down into a blind courtyard that hadn't any more exit than an air shaft.
Wild notions whirling through his sherry-quickened brain, Jerry went to a
corner writing desk where Chichester had placed his portable typewriter, slung
a sheet of paper into the machine and knocked out the brief statement:
Captain Adalbart has the Taiwan Joss that once belonged to King Koxinga.
He has a standing offer of $50,000 for the joss from Goodall Shenrich, the
antique dealer. Shenrich wants it for a very special customer named Coulton
Rhyde, who will pay at least $100,000.
If Malabar, former chief of the Pirates of the Pescadores, is still alive,
he will have men on the trail of the joss. This can mean murder where any and
all others are concerned.
Question Kip Ranstead on this. He is in the game and must therefore be
working for Malabar. Watch out for a girl named Janice Courtland. She knows too
much and has a few reasons for committing crime herself, with enough nerve to
try it.
Perhaps Jerry Gifford would have modified that final opinion if he'd
trailed Janice and observed her scary mood this evening. Still, Jerry could
personally testify how moods could alter themselves, for he was going hot and
cold right now.
Confident that he could force old Chichester to send this typewritten note
to the police, Jerry suddenly changed his mind, as he glanced toward the great
mirror above the mantel. It showed a painting on another wall, a curious stage
scene involving an old-fashioned cannon reduced to a few inches in size.
Odd, the glitter of that cannon's mouth as Jerry saw it now. Pointed right
in Jerry's direction, it was a genuine revolver muzzle fitted into this painting
from some hidden space behind the wall. Now old Chichester was stalking into the
room to wind the music box, the singing birds, and the buzzy bee. Jerry noted
that the servant didn't cross the path of the aiming gun muzzle. This meant
that Jerry was under surveillance of more than just Chichester.
The ancient stage-hand and the hansom hackie were probably working shifts
with Chichester. Intently, Jerry listened, wishing some helpful sound would
reach him. It did, the only regular tone that could penetrate this forgotten
abode tucked so deeply among Manhattan walls.
The sound was the great throb of a steamship whistle. As if to rival it
came the distant squeal of a river tug. Those became Jerry's inspiration.
One thing was to go out: his column!
On the typewriter, Jerry hit off the story that he had in mind, but with a
few modifications. He folded it, tucked it in an envelope, and looked around for
Chichester. The servant had left the room, but he returned as suddenly as he
would have if Jerry had called him.
"This is the column Mr. Ranstead mentioned," said Jerry. "Will you post it
please, Chichester?"
Before Jerry could seal the envelope, Chichester's nod became a head-shake.
"Sorry, sir. I must see everything that leaves here. It's the rule, you
know. Even some of Mr. Troxell's best friends tried to pilfer a few of his
priceless playbills."
"You're right, Chichester," agreed Jerry, warmly. "Thanks for reminding
me."
As Chichester left with Jerry's column for the Daily Shipper, Jerry sat
down on the divan and let his half-closed eyes study the painting of the
warlike stage set. Gradually the revolver muzzle warped back, letting the black
mouth of the painted cannon replace its glisten.
In his pocket, Jerry crunched the statement that he hadn't tried to send
out. From afar, a deep whistle throated a basso approval as though it were
Jerry's only friend!
CHAPTER VI
IT was late afternoon when Lamont Cranston strolled into his favorite
lounging place, the exclusive Cobalt Club. Fronting on a quiet avenue, the
Cobalt Club represented one of the most secluded spots in Manhattan, though
even its isolated reading room couldn't compare with the premises above the old
Troxell Theater, where peace and calm were concerned.
So far, however, Cranston hadn't begun to consider the Troxell Theater in
connection with Janice Courtland.
At Kremble's, Cranston had overheard the girl's conversation with the
curator who owned his own museum. It wasn't surprising that Kremble should
never have heard of Captain Adalbart, although Cranston had. The fellow was
just one of a flock of thieving skippers who had once plied schooners in the
South Seas, swindling unsophisticated natives of their dried cocoanut crops.
Only the war could have driven Adalbart into some more pretentious form of
knavery. From what Cranston had overheard Janice say, it would seem that the
copra captain had been working as intermediary with pirates like Malabar,
ransoming persons who had fallen into the latter's clutches. But that might
just be Janice's story.
As The Shadow, Cranston had observed much when he convoyed Janice home
without her knowledge. First, he had learned that the girl was very clever when
she neared the neighborhood where she lived; again, The Shadow had actually
found himself trailed at the finish.
Strange, creeping figures, the kind that Janice might have classed as
imaginary figments, had closed in upon The Shadow near the trail's end. In
giving them the slip, The Shadow had been forced to let Janice slide away,
though he was sure she had reached her home neighborhood. It had then been The
Shadow's turn to pick up the trail of the slinky men who had lost him, only to
have them scatter through gratings and gates that they were quick to clamp
behind them.
Ordinarily The Shadow would have looked forward to fun tonight, since he
intended if possible to resume where he had left off. But there was something
behind all this that smacked of the insidious, and with a tang.
What The Shadow needed were some basic facts as a background on which to
set the superficial, just as Mortimer Kremble required a stone wall as a solid
frame for brazen bas-reliefs, except that in Kremble's case the analogy was the
other way about.
In brief, The Shadow wanted facts on Captain Adalbart, if only to prove
whether or not Janice was talking nonsense.
Not that Janice was out of the picture, she and the disappearing men who
were either trailing her or were part of a well-rehearsed act. On the contrary,
The Shadow was taking care of Janice in a subtle sort of way.
Posted up in the girl's neighborhood were a crew of agents who among them
could cover the situation.
There was Hawkeye, whose skill as a spotter was second only to The
Shadow's own. There was Shrevvy, the cab driver, who was quick to snap up any
opportunity. There was Jericho, the huge African, as brawny as he was jolly.
There was Harry Vincent, a likable young chap who could rival the presentable
qualities of Cranston.
Added up, they could approximate The Shadow's own power, provided they
were hitting all four and were able to combine their capabilities. But they
were better in daylight than in darkness. After dusk it was preferable for
Cranston to supplant them and provide the inimitable faculties of The Shadow's
own self.
Right now, Cranston was snatching up the last short period before his
transformation to The Shadow, seeking any slight detail that might fit into the
shapeless pattern surrounding the secondary personality of Captain Adalbart.
Soon there would be a phone call from Burbank, The Shadow's contact with the
active agents, giving their report. If nothing had developed, it would be The
Shadow's job to take over as usual. Until that call, a last few minutes might
be spent profitably.
Idle moments, they seemed, to anyone in the reading room of the Cobalt
Club. Lamont Cranston, gentleman of complete leisure, looking around among the
current magazines, was trying to alleviate his boredom, so it seemed.
Otherwise, he couldn't have found interest in the free copy of the eight-page
Daily Shipper which everyone else ignored on the table in the club reading room.
A curious sheet, the Daily Shipper. Rushed on and off a photo-offset
press, it was sent around daily to keep people posted on developments in the
shipping business, which sometimes flared into rapid importance. Then the Daily
Shipper was sought; but at other times it was thoroughly neglected. However if
it hadn't been a daily, it wouldn't be consulted in those times of need; hence
its policy of frequent publication.
Between times, the pages were drab, uninteresting, except for a
picturesque column conducted by one Jerry Gifford who had whalebacked all
around the world and liked to chat about the places he had been and what they
were like in those days. So it was only logical that Cranston should begin with
a glance at Jerry's column.
One thing was immediately apparent. The editor of the Daily Shipper didn't
know his geography. Or possibly he didn't care, or else Jerry Gifford had gone
completely haywire. At any rate it made good reading.
Today's subject was on the importation of African tigers to replace the
shortage of the Bengalese variety. Now Cranston among other things was a
big-game hunter and knew that tigers didn't grow in Africa at all, so he read
the column with interest. It ran as follows.
Can anybody please tell an ignorant numbskull a detail about lost business
and restricting tigers?
Many useful remedies deter exports regularly!
This is true of the tiger trade. Formerly most tigers were imported from
Bengal, but now they must be found in Africa, which means that a whole new
business has been formed in an effort to supply our zoological gardens.
Unfortunately, African breeders are unacquainted with the restrictions imposed
by American customs regulations.
There, Cranston stopped. Gifford was writing sense, in a sense, except
that nobody raised tigers in Africa. It was the third paragraph which told what
was wrong with Jerry's story, but in turn it forced an apt reader to reconsider
the lead sentences. Beginning a story with an interrogation was silly unless it
carried an immediate point, and the response, an exclamatory statement, a trifle
alliterative but considerably irrelevant, was not in keeping with Jerry's
ordinary column.
It called for word study, rather than ordinary reading. Cranston's eye
began to visualize the composing words as those of titles, which therefore
should be set in capital letters. In turn the letters themselves began to shout
the very message that Jerry had hoped somebody would gain after checking his
misinformation regarding tigers.
Breaking with the letter "a" which might begin a new word in itself, the
first letters in the opening paragraph plainly spelled: CAPTAIN ADALBART.
In turn, the words in the brief exclamation announced their first-letter
message, deserving of the punctuation mark that followed: MURDER!
Tossing the Daily Shipper back where it belonged, Cranston drew an
envelope from his pocket and began to run through a batch of clippings. These
were from his broker, Rutledge Mann, who in his off-moments acted as The
Shadow's clipping bureau. His moments being mostly off, Mann usually did an
efficient job, but in this instance, he had either failed or had been unable to
find something that wasn't there. None of the current clippings could be even
remotely connected with Captain Adalbart.
The clippings vanished into their envelope as an attendant entered the
reading room to tell Mr. Cranston that he was wanted on the telephone.
Though The Shadow couldn't afford to be wrong very often, it was all right
with Cranston. So this time, the bad guess could be charged Cranston's way.
Expecting to hear Burbank's voice across the wire, Cranston was rewarded by
Mann's.
"I made a mistake in the clippings," apologized Mann. "I mean those from
the newspapers, not the stock coupons. When I went through the personals in the
evening newspapers yesterday, I only had the early editions. Checking just now I
found -"
"Something about Captain Adalbart."
"Why, yes!" Mann's tone showed the surprise that Cranston always relished.
"But how -"
"Never mind how I found out," Cranston interrupted. "I'll check the
personals personally. Stay with today's news, Mann, and don't forget to read
the Daily Shipper."
Dropping the receiver on Mann's surprised response, Cranston returned to
the reading room and looked through the late journals of the day, before, which
were still on file. He found the ad with Adalbart's name and its all-important
statement:
"Inform P X when to deliver."
Maybe Jerry Gifford would have guessed the meaning of those letters, for
he might have thought in terms similar to Cranston. But Jerry had never seen
the classified ad in question, unless in some unknown fashion he had personally
managed to set it on his office desk without the knowledge of Kip Ranstead.
At least Cranston played a direct hunch, whatever it was worth.
He could think of "P" for "Pacific," and "P" for "Pier," two terms
suggestive of Captain Adalbart. As for the "X", he doubted that Adalbart was
illiterate enough to use it as a signature, so Cranston thought of it
phonetically in terms of words. The pronunciation of "X" stood for "ex" when
spelled, which was enough.
Leaving the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston stepped into his limousine as the
door man summoned it. Then, as the big car rolled into the gathering dusk that
was fashioned for his coming transformation to The Shadow, Cranston calmly gave
his destination through the speaking tube to Stanley:
"Pacific Export Pier."
CHAPTER VII
SPEECHLESS, Janice Courtland hung up the telephone receiver and stared
vacantly from the window.
Yes, this was New York, for she could still see the skyline etched against
the fading daylight, but she still couldn't believe that such things could
happen even in this town where people seemed willing to spend money as fast as
they made it, or faster.
Still, Janice couldn't afford to pass up a very proper and outright offer
from a man who announced himself as Captain Adalbart and admitted the debt he
owed. Particularly as it still was daylight, which gave her time to get around
before the streets began to people themselves with shadowy creatures that
looked too real for Janice to defy their threat.
Deserting the room and a half that had been misrepresented as an
apartment, Janice went down the back stairs and out through a service alley
which afforded a turn through another narrow passage. Here, all was already
dark, very thick with gloom, which suited Janice so long as she knew her way.
Next across a side street, through a building which had a rear door to a
delivery driveway; from there across another street and into a beauty shop
where Janice knew the proprietor; out a back way and down a passage to the
kitchen of a little restaurant where she often dined; then, Janice finally
emerged from the front door of the restaurant itself.
A nice system, if Janice hadn't overlooked one factor. Having been trailed
a certain distance, there was always a likelihood that a person might return to
the spot last seen, which was exactly what Janice was doing now.
On the scene, The Shadow's agents operated like clockwork.
A shambly little man, moving aimlessly across the street, spotted Janice
from the corner of his eye. This was Hawkeye, and the match he struck to light
his half-burned cigarette was a signal flash to Jericho, who was operating as
door man on a tip basis, outside a neighborhood hotel. Jericho's special
arm-wave for a cab was a signal to a man standing in a movie lobby, Harry
Vincent, who in turn flashed word to Shrevvy, filling up on coffee in a
side-arm lunch room where his cab was parked outside.
In this vicinity, cabs were very scarce at this hour, which was the
particular reason why Shrevvy couldn't be sitting in his, otherwise he'd have
become conspicuous with people stopping to ask about hiring his cab.
The lunch room system, used before, was a very reliable bet, for in less
than a minute, Shrevvy could be around the corner and stopping when Janice
hailed him. The only hitch would be if another cab came along and that was
provided for. Jericho would simply flag it for Harry while Hawkeye slouched
past Shrevvy's cab to hear the driver repeat whatever address Janice gave.
Hawkeye could then join Harry, and take up the trail in the other cab,
which would be better than waiting for one, leaving Jericho to report by phone
to Burbank.
But there not only was another cab in sight; it didn't stop at Jericho's
signal. It swooped right past the big door man, scooped up Janice as she was
starting to lift her hand, and was off around a corner.
So Shrevvy's only course was to stop and pick up the fare that Jericho
supplied, namely Harry. And with Harry, Shrevvy not only gathered Hawkeye, but
Jericho too. The big fellow wasn't staying on a door man's job, not after
glimpsing the face of the passing hackie.
"He had a big scar from here to here," informed Jericho, with a hand sweep
that started at one ear and ended at his other jaw. "I'm not even guessing where
he's from. You'd need an encyclopedia to pick out a face like that. About the
shade of the neon bulbs on that theater sign, with the scar looking like the
red ones."
Around the corner, Shrevvy saw the other cab twisting into an avenue
ahead. At the next, it became unorthodox and took to a one-way street against
traffic. Maybe the scarred driver could chance it along a deserted street, but
Shrevvy reaped the benefit, or lack of it.
A nondescript truck, bearing no name whatever, was parked on that same
street and it decided to pull out, just as Shrevvy tried to follow the fugitive
cab. This led to a lot of braking and other trouble, with a police whistle
somewhere up the avenue.
The truck whipped off to the south and snapped around the next corner to
avoid an argument with the law. Ordinarily Shrevvy would have taken a different
direction, but Hawkeye popped the quick words:
"Follow it."
There was a reason, as Shrevvy learned when he followed. Rounding the
corner, Hawkeye leaned forward to announce that he had seen the other cab turn
in the same southward direction when it reached the end of the one-way block.
The truck took the same turn from its street, so Shrevvy copied the
action, at the same time playing the hunch that the two vehicles were working
in concert. Shrevvy's hunch consisted in dropping back and letting the truck
think that it had lost him.
Thinking herself lucky in finding a cab so quickly, Janice didn't
recognize its odd behavior. On the contrary, she was pleased by the driver's
alacrity, and didn't bother to check his face by the harmless looking photo
that was pasted on the hack license displayed in the rear of the cab.
Looking out through the back window, Janice was quite worried at seeing
another cab on the trail; hence Shrevvy's near-tangle with the truck pleased
Janice. The truck being helpful, it didn't occur to Janice that it could be the
skulking vehicle of the night before, the one that had followed from the
vicinity of Jerry's office.
Now, running parallel with the waterfront, this cab was taking Janice to
the address that she had given the driver, which made everything fair. Janice
would expect Captain Adalbart to be living on an avenue beside the river.
Likewise, truck traffic didn't surprise her, so she gave no further heed of it.
The cab was keeping under the pillars of the express highway, with great
steamship piers looming along side. A slight mist hovered over all, accounting
for the continuous blare of whistles from the river, which might have meant
much to Jerry Gifford, but little to Janice Courtland.
Some piers were lighted, others dark, and it was amid a row of the latter
type that one loomed with the huge, faded sign above it:
PACIFIC EXPORT LINES
Janice didn't even notice the sign, because just then the cab swerved.
Cutting across the broad avenue, the driver began to fish for addresses among a
row of nondescript buildings which had the look of rooming houses. Finding the
one he wanted, he halted the cab and huddled his face as he opened the door,
merely gesturing at the meter.
Paying the fare, Janice alighted without a word. She waited for the cab to
pull away, which it did, in slow but reasonably normal fashion. There was
another car moving across the avenue and Janice gave it a suspicious stare,
only to decide that it looked too respectable to give trouble. Though her
impression of the car was vague, it reminded her somewhat of Cranston's
limousine, though Janice laughed at the thought of either that car or its owner
visiting this disreputable district.
If Janice had looked back across the avenue as she entered the dimly
lighted doorway of Adalbart's rooming house, she would have seen a lantern
gleaming in the window off what had once been the office of the now deserted
Pacific Export Pier. But Janice had started up the dingy stairs before the
lantern began to blink in a fashion that would have given her qualms.
The signals were produced by the pier's watchman, who was using the simple
expedient of blocking off the lantern's light with his cap. The message that he
sent must have heralded Janice's arrival, for it brought a questioning response
from a window of the rooming house, which though at the rear of the building,
was visible at an angle from the pier.
Again the watchman signalled. This time his message read "All clear."
There were a few blinks from the dim window on the third floor; then, taking
his lantern from its hook, the watchman started out to make his rounds.
From close beside the office window, a whispered laugh stirred the
darkness. Soon after, a gliding shape clouded the dim doorway that Janice had
entered; then faded, much in the fashion of a shadow!
CHAPTER VIII
THE upstairs door creaked open of its own accord, as Janice rapped it
firmly but softly with the glove she wore. At the creak, the girl dropped her
hand quickly to her purse, fumbled there frantically to remove her glove and
clutch a small gun instead.
Then, Janice's fears lessened, though she still held doubts as she stepped
forward into the room.
Captain Adalbart was there, leaning half across a rickety table, facing
toward the door. In explanation of his stupefied condition, Janice saw a
half-filled liquor bottle, an empty glass beside it. But neither of Adalbart's
hands was toward the bottle. He was leaning on one arm, while the other was
extended, holding an envelope in its half-clenched fist.
Janice knew that the man was Adalbart, from his mane of red hair strewn
down across his eyes until it seemed to join the equally ruddy beard that
spread unkempt from his face. Starting to close the door, Janice hoped its
creak would awaken the bearded skipper, but it didn't.
The girl spoke in the most penetrating whisper she could command:
"Captain Adalbart!"
The only answer was the flapping of a window shade, a rather startling
sound. The window was in back of Adalbart and its shade was drawn almost to the
sill. It accounted for the slight breeze that drifted through the room, for the
other window, in the side wall, was closed, as Janice could see because the
shade was up.
Over her slight start, Janice moved forward firmly, not caring when the
floor boards creaked, because she hoped that Adalbart would hear them. As she
neared the table, Adalbart moved his head, so Janice spoke in a quick whisper.
"It's nice of you to return the money -"
Interrupting herself, Janice decided it would be better to save her thanks
until Adalbart did return the money. So she changed her story.
"I'm Janice Courtland. Remember? You talked to me on the telephone, a
little while ago. You said you were coming back here, that you'd have the
twenty-five thousand dollars if I hurried here right away. So here I am."
Another creak from the floor board at Janice's next step. Thinking she
heard a corresponding sound from the door, the girl gave a quick look across
her shoulder, to see only blackness there. The window shade furnished a
trifling flip, bringing Janice full about, staring past the electric-lighted
table lamp, which was about the only modern object in the room.
Adalbart stirred again.
As though taking Janice's identity at her word, the bearded captain didn't
bother to look up as his hand thrust itself toward her, raising the envelope.
Reaching to receive the envelope, Janice noted that it looked thickly wadded,
but before she could take it, the envelope dropped from Adalbart's fingers.
Oddly, the thick envelope fluttered as it fell to the desk. Turning over,
it revealed Janice's name, unevenly scrawled in pencil. Picking up the
envelope, Janice stared anew.
It must have held money, this envelope, for it showed the shape of a stack
of bills in just the right size. But the currency was gone, the envelope empty.
Whether this was a hoax or not, only Adalbart could explain. Her gun back in
her bag, Janice stretched across the table to pluck Adalbart's arm and shake
him back to normal. That was to be more difficult than Janice supposed.
What stirred Adalbart was the pressure the girl gave the desk. This time
the man's figure swayed and Janice gave a trifling gasp as he began to topple
sideward. Stepping quickly around the edge of the desk, Janice made a valiant
effort to halt the skipper's sprawl.
Janice was too late.
She couldn't have stopped that weight if she had tried, for Adalbart was
bulky, and it was all dead weight.
Hitting the floor face downward with a jolt that rattled the table lamp,
Adalbart displayed the reason for his silence. Projecting from the skipper's
back was the silver handle of an Oriental knife, studded with a deep red gem!
Captain Adalbart was as stone dead as that jewel whose dye seemed to have
absorbed his heart's blood!
What Janice had discovered was a facsimile of an earlier murder as yet
undiscovered, that of Kip Ranstead. A reasonable facsimile too, considering the
rapidity with which it had happened, though Janice could not testify to the time
element, not having seen the signals that Adalbart flashed from his side window.
Perhaps a handy comparison might have brought Janice to her wits; but
having none, the girl acted in that strangely unaccountable fashion which
follows a startling shock and is difficult to reconstruct later. Paradoxically,
Janice's senses were both dulled and sharpened at the same time.
Forgetting the rear window with its flapping shade, Janice wheeled toward
the door. It hadn't creaked anew, but she thought it had, for her own
recollections were catching up with her like a flood. The creaks that Janice
really remembered were those of the floor, pressed by her own footsteps, which
in turn had stirred the table just enough to make Adalbart's body shift. Yet
Janice at this moment would have sworn that she had seen a knife come from
nowhere, dealing murder with the stroke of an invisible hand.
A hand belonging to some phantom creature that must have followed Janice
up the stairs and passed her on the way to Adalbart's table, invisibly plucking
a bundle of cash while on the way!
Janice had another recollection: her gun.
If the creature of Janice's fancy had swooped past her from the door, it
wouldn't be entering there again. But as part of her mental aberration,
Janice's thoughts were playing merry-go-round. She'd dispose of the menace and
begin all over, perhaps bringing Adalbart back to life, money and all.
Her gun coming up in her defiant hand, Janice found the trigger and fired
point-blank at the door.
Before she delivered the first shot, Janice saw a realization of the
phantasmagoric images she thought existed. But though she saw, her sight was
blind. Just as she had turned strained memory into grim reality, so did she
class the real as recollection.
Blackness, living blackness was spreading toward Janice, almost with the
speed that she had attributed to something of invisibility. Though it didn't
have the speed of imagination, the great cloaked shape was faster than Janice's
hand. Caught just within the doorway, The Shadow couldn't chance waiting out the
hectic shots from Janice's gun.
Swooping to stop this untimely fire, The Shadow maneuvered the next best
thing. His gloved hand, stretched more than half his length ahead of him,
caught Janice's wrist and thrust it upward, so that the bullets from the puny
but dangerous gun spattered only the ceiling.
As though the concussions had jarred it, the window shade flapped again
and whirred upward. Carrying Janice in a spin, The Shadow didn't turn to look
for some other cause. With one fling he sent the girl sprawling to a corner
while he took a hurdling drive the other way, across Adalbart's body. In his
lurch, The Shadow caught the desk lamp and hurled it.
It wasn't the yanking of the lamp cord that extinguished its light. The
glow vanished in mid-air before the cord had reached its length. What blacked
it were the tongued shots from a revolver much larger than Janice's, though
this gun too was on the pull away, thanks to The Shadow's quick action.
The threat of the flying lamp produced the receding aim from an assassin
who sought to riddle The Shadow but wrecked the missile instead. In the ensuing
blot-out, it might be anybody's fray.
Except that blackness was The Shadow's favorite battle ground!
CHAPTER IX
FLUNG high, the lamp crashed the top half of the window. An instant later,
the table clattered, announcing that a figure had lunged into the room. Guns
stabbed in quick precision, both from The Shadow's fist and that of his unknown
foe.
High shots these, particularly The Shadow's, because he was keeping them
away from Janice. At least they had the effect of drawing and wasting a
murderer's sting, in the form of bullets, for a click in the darkness was the
last response to the blast of The Shadow's automatic.
Then, groping expertly in the darkness, The Shadow made a sudden, silent
swoop past the door. With it, he thrust Janice against the wall, subduing the
clatter of her heels that came when she started a wild break for what she
thought was the safety of the stairway.
How safe it wasn't The Shadow proved by the continuation of his own whirl.
Something literally slashed the darkness and pinioned itself through a panel of
the door. That driving object was the Oriental knife, plucked from Adalbart,
the victim, by the hand of a murderer who hoped to run up his score of kills!
Stabbing a bullet in return, The Shadow followed through his shot. He
didn't hope to land the killer with that one, but by putting the man on the
dodge, he could come through with the next. What The Shadow was doing was
blocking off the window, just as his adversary had tried to block off the door.
This time The Shadow met the unexpected.
It wasn't logical that the killer could have gotten almost to the window,
yet it was from that very direction that a flying figure met The Shadow
head-on. A moment later, The Shadow and a ferocious fighter were lashing in a
riotous fray that made even the sound of guns seem tame.
Only there were no guns blasting now.
The half-broken table smashed completely under the double weight of the
landing grapplers. There were splintering crashes as both fighters grabbed
loose table-legs and clubbed them through the empty darkness. Out of the void,
they lunged like tangled bulls and punched half through the door with their
shoulders.
Light that filtered through the broken panels showed a saffron face curved
with a livid scar that followed the line of a constable's helmet-strap. Neck
muscles, tightened under the clutch of The Shadow's gloved fist, forced a
vicious crimson along that ugly mark, matching the sudden, unblinking glow of a
red gem set in a knife handle that was lazily toppling from a halved door panel,
between that yellow visage and the face its glaring eyes could not see: The
Shadow's!
The Shadow, however, saw his adversary's face, as did Janice. She'd heard
of such a countenance and its connection with Adalbart brought from the girl a
sharp cry:
"Malabar!"
The cry helped, at that moment. A hand as jaundiced as the fierce,
piratical face, was coming up in the fashion of an open claw. Squarely into it
was sagging the handle of the long, thin-bladed dagger, a weapon that Malabar
could use and would. The twist of the man's head, made so his lips could snarl
in Janice's direction, drew his shoulder with it.
Half-glancing from Malabar's fingers, the knife handle twisted for a
further fall. Madly Malabar tried to grip this unexpected prize, but now The
Shadow's other hand, swooping in hard and fast, was clamping over the saffron
fist. The Shadow could have turned the freed knife-point straight between
Malabar's ferocious eyes, if the crash had not arrived.
Sensing it from the suppression of light outside the half-shattered door,
The Shadow was away, carrying Janice with him, and letting Malabar take the
brunt.
It was the door that crashed, and completely.
Swift figures had come up the stairs, all in a silent group. Their
footfalls hadn't allowed a thud, not even on the bare stairs. To say that they
were like snakes in human form would have been a wrong comparison. Rather,
snakes could have been termed the copyists of amazing men such as these.
What they possessed in slimy grace, they lacked in other ways, these
pirates of the Pescadores. Perhaps it was just that they lacked a leader, for
Malabar was groggy. His own silent men had deceived him by their sudden
arrival; he'd taken the brunt of the smashed door. Now they were spreading
blindly, almost madly, as they did when they boarded ship decks, seeking
enemies everywhere.
For one, they found Malabar without immediately recognizing him.
For another, they pounced upon Adalbart's body and hoisted it half to
their shoulders, thinking it alive from the mad force they themselves imbued to
it. They didn't find The Shadow, at least not right away, for he was at the
window, his figure blotting out what little light might have aided his enemies.
And with The Shadow was Janice, not realizing how soon she was to
involuntarily betray him.
Outside The Shadow saw a narrow but ample roof, the springboard from which
Malabar had made his lunge, a perfect route for a murderer's escape, and
therefore suited to the purposes of any who chose to use it.
Janice was going to choose it.
The trouble was that Janice didn't see the roof as The Shadow started her
across the window ledge. She conveyed the notion that she saw it, because she
was so anxious to be clear of the battle-swept room that she was ready to start
anywhere.
But when Janice felt her balance going, and saw what she thought was space
below her, she couldn't restrain her protest. At the girl's half-scream,
Malabar's men swooped for the window.
The Shadow simply let Janice thump the roof a few feet below while he
whirled to meet the surge. What might have happened to the Pescadores tribe at
meeting this one man typhoon was to be reserved for a future occasion. Into the
fracas came the sudden gleam of flashlights, handled by The Shadow's agents.
With Malabar in action again, though somewhat incoherent in his peculiar native
tongue, the pirates swung to repel these unexpected boarders.
Driving the throng ahead, The Shadow counted on his agents to spread,
which they did - two of them - Harry and Hawkeye. From the flank, they aided
their chief in the drive wherein Jericho supplied the follow-up. Two steps
down, so that his gigantic size was reduced to working proportions, Jericho
simply took the tawny men as they came snaking out and turned their twisty
staggers into genuine sprawls.
One, two at a time, Jericho headed them down the stairs so fast that they
didn't use the steps. Malabar was amid the flying squadron of acrobatic pirates
who should have piled up in an insensible heap, the way Jericho was heaving them.
Only this wasn't like taking doors head-on, not to these creatures of the
China Coast. They were used to being pitched off steamers en masse and
preferred landing in sampans rather than the sea. They struck the floor at the
foot just like they arrived in their own boats, only better, since they had
more scope.
To all appearances, they behaved like rubber balls, only to resume their
snakish squirms as they wriggled around the corner to the next flight down,
acting as though they wished another Jericho were there to speed them on their
way. As amazed as The Shadow's other agents, Jericho stood there looking down
at vacancy, until a whispered order came, with a slightly amused laugh.
"Follow them."
The agents took to the task without delay, hoping that a repeat encounter
would give them a chance to test the weaknesses of these tumblers who followed
Malabar. Alone in Adalbart's room, The Shadow ran a flashlight's beam past the
bearded captain's much mauled body and spotted the envelope bearing Janice's
name.
There was something else the girl had forgotten or lost in the rush; her
gun. So The Shadow gathered it as an extra souvenir. Then, swinging across the
window sill, he picked his way rapidly down to the lower roof and a shed behind
it, taking the easiest course because he knew that Janice must have followed it.
The waterfront by now was about as alive with whistles, sirens, shouts and
searchlights as any place could be. More important to The Shadow were the
tail-lights of Shrevvy's cab, twinkling more than a block away. The Shadow knew
that the alert hackie had picked up the correct passenger: Janice Courtland.
As for the bouncing products of the Pescadores, they had vanished. From a
corner, The Shadow saw his agents joining a group of waterfront habitues who
were gesturing up toward Adalbart's room and claiming that the trouble had come
from there. Waiting until the throng, police included, had started up into the
house, The Shadow glided across the broad avenue to the Pacific Export Pier.
It was there that a cowering watchman thought that Adalbart's ghost had
found him, when a shrouded shape approached and issued a whispered command.
Quivering beside his shaky lantern, the watchman soon realized that his
questioner was the strange personage he had heard about from the fear-stricken
lips of human water rats.
"I'm telling you, Shadow, I've done nothing," the watchman pleaded. "Don't
blame me if onc't I shipped with Cap Adalbart. Others will tell you that Jim
Nevley is an honest sort, even if he was onc't Adalbart's matey.
"Twasn't money he paid me, because all he did was give back what he owed
me. Always paid his debts did Adalbart, leastwise when he could. Said no man
that ever passed up a debt could win the confidence of the South Sea natives
and there's no way to gyp them if you can't win their confidence."
Pausing to wipe his sweaty brow, Nevley steadied the lantern and continued.
"All Adalbart asked of me was to flash him when somebody came to see him,
just to make sure there was not nobody else tagging along. When I seen that a
cab was dropping somebody, I waited until it was gone. I flashed 'All Clear'
and Adalbart answered."
The Shadow's query came like a command:
"You are sure it was Adalbart."
"Couldn't have been nobody else," assured Nevley. "He'd just gone up, he
had. It was our own code we were using, like we had on the old copra schooner,
so nobody could pick up what we talked about. It was Adalbart all right, and
I'd like to know who the man was that came in that cab. Only it wouldn't do me
no good to talk -"
It was doing Nevley no good to talk right now, except for his own
companionship. When the watchman looked around, he found himself alone. From
somewhere came a low, trailing laugh that faded amid the harsh blare of a
ferry-boat's whistle, tuning in from the foggy river.
CHAPTER X
GIFFORD'S COLUMN in the Daily Shipper carried its second message. In the
same first-letter style, it broadcasted its warning of murder to come. Lamont
Cranston had read it even before it was printed, by the simple expedient of
visiting the office of the shipping journal and talking to the editor.
Today's column read:
Getting out of debt always leaves losses since healthy enterprises never
raise investment costs higher.
Debts engender additional tax hazards!
Never was this more true than in the Republics of Panama, which is
essentially a one industry nation. As the source of Panama hats, from the
manufacture of which the nation derives its principal revenue, Panama is
dependent entirely upon its export trade.
There was no reason for Cranston to check the financial status of Panama
in hope of finding an error in Jerry's column. He recognized a very pointed
error, the reference to Panama hats. Such hats were a misnomer, since the bulk
of their manufacture was done in Ecuador, not Panama.
As before, Jerry had purposely inserted a glaring mistake in the hope that
someone would analyze the lead sentences in the column. Again, Cranston. took
the cue and looked for the hidden message. Like the previous one, it was told
by the first letter's of the words in the first two sentences.
The first sentence revealed a name: GOODALL SHENRICH. The second exclaimed
the menace: DEATH!
Since the editor of the Daily Shipper took Jerry's statements at face
value, Cranston did not enlighten him. What Cranston did was inquire about
Jerry's whereabouts. He learned that Jerry had gone up state, that his mail was
being forwarded there. In turn, Jerry was mailing in his column.
As evidence, the editor gestured to an envelope lying on his desk. The
envelope was handwritten, not typed, and the only postmark that it bore was New
York City. Tabbing those facts, Cranston left; later he held a conference with
Harry Vincent on the subject.
The conference took place in the office of Rutledge Mann, the investment
broker who wallowed among newspaper clippings. In contrast to Vincent, who had
something of Cranston's calm and poise, Mann was a chubby, round-faced
individual whose solemn appearance gave a serious aspect to the occasion.
"You'd better go up state," Cranston told Harry. "I doubt that you'll find
Gifford there, but find out what you can."
Harry Vincent nodded.
"Gifford has an office here in town," vouchsafed the methodical Mann. "An
apartment, too. Here are the addresses and phone numbers."
"Thanks," said Cranston. Then, drily: "You haven't any facts on Goodall
Shenrich, have you?"
"Not where he is nor why," replied Mann, ruefully. "He left for a three
day trip, they told me when I phoned his antique shop."
"Did you ask what else the shop handles?"
"Only antiques, that is officially. They did say that occasionally
Shenrich makes special purchases for private customers. But they couldn't give
me any details."
"Couldn't or wouldn't?"
"I am sure they couldn't." Mann was quite emphatic. "I have met Shenrich
and he is a very untalkative sort. Sly, conniving - those are the impressions
he gives you."
Harry Vincent was reading through the Daily Shipper. He put the logical
question:
"If Gifford knows so much, why can't he tell us more in this column of
his?"
Eyes half-closed, Cranston responded with a well-visualized deduction of
the present circumstances involving Jerry Gifford.
"Gifford must be somewhere here in town," decided Cranston. "He has
obviously taken on some special assignment, since he does not want to be
bothered. I would say that it involves research because he wants to be out of
touch with people for a while.
"This was largely voluntary on his part for two reasons. First he phoned
the Shipper personally, whereas if he had been under threat, he would probably
have been forced to dictate a letter and sign it. Again, he could not have
learned of his dilemma until he arrived where he is at present, otherwise he
would have arranged some better means of communication than through his column.
"He is allowed to write his column; therefore that must have been
understood beforehand. But someone else mails it for him, as is obvious by the
pen-addressed envelope. Therefore Gifford is mistrusted and probably knows it."
Pausing, Cranston seemed to review all that he had said. Then:
"Being mistrusted, Gifford must be careful when he writes his column,
because he is probably under observation. He can think out the lead sentences
beforehand and flash his warning through them. But after he is actually getting
into his column, hesitancy would excite suspicion."
Having established Jerry's peculiar status, Cranston wrote out a memo for
Mann with a copy for Harry. The memo covered things to be learned about Jerry
regarding both his ambitions and his friends. Anything that could give an
inkling to Jerry's whereabouts would be helpful; but meanwhile Cranston had his
own case to consider.
The case of Goodall Shenrich.
"Money was stolen from Captain Adalbart," asserted Cranston, "but it
wasn't what those pirates were after. Malabar's crew were seeking something
that Adalbart must have sold, something that carried a death threat to the
owner.
"Gifford could not have heard of Adalbart's death when he wrote that
second warning covering Shenrich. Therefore he is working under the correct
assumption that Adalbart could have disposed of the fatal object that placed
him under the menace of murder. So Gifford named the man next in line:
Shenrich."
Cranston was rising, turning toward the door. He paused there, as was his
frequent custom. In an even tone, Cranston added:
"Shenrich's disappearance was probably self-planned. Adalbart recognized a
menace, as witness his arrangements with the watchman on the old pier. If
Shenrich is as smart as he claims, he will stay out of sight until he has
disposed of whatever he bought from Adalbart. When Shenrich returns, he can
tell us who is menaced next. Unless -"
Cranston left it with that word "unless" but the unspoken sentence was
graphic in itself. It meant, without so many words, that Shenrich still could
be tampering with fate, purely because of his connection with the clandestine
transaction that had brought death to Adalbart. Adalbart hadn't lived to tell
his story; perhaps the same would apply to Shenrich.
The next place Cranston stopped was the Malaysian Museum.
There were good reasons for his visit there. Since Mortimer Kremble had at
least heard of Captain Adalbart, he might have some opinions regarding the copra
skipper's death. As a prompter to those opinions, Janice Courtland would soon be
at the museum. Cranston had learned that from a phone call made by Hawkeye who
was stationed outside the apartment house where Janice lived.
Last night, Janice had been profuse in her thanks of Shrevvy, the timely
cab driver who had picked her up after her mad flight from Adalbart's.
She'd not only found Shrevvy affable, but had learned that his regular
stand was in her neighborhood. The result had been arrangements whereby Shrevvy
would be on call when Janice wanted to go anywhere.
In choosing a favorite cab, Janice had thereby picked The Shadow's and
from now on would be under proper auspices.
At the museum, Cranston found not only Janice, but also J. Dazley
Theobald. The sharp-faced Mr. Theobald was here to talk about contributing to
the endowment fund, but his comments were bringing shakes from the shaggy head
of Mortimer Kremble.
"Officially I am only the curator," Kremble was telling Theobald. "There
will be directors appointed soon and they will discuss future finances. Sorry,
Dazley, but we must postpone this."
Theobald gave a grumble.
"Maybe I'm not welcome here."
"Of course you're welcome," insisted Kremble, "provided your interest
concerns the exhibits. But I don't want to be bothered, Dazley" - Kremble
glanced at his watch - "especially since I must do some more deciphering of
those Cambodian plaques."
Waving earnestly to the main exhibit room, Kremble dismissed Theobald.
Then, turning to Cranston:
"I'm glad you're here, Cranston," Kremble undertoned. "Miss Courtland has
a problem which needs your help more than mine."
Cranston turned to find Janice eagerly waiting her turn to speak.
"It's about a Captain Adalbart," explained Kremble. "He was murdered last
night and he owed Miss Kremble some money. In fact she has a note that he
signed, but I'm afraid it is worthless now."
With a shaggy head-shake, Kremble bowed away and went down to the lower
vaults. One of the servants carefully closed the door and stood on duty there
to see that Kremble wasn't bothered by Theobald or any of the curator's other
friends, some of whom were arriving just in time to receive Kremble's farewell
wave as he went below.
"It's not just the money," Janice expressed to Cranston. "I'd like to see
justice done on Adalbart's account. He was good enough to promise me my
payment."
Cranston's face remained impassive as he queried:
"You mean you saw Adalbart and talked with him?"
"Why - why, no," stammered Janice. "I couldn't see him - how could I? I
didn't know where he was; that is, I didn't know until after he was murdered,
or at least I couldn't have found him until then, could I?"
In trying to cover the truth, Janice was more or less telling it. Her
emphasis on the word "see" along with the way she dropped the term "talk" was
plainly an admission that she had received a telephone call from Adalbart,
telling her where to meet him.
Cranston let the subject pass. As The Shadow he had witnessed enough of
Janice's peregrinations and tribulations to know where she stood. Very calmly
he asked:
"Did you ever hear of an antique dealer named Goodall Shenrich?"
After a few moments of thought, Janice shook her head.
"I heard him mention Adalbart once," recalled Cranston, idly, "but it was
probably inconsequential." He glanced around the museum, then inquired: "You
are staying here a while, Miss Courtland?"
"I suppose so," replied Janice. "I might find something important among
the exhibits; that is if anything can be regarded as important now."
Cranston was glancing out into the gathering dusk.
"Shall I call here in an hour?" he questioned. "We might have dinner
together, you know. That could prove important."
Smiling, Janice nodded. Somehow, she felt that her quest was not yet over,
that somehow there might still be a chance to reclaim the money that Adalbart
had all but repaid her. At least there was encouragement in talking it over
with Cranston.
Such were the girl's opinions as she watched Lamont Cranston stroll out
from the museum to take the cab that would be back in time for Janice, by
special arrangement with the driver. Shrevvy had said that he'd have to take
fares in between, but that Janice shouldn't worry.
In fact there seemed no cause for worry on any score at all, which only
proved that Janice Courtland didn't see the lurking outdoor figures that
watched the cab roll away.
This quest, involving much more than Adalbart's unpaid note, was closer at
hand than Janice could suppose!
CHAPTER XI
IT was J. Dazley Theobald who started Janice on an excursion she should
have strictly avoided. Lamont Cranston had given the girl an hour's respite
from unnecessary trouble, but she didn't take advantage of it.
The reason was that Janice saw Theobald come smugly from a phone booth in
the museum foyer, soon after Cranston had left. Not having seen him enter the
booth, Janice couldn't tell how long the sharp-faced man had been there, but
the eager way in which he clutched his hat and cane and started from the
museum, was enough to excite Janice's overstrained suspicions.
Heading for the phone booth, Janice found the classified directory lying
open on a rack beside it. Forgetful in his hurry, Theobald had left a trail. On
the yellow page in front of her, Janice saw the printed classification:
ANTIQUE DEALERS
That was enough. It meant that Theobald, of all people, might be thinking
in terms of the man that Cranston had mentioned: Goodall Shenrich. Her thoughts
working overspeed as they had the night before, Janice found herself out on the
brownstone steps, hardly realizing how she'd gotten there.
Another thing: Janice was looking for Shrevvy's cab, thinking stupidly
that Theobald must have taken it, until - her recollections catching up - she
realized that Cranston had gone in that very cab. Theobald couldn't have hailed
another this quickly, so Janice found her wits and looked for the man.
J. Dazley was almost at the corner and making good speed with his long
legs. So Janice started right after him, using what she thought were
first-class camouflage tactics, by keeping close to the house walls.
Far more efficient than Janice were the figures that came to life along
the street. The silent men were at large again tonight; unreported in Janice's
own neighborhood, they must have been watching the museum as an alternative. If
Malabar himself was among them, his scarred face looked like the rest, which
meant that it wasn't showing at all.
Rounding the corner after Theobald, Janice was sure of one thing - that he
hadn't noticed her on his trail. At the next street, Theobald turned again,
following the sidewalk that fronted the old houses in back of the museum, where
Janice had once played hide-and-seek with a man she now felt sure was Malabar.
This awakened unwanted recollections and with them came alarm. Glancing
back over her shoulder, Janice looked for flitting figures; seeing none, she
turned her eyes toward Theobald, just in time to see him step into a handy
doorway.
Maybe this street had an atmosphere that made people want to dodge from
sight. Anyway, Janice took the hint and did the same. Peering across some house
steps, she saw Theobald emerge, but in the dusk he had become a huddly figure
that Janice recognized only because she knew he was around.
Moving forward, Janice saw Theobald duck again. Then he was edging into
sight, a few doorways further on, only to perform another dodge. Crouching
behind the next steps, Janice was surprised to see Theobald's tactics continue,
as if the man were playing hide-and-seek with himself. Then she decided that he
hadn't seen her, but was merely working his doorway sidles as a general
precaution.
The man's speed varied, as did his huddle. Sometimes he covered a stretch
of wall quite quickly, bobbing from sight and back again, covering a few
doorways in a matter of moments. Again, he would spend several seconds in one
place. As a prowler, Theobald seemed to work in the fashion of hop-skip-jump.
All this convinced Janice that it would be folly to follow. After all, she
knew Theobald's destination: Shenrich's. So Janice retraced her course back to
the original corner, smiling at the darkened doorways that she passed, knowing
they could not now contain J. Dazley Theobald.
Those doorways held something more.
From half a dozen such caches, men of padded footfalls emerged to the
sidewalk, treating it like the deck of a boarded vessel. Their silent half-trot
brought them close to Janice; then evaporating instantly, they let the girl
regain her distance. At the avenue, they allowed leeway while Janice crossed;
when she hailed a passing cab, they remained unseen.
Only it wasn't Shrevvy's cab that Janice took. Maybe the rubbery men of
darkness recognized the fact, and therefore lost no time. For they bounded
suddenly into sight and sprang into an arriving truck that seemed to leap from
nowhere like themselves. The truck was the same black vehicle that had served
these followers of Malabar on their previous expeditions.
As before, the truck sped off on Janice's trail.
Blind business, this all seemed tonight, considering the motive behind The
Shadow's own excursion. He was after clues, nothing more, shreds of evidence
that might enable him to learn the whereabouts of Goodall Shenrich.
Such clues could best be found in Shenrich's Antique Shop, now closed for
the night, provided there were any clues at all. If smart, Shenrich would have
eliminated them, and the antique dealer was unquestionably smart. There was a
chance, though, that Shenrich had made some slip.
Right now, The Shadow was entering the antique shop by the hard way that
was easier.
Situated against a blank-walled building, Shenrich's shop occupied the
ground floor of a house that had been altered into a store. The upstairs floors
were used as storage rooms, the proof being their barred windows. Antique shops
as a rule represented a half-way stage, where protection against entry was
concerned.
Unquestionably Shenrich had installed a burglar alarm along with the
barred windows. His was no junk shop that all but petty sneaks would ignore. On
the contrary, his wares were bulky; it would take a truck to carry away a
worthwhile amount. Certain minor spots could therefore have been overlooked in
the protective system.
The Shadow was looking for just such a spot. He was working down the rough
wall of the adjoining building into what seemed a narrow crevice, just below.
That gap couldn't be seen from the street, but The Shadow had speculated on its
existence and had won. The space was a well, furnishing ventilation more than
light, though it had provision for the latter.
Finishing his human fly descent, The Shadow found a window just about
large enough to receive him. It was barred but the bars showed dull rust under
the tiny twinkle of The Shadow's close-focused flashlight; therefore they
weren't wired against the burglary business.
With Shenrich's own life the question at stake, The Shadow had no
compunctions about removing these bars, jimmying the windows, and sliding into
the shop. He performed these operations efficiently, but they took time.
Too much time.
Time when The Shadow was out of contact with the world outside. To save
time, he hadn't bothered to arrange a system of communication with his agents
during what he was sure would be no more than a ten or fifteen minute task. In
fact none of The Shadow's agents were around, not even Shrevvy, for The Shadow
had sent the cab back to the Malaysian Museum, too late however to arrive there
as soon as Janice wanted it.
Adding a few more minutes to The Shadow's task was the problem of the door
leading from the little store room in which he had landed. It was locked from
the other side and had to be worked open, too. Then all was done and The Shadow
moved free, silent and invisible among the antiques that formed Shenrich's main
stock.
Many of these objects had been covered for the night and their white
shrouds gave them the appearance of great ghostly figures, looming to clutch
the intrepid invader in their midst. Quite unconcerned, The Shadow used these
ghoulish contrivances as markers and let them muffle his flashlight whenever he
used it.
What The Shadow wanted to find was Shenrich's office and to all
appearances it was on a little balcony set at the back of the main display
room. The odd problem was finding the stairs to that balcony among the massed
white squadron. It took several trips amid the shrouded antiques before The
Shadow located the steps. They led up to a little landing, then turned and
reached the balcony.
Pausing, The Shadow listened.
Here was ghostly stuff at work!
Creaks were coming from those stairs, moving upward! Not at the spot where
The Shadow was, but at the higher portion of the flight, above the landing.
If The Shadow had not been so close, he could not have heard them, but as
he took the steps to the landing, he practically saw the higher steps quiver.
It certainly seemed that some phantom being was on the stride, but The Shadow
wasn't a believer in phantoms. For one thing, he could outdo this one. As the
creaks neared the balcony, The Shadow followed, making no noise whatever. He
halted, turned his back against the wall, as a door clattered open above; then
onto the balcony stepped a man who was definitely not a ghost, though his face
showed white and peaked in the dull gloom.
A pasty, chinless face answered the description of Goodall Shenrich. The
antique dealer looked down the steps, mistook The Shadow for part of the
blackness, and finally turned to go back into his office. Resuming his
creakless ascent, The Shadow let one gloved hand knuckle the slanted panel of
the wall beside him.
No wonder these steps were narrow. They continued through to the other
side of what The Shadow had tested as a mere partition. The hidden half of the
stairway was a secret entrance to Shenrich's office, reached by a door from the
back alley. Only Shenrich should have learned to sneak up to his office more
carefully, to avoid ghost creaks.
Silently entering a tiny anteroom to the office where Shenrich had
returned, The Shadow saw no sign of the stairway's other half. He knew
therefore that it must have an extra turn, leading around to the rear of the
office.
In fact, as The Shadow looked into the office, he saw the back door that
Shenrich had used. It was ajar, as though the antique dealer had it ready in
case of hurried flight.
At present, Shenrich was in another corner. He was going through a file
cabinet that stood near a prize antique, a great, two-doored chest of black
walnut, mounted on sturdy legs that gave it a height equal to Shenrich's own.
Finding the file that he wanted, Shenrich snatched it from the case.
Thumbing through its papers, he found the one he wanted, and turned to study it
in the light. He was outlined against the background of the great walnut chest,
as he drew a match from his pocket and nervously tried to strike it.
Shenrich's purpose was plain. He intended to burn the paper. It might be
just the evidence that The Shadow wanted in the case of Captain Adalbart, or
something more.
The match didn't strike, because Shenrich's hand gave up the effort. In
fact, his hand seemed to freeze, like the rest of him, as Shenrich heard the
shudder of a strange, whispered laugh, a taunt which the walls gathered and
echoed like so many living tongues.
Staring across a desk near the center of the room, Goodall Shenrich saw
the cloaked figure of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XII
MEN like Shenrich revealed their dubious pasts in one sweeping flood,
whenever they faced The Shadow. If a movie camera had registered Shenrich's
reactions in slow-motion, the film would have been worth a prolonged analysis
later.
Every bit of swindlery, conspiracy, even thievery and certainly extortion
that Shenrich had used to spice his business career, was reflected from the
man's mind to his face. If Shenrich could have talked, he would have gulped
names, blaming certain people for putting The Shadow on his trail, and winding
up with pleas for mercy.
It was rather ironic from The Shadow's viewpoint to have come here in
behalf of a man whose caliber was on display and proving worthless.
Shenrich must have realized this, but with it he guessed the cause behind
The Shadow's visit. Putting two and two together, Shenrich nullified them and
made zero. Plead he did, but on a score wherein he was safe.
"I didn't murder Adalbart!" he finally blurted. "Honestly, I didn't! Our
deal was straight - we went through with it - no matter what Adalbart told you.
I gave him money, yes, but I was making mine. Adalbart was entitled to his,
where I was concerned."
Encouraging, this. The further Shenrich went with such talk, the less
questions The Shadow would have to put. Spontaneous information always carried
fine points of detail that mere questioning would not bring out.
"Look, here it is!" Shenrich let the piece of paper shake of its own
accord. "The receipt that Adalbart gave me for fifty thousand dollars. I
wouldn't have taken it if I'd been going to kill him."
The Shadow throbbed a whispered laugh that made the paper quiver like a
poplar leaf. Tightening his hand with an effort, Shenrich squinted a shrewd
look from his pasty face. His own laugh came hollow.
"Maybe I'd have taken the receipt," Shenrich admitted, "but I would have
destroyed it sooner. Only there's more than one reason for getting rid of
something. One reason is you don't want it; the other, you don't need it.
"I don't need this receipt, now that Adalbart is dead. I wouldn't like it
to get around that I'd had dealings with him, because I wouldn't be safe. But
maybe I'm safer if I depend on you, Mr. Shadow. You can keep this for me."
Stretching his hand forward, Shenrich let the paper flutter from his hand.
The Shadow caught it with gloved reach, but at the last moment, he was forced to
stoop. Profiting by that fact, seeing also that neither of The Shadow's hands
contained a gun, Shenrich showed himself a rat and more.
Whipping back, he yanked a revolver of his own, aimed it for The Shadow
and thrust his finger for the trigger. If he'd used the gun only as a threat,
he could have justified it later, where The Shadow was concerned; but
Shenrich's purpose was a kill.
The swiftness of The Shadow's counter was amazing. The whip back of the
plucking hand that caught the paper was outmatched by the wrist-swivel of the
gloved fist that had come against his cloak front. The automatic that appeared
seemed literally to grow from The Shadow's fist, with his forefinger the stem,
attached to the trigger.
That The Shadow could have beaten Shenrich to the shot was proved when The
Shadow didn't fire.
In a split-second, The Shadow had seen Shenrich's own trigger finger
falter, fumbling momentarily before it froze. Leaning squarely back against the
walnut cabinet-chest, Shenrich gasped. His gun descended as though actuated by
the hypnotic force of The Shadow's automatic with its looming muzzle.
The Shadow had seen so many characters like Shenrich wilt away, that this
time even his keen eye didn't detect the difference.
Besides, The Shadow wasn't all eyes at this moment. His ears were busy too.
The Shadow was hearing creaks from the stairs, oddly alternating creaks,
as though somebody had chosen the hidden route while somebody else was coming
the regular way, much as The Shadow himself had ascended while footsteps were
still audible on the other side.
Shenrich's gun slipped from his fingers and hit the floor. With the thump,
the pasty man's gasp became coherent. What Shenrich said was:
"The Taiwan Joss!"
A pause, as Shenrich's chinless jaw sagged down into his collar. Then
Shenrich croaked:
"King Koxinga!"
Finally, tone muffled as his head lowered, Shenrich muttered:
"Ride - midnight - pencil -"
Approaching creaks were drowned by a clatter as Shenrich sprawled forward.
The clatter came from the walnut chest, for with his fall, Shenrich whipped its
split doors open. The startling climax was self-explanatory.
Buried deep in Shenrich's back was a long-bladed dagger. The Shadow knew
its length because only last night he had acquired a similar trophy as a sequel
to the murder of Captain Adalbart. Only this time, death had been delivered with
a startling technique in the very presence of The Shadow!
Someone in that cabinet had slipped the thin blade between the halves of
the door. The dagger was waiting when Shenrich took his backward step to draw
his gun. As quickly as The Shadow's responding gun draw, the receiving stab of
the Oriental poignard had frozen Shenrich, bringing that falter to his trigger
finger!
Perhaps The Shadow owed his own life to a murderer's untimely deed, though
he was inclined to doubt it. But the only man who could have settled the
question was Shenrich, who now was dead. To Shenrich's credit at least were
those last important gasps that he had managed. His revelation of the
whereabouts of the man who had murdered him could be charged, however, to the
killer's own oversight.
The knife blade had sliced between the doors of the chest but the handle
hadn't. In his topple, Shenrich had brought the knife along and the hilt had
whipped the doors wide.
Now The Shadow was whipping bullets into the darkness of the chest,
probing every portion of its high-set interior. The Shadow was neither vengeful
on Shenrich's account nor ruthless on his own. This was simply an occasion that
allowed no respite. It called for immediate justice against a crafty killer,
plus The Shadow's own necessity for preventing a thrust against himself.
The Shadow had not forgotten how this same killer had barely missed him
with a knife fling as a follow-up to the stabbing of Adalbart. The proof that
the murderer was one and the same was evident from his tactics. Tonight's death
weapon, however, was gone from his clutch with Shenrich, but that didn't mean
the killer lacked a duplicate. What the killer really didn't lack was ghostly
quality.
Instead of tumbling a lurker from the walnut chest, The Shadow's shots
simply flayed another pair of doors which opened at the back, giving a clear
view through. This explained why the killer hadn't retained his knife. He had
preferred a quick departure before Shenrich sprawled.
The chest was a few feet out from the wall. Behind it, coming just above
the leg-tops of the chest, was an ornamental screen, fronting an old-fashioned
fireplace. The murderer had rolled into that sizeable recess, finding shelter
below the level of The Shadow's shots.
Clever, but only so far. Though The Shadow had wasted a gunload of bullets
on the empty chest, he had a reserve automatic ready for the self-trapped
murderer. Unfortunately The Shadow hadn't time to use that gun. The creaks from
the stairs had ended, announcing new contenders.
Wheeling, The Shadow never paused. The very silence of the charging men
from the front door of the office, defined them as Malabar's piratical crew.
The Shadow knew the way to scatter this tribe. It was direct attack. Flinging
himself right into their midst, he turned them into a milling throng, their
knives flashing high and harmless as he slugged with his two guns.
A fierce hiss announced Malabar himself, springing in from the rear of the
room. The Shadow whirled for the scar-faced chief, just as a light switch
clicked. In the darkness, knives became weapon against weapon and The Shadow
was impossible to find. His laugh, tossed in the teeth of the crew that
surrounded him, brought a sharp command from Malabar.
In their remarkably swift style, Malabar's men scattered, scooting
headlong through the exits. This time there was no Jericho to pitch them down
the stairs, but they managed it themselves. Some didn't bother with the stairs;
they just hopped the rail of the balcony and fled through the antique shop.
The place wasn't wired at all. This crowd had come in through the front
door after cracking its lock with chunks of muffled iron, the way pirates did
when posing as steerage passengers behind the grilled gates on steamships
plying the China Coast. They knew every trick, these fellows, both in playing
dumb and smart.
Having broken the massed onslaught, The Shadow took the back route, the
way that Malabar had gone. By the time he reached the rear alley and emerged to
the street, all participants in the recent events had vanished, Malabar among
them. The only person The Shadow found was Janice, huddling bewildered in a
doorway.
As she heard The Shadow's whisper, Janice realized that he was her rescuer
of the night before. Not knowing who he was or what he knew, the girl could only
point to a corner beyond the front street. There, The Shadow recognized the man
who was legging it away from the corner light: J. Dazley Theobald.
There was something grim in The Shadow's laugh as he identified this new
participant in events sinister; that was, if Theobald's part happened to be
really new. Perhaps The Shadow also regretted the fact that Janice had been
dragged into another area of danger through something that he had not foreseen.
Whatever the case, the danger was over, as Janice suddenly realized when
she found herself alone, recalling some last words from The Shadow, about
getting away from this neighborhood, which Janice promptly did. She decided to
find another cab and ride back to the museum, there to await Cranston's return.
One block away from Shenrich's, Janice had a last but brief chill. That
was when she saw a truck wheel around the corner and speed down the avenue, a
truck that was solid and dark in color, like an old-fashioned Black Maria.
As she drew back into shelter, Janice was reassured by something that she
thought belonged in her imagination. It drifted back, as though from the past;
a fleeting, fading laugh that seemed meant for her alone.
It was.
If Janice had noted that truck more closely, she might have discerned what
looked like a bulge upon its top; part of the truck it seemed, for it was of the
same identical black. That bulge happened to be The Shadow.
The jet-hued truck used by Malabar and his imported followers couldn't
have been painted better to The Shadow's order!
CHAPTER XIII
POLICE COMMISSIONER WESTON laid the Oriental knife on his desk and spread
his hands along its length as though measuring the weapon by the yard. To the
calm-faced friend who sat across from him, Weston affirmed:
"This is serious business, Cranston."
It was more than policy for Lamont Cranston to agree. He too had a
souvenir of the same sort, a long-bladed knife with a gleaming garnet in its
silver handle.
Weston pointed to his knife's garnet.
"I thought maybe it was a ruby," confessed the commissioner. "In that case
the knife would be worth a ransom. But they sell these garnets by the dozen and
the gross in Malaysia, where this knife came from."
Again, Weston toyed with the odd dagger.
"Cheap but not common," he defined. "I'd like to know who collects weapons
like this. It would be a help."
Cranston could have named one collector, outside of himself. In his
pocket, Cranston had Mann's latest report on Jerry Gifford. Among other things,
Jerry had been a wireless operator along the China Coast and he had brought back
a lot of souvenirs, were several Malaysian daggers. One of Jerry's friends had
merely mentioned them in the course of conversation.
In fact, Jerry's friends were quite as important an item. One of them, Kip
Ranstead, had gone on a trip the same day as Jerry. Kip was a press agent whose
publicity jobs were astonishingly negligible. About anybody who might need
publicity received a call from Kip and ended up by not hiring him.
What The Shadow had now set Mann to trace were those accounts that Kip
didn't get.
"Of course this might have been Shenrich's knife," mused Weston. "They say
he occasionally handled curios, though his regular business is antiques. So we'd
better take the practical viewpoint or we'll be getting off on a lot of
fanciful, impossible notions."
That was Weston's fault: he invariably confused the fanciful with the
impossible. In routine police cases, however, one was almost as rare as the
other. Hence Cranston decided not to enlighten Weston regarding something he
wouldn't believe.
Instead of having lunch with the commissioner, Cranston met Janice. The
girl had much to tell him, because last night she had been too overwrought to
go into details. Janice began by discussing the activities of J. Dazley
Theobald.
"Maybe he heard us talking about Shenrich," the girl declared. "He's a
nosey sort and being a collector, he might have supposed that Shenrich had
something special to sell. Anyway, he didn't go into the antique shop."
Cranston's eyes were as steady as his query:
"You're sure?"
"Quite sure," affirmed Janice. "Theobald just browsed around outside. He
did look into the back alley once or twice, but it was so dark it must have
scared him."
Cranston was satisfied on the most important point; namely, why Janice had
gone to Shenrich's. Unwise though it was, her trailing of Theobald, or rather
her attempt to get there ahead of him, was commendable as an emergency measure.
From the time element involved, Janice couldn't have arrived more than a few
minutes late and possibly had reached Shenrich's first. Therefore her report
really covered the Theobald question.
Except that Theobald hadn't returned to the Malaysian Museum. The
excitement around Shenrich's had scared J. Dazley half out of his wits. That at
least was Janice's opinion; Cranston was reserving his own. He was calculating
how deeply J. Dazley might be in this game; how much the man knew beforehand or
had guessed as events developed.
None of the other visitors at the museum had commented on Theobald's
absence after Janice's return. She had found them chatting about endowments and
directorates and a short while later, Mortimer Kremble had emerged all dusty
from his research among the Cambodian plaques, to begin another conference.
Kremble had clucked a bit when Theobald didn't appear. He seemed to feel
that he had offended his friend Dazley and was rather sorry about it.
Otherwise, everything had proceeded quite normally. Then Janice had an
afterthought on the subject.
"Of course I left when you called to take me to dinner," the girl told
Cranston. "I suppose they wondered why you didn't join the conference."
"They already knew why," returned Cranston, drily. "I told them the other
night that there was no use estimating the necessary endowment until Kremble
finished cataloging the items in the museum."
Janice smiled.
"So instead," she said, "Kremble went to his plaques."
"Logically enough," decided Cranston. "Their value depends on their
entirety. Nobody would buy a jigsaw puzzle that had some of its pieces missing."
A nod from Janice.
"Starting from the beginning," suggested Cranston, "how much did you know
about Adalbart."
"Only that he was go-between for a group of pirates off the China Coast,"
explained Janice. "They called themselves the Pirates of the Pescadores and
their leader, Malabar, was holding my Uncle Edgar for ransom, a few years ago."
"So you raised the ransom money -"
"Yes, and placed it with Adalbart. Twenty-five thousand dollars. Then
everything broke apart around the Pescadores, wherever they are."
Cranston smiled at that one.
"The Pescadores Islands," he said, "lie west of Formosa. They are a
volcanic group and the principal island, Hokoto, has a fishing harbor. The
inhabitants of some of the other islands go in for fishing - of sorts."
By that, Janice understood that Cranston meant piracy.
"The Japanese encouraged these pirates," continued Cranston, "as long as
the pirates preyed only on Chinese shipping. That was, until a few years ago,
when the Japs decided to fortify the Pescadores."
"I suppose the pirates objected?"
"They did, and the Japs bombed them out. Of course the pirates did their
utmost to preserve the lives of the prisoners they were holding for ransom,
since they were valuable."
"Then that's how my uncle escaped to China!" exclaimed Janice. "I heard
that he was there - and safe."
"It also explains Captain Adalbart," added Cranston. "Apparently he spent
your money, or most of it, hoping to make it back from some other venture."
"Which he did," admitted Janice. "I may as well tell you that Adalbart
phoned me, saying that he could pay me the cash. But he was murdered so shortly
after that I didn't have time -"
Janice was about to add that she didn't have time to reach Adalbart, but
she was becoming frank enough to hesitate on anything that was only a
half-truth. Cranston helped the problem with an interruption.
"Did you ever hear of the Taiwan Joss?"
Shaking her head. Janice paused suddenly:
"Taiwan is another name for Formosa," she said. "Am I right?"
"You are," replied Cranston, "and a joss is a Chinese idol, which brings
us to King Koxinga."
That name was entirely new to Janice. So Cranston went into the history of
King Koxinga. He related briefly how three centuries ago, Koxinga, whose
parentage was half Chinese and Japanese, had risen to become the ruler of
Formosa. Originally named Ching Ch'ing-kung, this chieftain had gained such
power through piracy that the reigning Ming Emperor of China had conferred upon
him the royal surname of Chu.
Therewith the Japanese had termed him Kwoh-hsing-yeh, which meant His
Worship of the National Surname and the Portuguese traders of that day had
corrupted the pronunciation of the title to Koxinga. Still the great national
hero of Formosa, Koxinga represented the spirit of the island, its effort to
maintain a Chinese tradition while absorbing Japanese influence, a most
unpalatable compromise.
At least Koxinga had demanded independence and a few descendants of the
pirate crews had maintained that status through the centuries, even though
their only remaining homeland had been the barren Pescadores. They differed,
however, from the nondescript pirates who had molested the China Coast until
the British had tracked them down with submarines as late as 1927 in Bias Bay.
Cranston added an interesting detail.
"Their names are titles," he told Janice. "Like Koxinga, His Worship of
the National Surname, there are such pirates today as Malabar, the Gay Man From
Afar."
"Malabar certainly came from afar," acquiesced Janice. "But how could he
import those followers of his?"
"These pirates once figured in the coolie trade," explained Cranston,
"working chiefly out of Macao. Since smuggling human beings was their business,
they could readily apply it to themselves."
"But why are they here?"
"Because of the Taiwan Joss," replied Cranston, linking his facts
promptly. "I have checked vague reports regarding such an idol, presumably an
image of King Koxinga."
"Then you mean that Adalbart stole it!"
"Precisely. He sold it to Shenrich for fifty thousand dollars, half of
which Adalbart intended to return to you. I have seen the receipt that Adalbart
gave to Shenrich for the money."
Having learned that Cranston was a friend of the police commissioner,
Janice took it for granted that he had gained this information through such
channels.
"Then Malabar has the joss!" exclaimed the girl. "He must have taken it
when he murdered Shenrich -"
Cranston's head-shake interrupted.
"The trail still continues," he stated. "Shenrich disposed of the Joss to
someone else. As for murder, almost anyone might kill to gain the Taiwan Joss."
"You can't mean J. Dazley Theobald!"
"Not last night," smiled Cranston, "particularly after the efficient way
you trailed him. Nevertheless, there are cross-trails in this game. What I
intend to do is find the man upon whom they may next converge, the person who
bought the joss from Shenrich, probably at double price."
That was all. Cranston didn't have to remind Janice that she was to stay
at home this evening, unless she heard from him to the contrary. But in
parting, Janice had a question.
"What about Jerry Gifford?" she asked. "He must know something about the
Taiwan Joss, I'm convinced of it now. I met Jerry through some friends and he
promised to help find Captain Adalbart; then suddenly he dropped the whole
thing completely. I wonder why!"
There was pique in the girl's final tone; her frown showed an expression
of mistrust. Treating her "I wonder why" as a query, Cranston decided to leave
it unanswered. What most concerned Cranston regarding Jerry was what new
information - if any - might appear in today's issue of the Daily Shipper under
the head of Gifford's column.
CHAPTER XIV
THE papers lay deep on Mann's desk and merely to winnow them looked like a
week's work. A collection of fact articles, gleaned from various magazines, all
bearing the name of Jerry Gifford, were in themselves a problem.
Apparently Jerry wrote on any subject that he might come across; hence to
discover what sort of research at present engaged his attention was a matter of
complete speculation.
Oil promotions, Florida cocoanuts, Mississippi flood control, Australian
aborigines, Yucatan ruins, polar explorations, Seminole Indian customs, Ozark
superstitions, and Great Lakes navigation were but a few of the subjects that
had rattled from Jerry's fertile typewriter.
Among them there was nothing that fitted with Cranston's supposition that
Jerry was still in New York. Among the subjects so far neglected by Jerry, the
theater was one. It happened that he had confided his interest in the Troxell
records to the only person who might have helped him gain access to them: Kip
Ranstead.
There was a report from Harry Vincent.
He'd visited the upstate town where Jerry often went, but had learned that
nobody had seen Mr. Gifford. The only inkling that Jerry might have been
expected, was a letter - and a fat one - that had arrived at the local post
office. But since Jerry's mail was always forwarded to New York when he wasn't
around, it had been sent on its way and was probably still in the mail. The
address to which it had been forwarded was that of Jerry's office.
What was more important was a copy of the Daily Shipper. Cranston was
reading it while Mann mulled through the other data. Jerry's column was up to
the form that Cranston expected. It stated:
Custom or usage leads to odd notions, really hindering your daily
existence.
Delay often occasions misadventure!
Take for example the great steamships that ply the river amid the hordes
of passing tugs. They talk to each other with their whistles, using the code
that is familiar to all wireless operators, the customary dot and dash.
Yet those dots and dashes are unfamiliar to you. They are the custom, the
usage, to those who understand them, but you regard them as an odd notion;
therefore you miss much of what is happening around you.
Cranston hadn't missed much, even though it wasn't happening around him.
From the first sentence, he had gained a name, which Jerry had neatly separated
into two parts with a comma, an innovation over his previous efforts. Of course
the next paragraphs contained the usual type of error which Jerry used to flag
attention. Anybody familiar with the ways of steamships, except perhaps the
dull-minded editor of the Daily Shipper, would know that whistles along the
waterfront did not operate in dots and dashes like the usual code.
They had their own language, those whistles. A tongue that Jerry Gifford
understood, otherwise he wouldn't have misrepresented it.
The whole thing fitted with Cranston's theory, namely that Jerry was still
in Manhattan. Lonely and isolated, Jerry had probably sought information and
found it, from an unexpected but universal source. Which in turn gave Cranston
a very novel notion, one that made him smile as he thought of the way that Mann
would respond to simple but explicit instructions. Cranston wrote those details
on a slip of paper, folded it and laid it on the desk. Then:
"Coulton Rhyde," suggested Cranston. "The name sounds familiar to me. How
about you, Mann?"
Mann gave a methodical blink.
"What has Rhyde to do with this?" he inquired. "He is an investor, not a
collector."
"Collections can be turned into investments."
"Why, yes." Mann agreed as though it had never occurred to him before.
"But we have no data on Coulton Rhyde."
"Call it a hunch, then," remarked Cranston. Actually he was repeating the
comma divided name that was spelled by the first letters in the words of
Jerry's lead paragraph. "Rhyde is just the sort who would mix himself in
something unusual."
Mann shrugged to indicate he wasn't so sure.
"See what you have on Rhyde," suggested Cranston, "including photographs.
They might help us."
What Cranston didn't add was the message that he had found in the second
sentence of Jerry's column. Four letters only, one to a word, it spelled its
warning: doom!
Finding a copy of a book entitled "Who's Who in Wall Street," Mann not
only supplied Rhyde's biography but a photograph as well. Cranston wasn't
interested in the biography, which merely covered the fact that Rhyde had
invariably fluctuated with the stock market. What he wanted was the picture.
The photograph portrayed Rhyde as a thin-faced gentleman with gray hair
and the wisp of a similarly colored mustache. In fact, Rhyde looked like
anything except a wolf, of the Wall Street variety. Checking the photo,
Cranston closed the book.
"I have an appointment, Mann." Gazing from the window, Cranston noted that
the six o'clock dusk was gathering. "Just about six hours from now. Meanwhile go
through with my instructions, tonight if possible."
Strolling from the office, Cranston was gone before Mann could open that
special memo which lay on the desk. Cranston didn't want to be around when he
heard Mann's amazed objections to what might prove a maddening task. Mann
worked better when left alone.
Besides, Cranston was thinking of the last three words that Goodall
Shenrich had uttered just before he caved from the thrust of a knife with a
garnet-studded silver handle:
"Ride - midnight - pencil -"
Dusk was welcome to Cranston. It meant that he had a long while in which
to operate before midnight. Cranston intended to do a great deal in those
intervening hours.
Quite opposite was dusk's effect on Janice Courtland. She hated the very
sight of the thickening sky as she viewed it from the window of her apartment.
Having made a promise, Janice intended to keep it; even Adalbart had done as
much. But Janice didn't like it.
Her promise was that she wouldn't leave her apartment after dark and it
was growing dark too soon to suit her. Still, Cranston was right; darkness was
the only time when those strange figures moved along the street to take up
Janice's trail, the shapes which could only be those of Malabar and his
piratical band.
Janice didn't like being a prisoner, even on the honor system. The hours
when everyone else was starting out for a good time, was something of a zero
hour for Janice, meaning that there was nothing to which she could look
forward. Nothing except to wonder who was going to be murdered next, despite
the efforts of Lamont Cranston and The Shadow, two persons who would do better,
in Janice's opinion, if they combined their efforts.
However, Janice hadn't been asked for an opinion, nor was she needed in
tonight's investigation. About her only choice was to go to bed and catch up on
much needed sleep. More piqued than ever, Janice kicked her shoes across the
room and was tossing her dress on a chair when a sudden thought struck her.
She had promised not to go out after dark, but nothing had been said about
not leaving the apartment before. Though the dusk had thickened, it wasn't quite
dark outdoors. Realizing that she had a few minutes left in which to evade her
promise without actually breaking it, Janice scrambled into her dress, pawed
the floor for her shoes and found them. As madly as if Malabar's crew were
after her, the girl hurried downstairs, out the back door, and along her old
route to a neighboring street.
Having told Shrevvy that she wouldn't be going out tonight, Janice didn't
expect his cab to be around. By now, she was sure, Malabar's tribe would no
longer be watching for her and besides, it still wasn't dark.
That last opinion was a technicality.
Janice was thinking in terms of the sky, not of the street, which had
gathered a considerable quota of nightly gloom. In scurrying for the nearest
subway station, Janice didn't bother to look for flitting figures that would
have roused her imagination. She was too willing to believe that they weren't
around.
One was, the figure of a slightly shabby man with a tawny face that was
practically saffron. Except that it lacked a scar, that face resembled
Malabar's, a common characteristic of the blood-brethren who formed the clan
from the Pescadores.
This man took up Janice's trail, down into the subway. As he disappeared,
a black truck moved into the gloaming and began a trip along the avenue beneath
which the subway ran.
It was really dark, a quarter hour later, when that truck pulled up at a
corner where a silent man was waiting like a lone sentinel, so motionless that
passers-by scarcely noticed him. The truck driver saw the man, being on the
lookout for him. The sentinel was Janice's trailer; he had simply left the
train at the same station as the girl and waited for the truck to appear.
Where Janice had gone next was no mystery to this man of Malabar and the
few others who had joined him. They were in a neighborhood that they knew quite
well. After a short, swift ride, they left the truck and spread amid the
darkness.
Janice Courtland had decided upon another talk with Jerry Gifford, if she
could find him. What better hiding place could Jerry want than his own office,
now that everyone had decided that he was really out of town?
Not knowing how deeply Cranston was checking Jerry's affairs, Janice had
good reason to suppose that she was playing smart. Picking a doorway across the
street, she took a look toward the office window, as she had that other night.
There was no drizzle this evening, but a mist was filtering through the
streets, a sign that a fog was growing in the river. Occasional whistles
throbbed, but in the distance, indicating that the creeping fog was heavier
down the bay. The sky was heavy with murk, another token of the rapidly
thickening weather, and Janice should have noticed how closely the darkness
shrouded her.
But to Janice, the darkness at this moment was a help, for it accentuated
the brief dart of light that she saw from a window opposite.
The glint came from Jerry's office!
It could only have been a flashlight, but that made it the more important.
Janice was now convinced that Jerry must be lurking on his own premises.
Watching still more closely, the girl awaited another betraying blink, but none
came.
Nevertheless, it hadn't been an illusion, such as the reflection of
passing car lights. A truck, slithering along the street, failed to produce any
effect from Jerry's window. Janice gave little attention to the truck, nor did
she look along the sidewalk. She was interested only in that upstairs window.
Then, all patience ended, Janice started across the street. The fog was
gathering rapidly, perhaps that was why peculiar shapes seemed to grow rapidly
from the ends of this block, converging toward the dim doorway of the office
building. But Janice wasn't worrying about such phantom creatures.
She should have worried.
Janice was scarcely across the other curb when the gathering horde
enveloped her. They might have sprung from the cement sidewalk, so suddenly did
those dark men arrive. Out of a human huddle that lurched itself together came
sweeping arms that thrust their clutching hands about the girl.
This was the way the pirates handled the Sikh guards on steamships,
disarming them, pinning them, silencing their shouts of alarm, all in one
concerted action, wherein each participant supplied a well-rehearsed portion.
With Janice it was so much easier that the huddle didn't even pause. With
a writhe, the human mass disintegrated, its separating parts swirling off into
the mist. One clump was larger, for it consisted of two men carrying Janice
between them, bound and gagged all in a single, continuous action. Into the
thickest darkness went that clump, to be blotted further by the arrival of a
pitch-black truck, that gathered in all hands with doors that opened and closed
like a yawning mouth.
Up in Jerry's office, the flashlight blinked what might have been
considered a farewell, except that it couldn't be seen from the street, for the
glow was muffled now. In fact no one, except Janice, had caught even the tiniest
twinkle of that flashlight.
Focused from the folds of a black cloak, the beam showed the contorted
body of Kip Ranstead, long stiffened in death, the marked newspaper beneath his
arm, the garnet-studded knife-handle projecting from his back.
There was a grim laugh, The Shadow's laugh, that seemed to analyze this
first link in a chain of death that had continued further. Then the flashlight,
still muffled, took a slow sweep and reached the floor, just inside the door.
Letters were lying there, but none of them had a thick-packed envelope.
The forwarded letter mentioned by Harry Vincent had not yet reached this final
destination. Whatever bearing it might have on the case, it would have to wait.
However, that didn't matter, since The Shadow's plans were all arranged.
The Shadow's plans didn't include Janice Courtland, except that he had
arranged that she would be some place where she would stay out of things.
Definitely, The Shadow was right. Janice had gone where she would be
staying out of things.
CHAPTER XV
THERE was a strange old clock in Troxell's gingerbread living room, an
ornate piece of mechanism that fitted nicely with the divans, the ottomans, the
gilt and all the rest of the gee-gaws that Jerry Gifford had learned to hate.
Most of all, Jerry hated the clock.
It was a French clock with tall pillars inlaid with mosaics. It had a
marble base, a summit of the same material, and walls of plate glass. The
inlaid dial was circled with rhinestones and there were sixty of them, one for
each minute.
At every quarter hour, the clock delivered a trilling chime. At every half
hour, the chime became a melody. At every hour, the clock hammered its message
with a big gong. Twice a day, the clock really went to town. Noon and midnight,
it chimed, gave music, banged twelve times, and left a listener expecting a
cuckoo to pop out and say "Hello!"
Only there wasn't any cuckoo, though Jerry wished there was. It would be a
relief from the singing imitation birds and the artificial bumble bee. What was
even worse, the music box had repeated its tunes too often. If it played "Flow
Gently, Sweet Afton" a few times more, Jerry felt that he would break it. The
approach of this particular midnight rather horrified Jerry. It marked the hour
when Coulton Rhyde was due to die, according to a clockwork schedule as
inevitable as the ticks of the ornate monstrosity that adorned Troxell's
mantel. Adalbart, Shenrich - probably both had died. However, they didn't worry
Jerry.
Rhyde did.
Unquestionably, Coulton Rhyde had been talked into buying the Taiwan Joss.
Therefore he couldn't be blamed for what happened, particularly if he happened
to be murdered. Rhyde's life depended on Jerry's column in the Daily Shipper,
or rather upon whether anybody read that column closely enough to catch its
hidden meaning.
Jerry couldn't afford to make those secret messages too pointed, otherwise
Chichester would suspect them. Right now, Chichester was waiting for Jerry to
type tomorrow's column, but Jerry didn't have the heart. The whole chain ended
with Rhyde; if he died, it meant that Jerry had failed.
Unless he could feel that he had accomplished something, Jerry was ready
to quit right now. His nerves were through, breaking under the strain of this
slow-motion ordeal.
It was foggy out tonight, getting worse and worse. Jerry knew it because
of the river whistles, blaring weirdly and frequently. They were his only
solace, those whistles; he had said so in his column. Whistles that talked to
each other could talk to Jerry too.
If only they could talk!
A basso blast penetrated the fog, followed by another, Then came a
tug-boat's shrill, with repetitions. Seated at his typewriter, Jerry tilted his
head to listen to a ferry-boat's intermediate blare and was surprised at what it
said. Those whistles were really talking!
The usual signals were off tonight. None of the usual business of port and
starboard, full speed ahead, or stop. More whistles now, picking up the same
theme. They were doing what Jerry said they did, but knew they didn't.
Those whistles were spelling out a code!
Incredible - or was it?
As he listened, Jerry decided that the correct term was the word
ingenious. Somebody had read Gifford's Column and added an idea that Jerry
hadn't had. Mere bunk, Jerry's statement that whistles spelled out their
signals like a wireless code, but they were doing it now.
They were saying this:
"Gifford - where - are - you - Gifford - where - are - you - Gifford -
where -"
And now, Jerry was telling where.
On the typewriter, Jerry was knocking out tomorrow's column. His lead
sentence ran as follows:
The reign of Xerxes eclipsed legendary limits, transcending Homeric epics
and thrilling every realm.
Rather a ridiculous lead for a shipping column, but it was in reasonable
keeping with Jerry's unreasonable style. It filled its main purpose, however,
for the first letters of the words spelled: Troxell Theater. All Jerry needed
now was the follow-up, which was easy. He went into the maritime history of
ancient races, particularly the Phoenicians, relating how they had stormed the
Persian cities of Tyre and Sidon, thereby bringing upon themselves the wrath of
Xerxes, the Persian king. All this of course had a bearing on trade conditions
of the period.
Now there were many people who might dispute this, because they had read
enough history to know that Tyre and Sidon happened to be Phoenician cities,
not Persian. But Jerry was quite sure that Chichester, ancient though he was,
didn't date back to the time of Xerxes and probably didn't read history books.
The column was all done by the time the funny clock went haywire at
midnight and Jerry, sighing his relief, felt ready for his first good night's
sleep since he had come here. The whistles were still speaking their
encouragement and it was like a lullaby.
Midnight was producing something else, from a train gate in the
Pennsylvania Station. There, a thin-faced man with grizzled hair and mustache
was coming up the steps followed by a red-cap who was carrying some bags.
Whatever was written on the man's face wasn't pleasant. His features
carried a mingling of fear, worry, suspicion, tempered by a dash of bravado. He
wasn't concerned with the other passengers from the Western Limited on which he
had arrived; apparently he had studied them thoroughly during the train ride.
What bothered him were the people outside the train gate.
One man stepped forward and said:
"Hello, Rhyde."
To Coulton Rhyde, the mere mention of his name in public had the impact of
a bullet punch. The man wheeled, as if to dart back through the train gate, but
the porter and the bags were blocking him. Then a firm hand steadied Rhyde's
arm.
"You must remember me," spoke a calm voice. "My name is Cranston, Lamont
Cranston."
Recognizing the name, Rhyde studied Cranston's face. They must have met
before, though Rhyde wasn't sure. Certainly he had heard of Cranston's, and
this man of impassive manner fitted the fame that he had gained as a
globe-trotter.
Very suddenly, Rhyde felt glad at meeting someone of Cranston's background
and understanding. There was just a last flash of suspicion in his eye as he
queried:
"Who sent you here?"
"Goodall Shenrich," returned Cranston in a confidential undertone. "He
told me you would reach the Pennsylvania station at midnight. Those were his
last words."
"Ride - midnight - Pencil -"
Cranston had taken the first word as a name and hence had made allowance
for a difference in spelling. The second word was obvious. The third, ending
with Shenrich's death croak had been incomplete, so Cranston had assumed that
it might have a few more syllables. From this had come his interpretation:
"Rhyde - midnight - Pennsylvania -" The word "Station" and whatever else
Shenrich might have wanted to say, were speculative, but Cranston had drawn
sound conclusions. He and Rhyde were now alone, the porter having gone ahead
with the bags, so Cranston continued:
"Of course Shenrich sold you the Taiwan Joss. It was better that you
should have come back to New York separately, better for you, I mean."
Rhyde's knees were going shaky. Cranston's grip steadied him anew.
"Adalbart gave Shenrich a receipt," continued Cranston. "What did Shenrich
give you, Rhyde?"
Licking his lips so hard that he included his mustache, Rhyde finally
whispered, hoarsely:
"He delivered the Taiwan Joss. I told him where to get the money."
Cranston's eyebrows lifted quizzically.
"It's at my penthouse," confided Rhyde. "It seemed safer to leave it where
Shenrich could pick it up."
"Safer for the money," agreed Cranston, "if not for Shenrich."
Rhyde's shaky hands gripped Cranston's arm.
"I know nothing about Shenrich's death," Rhyde panted. "Nothing. You
understand?"
"I understand."
"Nothing." Rhyde paused, then became frank. "Nothing except that it was
dangerous to own the joss. I thought Shenrich would be safe after I bought it
from him."
The porter was waiting, so Cranston gestured Rhyde along. The bags were
placed in Shrevvy's cab and the two men followed. Rhyde tipped the porter and
they drove away; then Rhyde noticed that Cranston was studying the bags.
"I don't have the joss with me," declared Rhyde. "It would be too bulky,
too heavy to carry. I shipped it where it will be safe."
Rhyde didn't specify where he had shipped it. His eyes, narrowed, were
studying Cranston's face, to see how it reacted. The reaction was Cranston's
usual sort; his features remained unchanged. Looking from the cab window, Rhyde
noted the direction they had taken.
"We're going to my penthouse?"
Cranston nodded. Soon the cab pulled up in front of a small but sumptuous
apartment building. As they alighted, Cranston's keen eyes took in all
surroundings. His vision was the sort that could trace lurking figures where
anyone else saw blank, but tonight there were no skulking figures resembling
the pirates of the Pescadores.
Everything was so serene that it seemed certain the trail had at last
moved well ahead of Malabar, the Gay Man from Afar. But Cranston was taking
nothing for certainty, as yet.
Entering the building, Cranston and Rhyde rode up to the penthouse in the
automatic elevator. Instead of fishing in his pocket for the key, Rhyde removed
it from beneath a door mat. Unlocking the door, he pressed a light switch.
"Easier for Shenrich," explained Rhyde, referring to the key. "But nobody
else could find the money. It's hidden right here, Cranston."
Striding across to a low fireplace, Rhyde tapped a marble panel above the
mantel. The sound of the stone was solid. Turning, Rhyde stooped to the tiled
hearth in front of the fireplace. He began counting the stones of the tiling
from left to right.
"Watch the panel behind the mantel," suggested Rhyde. "You'll see what
happens when I press the proper tiles. Nobody would suspect that the hidden
spring was down here, the secret panel up there."
Back to the fireplace, Rhyde indicated "up there" by a gesture of his left
thumb, over his shoulder. His right forefinger pressed the final tile. There was
a sharp click from above the mantel and the marble panel shot upward.
It happened so quickly that Rhyde could never have turned from his crouch
in time to see it, the down fling of a human figure from the ample space above
the fireplace. No leap was necessary, simply a forward topple, that hurled this
assassin's shape straight down toward Rhyde's bent back.
In the tight clench of his extended fist, this man from the hiding place
held one of the vicious weapons that had figured in every recent murder, a
silver-handled dirk with a garnet gleaming from it. More vivid though was the
flash of the blade, with its thin length tapering to a needle-point.
If Cranston had tried to stop the drive of that well-aimed weapon, he
would have been too late to prevent its burial in Rhyde's back. Instead,
Cranston made a hard, diving drive of his own. Hitting Rhyde shoulder first, he
hurled the victim from the assassin's path, and with a side twist of his own,
Cranston rolled clear as the plunging figure struck the hearth, knife first.
It wasn't necessary to draw an automatic to deal with this assassin. The
man simply flattened there, lying as if stunned. Cranston's eyes roved to the
cramped cache above the mantel, saw that the space was empty, then lowered
again toward the figure on the hearth.
Cranston did all this while coming to his feet. But Rhyde got no farther
than his hands and knees. He too was staring at the slayer who had failed, with
eyes so wide that they were white-circled all around. For Rhyde was viewing an
amazing thing indeed.
Matching the Oriental dagger in the sprawled man's fist, was its exact
duplicate, protruding with only the handle visible, from the middle of the
killer's back.
No murderer, this man, at least not of his own intent. For he himself was
already dead, slain by the very sort of thrust that his body had been arranged
to deliver to Rhyde!
One dead man placed to produce another!
As frozen as the slain man whose corpse had failed to kill him, Coulton
Rhyde watched while Lamont Cranston stooped forward and turned the dead face
into the light. Anyone who had ever seen those sharp, dry features would
remember them, for they wore their contemptuous, self-satisfied smirk, even in
death.
The face on the hearth belonged to J. Dazley Theobold.
CHAPTER XVI
COMMISSIONER WESTON never would have believed that a dead man could be
responsible for an attempted murder thrust, so Lamont Cranston spared him the
details. Coulton Rhyde gave the same simple testimony; that they had returned
to the penthouse and found Theobald's body there.
If Rhyde needed an alibi, he had one, for he proved that he had come into
town on the Western Limited, and Cranston testified that he had met Rhyde at
the station. So Theobald's death was classed for what it really was, a case of
a man engaged in attempted burglary meeting doom at the hands of a rival
engaged in the same enterprise.
The mystery seemed to surround the silver-handled knives. Why these
weapons were becoming so popular seemed hard to explain unless someone had
tossed a job-lot on the market. Still, there was a certain thread of sense
behind it. Often one style of murder created a pattern, for the simple reason
that newcomers felt their crimes would be attributed to killers already sought
by the police.
Since somebody with a garnet-studded knife had murdered Shenrich, two
people had decided to go after Rhyde with a similar dirk. Of the two, J. Dazley
Theobald had lost, and as a lesson to other amateurs, the murderer had left his
own knife in the victim.
As for Rhyde, he didn't mention a missing sum of one hundred thousand
dollars, because the money wasn't his. It actually belonged to Shenrich, a fact
that Rhyde also evaded, rather than talk about the Taiwan Joss.
"It's better that no one else should know," Rhyde expressed to Cranston,
while they were lunching after their visit to police headquarters. "That is, no
one else except Mortimer Kremble."
Mention of Kremble brought a slight smile from Cranston.
"Of course Kremble will be surprised," added Rhyde. "I told him that I
would like him to be custodian for any curios that I might obtain if they were
of Malaysian origin. But I doubt that he has ever heard of the Taiwan Joss."
"When do you expect it to arrive at the museum, Rhyde?"
"Some time this afternoon." Rhyde had evidently calculated the matter
carefully. "Of course Kremble will recognize it as a rarity, even though he
won't know what it is."
"Very probably," agreed Cranston, "considering that basalt idols are very
uncommon. Brownish black, you say it is?"
"Yes, with slight tinges of green, from a mineral that Shenrich described
as olivine. An odd substance, basalt, surprisingly light in weight."
Quite clever of Rhyde, to ship the Taiwan Joss to the Malaysian Museum.
Scarcely known as a curio collector, Rhyde wouldn't normally be connected with
Kremble. Shenrich had met Rhyde in the Middle West, bringing the joss along; it
had been sent by express in Shenrich's presence, allowing him time to get back
to New York and pick up the money before the joss arrived there.
Rhyde told all this to Cranston, explaining that if Shenrich hadn't found
the money waiting, he could have gone to the museum and demanded his precious
joss, when it was delivered, which would be this afternoon. With all these
precautions, Rhyde hadn't expected that Shenrich would be murdered.
And right now, Rhyde was very worried.
"My case is really bad," he admitted. "I have an alibi, but still, there's
no reason why -"
There, Rhyde hesitated.
"No reason why you couldn't have hired someone to murder Shenrich,"
supplied Cranston, "and to dispose of Theobald the same way."
Rhyde gave a nod.
"No reason," repeated Cranston, "except that whoever accepted such an
assignment would take the joss and the money too. I don't think you could be
quite that foolish, Rhyde."
"The police might think so."
"Which is why we didn't put them on a false track," Cranston stated. "I
can blame you for only one thing, Rhyde; not learning more about the joss
itself and the people who were seeking it."
That brought a hopeless shrug from Rhyde.
"Blame Shenrich," said Rhyde. "He wouldn't let me talk to Adalbart.
Shenrich said it wouldn't be safe, but I took it he didn't want me to know how
much profit he was making on the deal. I didn't care, because I was convinced
the joss was worth a hundred thousand. I looked into the history of similar
idols and was amazed at the prices that were paid for them. Besides, I could
afford it."
That was very true. Cranston happened to know that Rhyde was worth a
million dollars and a few times over.
"I checked on the joss," added Rhyde, "through a chap named Jerry Gifford
who does a shipping column. Of course I was careful not to let Gifford know I
intended to buy it. Why, Gifford can't even have guessed that the joss was
brought from the Pescadores Islands!"
Rhyde couldn't have stated his innocence more conclusively. Already, to
Cranston, Rhyde has shown his penchant for telling everything he knew without
realizing he was telling anything. Cranston hadn't needed to prime Rhyde's
talk-pump to make him gush, which indicated that Jerry's experience had been
the same.
"Forget Gifford," suggested Cranston. "Go over to the museum and wait
there for me. But be sure you get there before dusk."
This was a helpful hint, a reminder that Rhyde ought to be in shelter
before the hour when Malabar and his men began to move. But Rhyde didn't catch
that inference.
"Of course I'll go there early," Rhyde told Cranston. "I want to be on
hand when the joss arrives."
Leaving Rhyde, Cranston went directly to the Cobalt Club, where instead of
forgetting Jerry, he took immediate interest in today's column in the Daily
Shipper. That message "Troxell Theater" brought a curiously phrased laugh from
Cranston's whispering lips. When he called Mann on the phone, Cranston wasn't
surprised at the reaction.
"The Troxell Theater!" came Mann's exclamation. "Why, the Troxell estate
sold it long ago!"
"I know," returned Cranston. "But the deal wasn't announced publicly."
"Everything must have been removed," added Mann. "The place must be as
empty as an old barn."
"Suppose you check on the new owner, Mann. I'll find out about the theater
itself."
Cranston didn't add his opinion that the theater might not be as empty as
Mann supposed. Remembering the fame of the Troxell apartment above the theater
itself, Cranston was correctly picturing it not only as intact, but as a gilded
prison now housing Jerry Gifford.
Compared to Jerry's fancy quarters, the prison that held Janice Courtland
was practically a dungeon. Still it was habitable and Janice couldn't complain
of the treatment her captors had accorded her. The girl was in a small room
furnished chiefly with a metal cot, the only exits being a skylight and a door
with a little wicket.
At intervals, someone knocked on the wicket, then opened it and politely
proffered a tray of food. Always, the man outside the wicket looked the same,
yet different. Tawny faces with narrow eyes and straight black hair, seemed the
rule with this clan. But none of the faces had worn the distinguishing scar that
stood for Malabar.
Where this place was, Janice didn't know, for the truck had turned so many
corners when it brought her here. But Janice had an idea she could escape from
this cell, if she could prevent herself being heard. It had become a ritual
with Janice to listen at the door, and always she heard someone pacing outside
it.
That was, always until now.
For some reason the vigil had relaxed, and this was Janice's opportunity.
Going to the iron cot, she tossed the mattress from it and propped the cot on
one end. That was the difficult part, not that the cot was heavy, but that it
clanged the wall so loudly that anyone outside the door would hear it.
Only now there was no one outside the door!
Janice's next course was to climb the cross-bars that held the framework
of the cot, using them like a ladder. The skylight was very high, so high that
the pirates probably supposed the girl could never reach it, but Janice did,
with the help of her self-constructed ladder.
It was a real thrill to find the skylight loose. No longer worrying about
noise, Janice pried it open, and climbed up through. Then she found why the
pirates hadn't bothered to clamp the skylight.
All that Janice had reached was a brick-walled shaft, that went a full
story further up. There wasn't a chance of scaling those walls and the only
other outlet was a very tiny window opening into the building itself. Working
the window open, Janice thrust her head and shoulders through and looked down
into the deserted hall outside her own cell door.
Thought of taking a ten-foot drop from a window through which she could
hardly squeeze, was far too great a hazard, until Janice got a bold idea. There
was a large bent nail, driven deep in the woodwork of the window sill and Janice
forced the sharp nail-head through her dress hem.
Then, sliding feet first down through the tiny window, Janice lived one
breathless moment during sickening drop, hoping she wouldn't finish with a pair
of broken legs or a fractured neck. Her arms were raised and her hands were
clutching her dress sleeves when the nail stopped the dress hem short.
Her weight shooting her down through the dress as it automatically turned
inside out, Janice delayed her fall in mid-air, thanks to the grip she had upon
the reversing sleeves. As she dangled there, the dress hem gave and the girl
landed lightly on the hallway floor, only a few feet below, the dress showering
itself over her shoulders.
Turning the dress outside in, Janice put it on and stole along the hallway
to a door that she hoped would lead her to safety. But when she softly turned
the knob and peered past the door edge, the girl found her way was blocked.
Janice was looking right into a room which the pirates used as their main
headquarters, for there were more than half a dozen of them lounging around.
Only the sound of their conversation had prevented them from hearing the door
open, and now Janice hardly dared to close it again.
Before Janice tried, a door opened on the far side of the room and in
strode Malabar, his arrival bringing his followers to the equivalent of
attention, which meant that they merely sat up a little straighter and stopped
their conversation. Then, after a lull, one tawny man inquired.
"What have you to tell us, Gay Man From Afar?"
The term "Gay Man" hardly suited Malabar, whose face was glowery beyond
Janice's imagination. That, plus the scar, gave Malabar a most villainous
appearance. His tone suited his looks as Malabar snarled his reply.
"You know my message," announced Malabar. "We must find the joss. I have
told you the same thing often, Purple Peacock who Struts among the Pleasant
Poppies."
One of the pirates shrugged.
"We have heard that message often," he said. "So why should it trouble us
more than before?"
"Because of our prisoner. We must learn if she can pay her own ransom.
Therefore she must swear by the joss." Malabar paused, rebuke in his glare.
"You know our law, Scourge of the Southern Sea."
A very deliberate pirate removed a pipe from his lips and spoke:
"Other prisoners have languished long while they awaited ransom, Gay Man
From Afar."
"Among our own islands yes," agreed Malabar, "but there all law was our
own. Here it is different, Mildest Monsoon of the Midsummer Moon."
That brought a snarl from a listening pirate:
"What do we care about the laws of others?"
"We care much, Fiend of the Furious Deep," retorted Malabar, "because to
defy those laws leads to increasing trouble. What they call crime in this
country must be done swiftly, so it will be forgotten. Therefore I say: tonight
we shall find the joss whose secret is the symbol of our chief!"
The far door closed behind Malabar, bringing the pirates to their feet
with an excited babble. From her door, Janice felt sure that the throng would
soon be starting out; therefore she could only wait and hope.
As she hoped, Janice wished for about the hundredth time that she could
think of some way to bring The Shadow here!
CHAPTER XVII
A HAND was knocking at Janice's door.
Not the door of the bolted cell from which Janice had escaped only to find
herself still trapped, but the door of the apartment that the girl had left the
evening before.
It was Cranston who knocked; when he received no reply, he tried the door,
found it unlocked, and stepped into the apartment.
Dusk hadn't quite arrived, hence all the room was plainly visible,
including items that Cranston promptly checked; a run-down alarm clock,
yesterday's newspaper, were evidence that fitted with some letters lying under
the door, to prove that Janice had been gone perhaps as long as twenty-four
hours.
Certainly Janice had been away more than twelve, because Shrevvy hadn't
seen her today. So Cranston lost no time in getting out to where the cab was
waiting. He gave Shrevvy an address on an East Side avenue.
Street lights were aglitter when the cab pulled up in front of a
shabby-looking store that was no better nor worse than its neighbors in this
wholesale district. Above the store was a sign that said:
RABALAM AND COMPANY
IMPORTERS
BRASS - SILVER - BRONZE
It wasn't Cranston who alighted from the cab. Instead an elderly and
somewhat decrepit man stepped forth. His coat collar was raised against the
inclement weather, which was living up to the drizzly, foggy season. The
elderly man was carrying an umbrella with a hooked handle, but he didn't bother
to open it. Instead, he simply tottered into Rabalam's store, brushed the rain
from his coat, and hung the umbrella on a counter.
The proprietor, Rabalam, was a bearded man who looked more like the
conventional pawn broker than a dealer in metal wares. He bowed when he saw the
customer and purred politely:
"Good evening, Mr. Twambley."
Looking up, the visitor cackled:
"You remember me?"
"I always remember an old customer."
"An old customer!" Twambley chortled. "You mean an elderly customer. Why,
I've only been here once before."
Rabalam bowed as though Twambley's mere return entitled him to be classed
as a regular patron. Then:
"I am closing shortly," said Rabalam. "So if there is anything special,
Mr. Twambley -"
As he spoke, Rabalam was dipping his hand in a brass bowl on the table
behind which he sat. In the bowl were little counters, much like checkers,
except that they were made of metal. They clanked as Rabalam toyed with them
and the noise caught Twambley's attention.
"What are those, Rabalam?"
"They are counters used in some sort of game. I believe they call it
Fan-Tan."
Reaching in the bowl, Twambley picked out some of the counters, noting
both their weight and color.
"They are silver, Rabalam?"
"They are silver."
"Have you any of gold?"
Smiling through his beard Rabalam shook his head in answer to that
question. Now both he and Twambley were jingling the counters, making a lot of
clang with them. Old Twambley's eyes showed a glint that Rabalam didn't see,
for the customer's head was lowered.
They were playing a game that wasn't Fan-Tan.
Rabalam wasn't toying with the counters because he was nervous. He was
using their sound to hold Cranston's attention. At the rear of the shop,
stealthy figures were coming down a short flight of steps, turning to sneak
past an array of bronze and brassware that included everything from gongs to
vases; lamps to candelabra.
Only the keenest of eyes could have spotted the passage of those figures
as they filed toward a rear door leading into an alley where Rabalam's delivery
truck was parked. But Twambley's eye was keen, more than that, its sidling
glance gave him a peculiar advantage. Twambley could practically make out the
faces of the sneaking men that Rabalam thought he didn't see.
"How much are these, Rabalam?"
"One dollar each," replied Rabalam, referring to the small but thickish
counters. "They are used as currency some places. They have just the weight of
the Mexican dollar."
"I shall take five of them."
Gathering the counters, jingling them, Twambley started to put them in his
pocket. There was something in the old man's move that roused Rabalam's
suspicion, for the bearded shopkeeper slid his hand beneath the table, as
though reaching for a weapon. That in turn was just the move Twambley wanted.
Rabalam had put himself completely off guard for the thrust that came.
Speeding upward like steel springs, Twambley's hands caught Rabalam's throat.
The choke of those fingers silenced Rabalam, but to make the process more
effective, Twambley's thumbs came under Rabalam's beard and forced it upward.
Held by elastic cords, the beard snapped into Rabalam's mouth, half-choking him.
From Twambley's lips came the whispered laugh of The Shadow.
Only Rabalam heard the laugh, for by now the last of the sneaking men had
passed the curtained doorway beyond the brassware at the rear of the shop. But
that fact spurred Rabalam all the more. Starting a return grapple, the
unbearded man suddenly turned his grip into a snakelike twist that enabled him
to wrest from Twambley's choking clutch.
All that Twambley's hands managed to keep was Rabalam's beard. But Rabalam
was still too gaspy to cry out for aid. As he started toward the rear of the
shop, Twambley overtook him from behind, literally catching Rabalam's neck with
quick fingertips that jerked the man's head backward.
That brought the unbearded face right into the light, turning it straight
toward the steps beyond the brassware. There was a quick cry from that
direction as a determined girl surged into sight, grabbing the first missile
handy, a candelabrum.
The girl was Janice Courtland. She had seen and recognized the face that
was no longer the bearded mask of Rabalam. The proprietor of the shop was
Malabar!
The Shadow already knew that Rabalam was simply Malabar in reverse, for
this was the very place where he had gone with the pirate crew the night that
he had ridden unseen on their truck. Now The Shadow's hands were taking a hold
that would have clinched the piracy situation along with Malabar's throat, if
Janice hadn't tried to play a part.
The girl's mistake could be excused, considering that old Twambley didn't
appear to be a match for the famed Malabar; still, Janice shouldn't have made
all the clangor that she did. In trying to swing the candelabrum at Malabar's
bobbing bead, Janice toppled a vase, whammed a gong, and finally crashed a
lamp. Tripping, she fell headlong into a mass of bronzeware.
A bad ending to the stealthy strategy that Janice had used in following
Malabar's men out from their lounging room, which they had left without
bothering to see whether their prisoner was still properly bolted in her cell!
The terrific clatter reached the alley, and with din still raging,
Malabar's crew surged out from the curtain to learn what had possessed their
chief. Rather than be encumbered with Malabar, the spry Mr. Twambley sent him
flying into a stack of brass serving stands, trays and jardinieres that
literally buried the Gay Man From Afar.
Continuing his sweep, Twambley scooped Janice from the heap where she had
landed, brought her to her feet, and sent her headlong, so fast that her feet
could just about catch up with her, toward the street door at the front of the
shop.
By then a surge of tawny men were bearing down on Twambley. Headed by
Scourge of the Southern Sea, with Fiend of the Furious Deep and Purple Peacock
Who Struts Among the Pleasant Poppies only a few steps behind, this vengeful
horde intended to make short work of the rejuvenated fossil who had so roughly
handled their leader Malabar.
Twambley had a quick trick for them, too. Grabbing the brass bowl with its
silver Fan-Tan counters, he used a bowling motion to send the contents rolling
along the floor. Like little wheels, the counters came under the driving feet
of the pirate horde, sending them headlong here and there. Hurling the bowl at
Malabar who was climbing from the piled brassware, Twambley whirled about and
caught his umbrella; sweeping the whole covering from the umbrella, he
transformed the latter into a cane, while the umbrella cloth, unfolding in
voluminous style, became a black cloak which Twambley flung across his
shoulders, a slouch hat settling from its midst upon his head.
In one great twist, old Twambley had become The Shadow!
Janice thought she was seeing the finish of that fray as Shrevvy's cab
gathered her from the sidewalk. Through the slamming door, Janice viewed a
whirl of blackness scattering another surge of wayward pirates; heard the rise
of a mighty, taunting laugh that seemed to pronounce an absolute triumph.
It wasn't quite the finish.
His cane reversed, The Shadow had tripped Fiend of the Furious Deep and
beaten off Scourge of the Southern Sea, when he found he needed further leeway.
Janice and the cab were gone before The Shadow's figure went whirling to the
back of the shop, traceable only by the flying metalware that represented the
cloaked whirlwind's path.
Malabar, springing in from an angle, was suddenly tangled in the curtain
of the rear door, which was flung about him by The Shadow's timely hand. Back
into the pitch-blackness of the rear passage, The Shadow was making an
invisible spin, his strident laugh inviting foemen to come and test the
clouting power of his cane-head, or to defy the automatic that had appeared in
his other fist, as he made that final whirl.
The canny Malabar was not anxious to meet either test offered by his
uncanny foe. The unhappy Gay Man From Afar had a better way of dealing with The
Shadow.
Reaching for a gold-threaded cord that hung beside the flung back curtain,
Malabar tugged it. There was a sharp, resounding clatter as the halves of the
rear passage opened downward; one half from front to back, the other from back
to front.
Big springs sang and the split floor came thumping upward into place.
Malabar beckoned and his crew followed him out through a passage that again was
solid, though uneven, above the deep pit into which The Shadow had been dropped.
When Malabar demanded deep pits, he got them. He'd chosen this store
because it had one, in the form of an old abandoned subway excavation. Even The
Shadow was unlikely to recover soon from the effect of a twenty-foot plunge and
even a lucky landing wouldn't help him to get out. Malabar didn't provide cots
with his pits.
Malabar was sure The Shadow would stay, because he had seen The Shadow
drop. Massed blackness had simply vanished downward, clearing the dim light
that represented the alley beyond. Into the waiting truck piled Malabar and his
men, wheeling off to the quest of regaining the Taiwan Joss.
The Shadow wasn't riding the Black Maria tonight. Instead, he had found
the blackness of Malabar's pit!
CHAPTER XVIII
THE Malaysian Museum stood wide open and there wasn't an attendant in
sight. Arriving there because she could think of no better place to go, Janice
released Shrevvy's cab, and hurried into the museum. All of which suited
Shrevvy who intended to go back to Rabalam's neighborhood and bring The Shadow
here.
So far the museum had been a safe place for Janice and it looked doubly so
tonight, for inside the girl saw the doorway to the cellar open and knew that
she would find Mortimer Kremble down there. Probably the curator was showing
his finished set of Cambodian plaques to prospective directors.
Only Kremble wasn't with the plaques. Remembering his other habitat, the
brass-walled temple room at the rear of the cellar, Janice went there. Passing
the laughing simha, Janice entered the dragon chamber with its side walls of
life-sized dancing figures and saw Kremble talking quietly with another man.
Both turned, and Kremble's gaunt face dropped its worried air to furnish
Janice with a welcoming smile. The girl didn't recognize the grizzled man with
the slight mustache who was standing beside Kremble, nor did his name click
home when the curator introduced him.
"Good evening, Miss Courtland," said Kremble. "This is Mr. Rhyde. Coulton
Rhyde."
Having been out of touch with the world since the night before, Janice
wasn't acquainted with the business of murder that had brought Rhyde and his
penthouse into headlines and picture pages.
Besides, Janice was staring at something which intrigued her more than did
Rhyde.
Resting on a granite pedestal that Kremble had evidently furnished, was a
curious stone image, brownish-black in color, except for its greenish streaks.
The figure was seated and it looked like some primitive idol, the sort hewn by
untutored savages. Having learned something about archeology, Janice would have
classed the idol as Polynesian, until Kremble announced:
"If Rhyde is correct in his assumption, Miss Courtland, you are looking at
a really unique object. Rhyde tells me that this is known as the Taiwan Joss,
the legacy of a pirate ruler named King Koxinga."
Horror riveted Janice. Her frozen stare caused Kremble and Rhyde to glance
at the idol, to learn if it possessed some hypnotic force. Then Janice found her
voice.
"The pirate joss! The one Malabar wants!" Gripping the arms of both men,
Janice pleaded: "Hide it! Close the museum! Do anything, only don't let them
find it here!"
The protest was too late. Janice's delay in finding Kremble had worked
against them all. Figures were filtering in past the guardian simha, with a
silence befitting this room of the great dragon snake. From the portal came a
sneering voice, foreign in language, commanding in tone.
Turning, Janice and the others saw themselves half surrounded by Malabar's
pirate crew, who were spreading at the pirate leader's order. To a man, this
dozen from the Pescadores were armed with silver-handled knives, each with a
studding garnet.
In something of the tone he used as Rabalam, Malabar spoke in English.
"We sell souvenirs of the Orient," he said, gesturing to the knives.
"Perhaps you have already seen a few in circulation. But we kept the rest for
our own needs."
Dirks raised, but Malabar gestured them down.
"You will swear by the Taiwan Joss," Malabar told Janice. "Swear whether
or not you reclaimed the ransom fund that you paid for your uncle's release.
Face the joss and swear."
Facing the joss, Janice steadied and spoke in a low, firm tone:
"I do not have the money. I swear by the joss."
From the way knives had been tossed during the past several days, Janice
expected to receive a few, if only because she told the truth. But not a dagger
was raised.
Arms folded, Malabar turned to Rhyde and Kremble, studying each in turn.
Coldly, Malabar asked:
"Which of you now owns the joss?"
Faltering at first, Rhyde suddenly realized that Janice had told the truth
and survived. Weakly Rhyde said:
"I do."
"You have told the truth," approved Malabar. "The joss however belongs to
us. Relinquish your claim and you may depart."
Rhyde nodded, meaning that he was giving up his claim. Malabar motioned
for his followers to spread apart and Janice was hoping that she too would be
dismissed, when a shrill tone commanded:
"Wait!"
The tone was Kremble's. The shaggy curator had stepped behind the joss,
which almost concealed him, for it was more than half human size. Kremble's
face had taken on a leer, unless it was an illusion caused by the great sneer
of the dragon's mouth that adorned the wall behind him.
"That man has lied!" Kremble's bony finger pointed out Rhyde. "I own the
joss. He gave it to me!"
Rhyde tried to stammer that the joss had not been a gift, but merely a
loan, until Kremble interrupted him.
"My word stands!" gloated Kremble. "My word is law! Because I know the
secret of the joss that marks the owner!"
Dipping his hands to the sides of the joss, Kremble probed the cracked
basalt with his fingers and found the catches that he sought. With a sudden
lift, he raised the whole top of the figure, as one would lift a cover from a
carton.
Rhyde had wondered why the stone idol was so light. Now he knew. Inside
the joss was a seated figure, almost the size of the hollow basalt cover, a
royal image that could only represent King Koxinga!
It was lifelike, amazingly so, that form the size of a half-grown child,
but with a fiendish maturity written on its grotesquely-carved, almond colored
face. Its eyes were sapphires which sparkled with a merciless blue. The figure
was clothed in woven gold, bedecked with patterns of shimmering gems. The green
of emeralds, the ruddy glint of rubies vied with the amber hue of topaz, as
background for the scintillating fire of magnificent diamonds.
The pirate pelf of centuries adorned this image. For a price of one
hundred thousand dollars, Coulton Rhyde had bought millions! Only Rhyde had
relinquished that claim, for Mortimer Kremble to seize it!
From Kremble's lips came a fiendish cackle that announced him as the
master of the show. With it, Janice realized that the old curator must be the
arch-murderer behind the chain of deaths. She was recognizing now that Kremble
had been unaccounted for at the time of every death. That included Kip Ranstead
and J. Dazley Theobald along with Captain Adalbart and Goodall Shenrich, though
Janice knew only of the last two cases.
Only the term "unaccounted for" carried something of a subtle twist.
Presumably Kremble had been here in this very cellar. Now Janice knew he
couldn't have been and the fact distinctly chilled her. It meant that Kremble
couldn't afford to let any witness live who could reveal his treachery, which
put Janice in the same dilemma as Rhyde.
For Malabar and his pirate band were bowing to Kremble as their master.
They could never betray him for they themselves had taken certain oaths upon
the Taiwan Joss. It remained only for Kremble to follow the recognized
conventions of the pirate law, which Kremble did.
Pointing again to Rhyde, Kremble declared:
"This man shall have his chance to prove his claim of truth. Let him play
the joss the game it loves. If he deserves to live, the Taiwan Joss will let
him win. From then on, the power of the joss shall be his!"
Mildest Monsoon of the Midsummer Moon thrust Rhyde in front of the Koxinga
image. In front of the strange statue was a board of twenty small squares, five
across, four deep. Beside the board, there was a covered urn, like an incense
burner. Lifting the lid, Mildest Monsoon of the Midsummer Moon revealed a
quantity of Fan-Tan counters, of the sort that Cranston had bought from
Rabalam, otherwise Malabar.
The difference was that these were gold instead of silver. The difference
would have been difficult to detect, but the light was shining full upon the
bowl and its contents. In solemn tone, Mildest Moon of the Midsummer Monsoon
told Coulton Rhyde how the game was played.
"One, two, three or four," he said, raising a finger with each word. "You
may take any of those numbers, no more, and lay that many counters singly upon
the vacant squares. The joss will then play according to the same rule.
Whichever finally fills the board becomes the winner."
Janice watched Rhyde wipe the perspiration from his brow, then give a
confident smile. To match wits with a mechanical figure in a game of fours with
the goal twenty, seemed easy, if he merely kept his wits.
Yet there was a smile on the lips of Mortimer Kremble that out-matched
Rhyde's forced smirk. It told that in this game of Fan-Tan, Kremble was
counting fully upon the image of King Koxinga. As for Malabar and his men of
fanciful titles, they stood with folded arms, their faces expressionless, as
though they had watched this game often before.
As Rhyde leaned forward, his figure cast a shadow on the Fan-Tan board,
darkening it until the color of the golden counters became only glitters from
the bowl. Momentary hope thrilled Janice, then faded, as she realized Malabar
and his company wouldn't be here, if what she hoped could be true.
Janice Courtland realized now that something had happened to The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIX
TAKING a single counter from the bowl, Rhyde placed it on a square and
waited, meeting the cold eyes of the Koxinga figure. A few seconds ticked by;
then the time limit of the play was finished. Mechanically, the image moved a
carved and jeweled hand.
One - two - three - four. Thus did the mechanical hand remove counters and
set them on squares. Having gone the limit allowed, the hand no longer moved.
The total was five: one for Rhyde, four for Koxinga.
Smartly, Rhyde decided to beat the figure's own game. He gathered four
counters from the bowl and dropped them square by square. Apparently Rhyde had
forced Koxinga's hand, for the figure copied Rhyde's earlier play by simply
adding one counter to the board, then stopping.
With the total count at ten, Rhyde played two counters. He wanted to see
what the figure would do then. The hand of Koxinga moved three times, a counter
being dropped with each. That brought the total to fifteen.
Now Rhyde was over-eager. Quickly, he drew counters from the bowl and laid
them on squares: one, two, three, four - then Kremble's sharp tone stopped him.
"Four counters, Rhyde," spoke Kremble. "That is the limit of any play!"
One square alone remained vacant and it was Koxinga's play. Rhyde's eyes
grew big as goggles and swallowed the sweat that streamed down from his
forehead, as he watched the figure take its turn. One counter was all the image
played; no more were needed. That single counter filled the twentieth square.
Janice could sense the blackness that she knew Rhyde felt, as he swayed
backward from the board. A hiss that might have been the mighty dragon's came
from Kremble's vicious lips. A signal for death, that hiss, for long-bladed
daggers rose from every pirate hand.
Then all was truly blackness.
From somewhere near the grinning lion that guarded this chamber of horror,
a light switch clicked. From amid the blotted atmosphere there came a titanic
laugh that echoed amazingly from the brazen walls, as though the blanketed
images upon them had come to life and joined in the challenge.
It was the laugh of The Shadow!
A howled order came from Kremble, calling upon Malabar's men to meet this
menace. There was an oddly hushed surge of figures in the gloom, then big guns
blasted, clanging the brass walls. Flattening on the floor, Janice heard the
laugh go fading through the cellar, gun shots trailing with it. Then,
singularly, the sounds were near again. There were sharp spurts from within the
door, babbled calls from without. As suddenly as they had blinked off, the
lights came on again. Janice looked up, then around.
Crouched on the floor beside her was Rhyde, also unharmed. Malabar and the
pirates were gone, completely hoaxed by The Shadow. He had fired those first
shots high, rather than risk hitting Rhyde or Janice, but with them, he had
wheeled out from the room, drawing the pirates after the sound of his receding
fire.
Detouring somewhere in the pitch black cellar, The Shadow had used his
sense of direction to perfection, reversing back into the brass-walled room,
cutting off his foemen from their self-appointed master, Mortimer Kremble, and
the priceless Koxinga image, the token of Kremble's power.
But Kremble still had power of his own, that he was willing to share with
Koxinga.
When Janice looked for the master of murder and his self-claimed prize,
she was amazed to find that both had vanished. In drawing off Malabar's tribe,
The Shadow had lost his chance to trap the killer and the automaton of death!
Logic rapidly paved its way into Janice's thoughts. There wasn't anything
wonderful about the mutual disappearance of Kremble and Koxinga. It simply
meant that there was a secret way out, something that had earlier drilled home
to Janice; otherwise Kremble couldn't have been engaged in murder when he was
supposed to be here. Kremble had taken advantage of the darkness to use the
route again and he had taken the Koxinga image with him.
But what way had Kremble gone?
From the door beside the sentinel lion came the answer, spoken by The
Shadow. Ready with his guns to stave off a counter-thrust from Malabar's crew,
The Shadow turned long enough to give these words:
"Try the dragon."
Looking at Rhyde, Janice realized that the millionaire was completely
wilted. So she turned to the great grinning dragon whose mouth took up a full
six feet of wall. Of course it must be the dragon! Kremble's only possible exit
was through the back of the building.
Again The Shadow looked across his shoulder and added:
"The teeth."
Great dragon's teeth, jabbing down in front of a deeper bas-relief of
beaten brass. Grabbing those tusks, Janice tugged them. The background that
represented the dragon's gullet moved up like a rising theater curtain. Before
Janice could say a word, The Shadow wheeled, gathered up Rhyde as he came along
and pushed Janice through the opening.
On the other side, The Shadow paused to find the catch that dropped the
brass panel. That would hold Malabar's men until they figured the secret, too.
With probing flashlight, The Shadow picked the way through a barren cellar;
next, he and his companions were going up steps into an empty house that
finally let them out on the back street.
Arriving as if by clockwork schedule, Shrevvy's cab picked up its
passengers. Driving off jauntily, Shrevvy vouchsafed some information.
"The boys with the truck left pretty sudden," said Shrevvy. "Just like
they'd been thrown out, boss, for parking their truck out front."
That covered the question of Malabar and his crew, but Shrevvy added
another detail.
"They stopped at the corner," informed the cabby. "Like they were picking
up a passenger."
That could mean Kremble, with the image of Koxinga. The Shadow's low-toned
laugh was like an order, giving Shrevvy the next destination.
Passing street lights showed Janice something that was lying in the cab,
the umbrella-cane that belonged to Twambley. It looked badly battered,
particularly the hooked handle and Janice wondered whose head had been battered
with it.
The answer was nobody's.
That cane had served The Shadow differently. It had been his last resource
when he plunged into Malabar's pit. With it, The Shadow had hooked the closing
trap. The very jaws that had swallowed him, saved him when they clamped shut.
Hanging by the end of a cane was one thing; working up to the top of it,
another. But the hardest task had been from that point on. It had taken plenty
of The Shadow's skill to worm his supporting fingers until they found the catch
that released the trap again, so that he could twist across from one half to the
other, and let the two bounce him back up to a solid floor.
After handling that little situation, it had been simplicity itself for
The Shadow to figure out Kremble's little gadget of the tricky teeth in the
dragon's mouth.
Speeding along through the drizzle, taking corners with due allowance for
the skids, the cab pulled up in an unexpected place; a deep alley that looked
like the back entrance to a theater. Two men stepped forward to challenge its
arrival. They were the pair who had posed as the driver of a hansom cab and an
antiquated stage hand, the night when Jerry Gifford was shanghaied to the
Troxell Theater.
They didn't know that they were dealing with The Shadow and they never
found out. They were settled before their cloaked visitor could give them
better than a nuisance rating. Out of the drizzle loomed a giant named Jericho
was took their heads and bounced them together, quite gently. That turned them
into something that the police could question later.
The Shadow took Janice and Rhyde up in the little elevator. His other
agents, Harry and Hawkeye, had arranged such a trip by studying out the
situation during the afternoon. At the apartment floor, The Shadow gestured
Janice and Rhyde ahead. Rather wonderingly, they arrived in the fabulous living
room that old Oscar Troxell had developed during his heydey.
There, Jerry Gifford sprang to his feet to meet them, staring in real
amazement when he recognized Janice Courtland. A moment later, Jerry was
apologizing for much that he neither knew about nor could explain. Yet with it,
he realized that he was talking something that made sense to Janice.
"Whatever happened," conceded Jerry, "I could have stopped it. I wanted to
tell the world about the Taiwan Joss -"
The interruption introduced the joss itself.
In a corner of this very intricate room, a portion of the wall slid open.
From it stepped Mortimer Kremble, carrying the figure of King Koxinga. As Jerry
and the others wheeled, there were slithering sounds from other portions of the
wall. The whole place was made up of sliding panels that disgorged Malabar and
the members of his pirate crew.
From doorways peered Kremble's servants; not just the museum crowd, but
Chichester and a few others, their guns serving as a secondary threat to the
pirate daggers. It was a complete trap, sprung in a twinkling, to nullify the
efforts of The Shadow.
Then, with a strange laugh that seemed but an echo of his own, The Shadow
himself stepped into the scene, to admit the fault that could only be his own!
CHAPTER XX
ONE thing remained to The Shadow's credit.
In bringing a climax to his long career in the service of justice, The
Shadow could not have chosen a more dramatic way out. He was confronted by odds
that seemed impossible to conquer, odds so great that they almost excused his
policy of bringing other persons into the same hopeless situation.
Gloating over The Shadow's dilemma, Mortimer Kremble didn't have to
catalog his crimes. It was plain that he had spent one fortune to acquire
another that would prove far greater: the wealth as represented by the jewels
that adorned the Taiwan Joss, now Kremble's sole property.
The Malaysian Museum was just another of the accounts that Kip Ranstead
had tried to sell on a publicity deal. From Kip, Kremble had learned a lot
about Jerry Gifford. Kremble had used Kip to decoy Jerry to the Troxell Theater
- already bought by Kremble himself - and then had murdered Kip in Jerry's own
office.
Adalbart and Shenrich had followed as victims, because Jerry, the one man
who could have exposed the scheme, was safely removed from contact with the
world. Kremble had let Jerry live, not through charity, but because he had
framed all crimes to lead back to Jerry himself.
If the police found Kip's body in Jerry's office, with Jerry's own story
of the Taiwan Joss lying on the floor where the postman had finally brought it
after all its forwarding, who else could be blamed for crime except Jerry
Gifford?
Among other curios, Jerry had bought a few knives with silver handles and
garnet studs at Rabalam's brass shop. Those would be traced to Jerry to
complete the vicious circle.
These things didn't occur to Janice Courtland, but others did; things that
she wondered why The Shadow had not uncovered. The man who had ducked along the
back street behind the museum must have been Mortimer Kremble himself, going in
and out of the museum by his own private route. Of course there was the night
when J. Dazley Theobald had been quite evident, but now Janice understood why
she had imagined two figures instead of one, or rather why she wondered how J.
Dazley had managed to bob around so much.
The reason was that J. Dazley had been checking on Kremble's game. In the
offing at first, Theobald had finally gone to Rhyde's to snatch the funds left
for Shenrich. Close on the trail, Kremble had murdered Theobald instead of
Rhyde, but had set the stage for Rhyde's death too. As Cranston, The Shadow had
saved Rhyde from death in vain, for now Rhyde was doomed. He was back in the
power of Kremble, who had decreed his death through the automatic operation of
the Koxinga image.
Jerry's efforts to reach the outside world, The Shadow's stratagem of a
reply through the aid of steamboat whistles, all were nullified by this climax
over which Kremble could not only gloat, but brag.
It was to The Shadow, helpless and surrounded in quarters too cramped for
action, that Kremble addressed his most effective sneer.
"And where do you suppose I learned the secret of the Taiwan Joss?"
queried Kremble. "Right here, from Troxell's notebooks, after I bought the
place. It was all related in an old Portuguese manuscript of the eighteenth
century. There was one man who played Fan-Tan with this image and lived."
As he spoke, Kremble set the statue upon a marble-topped table.
"He lived," added Kremble, "because Koxinga himself allowed it when the
automaton was first tested. Koxinga wanted to see what would happen if the
automaton made the first play. Therefore the statue lost."
Kremble's shrewd eyes studied The Shadow, to see if he knew why. Kremble
could tell that The Shadow did know why. The Fan-Tan game worked in fives. The
victim played first and the automaton brought the total up to five. One and
four, two and three, it made no difference, so long as the image supplied the
second number. Five - ten - fifteen - twenty - and the Joss was the winner.
Toying with the gold counters in the little bowl, Kremble gave an
indulgent laugh. The weight of the counters made the machinery work and always
in correct proportion. If the victim laid one counter, the clock-work would
make the automaton's hand place four. Two and three, three and two, four and
one it was always the same, that adding up to five.
Yet Malabar and his friends of the long-winded names thought there was
something mysterious about it. To them it was a ritual that stood for their
interpretation of law. To control that able crew, Kremble had only to go
through with the usual ceremony. They would kill if the Taiwan Joss commanded;
therefore, Kremble would let the joss command the death of The Shadow.
To supplement the Taiwan Joss, Kremble decided to put Troxell's mechanical
marvels in action. He gestured to Chichester, who promptly wound the singing
birds, the buzzing bumble bee, and the old-fashioned music box. As these
contrivances began their operation, Kremble bowed The Shadow to the marble
table.
"Whoever loses to the joss is doomed," reminded Kremble. "Whoever defeats
the joss becomes its master. Play!" The Shadow played.
Taking first turn, The Shadow was sure to lose; nevertheless, he began the
travesty which would mean a few minutes more of life. The fancy clock on the
mantel was nearing an hour that would chime The Shadow's doom, but he didn't
seem to care.
Malabar and his men were taking no chances. They drew close to The Shadow,
their long-bladed knives poised for the thrust that was to come. Murderous
though they looked, Janice was forced to shudder more at the thought of
Kremble, for it was he who had been the only murderer - and still would be,
since he had commanded this game of certain death.
Somehow Janice forgot that her fate would be sealed along with Rhyde's and
that Jerry would share the same unfortunate end. Everything else could be
forgotten during those tragic moments when The Shadow would bravely play the
game that he was sure to lose. Between the shoulders of Malabar's clustered
men, Janice could see those fatal counters resting in the bowl.
Gold counters, their yellow hue shaded by the shoulders that cut off the
light, which was dimmer here than in Kremble's dragon chamber. But their
glitter was visible, a fatal glitter. Once twenty of those counters had been
laid upon the board, The Shadow's death would be immediate.
Kremble's crisp voice spoke again:
"Play!
The Shadow took two counters and laid them on the squares. He waited while
the figure of Koxinga played its three.
That made five, a fatal five!
Again, The Shadow played two counters. In turn the mechanical hand of the
Koxinga figure made three plays.
That totaled ten, as fatal as five!
Reaching to the bowl, The Shadow deliberately brought two more counters to
the board and played each on a square.
The hand of Koxinga responded: One - two - three -
Fifteen, another fatal number!
Only the hand of Koxinga did not stop. It continued to the bowl, picked
out another of the glittering counters and laid it on the sixteenth square!
Janice felt her breath come with a gasp. Instead of three counters,
Koxinga had played four!
And four was The Shadow's next choice!
He took the counters and laid them cleanly, openly, upon their squares,
those vacant numbers: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen - and - twenty!!!
The Shadow had done the impossible. He had beaten the mechanical figure of
Koxinga at the very game for which the automaton was geared!
No need for The Shadow to announce himself as master. He simply turned to
Malabar and gave a sweeping gesture in the direction of an astonished, maddened
man named Mortimer Kremble.
Wildly, Kremble sprang away, howling for his servants to battle the
pirates. Guns came up, but Malabar's men brushed them aside before they could
be fired. They wanted to finish Kremble, whose word was no longer law, and they
wouldn't waste their knives on anyone else.
But Kremble's word would be law again, if he could dispose of his
successor, The Shadow!
Dodging skillfully, Kremble drew his own gun and laid it across a mass of
artificial flowers. He was aiming for The Shadow, who was turning to cover him
with an automatic. Jerry was wrestling with Chichester; Janice found herself as
helpless as Rhyde.
In this moment of victory, it seemed that Kremble had gained a trifling
edge, but enough for him to beat The Shadow to the final shot. Then, though no
one was near him, Kremble gave a shriek and whipped his hand upward, firing the
gun toward the ceiling.
Kremble's hand had brushed Troxell's remarkable mechanical bumble bee and
found it more wonderful than he had supposed. The buzzing mechanism was
equipped with an artificial stinger, sharp as a needle point, that operated
instantly when contacted.
The Shadow lowered his own gun, unfired. Malabar's men were swarming all
over Kremble. Their driving knives stopped short when they heard The Shadow's
quick command. Obediently, the pirates of the Pescadores marched their prisoner
down the old stairway which Kremble himself had revealed, along with Chichester
and the other subdued servants.
Death was no longer the law of the Taiwan Joss. The Shadow had annulled
that decree.
While Malabar's men were gone, The Shadow stepped to the figure of Koxinga
and plucked two counters from the board. Now, in the light, Janice could see
their color.
They were silver!
Counters that The Shadow had bought from the bearded Mr. Rabalam. He had
played them as his third pair, numbers eleven and twelve. Being but half the
weight of gold, those silver counters had been only the equivalent of one.
Therefore the Koxinga figure had played four instead of three, running its
total up to sixteen, from which The Shadow could score out to twenty! Gone was
The Shadow with his tell-tale silver counters when Malabar and his silent
followers returned to take away their precious joss. The tawny pirates paid no
heed whatever to Jerry, Janice and Rhyde, those three who now were freed from
all threat of further doom.
The antique clock chimed and gonged the hour that was no longer fatal, as
the pirates departed, bearing the image of Koxinga with them. Janice Courtland
smiled at Jerry Gifford whose face relaxed in the same style.
From somewhere came the strange, weird laugh of The Shadow, a parting
laugh that told two happy people that the way to freedom now was theirs.
THE END