MALMORDO
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," July 1, 1946.
A daffodil as a symbol of danger; a creature with a rodent face; a menu
card with the circled message: "Midnight - Morte - Monday" send The Shadow in
pursuit of the world's most desperate criminal...
CHAPTER I
LIKE some weird creature from the deep, the crawling fog enveloped the
Steamship Santander as she lay at her North River pier. From the grimy
blackness that represented the river came the deep-throated blares of steamship
whistles and the shrill squeals of tug-boats, like voices urging the thick mist
forward.
The fog was kind to the Santander.
For one thing, the fog hadn't arrived until the banana boat had docked, so
now its hemming mass was harmless. And now, artistically speaking, the drizzling
mist was giving this floating junk-pile both grace and proportions that had
never belonged to such a ship.
The dim, dewy pier lights scarcely reached the side of the Santander. Her
hulk, fog-painted a whitish gray, seemed to be undergoing the swathes of an
invisible brush that produced a streamlined effect of motion. Magnified by that
blanketing gray, the Santander literally towered out of sight, creating the
illusion that this squatty tub had the bulk of a leviathan.
Between the varied blasts of the frequent river whistles came silence,
broken only by an occasional splash. An angler might have mistaken those sounds
for jumping fish, except that fish didn't jump in the oily, ugly water flanking
these piers.
Then, like a warning all its own, came a slow, flat beat of footsteps
tramping inward from the pier end in slow, methodical rhythm. As those
footsteps neared a light that was hanging from a post, they were accompanied by
a creaking from dried, warped boards that formed the surface of the pier.
Out of the fog loomed a burly policeman who, like the Santander, looked
three sizes bigger. His footbeats stopped as he heard a movement beside him;
bringing his swinging club to his fist, the officer turned sharply. The stir
had come from a batch of packing-cases stacked near the post. Hearing it again,
the patrolman crouched and began a slow-motion approach to the pile of boxes.
Again the stack wobbled, to the accompaniment of a creak. The officer
straightened with a short laugh. A loose plank had jiggled the packing-cases,
that was all. After testing it a few times, the officer continued his patrol
toward the shore.
Whistles sounded intermittently, punctuated by those curious, recurrent
splashes from alongside the Santander. Then, from back where other lights
formed glowing dots and nothing more, came the plodding beats of the
patrolman's footsteps, making their return.
This time those beats halted at short intervals. Close to the post-light,
the patrolman showed his face in the murky glow and his expression was
troubled. He took a few more paces, stopped and listened. From behind him he
heard a slow creak-creak like something governed by remote control. It couldn't
be the echoes of his own footsteps; echoes didn't act that way, nor footsteps
either.
He couldn't have been as clumsy as be looked, this cop, for at the end of
half a dozen paces he made a neat, deft shift beyond the packing-cases. There,
crouching, he put away his night-stick and drew a revolver instead. There
wasn't any guessing about those creaking sounds, not any longer. They were
approaching and with them bringing cautious foot-steps.
The crouching officer shifted upward, forward. He elbowed one of the
packing-cases and then grabbed at it. The box didn't fall, although the cop's
clutch was limited to his finger-nails. It must have struck a propping box
beyond. But the sound was heard by that other man, approaching through the fog.
The creaky shuffle did a sidestep and halted.
There was only one place where the newcomer could have located himself;
that was behind the post, beyond the glare of the already muffled light.
Pointing his revolver at the post, the patrolman demanded hoarsely:
"Who's there?"
A voice returned the challenge with, "So it's you, Moultrie!" and a stocky
man edged into sight around the old wooden post. Moultrie, the patrolman, slid
away his revolver and fumbled for the night-stick, trying to change his
sheepish look to match the poker-faced expression that showed on the swarthy
face of the stocky man.
"I didn't know who you were, Inspector -"
"That's all right, Moultrie," interposed the stocky arrival. "You're on
duty to question people. I wasn't sure who you were, either, the way you kept
halting your patrol. Notice anything special back there?"
"Only - well, only that I must have heard you following me -?"
There was an interrupting nod. Inspector Joe Cardona, despite his dead-pan
manner, could sympathize with a slight case of the jitters. In fact, though he
didn't mention it publicly, his years of experience had convinced Cardona that
a certain amount of nerves rendered a patrolman alert and therefore made him a
good patrolman.
This applied to Moultrie. Cardona gestured to the stack of packing-cases.
"Think there's anything in there, Moultrie?"
"I don't think so, Inspector," returned the cop, glad that his shift
behind the stack had been interpreted as a performance of duty. "Those boxes
wobbled when I was going past, but it may have been on account of this."
To illustrate, Moultrie stepped over to the right board and pressed his
foot on it. The boxes wobbled accordingly and the tilted one threatened to
topple, but didn't. Then, approaching the boxes, Moultrie added:
"I looked through them earlier. Maybe I ought to do the same right now,
Inspector, even though they're empty -"
By way of illustrating the final point, the patrolman thwacked one of the
packing cases with his club and automatically modified his statement. Something
bounced from beneath the empty box, scudded across the planking and disappeared
between the pier edge and the moored Santander, concluding its trip with one of
the sharp splashes that had been featuring the entire evening.
Even in the gloom, Cardona and Moultrie didn't fail to recognize the
creature as a sizeable rat, which didn't require the magnifying effect of the
fog to class it as an unusually large specimen.
"Whoof!" exclaimed Moultrie. "That was a big one!"
"Not as big as the kind we're looking for," returned Cardona, "nor as
slimy. Human rats, those stowaways that have been slipping into port, from
where and how we don't know."
Cardona's lips kept moving along that line of talk but Moultrie didn't
hear him. The Queen Mary was speaking from somewhere in the fog, the grand
diapason of her whistle threatening to rip the mist asunder. Even the planking
of the old pier quivered under such vibration and the topmost packing case
began toppling, only to tilt back the other way as though hoisted from within.
It would have taken a dozen rats to have accomplished that, but Cardona
and Moultrie were both turned away, hence they failed to witness the
phenomenon. Then, when the ear-shattering blares from the Queen Mary ended,
Cardona managed to get some parting words across to Moultrie.
"The police boats take over at midnight," declared the inspector. "Until
then" - Cardona's hand made a sweeping gesture meant to include the pier as far
as its invisible outer end - "it's yours."
With that, Moultrie resumed his outbound patrol, much bolstered by
Cardona's visit, plus the fact that there was less than a half hour remaining
to midnight. Cardona watched the pacing patrolman disappear into the fog; then
turned shoreward. But at the first post with its foggy light, the inspector
halted. In mentioning the time limit of Moultrie's patrol, Cardona had brought
to mind an appointment of his own.
From his pocket, the inspector produced a folded piece of cardboard and
opened it in the light. It was a half a menu card, which had measured about six
by nine inches until someone had torn it across the middle, the short way. What
Cardona held was the upper half.
The heading of the card read as follows:
MIDNIGHT REVEL
at the
CAFE DE LA MORTE
IN
Greenwich Village
MENU FOR MONDAY
Part of the menu list remained but most of it had been torn away, reducing
the card chiefly to an announcement, accentuated by the upper portions of a pair
of skeletons that stood at each side like heralds, pointing to the heading. But
there was something else that interested Cardona more.
Three words of the heading were circled with a thick black ring, made by
an artist's crayon. Those three words were "Midnight," "Morte," and "Monday."
Right now, midnight was approaching, the word morte meant death, and today
happened to be Monday.
Probably a hoax, this card, like many other such trophies that the police
received, but Inspector Cardona wasn't passing it by. As an anonymous
communication, it was terse and to the point; it showed intelligence behind it,
which wasn't usual with a crank note.
And thinking further in terms of the unusual, Cardona had heard that the
newly-opened Cafe de la Morte was a most unusual place, worthy of a visit
during one of its midnight revels. Having intended to go there anyway, Cardona
could think of no more fitting occasion than tonight.
Timed to the fading beat of Moultrie's plodding march, Cardona's creaky
footsteps dwindling in the opposite direction, leaving only the thickening
swirl of fog upon the gloom-laden pier.
CHAPTER II
MINUTES until midnight.
Slowly, those minutes were ticking by, broken as before by the weird
whistle blasts and those maddening splashes which now meant rats. Choked more
than ever by the fog, the light from the pier post failed even to reach the
bulking side of the Santander. Glowing downward, that light barely disclosed
the warped planking of the pier beneath it.
Then even those boards were obscured, but not by fog.
Something that swirled more fantastically than the mist was cutting off
the gleam. A figure, shapeless at first, had moved up beside the post to appear
only as a darkened smudge of enormous size. Then, momentarily revealed in a fog
rift which its own arrival produced, the figure showed as a human form cloaked
in black, with a slouch hat above.
Gathering as if by command, the fog shrouded the mysterious arrival, whose
disappearance, as much as his brief disclosure, marked him as that legendary
personage known as The Shadow.
At least it wasn't strange that The Shadow should have put in an
appearance here. The setting was of his choice, the situation intriguing,
particularly because it had already attracted the attention of the police,
whose interests were The Shadow's also.
The uncanny part was that The Shadow should arrive, as usual, just as the
situation was taking an important turn. Hardly was The Shadow at his chosen
post, before the mass of packing-boxes stirred.
From that stack emerged a darkish man wearing old, ill-fitting clothes.
His teeth gleamed white as he turned his grinning face and even the dull light
produced the glitter of gold ear-rings from beneath the shaggy black hair that
made the man's old straw hat appear two sizes small.
The Shadow observed that this man's baggy trousers, frayed jersey, even
the straw hat, were all dark in color, giving him an advantage in the night
fog. For when the darkish man completed a slink to the side of the Santander,
he became quite inconspicuous against that background.
There was a sharp, low hiss, like a signal. It came from the grinning lips
of the darkish man. A pause, then the signal was repeated. This time it brought
a response. A man in the gray working clothes of a sailor appeared several feet
above, like something floating in the fog, until a slight swirl revealed that he
was leaning over the rail of a lower deck of the Santander.
The sailor spoke, in foreign accent:
"That you, Panjo?"
From below, the hiss turned to a snarl, then became words.
"Give no names, please." Panjo spoke it more like an order than a request.
"You tell me, you bring birds?"
"Tried to bring them," replied the sailor, "but no luck this trip."
Panjo didn't seem to understand.
"I come for birds," he snarled. "You let me have them now, see? You let me
have them quick."
"No luck, I tell you. They're all dead."
"You kill them? Why?"
The sailor laughed at Panjo's query.
"You want to know what killed them?" asked the sailor. "Listen, if you
want to hear."
Whistles throated through the fog, then ceased. The sounds that supplanted
them were those same, startling splashes from the water beside the ship.
"That's what killed them," informed the sailor. "The rats. They flattened
the cages to get at them. I mean it, Panjo."
Again, Panjo delivered a half-snarled hiss. It wasn't just a reminder that
he didn't want his name mentioned. It was a warning, too, induced by the
returning pound of Moultrie's footbeats. The sailor slid down behind the solid
rail of the deck, while Panjo crouched low against the background of the ship.
They remained that way while the patrolman passed, bound toward the shore end
of the pier. The figures reappeared and the conversation was resumed.
"You bring no birds," rebuked Panjo, in an ugly tone, "so why do you bring
rats?"
"Because we take food to Europe," the sailor explained. "The rats know it
comes from the ship, so they come on board to get their share."
"But no food they find. So why they stay?"
"They want to get to the place where the food came from. Rats are smart
that way."
Panjo thought that over. Then, sharply he asked:
"You bring birds from Europe?"
"Parrots, macaws and such?" queried the sailor. "We picked them up in
South America, on the way back, where we unloaded surplus military supplies."
"If rats so smart," conjectured Panjo, "why they not go ashore then?"
"Because the South Americans were smarter. They took the supplies and left
us the rats. We unloaded onto little boats - lighters they call them - outside
the harbor!"
"And then you pick up birds?"
"That's right. We took on a cargo of mahogany logs that they towed out on
barges, because they're too heavy to float by themselves." The sailor leaned
well over the rail, as though to become confidential. "That's how I made the
deal for the birds, Panjo. The men on the lighters fixed it with the barge men."
Panjo was still obdurate. There was something sullen in the darkish man's
snarl:
"Maybe something more big than rat kill bird."
Their faces were sharply etched, Panjo's and the sailor's, for there
wasn't much distance between them.
Panjo was glaring upward, the sailor staring downward, so neither noticed
the shape that glided to the side of the Santander, somewhat toward the bow. In
fact, the shape couldn't be seen at all, though it manifested its presence by
the eddy it produced in the fog.
In a sense, The Shadow was surrounded by a ghostly wrapping that finally
dissipated itself as he reached the ship's side and began an upward climb
toward the higher bulwark near the bow.
Meanwhile, the sailor was parrying with Panjo.
"Something bigger than rats?" The sailor's face scowled down at Panjo.
"Like what for instance?"
Before Panjo could specify, there came a louder splash from near the ship,
a sound which by comparison with those earlier plops could represent something
of human size. The sailor turned quickly and Panjo, giving his head a quick
tilt to make sure the patrolman wasn't near, traced a rapid course back toward
the stacked packing cases.
Hardly had Panjo reached there, before another man-sized splash was heard
off the bow of the Santander. It was then apparent that Panjo hadn't wheeled
away just to hide. He was turning again, to get a better look at the Santander,
to see what was happening on its upper decks.
Panjo made only one mistake. From this range, he couldn't hope to see much
through the soupy fog. The sailor's plan was better; he was racing up a
companionway, shouting for other crew members to join him and find out what was
happening on board. Nevertheless, Panjo did see something, thanks to a brilliant
light which suddenly arrived atop a stumpy mast near the bow of the Santander.
Some crew member had turned on the light just in time and at the wrong
time.
What Panjo saw was a figure like a monstrous bat, rising above the bulwark
of the Santander, spreading what seemed to be gigantic wings for a forward
swoop. The thing was human-sized and Panjo, terror stricken by the very sight
of it, shrieked wild words that stabbed like a warning through the fog.
"Vourdalak!" screamed Panjo. "Vourdalak! Nosferadu! Vampyr! Vampyr!"
Those last words struck an echoing note. From the far side of the
Santander, near the bow which none of the sailors had yet reached, came a high,
frantic shout:
"Vampiro! Vampiro!"
Moultrie was arriving on the run. The patrolman saw the thing that Panjo
mistook for a vampire and fired three shots at it, all much too late. The
figure was gone, swallowed by blackness below the high rail of the upper deck.
And Moultrie was glad that he had missed for he was realizing that the creature
was more human than batlike.
To Moultrie came recollections of a strange personage that he had heard
about, but never before had seen - The Shadow!
Savagely, the patrolman turned to deal with the malefactor who had led him
into firing shots at the law's best friend. The malefactor that Moultrie had in
mind was Panjo, who by now was diving deep into his nest of packing cases. The
boxes were wobbling, toppling, and Moultrie used the remaining three cartridges
in his police positive to riddle them. Then he scrambled on board the low deck
of the Santander, dropping to shelter in order to reload his gun.
Panjo hadn't halted among the packing cases. Sounds of the first shots had
spurred him right on through. The darkish man was speeding shoreward; all
Moultrie had riddled was an empty nest.
What covered Panjo's flight completely was the excitement on that high
deck of the Santander. Following the cry of "Vampiro!" there had been two loud
smacking splashes from the water alongside, indicating that a pair of men had
jumped there, rather than combat the formidable unknown.
But there was another, who had taken a different route. He was scurrying
down a companionway, heading for a hatch, dodging crew members in his wild
flight. Rather than cross the deck and make himself a target in the light, The
Shadow was following that last man, knowing that one stowaway, if captured,
could give details concerning the rest.
When three sailors cut across The Shadow's path, he gave them precedence.
They knew this ship better than The Shadow did and they were competent to make
the capture. Nevertheless, The Shadow followed them, ready to remain in
reserve. The chase proved as short as it was rapid.
The chase ended in the hold.
There, dull labored sounds told that the fugitive was seeking shelter
among great piles of mahogany logs that banked clear to the ceiling at one end
of the hold. Armed with improvised clubs, the sailors were moving in that
general direction. Hearing the clang of arriving footsteps, The Shadow merged
with the darkness at the fringe of the hold, just as Moultrie arrived.
The sailors were voicing admonitions:
"Don't let him out of there!"
"Watch him or he'll get out through the hatch over those logs!"
"He can't manage it. That hatchway is clamped on the deck!"
A fierce bellow came from among the logs, half challenge, half terror, a
man's voice so strained and frantic that it was impossible to define. To settle
the question, Moultrie fired above the heads of the sailors, ploughing his
bullets deep into the mahogany.
The result was stupendous.
With a great heave, the huge pile of logs came tumbling, rolling, sending
the sailors dodging along with Moultrie. Out of that melee, rolling like one of
the logs, came the fugitive stowaway. Clambering over the logs, sailors and
patrolman reached him, only to find him limp, almost lifeless.
The reason was plain when they turned him over. The man's body was
contorted, crushed. It was horrible, but not surprising, considering that he'd
been carried in the midst of that unexpected avalanche of huge logs, from the
moment the pile had given away.
He was an ugly, rattish man, this stowaway, and his eyes glared up from
beneath the twisted visor of his shabby cap. Then, with gasps that marked his
death-throes, the man panted these singular words:
"Malmordo - morto - noktomezo -"
Those words were all. Having gasped them, the man sank back dead. Like the
other listeners, The Shadow heard them, for he had drawn close. Now The Shadow
was on the move again, to reach a layer of logs against the bulkhead, the only
portion of the stack that had not toppled.
Swiftly, silently, The Shadow scaled that layer like a ladder, nor was his
route interrupted at the top. The hatchway that the sailors had mentioned was
wide open; its cover lying beside it, ripped from the big clamps that had held
it. The top log gave way as The Shadow used it to propel himself up through the
hatchway. It came banging down, bringing Moultrie and the sailors to the alert,
leaving them wondering as they stared upward and saw the wide gap leading to
the deck.
By then, The Shadow had reached the rail and his keen eyes were probing
the blackened water below. No figures were visible there, but The Shadow could
trace a thin, undulating line in the oily scum, fading off from the side of the
Santander.
Crossing the deck, The Shadow dropped to the lower rail on the dock side,
then to the dock itself. A low, whispered laugh stirred the hovering mist as
the cloaked figure flitted past the hanging light and took the shoreward route
that Panjo had so recently followed.
"Malmordo - morto - noktomezo -"
Unintelligible words to others, but to The Shadow they formed a link to
something far more sinister than the chance death of a fugitive stowaway on
board the Steamship Santander!
CHAPTER III
IT was nearly midnight when The Shadow left the North River pier and
midnight was the hour for the usual revel that took place at the new but
already popular Cafe de la Morte, Greenwich Village's latest screwball
attraction.
With his head-start from the pier, Inspector Cardona had reached the cafe
just before the appointed hour. He was reluctantly checking his hat and coat in
a cloak room painted all about with imitation flames and presided over by a
somewhat timeworn check girl who looked anything but cute in a devil-costume
adorned with imitation horns.
The hell-fire motif persisted into the cafe itself, then gave way to walls
painted to represent tombstones with hovering ghosts all about. The waiter who
conducted Cardona to a table was dressed in an outfit decorated with skeleton
ribs and over his head he wore a hood painted to represent a skull.
Cardona noted that the other waiters were similarly attired, which gave
them excellent opportunity to cover their identity, a fact which the inspector
intended to put in his notebook at an early moment. The one man who was not so
disguised - and therefore worthy of a separate notation - was a stolid
bartender over at one side of the cafe, behind the inevitable bar.
Maybe the barkeep objected to such a costume or was too busy to be
encumbered by one. At any rate, he had nothing to conceal, for Cardona
recognized him as a veteran bartender who had served at several Village spots.
With a further eye to detail, Cardona noted that the bar was well-stocked, both
in quantity and variety of liquors. Behind the barkeeper was a rack of shelves,
divided in three vertical sections, all loaded to capacity with fancy bottles
of imported goods.
The patrons next.
Studying the customers, Joe Cardona decided that they represented the
usual sprinkling of Villagers and the customary majority of out-of-towners who
would patronize a freakish place such as the Cafe de la Morte. Business was
always good when such establishments opened and generally sustained itself
until some other novelty supplanted it.
Many of the customers were drinking beer, the chief reason being that the
beverage was served in big mugs shaped to resemble skulls. Quite a thrill, such
sport, but it wasn't showing big profits for the house. The popularity of beer
in skull-mugs could account for the untouched stock of much more expensive
elixirs on the shelf behind old Jerry, the squatty bartender who looked as
though he didn't have enough to do.
In Cardona's opinion, the Cafe de la Morte wouldn't begin to make profits
until it stopped serving beer in bizarre mugs; and when it stopped that
practice, people wouldn't come here any more.
But people were here tonight, that was the important thing. Moreover, the
menu card lying on Cardona's table was a perfect match for the half-card, that
Joe had in his pocket. If death happened to be due at Monday midnight, it was
Cardona's business to pick the persons who might be involved.
So far, Cardona could only pick the waiters, with their disguising
skull-hoods. Ordering a beer, Joe not only kept a close watch on his waiter,
but all the others who came within his scope.
The policy brought results.
One waiter, passing another, whispered a word that Cardona overheard, a
word that sounded like a name:
"Malmordo."
The second waiter repeated it to a third and Cardona caught the word
"Malmordo" plainly. He also saw both waiters throw worried glances toward the
rear of the cafe and when men in masking hoods could give the impression that
they were worried, it was obvious that they must be worried indeed.
Joe's trouble was that he couldn't see the rear of the cafe at all.
Ignoring his beer, he rose from his table and sauntered over toward the bar,
then changed course and found a good observation spot along the same wall. The
spot was particularly good because it was beneath a stretch of sloping ceiling,
about four feet wide, that slanted down behind the bar and cut off old Jerry's
view of the place that Cardona had chosen.
From his new vantage, Cardona saw that the rear of the restaurant opened
into an outdoor garden and through the connecting door, the slight breeze
wafted the strains of wild exotic music, played by a violin.
Wondering who the musician might be, Cardona took a casual stroll out to
the garden.
From the moment that he made his advent into the al fresco setting, Joe
Cardona was spotted. The man who pegged him was a rather handsome young chap
named Harry Vincent. Parked at a rather obscure table alongside the green board
fence that served as boundary to the garden, Harry immediately concerned himself
with the remaining contents of a skull-mug, rather than have Cardona see his
face.
As a rule, persons who didn't want to be noticed by Joe Cardona were
fugitives from justice. Harry Vincent happened to be a rare exception.
Harry Vincent was an agent of The Shadow.
Through channels peculiarly his own, The Shadow had ways of finding out
about things and places that aroused the suspicion of the police. There were
times, too, when The Shadow anticipated a growing interest on the part of the
law. Though The Shadow's data might be incomplete, he seldom let such a
condition continue.
The Shadow had ways of building up his own statistics. One of those ways
was Harry Vincent.
This evening Harry had been told to cover the Cafe de la Morte. He had
picked the outdoor garden as the best area, because it had attracted the
majority of the patrons. The weather was warm and the garden was therefore
cooler than the cramped indoors. Though the high board fence cut off passing
breezes, there was compensation in the fact that the garden had no roof.
Running from the building to the fence were a series of well-spaced iron
rods intended as a support for a huge canvas canopy that served in rainy
weather. At present the canopy was rolled up and parked against the building
wall, above the down-slanting rods.
The garden's chief attraction was the violinist, who answered to the name
of Gregor. He wore a Hungarian costume of boots, baggy trousers, fancy sash and
ruffled shirt. He was a good-looking chap despite his frequent scowls which
seemed the result of concentration on his music, which constantly approached a
tumultuous staccato and always ended unexpectedly. However, it had taken Harry
less than an hour to observe that Gregor's gripe concerned something other than
his music; namely, Madame Thalla.
According to the little cards that she distributed at tables, Madame
Thalla was a gypsy palmist and she certainly looked the part. Though young,
Thalla had a wise face that befitted her colorful gypsy costume. It wasn't
always possible to see her face, because the brilliant handkerchief that she
wore as a head-dress drooped down beside her cheeks like the blinders on a
horse.
At least those blinders helped Madame Thalla concentrate on the person
whose fortune she was telling. There was another point that interested Harry
quite as much. Though she advertised herself as a palmist, Madame Thalla told
fortunes by playing cards instead. The particular type of cards she used were
the old-fashioned tarots, with curious pictures embellishing their faces.
At present, Madame Thalla was dealing the tarots for a blonde young lady
who wore a white dress. Since Cardona was noticing Gregor, Harry decided to
look at the blonde instead. In fact, he shifted his chair so he particularly
gained a ringside seat to the conference between Madame Thalla and the girl in
white.
What Harry heard made him forget the hazard of being observed by Cardona.
"Your name," Madame Thalla was saying, in a low, sharp tone. "I can read
it here in the cards."
"My name?" exclaimed the girl. "But that's impossible."
"It is not impossible," declared Thalla. "It is Janice. Wait, I can read
the rest! Your full name is Janice Bradford."
From the way the girl drew her breath, Harry knew that Madame Thalla had
scored a ten-strike. Then:
"That is my name," the girl admitted, soberly. "But surely, the cards
could not tell you."
"The cards tell everything," asserted Thalla. "Most of all, they warn of
danger. The danger that comes to those who wear the yellow flower."
Janice Bradford went tense. Harry Vincent saw her hand creep to the lapel
of her jacket, where a daffodil was pinned. A rather unusual flower, thought
Harry, and apparently Thalla was of the same opinion.
"Three nights now you have worn it," the gypsy told the girl, "and each
night brings more danger. I warn you, it is not safe to come here!"
"But I have come here safely -"
"And you may not find it safe to stay." Thalla pointed a shapely finger to
one of the tarot cards. "This is the sign that tells your future."
Janice stared at the card, much puzzled.
"But that card is blank!" she exclaimed. "How did it come to be among the
others?"
Thalla shrugged as though she didn't know.
"But since it is blank," persisted Janice, "how can you read it? What does
it tell?"
"Your future." Thalla intoned the words solemnly. "No future. Blank, like
the card!"
Thalla could say no more, for Gregor was drowning all sounds with the
maddened shriek of his fiddle. Then, with a burst that seemed to strain the
violin's strings, the wild music ended.
The sudden silence seemed sharp. It made ears keen, too, for Harry could
hear a peculiar sound from somewhere along the wooden fence. The more he
listened, the more that sound reminded him of something gnawing at the wood.
Immediately the thought of rats sprang to Harry's mind, though it seemed
unlikely that rats would try to chew their way into as populated a spot as this
outdoor garden.
And then, from within the Cafe de la Morte came the strokes of a strange
gong, announcing the beginning of the midnight revel.
A revel that tonight spelled death!
CHAPTER IV
JANICE BRADFORD was rising before the gong strokes ended. Madame Thalla
was saying something to the girl and again Harry Vincent caught the words, when
the gypsy repeated the admonition.
"Your future will be blank," Thalla stated, "unless you heed my warning.
Go, before the message of the tarots can be fulfilled. The blank is one that
allows you another choice." Sweeping the cards from the table, Thalla held them
as though about to deal, then shook her head. "But tonight, we have not time to
continue. Go!"
Deciding to go, Janice was nevertheless reluctant. As she left the table,
she looked for her waiter in order to pay the check and was rather bewildered
when two skull-hooded men ignored her as they passed. Finding your waiter
wasn't easy at the Cafe de la Morte.
As yet Cardona hadn't noticed Janice, nor was it likely that he would. The
inspector was concentrated upon Thalla as the gypsy woman strolled past his
table. Watching Thalla, Cardona picked up one of her table cards without
letting his eyes leave the fortune teller.
Shuffling her tarot cards, Thalla was moving past Gregor and the wise look
she gave him brought a fresh scowl from the violinist. This time, Cardona didn't
miss it and if he had, Gregor's action would have been enough to declare the
spite that existed between him and the fortune teller.
Tossing his head, Gregor brought his chin down upon the violin and
immediately broke forth with a fanfare of barbaric music that denoted anger in
every chord. So fierce, so frenzied was the music that it drowned every other
sound. Among those sounds was an unheard clatter that came from the wooden
fence.
A portion of that fence, approximately three feet square, opened like a
thing of cardboard and through it writhed a loathsome creature so far from
human that any resemblance seemed completely coincidental.
The thing that twisted itself into sight looked like a rat of man-sized
proportions that had borrowed somebody's clothes simply to disguise the fact
that it was a rodent, not a human.
It was the creature's face that made the impression most convincing.
No face could possibly have been so ugly, so vicious in its own right
alone. Its owner must have purposely misshapen it, or practiced facial
contortions to the limit, in order to acquire such grotesque, inhuman features.
If the arrival looked like a rat, he was even quicker.
With a snarl that drowned the high notes of the violin, the thing from the
fence reached Gregor. In its course, the contorted creature flung tables right
and left; their crashing froze Gregor in the midst of his wild rhapsody.
Recoiling, the musician flung his arms, violin, bow and all, in warding fashion
as he tried to crouch for shelter.
From Gregor's lips came a shriek of higher pitch than his violin had ever
reached, as he screeched the name:
"Malmordo!"
In his effort to escape the terrible creature he called Malmordo, Gregor
made one great mistake. It was a natural thing, to go diving away from a huddly
creature that had launched itself from a self-made man-sized rat-hole. Natural
too, for both Joe Cardona and Harry Vincent to lunge toward Malmordo,
stretching as they drew guns, intent upon aiming downward. But they were as
mistaken as was Gregor.
The thing called Malmordo unlimbered, lengthening itself in an astounding
fashion. With his left hand, the unkempt creature flung a light table sideward,
sending a shower of skull-mugs with it. Cardona dodged the missile; it skimmed
him and forced Harry to duck it too. By then, all was up with Gregor.
Malmordo's right hand had whipped out a long, thin-bladed knife and was
overtaking Gregor with it. The long, hooking thrust of the knife point seemed
to carry Malmordo after it. If Gregor had turned or straightened, he could have
at least coped with his attacker, but his instinctive crouch and mad effort to
escape were his undoing.
The thin knife buried itself in Gregor's back and stayed there. The
musician sprawled, his violin and bow flying ahead of him, while Malmordo, now
unarmed, wheeled to meet other foemen.
Cardona and Harry were aiming their guns upward, straight at the leering
face that was Malmordo's. Even the intensity of the moment could not lessen the
hideous impression that those grotesque features gave. Indeed, the situation
accentuated the appearance of Malmordo.
A livid face, all out of shape, from its bulging teeth to beady eyes, a
face that seemed uglier than the snarl that spat from a mouth that looked
lipless. Above the face was shaggy hair, strewing down upon a forehead whose
lines seemed continuations of the misshapen grimace which was fixed on
Malmordo's visage.
Again, this human monstrosity showed the cunning that went with Malmordo's
rattish looks. From his stretched position, Malmordo telescoped into his former
pose, dwindling so suddenly that for the moment he appeared to be plunging
himself, corkscrew fashion, down through the flagstone paving of the garden.
This was illusion, nothing more, but it completely fooled both men who
were trying to drop Malmordo in his tracks. Two guns blasted in unison, their
shots whizzing high. Then, before Harry or Cardona had a chance to fire again,
Malmordo was flaying them with a new deluge of tables that he scooped up during
his flinging whirl.
And now Malmordo was a gone rat indeed, a rat scampering in maddened
flight. He was cutting a swath among tables and chairs, apparently in search of
some outlet. He couldn't regain the hole that he had literally gnawed through
the fence, for from hands and knees, Harry and Cardona were starting over to
block that outlet. Nor could he scoot into the cafe itself, for the
skull-hooded waiters were coming from that direction, some of them with
revolvers. They were the ones who dodged the next tables that Malmordo threw,
until he found another use for the furniture.
Feinting with a table, Malmordo suddenly planked it on top of another
table that was standing by. Grabbing a chair with his other hand, he sprang
upon the first table, planting the chair on the table above. At the same time,
his free hand deftly whipped a clasp knife from a pocket of his baggy trousers,
flipped it open, and cut a taut rope that slanted by his shoulder.
That rope was the control line for the canopy that sheltered the patrons
of the garden on rainy days. With a sudden rumble, the canvas came rolling down
along the metal rods that formed a track above Malmordo's head. Even before the
canvas reached him, Malmordo was clambering to the chair above the upper table
and his long-bladed clasp knife gave another slash that met the canopy when it
arrived.
Guns roared upward, too late. Everybody was aiming for the chair, but
Malmordo was no longer there.
He'd gone, with a leap, right through the opening in the canvas that his
handy knife had ripped, using the nearest slanted rod to help him complete the
rapid hoist. In a trice, Malmordo had staged as spectacular a getaway as The
Shadow's departure from the hold of the Santander, and under conditions far
more pressing.
Except that here, Malmordo lacked the benefit of a solid shield like a
ship's deck. Beneath him was canvas, nothing more. As he went through the slit
in the canvas, he flung his clasp knife at one waiter who was aiming a revolver
and the man in the skull-hood had to dodge. But there were others with guns, who
were shifting to drill the canvas and ferret out the rattish Malmordo with
bullets.
Malmordo must have expected it, for hardly had the first guns talked
before a roundish figure came rolling down above the canopy, marking its
progress by the way it sagged the canvas. A clever trick, this, rolling
straight for the back alley behind the green fence. It explained why Malmordo
had gone to such exaggerated measures in the first place. Here he was slipping
the men who had tried to round him up, gaining the very outlet from which they
had blocked him off!
It was a long chance though, taking a roller coaster trip above the heads
of the very men who sought to stop him. Before the trip was over, guns were
blasting at the traveling bulge that followed down the canvas and although they
were again belated, it was largely luck that caused them to miss the object they
sought.
Over the edge of the canopy, just ahead of frantic bullets, even then,
Malmordo wasn't out of danger. There was a terrific clatter of a landing in the
rear alley, indicating that Malmordo must have overturned a waiting ash-can and
before the clangor ended, Cardona was through the gap in the rear fence, aiming
for Malmordo in the darkness.
The alley ran parallel to the fence and shots responded from both
directions, shots fired by distant, crouchy men, who were obviously leagued
with Malmordo. But the killer himself couldn't have headed in either direction.
There was only one place where Malmordo could have gone, into a deep, dark
courtyard across the narrow alley.
That space represented a connection between two sections of a storage
building that rose windowless above. Cardona knew that Malmordo must have gone
there, because he heard the ash-can rolling that direction; therefore, it
followed that Malmordo must have taken it along to serve as an improvised
pill-box.
Putting a whistle to his lips, Joe Cardona blew a signal that would bring
all the police from blocks around, for on the way here, he had instructed
various patrolmen to be on the alert.
Whoever this Malmordo was, whatever his purpose in Manhattan, the law was
prepared to eliminate him on the scene of his first crime!
CHAPTER V
THE shrill of Cardona's whistle roused Harry Vincent from the excitement
of the chase. Abruptly, Harry put away his gun, realizing it wasn't good policy
to be brandishing one unofficially, even after siding in behalf of the law.
Looking about at the waiters, Harry saw that they had already adopted the
same notion. They were not only gunless, some of them had peeled away their
skull-hoods to reveal their faces. A few looked tough, but most of them
appeared to be scared. This left Harry wondering as to how many had been in on
the gun work.
Cardona at least was giving the waiters benefit of doubt, for he was
ordering them to quiet the customers, to keep the place closed, and to admit
only arriving police. Since Malmordo had chosen to play rat, Cardona right now
was acting the cat, for he was watching the hole where the murderer had gone
and did not want to be disturbed.
Dropping back, Harry crossed to the doorway that led into the cafe proper
and halted there beside some black-draped curtains. A hand emerged suddenly
from the darkness and gripped his arm; before Harry could take action, a voice
intoned for silence.
It was The Shadow, just arrived, for from his hidden lips came the one
word: "Report."
Before Harry could do more than point out Gregor's body and name Malmordo
as the murderer, there were voices from the front of the cafe. The first of the
police were arriving and taking over in characteristic style. The Shadow pressed
Harry in among the black curtains and blotted himself against another wall.
Observation at this moment was more important than a report. But Harry noted to
his satisfaction that the spot The Shadow had chosen, slightly away from that
slanted roof leading down to the side of the bar, offered a good outlook to the
rear garden where Cardona was still playing pussy cat at Malmordo's rat-hole.
It took the police only a few minutes to learn that no one had fled the
Cafe de la Morte by way of the front door, or for that matter, by any route
other than the garden. They learned this from the stammering red-devil who
minded the cloak room and from a helpless looking manager. Old Jerry, the
bartender, corroborated everything with nods while he calmly polished the
bar-glasses and Jerry, being a well-known character of unimpeachable quality,
was the sort whose word would stand.
Then, brushing past the curtains where Harry was hidden, and totally
failing to notice The Shadow blacked-out against the opposite wall, the police
reached the garden to find Inspector Cardona. By that time, Cardona was already
gaining further aid, consisting of a few detectives who had come in from the
side alleys.
These men were reporting that several ratty looking characters had
scurried away as soon as they appeared, which to Cardona meant that Malmordo's
followers had been forced to abandon their chief. Nevertheless, Cardona wasn't
taking chances on a counter-thrust.
"Don't come through here," Joe warned the detectives, referring to the
hole in the fence. "We've got a rat trapped in the court across the way and he
might start shooting. Go around to the front of the place, where you'll find a
patrolman on duty. He'll let you in.
"Then round up all the customers and the waiters, so I can quiz them.
Nobody is to come in or go out. As for you fellows" - this was to a pair of
patrolmen who were in the garden, crowding up to Cardona's shoulders - "keep
watching that courtyard. I'll send for some tear gas and tommy-guns. They'll be
good rat poison."
Harry could hear all this, though it was around the corner from him. At
the same time, he was watching blackness glide out to the garden. The Shadow
was on his way to study the Malmordo situation at close range, which left it to
Harry to check on matters inside the cafe proper.
Waiting until the detectives appeared at the front door and talked to the
brawny patrolman stationed there, Harry did a quick shift among the curtains to
see how the customers and hired help reacted. First, the police were lining up
the waiters, listing their names; then, having tallied them, they told the
waiters to assemble the customers.
For a few moments, the waiters were moving here and there; during that
period Harry noticed that one of them had put on his skull-hood. Harry was
shifting to watch where the waiter went, when something else attracted his
attention. Hearing whispered voices nearby, Harry leaned among the curtains to
eavesdrop.
The voices belonged to Madame Thalla and Janice Bradford. Apparently the
gypsy fortune teller had discovered the blonde girl crouched in an alcove.
"You must go from here!" Thalla was telling Janice. "You believe me, when
I say there is danger!"
"I did believe you," began Janice, "but I should be safe, now that the
police are here."
"They will ask you questions," asserted Thalla. "They will not tell you
answers, like I did. Do you want to answer questions?"
"No," admitted Janice, "but if the police merely consider me a regular
customer -"
"It is not what the police think! It is what Malmordo will think. You
understand?"
"In a way, yes -"
"And in a way is enough. Even the police can not protect you if Malmordo
knows where you are! Come!"
Footsteps shuffled away and when Harry managed to peer from beside a
curtain, he saw Thalla, stooped beside a counter in the corner, lifting a trap
door. The gypsy woman gestured Janice down into the cellar, spoke some
reassuring words, then lowered the trap.
Did this mean that Thalla was double-crossing Janice? The idea struck hard
through Harry mind, particularly when he saw the fierce, vengeful expression
that registered itself on Thalla's wise features. Then, the gypsy woman was
stalking along the wall, peering everywhere, as though looking for someone else.
Perhaps Thalla was seeking that lone waiter who had put on the death-hood.
But now, for some reason, others were doing the same. It was impossible to tell
which was which and Harry gained the sudden impression that some new trouble
was about to start.
Then, from the other side of the curtains came The Shadow's low tone.
Harry shifted over to report to his chief. Instead, it was The Shadow who
opened the discussion.
"The wall above the canopy," stated The Shadow. "You saw it before the
curtain rolled down. Describe it."
"It was just a building wall," expressed Harry, "with two small windows."
The Shadow undertoned a laugh.
"The ceiling over there," he spoke. "Part of it is slanted, ending down in
back of the bar."
Harry had noticed that stretch of ceiling before. It was the slant four
feet wide, that hadn't much impressed him at the time. Now suddenly, he
realized what it meant.
"An inside stairway!" Harry's whisper was excited. "Coming down from the
second floor. If that rack of bottle shelves could open, it would bring you out
right behind the bar!"
At that same moment, Harry was noticing that the bar was singularly empty.
Old Jerry, the bartender, had disappeared. As Harry still stared, Cardona came
stalking into the cafe and the place the inspector looked first was toward the
bar. Striding over, Cardona took a look across the bar, then turned and
bellowed at his men.
"Who let this happen?" demanded Cardona. "Here's old Jerry slugged and
unconscious, down in back of the bar!"
"The hooded waiter!" Harry told The Shadow. "He came from that direction.
I didn't watch him, the only man who was still wearing his hood, because I was
listening to Madame Thalla and Janice Bradford. Thalla was steering Janice down
into the cellar, through a trap door over there!"
As Harry pointed from the curtains, he saw Thalla again. The excitement
over finding Jerry had caused the gypsy woman to change her mind about
remaining in the cafe. Thalla was at the trap again, this time using it for her
own departure.
The trap was dropping above Thalla, just as Harry pointed, and before The
Shadow could do a thing about it, Cardona heard the trap door slam. Instantly,
the inspector was on the pounce, calling upon the detectives to follow him.
A singular circumstance, this. True to police practice, Inspector Cardona
was accepting the situation close at hand, forgetting the greater issue of
Malmordo, trapped in the courtyard behind the alleyway. Yet by that freakish
shift of judgment, the law was actually on Malmordo's trail.
Such was The Shadow's analysis, and once again The Shadow was right!
CHAPTER VI
THE rush for the trap door brought with it three of the hooded waiters and
Cardona did not order them to stay behind. In fact, he gave them precedence over
his detectives, because they knew these premises and would therefore be helpful
in the pursuit of the unknown who had gone into the cellar.
Madame Thalla knew that cellar too.
There wasn't a trace of the gypsy woman when Cardona and his human
blood-hounds reached the cellar. All they saw were crates, casks and other
impedimenta of the sort commonly found in the cellar of a restaurant.
Standing beside a door that he had flung wide, Cardona ordered the
searchers to fan out and find the person who had fled by this route. The
waiters were to shift the crates and casks, while the detectives stood by with
ready guns.
Upstairs, The Shadow was profiting by the changed situation. In drawing
men to the cellar, Cardona had left the cafe guarded, so far as the door was
concerned, but the men there were so occupied with such duty that they were
unable to watch elsewhere.
Telling Harry to join the other patrons and glean any details that might
arise, The Shadow started on a foray of his own. Even if the police at the door
had been looking The Shadow's way, it was unlikely that they could have seen
him. For Harry, who could guess what his chief was about, found it difficult to
trace The Shadow's progress.
Gliding blackness seemed to fold itself fantastically as it streaked along
the slanting width of ceiling that marked the blocked-off stairway down from the
second floor. Yet only eyes like Harry's, looking for such a token, could have
observed it, for the background itself was dark and absorbed the moving
silhouette.
Somebody had propped old Jerry in a chair behind the bar to give him air
and he was showing signs of recovery. It might have been Jerry's own shadow
that moved along the bottle-racked wall behind him, to be swallowed by darkness
further on.
Then came the ticklish portion of The Shadow's expedition. Slowly,
blackness moved upward, until it obscured the center row of shelves. Next,
those shelves moved outward, door-fashion. Harry saw the motion, but realized
that the very fact he could discern it meant that The Shadow was cutting off
the line of vision from the front of the cafe.
The shelved door closed and the blackness was gone. The Shadow was using
the hidden route to the second floor.
From those little windows at the rear of the building it was easy to look
down above the slanted canopy and study the rear courtyard where a clumpy shape
awaited the attack by the police. The Shadow could make out the form that
represented Malmordo, something impossible for the men at the hole in the
fence, due to the lack of visibility at that lower altitude.
Waiting for tear-gas and tommy-guns seemed a wasteful delay to The Shadow.
He preferred to settle the question of Malmordo by a rapid probe with bullets.
Drawing a .45 automatic, The Shadow planted bullets into the huddly object.
Every bullet brought a clang.
There were echoes from the courtyard, as sharp as shots themselves. The
patrolmen at the fence thought that Malmordo was shooting back at the unknown
marksman up above. They opened fire at the courtyard, too, whereupon The Shadow
ceased his fire and declared himself with a weird, challenging laugh, which the
men below recognized. Realizing that The Shadow was on their side, confident
that his taunt represented triumph, the patrolmen charged through the fence
shooting as they went, intent upon taking the courtyard by storm.
The Shadow saw the blue-coated cluster surge into the court. Thrusting
himself through the window, he rolled himself down the canopy at an angle, his
feet reaching the lower edge first. There, The Shadow dropped adroitly to the
now-deserted alley and landed cleanly in its darkness. Instead of joining the
attack, he moved swiftly toward the street at the alley's end.
Having found his own means of departure from the Cafe de la Morte. The
Shadow was taking his own measures toward the capture of Malmordo. Not only was
The Shadow undeceived by Malmordo's methods; he was informing the police that
they had chosen a blind trail.
This latter point was proven when Inspector Cardona reached the yard,
attracted up from the cellar and out through the garden fence by the sounds of
repeated gunfire. In the courtyard, Cardona found the patrolmen staring
stupidly at an ash-can which was lying on its side, the contents of said
ash-can being a pair of baggy trousers and an oversized blouse which had been
Malmordo's costume.
Then did Cardona guess Malmordo's ruse.
"That's what rolled down the canopy!" The inspector kicked the
bullet-riddled ash-can. "Malmordo must have had it rolled up in the canvas. We
thought it was Malmordo and when it landed, we thought it, was something he'd
knocked over!
Turning, Cardona stared up at the little windows above the canopy.
"There's where Malmordo went!" Joe added. "He came down in back of the bar
and slugged old Jerry! Then he must have ducked down through the trap door to
the cellar. That was his trail, so let's follow it!"
Speedily, Cardona led the chase back through the cafe, down to the cellar,
past the open door at the bottom, and through to a deep corner where the
detectives and the hooded waiters were lifting a grating beyond a stack of
crates. They had found the final exit, an outlet leading up to the front street.
With one accord, the group poured up through, to resume the belated
rat-hunt.
There were others beside Malmordo who knew of that front street outlet.
One person was Janice Bradford and she had learned about it from Madame Thalla.
Already, Janice was well away from the Cafe de la Morte, but her escape was by
no means complete.
In fact, Janice was fearful that she had not escaped at all. At least
there had been security in a place that the police dominated, Thalla's
arguments to the contrary; but here, among the helter-skelter streets of
Greenwich Village, danger seemed very rife.
In her dash from the cafe, Janice had lost her sense of direction and now
the streets were not only unfamiliar, they all seemed to lead into darkness,
perhaps back to the Cafe de la Morte itself. The blocks were brief, the streets
crossed at diagonals, and their silence made Janice think of lurkers in every
doorway. Nowhere could she spy the distant glimmer of an avenue, where she
might find a cab.
Then, as if Janice's own fears had hatched it, the menace became real.
From somewhere came a snarled hiss, like a vicious command. Doorways
showed the very figures that Janice had imagined would be there; slinky,
dark-clad men who moved into sight like whiskered rats, boldly showing
themselves in the open.
Each way Janice turned, a lurker blocked her off and despite the darkness,
the girl could see the ugly grins they gave her.
They numbered at least half a dozen, these rat-men, and all seemed lesser
editions of the murderer, Malmordo, who had slain Gregor while Janice watched.
They moved in crouching fashion and Janice could tell from the way their hands
were buried in their jackets that they, like their monstrous overlord,
preferred the knife as a quick and silent death weapon.
Again, that snarly voice, repeating a strange, unintelligible command, at
least unintelligible to Janice, though her stalkers seemed to understand it.
With a shrill, desperate scream, Janice darted for the nearest corner,
realizing that doom would probably overtake her on the way, which well it
might, but for the fact her terrified cry brought immediate results.
Janice's shriek was answered by a mocking laugh, but its taunt was meant
for the slinky men, not for Janice. The street seemed to fill with snarls as
the rat-men whipped back into their doorways, putting away their knives and
drawing guns instead. Looking across her shoulder as she reached the corner,
Janice saw a cloaked figure weaving into sight, purposely choosing a
street-light as a background.
Guns spoke from the doorways, all aimed in the direction of The Shadow.
Those hasty shots were wide and they were answered by a rising laugh that
echoed eerily from surrounding windows as though The Shadow were everywhere.
With that peal came the staccato bursts of The Shadow's own guns, his shots
probing the doorways, too close for the comfort of the occupants.
In picking revolver spurts as targets, The Shadow could come closer than
his opponents, when they had his shifting form to aim at. And as he fired, The
Shadow was no longer there. He had faded into darkness so swiftly, so
surprisingly, that his blending with that element had all the effect of an
instantaneous vanish.
Malmordo's tribe didn't wait to argue further. They scattered amazingly,
traveling every direction except toward The Shadow. Janice was traveling too,
her high heels clattering the sidewalks, until she found herself blocked anew.
Other shooters were entering the general fray, Cardona and his detectives, but
Janice didn't recognize them as such for with them were men who wore the
skeleton jackets that featured the waiters at the Cafe de la Morte.
Instinctively, Janice turned toward the shelter of a corner doorway, set
in the narrow angle of the junction of two diagonal streets. She recoiled
suddenly as she saw a man step out; then, his hand was gripping her arm, and he
was pressing her into the shelter that he had just left.
The man was tall and in the slight light, Janice could see his face,
blunt, square-jawed and quite unperturbed. The man was wearing a dark-gray
suit, which was a helpful contrast to Janice's white attire.
"Stay in the doorway," the man ordered, in a low but forceful tone.
"Those fools will shoot at anything they can see." His eyes, a clear gray
in the darkness, studied Janice intently. Then he added: "What are you doing
around here, anyway?"
Janice started to say something, then tightened her lips. The gray man's
eyes fixed on the yellow flower that sprouted from Janice's dress.
"You came from the Cafe de la Morte?"
Again, Janice decided not to answer. The man, quite unalarmed by the shots
that were echoing around this very corner, drew a notebook from his pocket,
wrote something on the lower portion of a space, tore off the half sheet and
handed it to the girl.
"There is the best clue to Malmordo," the man said, coolly, "but be
careful when you follow it. Now go straight down this street" - he thrust
Janice out the other side of the doorway - "and you will reach the avenue."
Crumpling the unread note in her hand, Janice turned in the direction
indicated and saw the lights of the avenue, only half a block ahead. This
street was silent, but Janice wasn't taking chances that it would remain so.
She headed for the avenue on the run.
As for the man in gray, he turned in another direction and walked along a
street where shots still echoed, but did not perturb him, because they were
moving away. Within half a block he turned into a side street where all was
quiet.
Complete silence soon gripped that little corner doorway where Janice had
met the man who knew about Malmordo. It was then that another figure arrived
there, emerging so suddenly that he seemed to come from nowhere.
The new arrival was The Shadow. He saw the lights of the avenue and seemed
to know that they must have spelled safety to Janice Bradford.
With a low, strange laugh which seemed to link the future with the past,
The Shadow glided into the all-enveloping night.
CHAPTER VII
POLICE COMMISSIONER WESTON was staring at the exhibits that lay upon his
desk. They formed a mass of evidence, those exhibits, even though they had the
symptoms of a hodge-podge.
The exhibits tallied as follows:
A long, thin knife, defined as a Borgia stiletto.
A large, crude clasp-knife of the variety preferred by Parisian Apaches.
A man's costume consisting of a pair of baggy trousers and an oversized
blouse.
A waiter's costume from the Cafe de la Morte, comprising a
skeleton-painted jacket and a skull-hood.
A wallet and its contents, formerly the property of a Hungarian violinist,
one Gregor Shaksha, deceased.
Several tarot cards of European manufacture, including one blank.
Announcements bearing the name of Madame Thalla.
A sample menu card from the Cafe de la Morte.
The top half of a menu card, with crayon circles around three words,
producing the message: "Midnight - Morte - Monday."
Along with these were copious reports provided by Inspector Joe Cardona,
who was present in person to amplify them. Arms folded, stolid as usual,
Cardona was watching Weston mull over the items on the desk in what the
commissioner probably considered to be an official style.
Commissioner Weston was a broad-faced gentleman with a short-clipped but
pointed mustache. For years he had carried a military bearing which he had
acquired during the First World War. Just when Weston had been about to forget
that he'd once been an army officer, the Second World War had come along to
remind him of the fact. Since then, Weston's manner had been more military than
ever.
Finished with his survey, Commissioner Weston leaned back in his big
swivel chair, waved his hand brusquely at the exhibits and ordered:
"Add them up, Inspector!"
"All right, Commissioner," said Cardona, "but there are some loose facts
that go with them." He gestured to the report sheets. "Facts mentioned in
there."
"Include them as you proceed."
Cardona proceeded.
"The case seems to revolve around a character named Malmordo," the
inspector declared. "He has a face like a rat and he acts like one. He murdered
Gregor. I saw him. He used that stiletto."
Weston eyed the Borgia dagger with its wicked blade of ice-pick
proportions. It was the kind of weapon that could deal sure death with a single
stab. Then the commissioner gestured to the Apache knife.
"And this?"
"Malmordo cut the canopy rope with it," returned Cardona, "and slashed his
way through the canvas. He slung the knife at somebody and found time to dump
these things" - Joe was gesturing to the baggy costume - "into an ash-can that
was parked up above the canopy. It rolled down to the back alley and we thought
it was Malmordo."
Weston set his chin in his hand.
"About that costume," he inquired. "Why did Malmordo get rid of it?"
"So he could double as a waiter," replied Cardona, promptly, pointing to
the skeleton jacket and the skull hood.
"Malmordo doubled down through the cafe, by means of a blocked off
stairway. He'd been wearing the jacket under the blouse he'd discarded, so all
he had to do was put on the hood. He slugged old Jerry the barkeep and slid
across to a trap door leading down cellar. That's how he got out to the front
street."
"And all the while," put in Weston, crisply, "you thought he was a waiter."
"I did," acknowledged Cardona, "until I found the outfit afterwards,
parked behind a crate in the cellar."
Weston picked up Cardona's report and riffled its pages. Then:
"Your report mentions some other waiters," remarked Weston, "who helped
you hunt for Malmordo."
"Three of them," Cardona admitted. "They went out through the front
grating with us."
"Wearing their hoods?"
"Yes."
"Didn't that strike you as suspicious?"
"No. We thought they didn't want Malmordo to recognize them if they ran
into him."
"And what became of them?"
Cardona drew a long breath before answering Weston's question. This part
of the story bothered him.
"We spotted some ratty looking characters," explained Joe, "not far from
the cafe. They looked like second-rate editions of Malmordo and we naturally
linked them with him, particularly when they started shooting. So we opened
fire on them, and next thing the waiters who were with us pulled guns and began
shooting too."
"You should have placed them under immediate arrest," chided Weston. "They
had no right to be carrying guns."
"We were glad they had guns, right then," returned Cardona. "They helped
us send those rats to cover. Except that would probably have happened anyway.
Because when the shooting kept on, we kind of realized that the waiters and the
rats weren't shooting at each other."
Weston gave a stiff stare.
"At whom were they shooting?"
"Take it or leave it, Commissioner," replied Cardona, "they were shooting
at The Shadow."
Cardona expected an outburst, but none arrived. Officially, The Shadow was
not supposed to be mentioned in police reports because an identity such as his,
based on the evidence of a cloak and hat, might technically be assumed by
anyone. In this instance, however, there was a counter-balancing factor in
Malmordo, whose own attire, trousers and blouse, were about the only proof that
he existed as a personality.
So Weston let the question ride.
"And then, Inspector?"
"Next thing, the waiters were gone," declared Cardona, "hoods and all.
They'd scattered just like the rats in the baggy clothes."
"You checked on them at the cafe?"
"Yes. There were half a dozen legitimate waiters still there. The ones who
had helped us chase Malmordo and then skipped, were trading under phony names."
"Any good descriptions of them?"
"None. But it's a safe bet they were an inside mob planted there by
Malmordo."
Weston raised his eyebrows at the word "bet" and then lowered them. The
word that Weston really regarded as horrid, whenever Cardona used it, was
"hunch" because the commissioner didn't believe in hunches.
"Malmordo had another plant back at the cafe," continued Cardona. "A gypsy
fortune-teller named Madame Thalla. We haven't been able to find her since."
"And how," inquired Weston, "did Madame Thalla slip away?"
"By the cellar route," explained Cardona, ruefully. "We found out later
that she'd ducked down there. She must have hidden until we went through; then
she was free to follow."
"But where could she have hidden? You searched the place, didn't you?"
"Everywhere except behind the door. I didn't remember until later that
hiding behind a door is an old gypsy trick. But we weren't looking for Thalla
at the time."
Cardona paused, awaiting questions, but none came, so he brought up
another factor.
"There was a girl mixed in the thing," declared Joe. "A girl in a white
dress, wearing a yellow flower. Some of the waiters remembered her. She'd been
at the Cafe de la Morte for the last three evenings."
"Her name?"
"Nobody knew it." Joe scowled. "Nobody, except maybe Madame Thalla. Or
Gregor."
"Why would they have known?"
"Because Gregor had his eye on the girl," explained Cardona, "and Thalla
didn't like it. People at the cafe think Thalla was sweet on Gregor and
therefore jealous, the way gypsies are."
"Gregor was a gypsy too?"
"No. Hungarian. We checked over the cards in his wallet."
"Then you think Madame Thalla was working with Malmordo?"
"Very likely. She spoke to Gregor several times and acted rather angrily.
Only Malmordo wouldn't have killed Gregor just to please Thalla. Unless Thalla
trumped up something against Gregor, to make Malmordo think he was dangerous."
"Thalla would have preferred to make trouble for the girl, wouldn't she,
Inspector?"
"You can't tell," concluded Cardona. "Nobody can figure out gypsies.
Thalla was telling the girl's fortune, though, and she may have threatened her
then. The girl certainly disappeared in a hurry."
"How?"
"We don't know, unless she skipped through the cellar too."
"That might link her with Malmordo."
"Yes, Commissioner, it might."
The discussion having reached a temporary impasse, Weston began drumming
the desk as though it might bring him an idea. Finally he reached for a slender
report that lay at hand.
"The stowaway on the Santander," recalled Weston. "Patrolman Moultrie
reports that he said something about Malmordo just before the logs fell and
crushed him."
"Malmordo and morto," nodded Cardona. "Whether morto meant death or the
cafe, we don't know. There was another word, but we aren't sure what it was.
The important thing, though" - Cardona was becoming emphatic - "is that there
were other stowaways on board that ship. There's been a lot of stowaways coming
into port lately, human rats we call them, and they tally with the tribe that
Malmordo had around last night."
More drumming from Weston, but it produced no new opinions. So Cardona
supplied one.
"Our best clue is this." Joe picked up the half menu from the Cafe de la
Morte. "This was a tip-off, Commissioner. Somebody is working on our side and
whoever it is, wanted us to block what happened last night."
Hesitating a moment, Weston inquired:
"The Shadow?"
"I don't think so," replied Cardona. "He was with us, one hundred percent,
but this isn't the kind of message The Shadow would send. If I could only -"
A knock interrupted at the door. Weston recognized it as belonging to his
secretary and pressed a buzzer, giving the word to enter. The secretary, a
dapper man, reached the desk and turned apologetically from Weston to Cardona.
"Beg pardon, Commissioner," the secretary said, "but there's a gentleman
outside who says he must speak to Inspector Cardona."
"If he's a gentleman," blustered Weston, "tell him to send in his card!"
"He did," began the secretary, "but it's a most unusual card -"
The card was unusual. Cardona snatched it the moment the secretary showed
it. The card was the lower half of a menu from the Cafe de la Morte.
Eagerly Cardona matched it with the half-card he already held. The two
fitted, proving that the visitor was the unknown informant who had tipped off
the law to impending murder at the Cafe de la Morte!
CHAPTER VIII
THE visitor was shown in promptly.
He was a blunt-faced man with square, solid jaw, short-clipped hair with a
trend toward iron gray, about the same color as his dark suit.
This was the same man who had been blocked off from the Cafe de la Morte
the night before, after bullets had begun to dominate the streets nearby. The
same man, in fact, who had met Janice Bradford, drawn her to shelter, and then
pointed her to the avenue.
However, Cardona was not thinking in terms of subsequent events,
particularly as he knew nothing about them. Joe was still concerned with the
tip-off. Separating the halves of the menu card, he gestured the top portion
and demanded:
"You sent me this?"
The visitor supplied a short, stiff bow, then declared in a precise tone:
"That fact should be apparent."
"Good enough," snapped Cardona. "Now tell us who you are and what you know
about Malmordo."
Quite unperturbed, the visitor seated himself and looked slowly from
Cardona to Weston. The gray man had a deliberate way that impressed his
viewers. Cardona, for one, was ready to concede that this stranger would be a
tough nut to crack.
Coolly, the visitor announced:
"I must request your absolute confidence before I speak. No word of this
conference can be given to anyone."
Terms like that went against Cardona's grain, but before Joe could
protest, Commissioner Weston gave the nod. For once, Cardona realized that the
commissioner was right.
If the visitor preferred to remain silent, there would be no way of making
him talk. Charges against the gray man would be very slender on the mere
strength of the menu card. Indeed, he could rest on his dignity, with the fact
that he had really aided the law being something in his behalf. It was best to
hear him out.
At Weston's nod, the gray man ran his thumb-nail down the lapel of his
coat. The cloth spread apart and from between, the visitor drew out some thin
papers, which he unfolded on the desk. In matter-of-fact tone, he stated:
"My credentials."
The credentials bore an official stamp from Scotland Yard. They named the
gray man as Trent Stacey, of the C.I.D., or Criminal Investigation Department.
A thin photograph was with them; it tallied with Stacey's features. In routine
style, he matched his approved signature, as shown on a document, using
Weston's desk pen. Finally, he called special attention to a brief order
accompanying his credentials.
This order was from Scotland Yard, informing all law enforcement officers
throughout the British Empire that they were to maintain strict secrecy
regarding Stacey's presence, wherever he might be.
"I am aware," put Stacey bluntly, "that your jurisdiction is outside of
such limitations, Commissioner. But I trust in your judgment to honor this
request so long as we both deem it expedient."
"Quite right," agreed Weston, only to add sharply: "Provided you can prove
the existence of such expediency." A bow from Stacey. Then:
"I can," he declared, "and in a single word. That word is the name -
Malmordo."
Weston and Cardona sat right back to listen. Their visitor needed no
further go sign.
"Malmordo is a notorious criminal," asserted Stacey. "In fact, until
recently, he was the most notorious criminal on the European scene. He would
still be - if he happened to be in Europe."
"His name would indicate that," stated Weston. "I take it that the name is
derived from mal and morte, words signifying "evil death" or its equivalent."
Slowly, Stacey shook his head.
"You are wrong," the gray man declared.. "The term mal means opposite and
mordo means something that gnaws or bites. Hence the term is a corruption -"
"In what language?" put in Weston. "Spanish?"
"In Esperanto," replied Stacey, "an international language. Malmordo's
activities were so far flung, that before the war, the police officials in
various countries used Esperanto in their interchangeable reports, in order to
puzzle Malmordo's followers."
"And did it work?" asked Weston.
"It worked well at first," replied Stacey. "Quite a few of Malmordo's
workers were trapped. But then they began using Esperanto too. At that time,
Malmordo was known to the police in European countries as "Mordetbesto" which
in Esperanto means a rodent. That angered his followers who called him
"Malmordetbesto" meaning just the opposite of a rat. They shortened it to
"Malmordo" and there it stands." Stacey gave a shrug. "So we accepted the term
too."
By "we" Stacey obviously meant more than just Scotland Yard. He was
including all the law enforcement agencies of Europe.
"If Malmordo made such a stir in Europe," inquired Cardona, "how come we
never heard of him in America?"
"The war intervened," explained Stacey. "The Nazis hired Malmordo and his
fellow-rats to squirm into every occupied country. There, they not only
fomented vicious trouble; they destroyed all records pertaining to themselves."
"But why have they come here now?" inquired Cardona.
Stacey took that question blandly and put another as its answer.
"Why have other rats come to America?"
"Because it's the only place where they can find what they want," conceded
Cardona. "They're after food and Europe has gone short of it."
"And Malmordo's rats are after loot," specified Stacey. "Europe has gone
short on that commodity too."
It made sense to Cardona and with it, the inspector remembered something.
He plucked up Moultrie's report and read the words of the dying stowaway:
"Malmordo - morto - noktomezo -!"
"That's Esperanto," acknowledged Stacey. "It means Malmordo - death -
midnight. I heard those words spoken yesterday afternoon, Inspector. That's why
I sent you the marked menu card."
"And a patrolman heard them just before midnight," declared Cardona,
"spoken by a dying stowaway in the hold of the Steamship Santander. I get it
now: the fellow must have thought Malmordo double-crossed him."
The news interested Stacey.
"There is your link," he declared. "Malmordo has been bringing his
riff-raff into port. Until yesterday they were around the Black Star Warehouse,
but today they are gone."
Cardona gave Stacey a sharp eye.
"Why didn't you let us in on that?"
"Because I had too much consideration for your very fine police," returned
Stacey, coolly. "It would be suicide to invade a fortress belonging to Malmordo
unless you first stopped every human rat-hole connected with the place. I was
still checking on the place when I saw some of Malmordo's rats slink away and I
followed them to the Cafe de la Morte."
Weston was taking time out to call the Black Star Warehouse. He held a
brief conversation, then hung up abruptly.
"That's odd," announced the commissioner, "but it fits. At the Black Star
they say they were going crazy on account of rats - they meant the usual kind -
but today, they've begun to disappear."
"Because Malmordo's men are gone," nodded Stacey. "They are no longer
there to feed the rats."
"Why should they feed the rats?" Cardona demanded.
"So the rats won't feed on them," Stacey explained. "They could never hope
to drive the rats from the miserable places that both breeds prefer, so they
befriended them. Then they get along comfortably together."
Such solid knowledge of Malmordo and his ways was giving Trent Stacey an
invaluable status in the eyes of Commissioner Weston. Folding the credentials,
Weston returned them to the C.I.D. man and announced:
"We shall give you full cooperation, Mr. Stacey. In return, I want you to
tell us everything else you know about Malmordo. Tell us what crimes you think
he intends to attempt, what measures you believe he will employ, and most of
all -"
The commissioner paused; then repeated himself for emphasis:
"And most of all, tell us how we can trap him!"
CHAPTER IX
IT took Trent Stacey half an hour to cover the full subject of Malmordo,
though it wasn't all continuous talking on Stacey's part. Weston and Cardona
had numerous questions, all apt ones, that they inserted at intervals.
Stacey's summary was this:
Before the war, Malmordo had adopted aggressor tactics of his own,
including the Fifth Column system. He and his ratty followers slipped into
countries, established themselves in the most detestable of hide-outs, which
were therefore the most difficult to search, and from such headquarters, made
deals with local criminals.
Crimes were accomplished and the greater percentage of the stolen goods
reached Malmordo and his followers, like water seeking the lowest level.
Malmordo preferred objects such as rare paintings and famous jewels, because he
disposed of them in other countries. Always, Malmordo and his tribe filtered out
as remarkably as they had arrived.
Stacey had the explanation for this: Malmordo and his human rats used
gypsies as accomplices. Traveling gypsy tribes were common throughout Europe.
In going from country to country, their wagons were thoroughly inspected, but
customs men seldom cared if gypsies carried odd items through, particularly as
the gypsies could get away with it, anyway.
There were thieves among gypsies, but they were an individual clan and
they strictly avoided local criminals. Therefore nobody looked upon them as
carriers of highly valued property; indeed, no criminal of any sense would have
entrusted such stolen goods to gypsies in the first place. So Malmordo had
instituted something novel and unexpected, when he mingled his followers among
gypsy troupes. Malmordo's rats had carried their own loot with them.
Then war struck.
Instantly Malmordo and his despicable followers commanded high premiums
from the Nazis. No longer were gypsies fronting for the human rats; now,
refugees were the cover up. Poland, France, the Balkans all suffered from the
same infiltration process. According to Stacey, they were responsible,
Malmordo's men, for many of the most outrageous robberies that brought the
treasures of occupied countries into Nazidom.
Stacey's descriptions sounded like a digest of a case-book. When he had
finished, he delivered added facts that gave still higher value to his account.
"Malmordo came to England," stated Stacey, "at the time of the blitz. In
fact, we are sure that some of his tribe, perhaps Malmordo himself, mingled
with the troops that were rescued from Dunkirk. Malmordo started operations in
London, expecting the Nazis to arrive. They never did, and Malmordo gave his
game away.
"Unfortunately, Malmordo and most of his rats escaped in fishing boats
across the Channel before we had time to unearth them. We discovered, though,
that they had plans for supercrime and that they intended to use pressure upon
important men who had been engaged in subversive dealings with the Nazis.
"When the war ended, we expected them to filter back into England. They
failed to appear, so we decided to look for them in various British dominions.
I was assigned to Canada and began my search in Montreal. There was no sign of
Malmordo in that city, but I gained a lead that brought me to New York."
That summed Stacey's account. He sat back, ready for questions and
received some. "This Malmordo," asked Cardona. "What does he look like, or
haven't you ever seen him?"
"I have seen him," replied Stacey, solemnly. "He is so hideous, so
grotesque, that it would seem impossible for any human face to be so contorted.
In appearance, he is twisted and deformed, yet singularly agile."
Cardona nodded. That fitted his impression of Malmordo.
"How did you happen to see him?" inquired Weston. "And where?"
"I was born, raised and educated in Canada," explained Stacey, "but I
lived in Montreal and learned French along with English. I spent three years
among German settlers in Canada and learned their language too. Among other
languages" - for the first time Stacey smiled, but barely - "I learned
Esperanto."
"Which made you useful in trailing Malmordo," suggested Weston.
"Exactly," acknowledged Stacey. "That was why Scotland Yard took me on."
"And what would you suggest now?"
"That you give me a few days to trace Malmordo" requested Stacey. "It is
imperative that I operate on my own, as I always have, but I can report at
stated intervals directly to Inspector Cardona."
Weston pondered, then agreed.
"Until you have actual facts as to the whereabouts of wanted criminals,"
decided the commissioner, "there can be no reason why you should not act in
unofficial - or I might say individual - capacity. Meanwhile, Stacey, rest
assured that we shall mention this visit to no one."
With that promise, Trent Stacey left.
When Commissioner Weston made a promise he kept it, but he also had an
innate curiosity for things unusual. That was why, a few hours later, Weston
walked into the Cobalt Club, his regular off-hour habitat, reading a
pocket-sized book that interested him so intently that he almost stumbled over
a chair containing a friend of his, Lamont Cranston.
Few persons could take matters more calmly, almost indifferently, than did
Cranston. He was a man with an impassive face that impressed some observers as
masklike and his features, viewed at certain angles, gave a hawkish appearance.
Cranston's eyes were easy, but steady, a fact which characterized them now.
Indeed, only by gaze did Cranston imply that he was interested in anything that
could so preoccupy Weston.
The commissioner seemed to realize it, for he became apologetic, then
enthusiastic.
"Sorry, Cranston," began Weston. "I should have remembered I was to meet
you here. But you see, I've run across something quite fascinating. Did you
ever hear of Esperanto?"
"I have made a few trips around the world," responded Cranston. "Do you
think I would have started without equipping myself with an auxiliary language
that is known everywhere?"
Weston hadn't thought of that. "Then you speak Esperanto, Cranston?"
"Mi parolas Esperante," replied Cranston, "Mi trovas la elparoladon tre
facila."
Weston began looking through the book, so Cranston saved him the trouble
by translating for him.
"I said that I speak Esperanto," stated Cranston. "I added that I find the
pronunciations very easy."
"Do you know the meaning of the word noktomezo?"
"That would mean midnight."
"And what would Malmordo mean?"
"Something that doesn't bite. It sounds more like a name, though, than a
word commonly used in Esperanto."
"You are right, Cranston," conceded Weston. "It is a name. The name of the
world's most desperate criminal."
With that beginning, Weston reeled off all the data that he had gained
from Trent Stacey, excepting of course any mention of the C.I.D. man himself.
All the while, Cranston listened intently, without showing it. Behind that
impassive face of Cranston's lay a keen mind, the mind of The Shadow, for the
guise of Cranston was one that The Shadow adopted in the more ordinary stages
of his career.
It was palpable to Cranston that Weston had acquired all this information
very recently. The reason: if Weston had known all this last night, Malmordo
would not have cavorted in such murderous style at the Cafe de la Morte. In his
casual way, Cranston decided to seek the source.
"I suppose you learned all this at the Cafe de la Morte," remarked
Cranston. "I read about a mysterious murder at that place last night."
"Malmordo was involved," admitted Weston, "but they know nothing about him
at the cafe."
"Then you captured some of Malmordo's men?"
"Those rats? Impossible! They have even abandoned their hideaway at the
Black Star Warehouse, they and their pets, the ordinary type of rats."
Cranston could have raised his eye-brows, but didn't. Weston hadn't
mentioned the Black Star Warehouse in his run-up on the Malmordo question. He
regarded it as too closely associated with Stacey. So Cranston was getting
somewhere with his casual inquiry.
"I didn't mean Malmordo's regulars," corrected Cranston. "You say he
enlists local malefactors wherever he goes. I supposed you might have captured
some of the Manhattan contingent that was working with him."
"Some were on the job last night," declared Weston, "but they got away
before we could identify them."
"I have it, then," expressed Cranston. "You've been questioning the local
gypsies."
"You can't quiz gypsies," declared Weston. "They never tell the same story
twice. They have a king who acts as spokesman, but he's out of town at present.
King Dakar, they call him, and every gypsy we've asked says he's away. None of
them ever heard of Madame Thalla, the fortune teller at the Cafe de la Morte.
They'd say the same about Malmordo."
There were a number of inconsistencies in Weston's speech, but Cranston
didn't suggest that the commissioner might be something of a gypsy himself.
Instead, Cranston broached a last query.
"The customers down at the Cafe de la Morte," mused Cranston. "There
weren't any missing later, were there?"
"One was," recalled Weston. "A girl in white, who wore a yellow flower and
had her fortune told. We don't know her name though, or anything else about her.
Maybe I should have asked -"
There Weston cut himself off in his own brusque style and threw a
challenging glare at Cranston. When Cranston became persistent, he made people
tell things they didn't mean to say and Weston had come near mentioning Stacey.
Of course Cranston couldn't have been fishing for information; he was just
helpful, that was all - or so Weston thought.
Anyway, the commissioner didn't want that kind of help.
"Sorry, Cranston, but I have an appointment." That was Weston's best way
to relieve the pressure of this conversation. "I'll be seeing you later."
Remembering that he too had an appointment, Lamont Cranston strolled from
the Cobalt Club and out into the gathering dusk.
There Cranston became The Shadow.
CHAPTER X
JANICE BRADFORD wasn't wearing white tonight. Instead she'd chosen a dark
blue sweater dress with a beret to match. Janice wasn't taking chances on
dodging bullets this evening.
Or knives for that matter.
That was the part that bothered Janice, the way the slinky men seemed to
be around again. What they were doing here, away from the docks and warehouses,
away from the Village and the Cafe de la Morte, was something that wasn't too
hard to guess.
Like Janice, they were probably looking for Madame Thalla.
Regarding Thalla as a friend, Janice was trying to find her somewhere
along Gypsy Row and that was just the trouble. Thalla wasn't around, but the
human rats were; at least Janice fancied that she could see them poking their
imaginary whiskers out of practically every cranny.
Silent houses here, with no signs on the windows denoting fortune tellers
as Janice had supposed there might be. She realized now that gypsies wouldn't
advertise such talents in their own neighborhood, just as she recognized they
wouldn't talk about each other. The best thing Janice could do would be to find
a cab. She'd stopped in too many stores to inquire about Madame Thalla. The
people who had given her dumb looks and head-shakes might not be so dumb as
they looked.
It was thought of Malmordo however, that worried Janice most. And again,
she made the mistake of thinking that obscurity would shield her from that
Master Rat.
Turning into a side street, Janice hadn't gone a dozen paces before she
saw a slinker move from a doorway, as though to sidle across the street and cut
off her retreat. There was a doorway on this side and instinctively, Janice
turned toward it, then shied away, only to have a firm hand emerge as on the
night before and draw her into shelter.
The girl gasped; then, thinking she recognized the clasp, she breathed:
"It's you again! I thought it wasn't until tomorrow night -"
Janice interrupted herself when she saw that her present friend wasn't the
blunt-faced man in gray, whose name, though she didn't know it, had today been
disclosed as Trent Stacey, but only to Commissioner Weston and Inspector
Cardona.
Oddly though, Janice had found another friend, a rather handsome and
self-assured young man whom she remembered from the Cafe de la Morte. In the
light that slanted into the doorway, Janice was looking at Harry Vincent, who
in turn was getting another and more detailed impression of the girl herself.
However, it wasn't wise to stare too long, because the process required
light and light was dangerous with lurkers about. Satisfied that Janice
regarded him as a friend, due to his lack of resemblance to any of Malmordo's
clan, Harry drew the girl deeper into the doorway.
"Speaking of tomorrow night," undertoned Harry, "I was worried about last
night. I saw Thalla steer you out of the cafe, but what happened after that?"
"Why - why" - Janice stammered a moment. "I - I managed to get away, that
was all."
"Somebody else helped you?"
"Well - yes."
"Somebody you were to meet near here," defined Harry, "and tomorrow night.
You mistook me for him."
There was silence for a moment. Janice gave a slight shudder, worrying
about the slinkers.
"Whoever he was," suggested Harry, "he found a cab for you, probably over
on the avenue."
Janice remained silent.
"There will be a cab here shortly," promised Harry. "I can get you away in
it, if you tell me about this other chap. After all, he and I are working toward
the same purpose, to trap Malmordo."
At the name "Malmordo" Janice supplied a really appreciable shudder. Then
quickly she said:
"I don't know who he was. I promised to meet him tomorrow night, but not
here. Unless I know more about you, I don't think I should tell you more."
"My name is Harry Vincent," was Harry's reply. "Now who was your other
friend?"
"I don't know," expressed Janice truthfully. "He didn't have time to tell
me his name."
"Did you tell him yours?"
Janice tightened her lips, then said:
"No."
From the way she said it, Harry decided that the girl wasn't going to give
her name now. Nevertheless, he waited patiently, confident that Janice's
interest in the expected cab would make her talk. The process worked. Fumbling
in her purse, Janice brought out a folded slip of paper; with a little pencil,
she wrote something on it.
"There's the message," she undertoned, "and I've written my name on the
back. You can have the paper when you give me the cab."
Lights were coming around the corner and lurkers were scooting for cover.
Stepping out boldly, Harry flagged the cab. As it stopped, he opened the door
and beckoned to Janice; as the girl hurried into the cab, Harry reminded her of
the paper and Janice planted it in his hand.
Then the cab was off with Janice as a passenger and Harry was making a
quick dart, openly, toward the corner, to draw attention his way. At that,
Harry couldn't feel that he was taking much risk because he'd been expecting a
cab piloted by a driver named Shrevvy who was to drop off The Shadow at this
very corner. If any lurkers had taken pot-shots at Harry, they'd have received
plenty more virulent bullets in return.
Apparently the lurkers had been smart enough to be on their way, but at
that they'd outsmarted themselves. For Harry was scarcely past the corner
before another cab pulled up and this time it was Shrevvy's. Not until then did
Harry realize that he'd flagged a chance cab that had happened to swing into
that side street just before Shrevvy's scheduled arrival.
A whispered voice sounded almost at Harry's elbow, out of darkness that
seemed vacant. It ordered:
"Report."
Briefing his report to The Shadow, Harry finished by extending the folded
paper. A hand took it and moved into the light, where Harry saw another hand
join it. It was a rather astonishing effect, watching those gloved hands unfold
the slip of paper and turn it over, for the hands seemed like independent
creatures floating in mid-air.
Even more startling in a way was the slip of paper itself. Staring
eagerly, Harry blinked when he saw that it was blank.
"That's the message somebody gave the girl," Harry was saying, "and she
wrote her name on back of it -"
Only it wasn't the message and Janice hadn't written her name and she
hadn't gone away in Shrevvy's cab. So far as The Shadow was concerned, the girl
was still Miss X, which represented an unknown quantity.
Nevertheless, The Shadow's laugh came softly as though he appreciated the
humor of the thing. Then, leaving Harry to figure some way of redeeming
himself, The Shadow glided off into the darkness.
Better luck was waiting a few blocks away. There, The Shadow stopped in
front of a dimly lighted store which proved to be a pet-shop. Inside was a
customer, a wizened little man, who looked normal enough for this neighborhood.
The proprietor, a squatty, sleek-haired man, was warning the customer not to
bother the pets and particularly the little green love birds.
The customer answered to the name of Hawkeye and he worked for The Shadow,
but of course he hadn't stated either of those facts. What intrigued him about
the love birds was that they would peck at odd things, like the cover of a
match pack, something that the average parrot would ignore, at least after the
first taste.
"Those birds not for sale," the squatty storekeeper was saying. "Customer
already buy them. Closing shop now. Come back tomorrow."
The storekeeper was brushing Hawkeye away from the cage, where one of the
green birds was reclaiming the piece of cardboard that had dropped between the
bars. Wrapping a cloth around the cage, the squatty man took it to the back of
the shop, then returned to pull down the shades in the show window.
Shambling out in slow fashion, Hawkeye would have sped his pace the moment
that he turned past the window, if The Shadow had not stopped him with a
whispered signal. The result was that Hawkeye paused, then shuffled across the
street in careless fashion while the blackness that represented The Shadow
continued the swift glide in the original direction.
Through an alley and around to the back street, The Shadow was waiting
when the squatty man came from his darkened shop bearing the covered cage that
contained the green birds. After a hurried look from right to left, the
storekeeper headed for an opposite alley.
The Shadow took up the trail.
That trail ended after a zigzag route through several back streets. The
squatty man tapped at an obscure door which opened cautiously. A few words
passed through the crack, then the door widened enough for the cage to follow.
His order delivered, the owner of the pet shop waddled away.
A few moments later, The Shadow, invisible in the shrouding darkness of
the doorway, was opening the door itself to cross the threshold of a new
adventure.
CHAPTER XI
THE narrow hallway was pitch-black, its floor so old and creaky that it
responded, though ever so slightly, to The Shadow's usually noiseless glide.
At the end was another door, which The Shadow found by a careful probe.
His gloved hand muffled the rattle of the loose knob; even the groan of the
rusted hinges was suppressed as The Shadow pressed the door inward.
A dim light issued from within, showing a tawdry room furnished with
battered chairs and table, a turkey-red curtain hanging across a doorway
beyond. If eyes behind that curtain could notice the door's motion, The
Shadow's gaze was even keener. He observed the curtain's quiver.
Inching the door slowly inward, The Shadow literally baited the watcher
beyond the curtain. He could sense when someone there was ready to surge; then,
boldly, suddenly, The Shadow flung the door fully open and whirled through.
As he twisted, The Shadow produced an automatic from beneath his cloak. He
completed a full turn that not only carried him away from the wide-open doorway,
but brought him back against the door itself, clattering it against the side
wall of the room so it formed the long side of a triangle which included the
brief stretch of front wall between the corner and the doorway.
This peculiar double process completely fooled the man beyond the curtain.
He came charging through, only to halt blankly and bewildered, not knowing how
or where to aim the old-fashioned pistol that he clutched in his tawny hand.
Then, as The Shadow delivered a shuddery, whispered laugh, the man's face
enlarged in terror.
His face was the darkish face of Panjo, the man who had contacted the
sailor on the Santander.
The Shadow's whisper phrased the name "Panjo." As the darkish man
quivered, he saw blackness stretch to a table near the door and whip away the
cloth covering of an object standing there, to reveal a cage containing two
green birds. Then the whisper formed words, in accusing tone:
"Panjo! Avakle avnas tut chirikla!"
In gypsy dialect, The Shadow was saying: "Panjo! These were your birds,"
to which Panjo could only nod. Then came The Shadow's sharp query:
"Ti romni?"
Panjo broke into a wild babble.
"Mri romni odoi geyas," he pleaded, "oi n'avel pale. Na janav so pes lake
talindyas."
The Shadow had asked about Panjo's wife and in reply Panjo was saying that
his wife had gone away and not come back; that he did not know what had happened
to her.
In gypsy talk The Shadow ordered Panjo to give him the gun, which Panjo
did, quaking the while. Then, in sinister tone, The Shadow suggested that
perhaps Panjo's missing wife might be responsible for Gregor's death. Before
Panjo could chatter a denial, The Shadow wheeled, flinging the door shut to
reveal a trembling woman in the space represented by the corner.
The woman was Madame Thalla. Quivering, she dropped the knife she held.
The Shadow had been ready for the trick that Thalla had used to elude Cardona
and had imprisoned the woman behind the door where she had hidden. And now
Thalla was chattering wildly:
"Me na chinghiom les! Me na chinghion les!
Thalla was repeating "I did not kill him!" in reference to Gregor and The
Shadow's laugh eased to a tone that made Thalla realize he believed her. The
Shadow had accomplished what he wanted; he had linked Panjo with Thalla.
And now, in a sterner tone, The Shadow demanded:
"Kai baro kralis th'arakas?"
The Shadow was asking where he could find their great leader, which to
Panjo and Thalla meant King Dakar, so lately reported out of the city. Eagerly,
Panjo and Thalla conducted him past the turkey red curtain, where Panjo rapped
at a door beyond. The door opened and The Shadow found himself facing King
Dakar, a gentleman whose surprise diminished rapidly when Panjo, and Thalla
chattered to him in gypsy talk.
"Yek Ushalyin!" Panjo exclaimed. "Laskoro Romeskero!"
"Ov hin Rom!" added Thalla. "Na gajo!"
The title 'Yek Ushalyin' was Panjo's way of saying "The Shadow."
Translated literally it meant 'a shadow' but in Romany, the indefinite article
'a' also meant 'one'. In defining the visitor as 'One Shadow', Panjo was
seeking to confer a distinction upon so notable a guest.
Also, Panjo had added that Yek Ushalyin was of the gypsies and Thalla had
supplemented the claim by declaring: "He is gypsy, not a foreigner," for the
term Rom meant someone of the gypsy race, while gajo signified any non-gypsy.
From there on, The Shadow took up the conversation and King Dakar, hearing
his speech, bowed low. To term Dakar a 'king' seemed ludicrous, for he was a
drab, sunken sort of man, whose broad, droopy face was so weather-beaten that
it had lost its natural color. Nevertheless, if The Shadow deserved a title, so
did King Dakar.
For after he heard The Shadow declaim in pure Romany, Dakar did likewise.
The language that they talked showed that Panjo and Thalla were limited in
gypsy-speech to a hodge-podge of varied dialects.
It was a pleasure, Dakar told The Shadow, to hear some one speak the lacho
romano chib, or pure gypsy, and not the posh romani toward which so many of
Dakar's people trended. They were even forgetting their romnipen, or gypsy ways.
The Shadow inquired if that applied to a Rom named Gregor and Dakar was
startled. When The Shadow wanted to learn the connection between Gregor and
Malmordo, Thalla became terrified and even Panjo was shaken. Then, Dakar
standing speechless, The Shadow calmly expressed himself in English,
interspersed with gypsy terms, to clarify the purpose of his visit and how he
had arrived here.
"At the pier, I learned that Panjo was Rom," declared The Shadow. "When he
saw me, he cried 'Vourdalak' and 'Nosferadu' meaning he mistook me for a
vampire, which any Rom might. Yek Rom, seeking birds, such was Panjo. Why
should he want chirikla? Because birds are used for telling fortunes. Bring
your chirikla, Panjo."
Panjo went to get the birds.
"On the boat was a gajo who died very suddenly," The Shadow told Dakar.
"He said three words: 'Malmordo - morto - noktomezo.' Do you understand those
words, Dakar?"
Dakar's expression had gone rigid. As it relaxed, he nodded slowly.
"I know who Malmordo is," said Dakar. "But those other words" - he shook
his head - "they are in the language that we do not understand."
"The words meant death and midnight," declared The Shadow. "I knew of the
Cafe de la Morte and assumed that the man might refer to it. I went there and
saw Madame Thalla, a fortune teller. A romni who tells fortunes" - The Shadow
gestured to Thalla - "would not her husband be a Rom who would buy chirikla
like these?"
The Shadow completed another gesture, toward the green love birds which
had just arrived in their cage, carried by Panjo. Then, as if to acknowledge
The Shadow's skill at deduction, Panjo took the birds from the cage while
Thalla brought a little box containing rows of small cards, about the size of
place cards used at a dinner party. At a signal from Panjo, one of the birds
flew to the box, picked up a card with its beak, fluttered over to The Shadow
and deposited the card in the visitor's gloved hand.
"Chirikli dela tuke, Yek Ushalyin," said Thalla. "He is giving you the
card, the bird is, that you may read your fortune. So kamavela?" Thalla gave a
professional shrug. "What will come? Kon janalo? Who knows?"
A quaint custom this, of having birds pluck cards and deliver them to
customers, so that each could read an individual fortune. Traveling gypsies had
trained such birds for centuries, but in recent years, palm reading and
interpretations of the tarots had superceded this picturesque type of
divination.
"Panjo and Thalla went in hiding," explained King Dakar. "It was then that
Panjo remembered his trained birds. He sent word for them to be brought here so
that no one could find him through them. But you were very wise, Yek Ushalyin."
The Shadow put a sharp question to Dakar.
"As wise as Malmordo?"
"Wiser, Yek Ushalyin. So we hope!"
"Perhaps Malmordo already knows where to find you!"
"No, no!" Dakar spoke excitedly. "That is why I am in hiding too! So
Malmordo can not find me."
"Nor have the police managed to find you," declared The Shadow. "It is
curious you do not wish to talk to them."
"They could not protect us against Malmordo!" exclaimed Dakar. "That is
why we can not talk to them."
"It has given them a singular impression," stated The Shadow. "The police
believe that you are friendly to Malmordo."
That brought a storm of indignant denial from Dakar, with Panjo and Thalla
joining in the protest. Every curse that could be invoked in the gypsy language
was uttered and all were directed against Malmordo. To another visitor, it
would have seemed that the gypsies were overdoing it, but not to The Shadow.
They had called him Rom; they had termed him Yek Ushalyin. To him they would
only tell the truth.
"We Rom have suffered much from Malmordo," asserted Dakar when the hubbub
ended. "We have been called many names in many lands, such names as heathen and
outcasts. But in only one land, Egypt, were we called robbers. They gave us the
name Harami there. And now today, Malmordo would have us called Harami
everywhere."
"I have heard," affirmed The Shadow, "that Malmordo and his gaje traveled
with your comrades in Europe."
"Because we thought them poor strangers," argued Dakar. "Malmordo! Bah!
The other name they called him, Mordetbesto, was a better name for him. It
sounds like the beast he was. So low did he sink that he was taken as a freak
to be exhibited for copper money by the foolish Rom he deceived. A divio gajo,
a wild man they thought he was and others of his kind posed as the same. They
learned our customs, romnipen, to help them on their way."
"You should have learned more about them," reproved The Shadow. "You
avoided the criminals with whom they dealt. Why did you not avoid them?"
"But Malmordo and his gaje never dealt with others!" protested Dakar. "We
would surely have known if they had."
King Dakar meant it, but as a gypsy leader it was his part to claim he
knew everything. His statements did not tally with what The Shadow had learned
from Commissioner Weston. Dakar might give the gypsies benefit of doubt where
connections with Malmordo were concerned, but he would not extend the courtesy
to common criminals. However, The Shadow had a way to test King Dakar further.
"You have said that Gregor once was Rom," The Shadow asserted. "But Gregor
called himself a gajo and he was at the Cafe de la Morte -"
Madame Thalla babbled an interruption and King Dakar halted her. With all
the dignity of his office, Dakar declared:
"As Rom, we both hate and fear Malmordo. But I have ordered my people that
if they do neither, Malmordo may not harm us. None were to speak to Malmordo
once he arrived here, nor to watch him. Gregor was one who would not obey and
when I chided him, he said he was no longer Rom, but gajo.
"What Gregor learned about Malmordo, we do not know. How he learned it
also puzzles us. But since Gregor was watching for Malmordo, it was necessary
that we watch Gregor. I chose Thalla for that duty because she could tell
fortunes at the Cafe de la Morte. Because her husband, Panjo, often bought
birds from the sailors, I told him to watch the ships. That is all."
Dakar had put it well. The Shadow could have queried what the gypsy king
intended next, but such a question was unnecessary. The Shadow simply waited,
knowing that Dakar would declare himself. And Dakar did.
Across Dakar's weather-beaten face came a vengeful expression inspired by
the demand for justice.
"Gregor was Rom." There was finality in Dakar's tone. "Gregor was murdered
by Malmordo. Whoever may ask me to help destroy Malmordo will have the services
of any Rom I can supply. I, King Dakar, have so sworn, and I can be found here
whenever I am needed."
That promise was meant for The Shadow and it ended the interview. Turning,
the cloaked master, whom the gypsies styled Yek Ushalyin made his exit through
the red curtain. Only the whispered echoes of a parting laugh remained, as The
Shadow went out into the night.
The Shadow needed no further pledge from King Dakar. Already the gypsy
leader had provided him with a trail, through Madame Thalla. The card that the
trained bird had given The Shadow was not inscribed with some trivial fortune.
Instead it bore a name, one which Madame Thalla had learned and knew that
The Shadow would want.
The card read: Janice Bradford.
CHAPTER XII
IT was late the next afternoon when Inspector Cardona looked up from his
desk to meet the steady gray eyes of Trent Stacey. It was rather startling, the
way this visitor had arrived, though Cardona's office wasn't difficult to enter
unannounced.
However, whatever annoyance Cardona might have felt he instantly
suppressed. Stacey was a special case, by mutual agreement. This was the right
way for him to appear here.
In his cool style, Stacey inquired:
"Any reports on rats, Inspector?"
"Plenty," assured Cardona, "but not the sort we want, though they may be a
lead. I've been checking with the warehouses around the waterfront to learn how
badly they are infested by rats. I haven't forgotten what you said about
Malmordo's gang making pets of the pests."
Stacey's straight forehead formed a frown.
"You may arouse Malmordo's suspicions -"
"Not the way I'm handling it," interposed Cardona. "I'm working through
the health department. The trouble is the rats are bad news everywhere, big
fighting rats, so big they kill some of the cats that are planted to kill them."
"The boldest rats would be where Malmordo is. His men would see to it that
they spread out from ordinary hiding places."
"I figured that. You were right about Black Star. It's really free of
rats, that warehouse, so we're no longer bothering with it."
Stacey gave a short, pleased nod. His gray eyes were reflective for a
moment; then he brought up another subject. Spreading a sheet of paper on the
desk, Stacey pointed to a rough diagram that he had drawn.
"Malmordo's present headquarters," he declared. "There is a chance we may
trap him there tonight."
"This isn't a warehouse," remarked Cardona, studying the chart. "It looks
more like some old residence."
"Malmordo never stays with his tribe," explained Stacey. "He doesn't want
them to know too much about him."
"Then how did you find out about this place?" demanded Cardona. "By
staying away from Malmordo's mob?"
Stacey smiled and nodded.
"In a sense, yes," he stated. "I overheard a few roustabouts talking in
that doggerel form of Esperanto that Malmordo's followers use. They mentioned
his headquarters, because naturally they have to contact him. He will probably
go there tonight."
Cardona began to study the chart more intently.
"At dusk, I can go in there," suggested Stacey. "Give me at least a half
hour's leeway before any of your men even approach that area."
"But suppose you meet Malmordo, in the meantime?"
"I should like to meet Malmordo," replied Stacey, grimly. "It would be a
pleasure to take him by surprise. However, I don't expect him there that soon."
"What if some of his men are on guard?"
"I talk their language. I can pose as a representative of the local talent
that Malmordo is lining up. But I don't expect them either. What I want to do is
get at any loose evidence that may be lying around."
That part pleased Cardona immensely. He could foresee that some sort of a
case would have to be built against Malmordo to make the public believe that
such a vicious and fabulous criminal existed. So Joe asked:
"After I post my men - what then?"
"If Malmordo appears," returned Stacey, "let him through. Then close in
and box him. I can work from the inside and drive him right back into your
hands."
Cardona thought that over. Then:
"We might nail him going in."
"Malmordo won't come within a block of that house," objected Stacey, "if
you are any nearer. You are dealing with a Master Rat and don't forget it.
Outdoors, Malmordo has a way of keeping just beyond a good marksman's range.
You can sight him, but never hit him."
"You're right," Cardona agreed, remembering how elusive Malmordo had been,
even in the restricted area of the dining garden at the Cafe de la Morte. "The
only game is to turn that house into a rat-trap, which judging from the
address, it probably is already."
Methodically, Cardona made a brief time-sheet with a carbon copy which he
gave to Stacey. Then, as the C.I.D. man was about to leave, the inspector asked:
"One matter I meant to mention yesterday - were you in the Cafe de la
Morte before Malmordo appeared there?"
"Not on the night he murdered Gregor," replied Stacey. "I was on my way
there at the time. But I was in the place on previous evenings."
"Did you see a girl in white, wearing a yellow flower? The blonde who
talked to Madame Thalla?"
"Yes. I saw her after the murder, too."
"Where?"
"A few blocks from the cafe. She was dodging the shooting. I realized that
something must have happened at the Cafe de la Morte and I took it that she had
fled with other patrons. I directed her to the avenue."
"And did you learn her name?"
"Unfortunately no, but I would recognize her again."
"That's what everybody else says," declared Cardona, grimly, "but we
haven't been able to find her. If you should see her anywhere again, be sure
and let me know."
Pausing at the door, Stacey gave a slow, emphatic nod and said:
"I shall."
Though it wasn't dusk yet, Cardona's office was getting dark because it
had an eastern exposure through a none-too-ample window. Several minutes after
Stacey left, Joe decided to turn on the lights. When he did, a new surprise was
staring him in the face.
The surprise was a gentleman named Lamont Cranston.
And a real surprise this.
Cranston's usual contact with the law was Commissioner Weston. Though he
knew Cardona well, Cranston had rarely visited the inspector's office, at least
not as himself.
There was a special reason for Cranston's visit. He hadn't been able to
find Weston. The commissioner had slipped away somewhere to study his
Esperanto. This in turn meant there was little use in trying to interview him,
because when Weston concentrated on one thing, he dropped others. Cranston had
gotten the hint that Weston was leaving the case of the Cafe de la Morte to
Inspector Cardona.
There was someone else that Cranston hadn't been able to locate: Janice
Bradford. That was why Cranston had come here, to sound out the law as
represented by Joe Cardona.
Almost immediately Cranston discovered something; namely, that Cardona was
fidgety. This was so unusual that it showed, even though Joe managed to keep his
usual deadpan expression. So Cranston, ever calm, immediately became calmer than
ever. He had something to chat about, he said, but it could wait. So Cardona's
eyes went to the rough chart on the desk and Joe decided to act as Weston had
in Cranston's presence the day before.
Cardona simply said as much as he could without saying too much.
Using his phone, Cardona called a couple of special men and told them to
bring certain others. He summoned one detective to his office, showed him the
rough chart and drew a larger plan, pointing out where all hands would be
stationed. All the while, Joe tried to make it look like mere routine.
"There's been a little trouble in that neighborhood," the inspector told
the detective. "I'll make the rounds after you're all posted."
All the while, Cranston was sitting by indifferently, getting occasional
glimpses at the chart and hearing the detective's queries. He took in something
that the detective didn't; namely, that a certain house marked on the diagram
could well be the center of the whole thing.
Next, Cardona glanced at his brief time-chart, then turned it over and
pushed it to one side, among some loose papers. Here Cardona copied a bit of
Cranston's indifference.
"Don't post yourselves too soon," Cardona told the detective. "You might
be noticed. It will be dusk about seven o'clock, so make it seven thirty."
Glancing at his watch, Cranston remarked that it was already seven
o'clock, which pleased Cardona.
"Get started," Cardona told the detective, "and take the others along."
Then, as the detective left, Joe added: "Sorry, I'll have to be leaving in a
few minutes, Mr. Cranston."
"Very well." Cranston arose in leisurely style then paused. "I just wanted
to ask about a girl named Janice Bradford."
"Never heard of her."
"She seems to be missing," continued Cranston. "Maybe she just went away
for a rest."
Cardona shrugged as though that didn't belong in his department.
"She might need a rest," decided Cranston, "after experiencing a lot of
excitement. Some of her friends say that she was very fond of the Cafe de la
Morte."
That brought Cardona around.
"What does she look like?" Joe demanded. "Is she a b1onde?"
"I didn't think to ask," replied Cranston. "I simply thought you might be
interested. Only her friends know nothing more."
"What about her family?"
"She has a father, but he is missing, too, which is the oddest part. They
seem to have moved from one hotel to another and stopped giving forwarding
addresses. The father's name is Andrew Bradford and the hotels -"
Pausing, Cranston reached for a loose sheet of paper and added: "Here,
I'll write out the data fo you."
Cranston wrote the names of the persons and the hotels, folded the sheet
of paper and laid it back upon the desk. Cardona didn't observe what happened
during the folding process for he was on the wrong side of the desk. In folding
the paper toward himself, Cranston brought a smaller slip into view, his own
view. It was Cardona's time chart and it automatically came with its writing
side up.
The list was as follows:
Stacey - 7:00 p.m.
Cardona - 7:30 p.m.
Malmordo - ? ? ?
In putting the folded paper on the desk, Cranston turned it downward so
that the list dropped beneath it, writing side also down. He gave the folded
paper a slight slide, so it glided toward Cardona, who picked it up and creased
it again as he put it in his pocket. Seeing the blank side of the sheet that
bore his list, Cardona picked it up too, keeping the writing away from
Cranston's sight. Poker-faced, Joe hid the grim satisfaction that he felt at
thus out-witting the astute Mr. Cranston.
Cardona didn't know that Cranston had swapped one name for another, that
of Janice Bradford in return for Trent Stacey or at least the Stacey part of
it. Nor did Cardona begin to guess what Cranston would do about those other
facts he had learned, once he discovered their importance.
In the dusk that was heavy outside police headquarters, the departing Mr.
Cranston hailed a waiting cab and once inside it merged with darkness. For the
cab was Shrevvy's and from a secret drawer beneath its rear seat, Cranston
produced and put on the regalia of The Shadow.
The address that Shrevvy heard his chief give was very close to the old
house that Trent Stacey had defined as the probable headquarters of a
supercriminal called Malmordo.
CHAPTER XIII
SIGHT-SEERS wishing to view the house that Malmordo used as his
headquarters can find it by looking for the most decrepit house in the most
dilapidated section of Manhattan south of Forty-second Street and west of Fifth
Avenue.
The house had to be about that bad because it was empty and during the
housing shortage in New York practically any house that still stood of its own
accord was remodeled in some fashion or another so that it could he occupied.
To say that this house was standing of its own accord at first sight
seemed an exaggeration. Its brick front was falling apart in such chunks that
it looked as though it were propped between the two adjacent houses that formed
part of the solid block. But those houses were so ramshackle that they couldn't
have supported more than their own weight, therefore Malmordo's house must have
been standing on whatever trifling merit it still possessed.
This block and those surrounding it were gloomy and quiet when Cardona's
men put in an appearance on the fringes. They managed to keep out of sight
without trouble, taking advantage of the very gloom which had probably
attracted Malmordo to this area. There was one fault, however, which worked
against Malmordo and pleased Cardona immensely as he began his rounds to tell
his detectives what this was all about.
A grimy street light stood directly opposite the empty house, making the
building perhaps the most conspicuous in the block. It probably annoyed
Malmordo, that light, but since this was the only empty house in the
neighborhood, or for that matter about any neighborhood, he had to make the
best of it.
Cardona now understood why Trent Stacey had chosen dusk as the right time
to enter and had also wanted a reasonable leeway. Stacey had probably waited
while it grew dark, until just the time when street lamps began to flicker.
That was his cue to get into the house in a hurry, before the glow appeared
from across the street.
How long Stacey had been inside was a question but a rather important one.
The really important question was how soon Malmordo would arrive, if at all.
It happened sooner than the ace inspector had hoped.
Out of the surrounding gloom that might have harbored a few dozen lurkers
came as grotesque and distorted a figure as any freak show ever boasted.
The term human rat was hardly adequate for Malmordo. He had the writhe of
a human snake.
Malmordo's figure, clad baggily as at the Cafe de la Morte, seemed to grow
right out of the grimy sidewalk and coil itself up the front steps. Watching
from nearly a block away, Cardona started to move in, his men copying his
example, but as he did, Joe realized how right Stacey was in saying that long
range fire couldn't reach Malmordo. The human monstrosity was safely in the
shelter of his own doorway before anyone could have aimed a gun.
And then, as if to tantalize anyone who happened to be watching, Malmordo
poked his head and shoulders into sight. The street lamp opposite gave a full
but fleeting view of those misshapen, vicious features that were so
unmistakable. Only one man could have displayed such an ugly, twisted visage:
Malmordo.
He fitted the rat definition as he peered up and down the street, in a
quick double-take. Then, rat fashion he was gone again, into the house itself.
There was proof that Malmordo had really gone.
A long streak of blackness that sliced from across the street began to
take on line. A shadowy stretch, that was all, and its waver could have been
due to a flicker of the street lamp. But there was solid blackness moving in
the streaky gloom that shrouded it.
Solid blackness called The Shadow.
At the steps, The Shadow did a curious sidle, up toward the edge of the
doorway.
Malmordo had been misshapen; The Shadow was shapeless.
Growing blackness, that was all, like something unreal, which evaporated,
smoke-fashion before anyone could define it. The fade took place when The
Shadow deftly twisted himself into the doorway, from which, unlike Malmordo, he
did not take a last quick look.
Even Inspector Cardona was deceived. On the move, he thought that the rise
of darkness and its curious fadeaway were due to the changing angle of his
vision. Besides, Cardona couldn't picture even The Shadow as part of a scene
which had been unearthed exclusively by Trent Stacey, a man whose own ways were
exceptionally under-cover.
Inside the house, The Shadow was hearing creaks.
The house was a three story affair, by this time the creaks were going up
beyond the second. They represented footsteps, though they were not
distinguishable as such. Rather they were a cross between a creep and a snaky
progress which defined them as Malmordo's. What The Shadow was hearing were the
transcribed sounds of Malmordo's ascent as reproduced by the old beams and shaky
flooring.
A tiny flashlight spotted its glow along the hall, shrouded by the folds
of The Shadow's cloak. With that light The Shadow picked out the stairs and
began a climb of his own, a trifle slower than Malmordo's but considerably more
efficient. For as he reached the second floor, The Shadow could hear the creaks
upon the third, which wouldn't have been possible had The Shadow been producing
such sounds himself.
As near noiseless as was possible in this old house, The Shadow was
betraying no token of his presence. But now, hearing a pause in the sounds that
meant Malmordo, The Shadow slackened his climb to the third floor, practically
feeling each step ahead, shifting his weight by degrees, so that not even the
slightest token of his approach could be sensed.
Almost at the third floor, The Shadow heard the muffled closing of a door.
He was conscious next of creaks that must have come from a hallway, moving
toward the rear. It was as if some eavesdropper were stealing away, eager for
haste, yet anxious for silence. The closing of the door, however, indicated
that Malmordo had isolated himself in a room; therefore whoever was sneaking
along the third floor could do so without too much risk of being heard, at
least by Malmordo.
In turn, The Shadow increased his speed, knowing that Malmordo could not
hear him and recognizing that the interloper was making enough sounds of his
own to drown any that The Shadow made. That interloper, of course, would be a
man named Stacey, who had been listed at seven o'clock on Cardona's schedule.
Right now, The Shadow was summing the whole arrangement between Stacey and
Cardona, though he had already assumed that it might be something of this sort.
Had Stacey boxed Malmordo?
Hardly, not in so short a time space. Rather, Malmordo had boxed himself,
though certainly not too solidly. As The Shadow reached the third floor he
could hear creaks in the rear of the house and below, indicating that Stacey
had found a back stairway as a better way down.
What Stacey should do was obvious. By promptly summoning Cardona and the
detectives, Stacey could lead them up to the room where Malmordo was, with
little chance of being heard. Then Malmordo would be really trapped, provided
he remained in that room.
There was another proviso.
Could half a dozen men or more come up the front stairs and the back
without multiplying those creaks to such a degree that Malmordo would surely
hear them? The Shadow doubted that such a mass invasion could be muffled; yet
he knew Cardona well enough to realize that the inspector would attempt it.
Cardona believed in using men when he had them and tonight he had them.
The solution was simply for The Shadow to trap Malmordo first and hold him
until the police arrived.
Licking along the hall, the flashlight picked out a closed door half way
to the back of the house. It fitted with the location of Malmordo's final
creaks and the muffled sound of a closing door; it also explained why Stacey
would have taken the back way down. The back stairs were nearer and toward them
was an open doorway from which Stacey might have watched Malmordo enter the room
which now was closed.
Silently, swiftly, The Shadow reached the closed door. He placed one hand
on the knob while his other drew an automatic. Expertly, The Shadow turned the
knob with a squeeze. He eased the door inward and saw a room with a tiny,
shaded window; a room lighted by a single candle that was burning on a table
beside an old trunk.
The trunk was opened and its tray was strewed with envelopes and papers.
More important, in front of the trunk was the crouched figure of Malmordo,
huddled as though reading something by the candlelight. There were no chairs in
the room, but its floor was covered with a frayed carpet, which came clear to
the door.
In fact, the door, in opening inward, had lifted the edge of the rug,
scruffing it just enough to show the glint of a wire that ran beneath. The
Shadow, ever alert for detail, was quick to note that item. For already, as he
lunged across the threshold, The Shadow had sensed something wrong with the
bunched figure of Malmordo.
It seemed to be swaying, that crouched form, but the reason was the waver
of the candle-light. In order to produce such an illusion, the figure had been
set between the light and the trunk, therefore Malmordo couldn't be reading
anything at all. The figure itself wasn't Malmordo, it was a dummy. The lack of
chairs in the room was an indication of the structure on which the dummy was
formed.
Malmordo had simply planted his baggy garb upon a chair. The wire, running
straight toward the trunk, was obviously connected with a booby-trap. Half into
the room, The Shadow could lose more time by turning than he would in
completing his surge. So he turned his drive into a dive, hitting the chair
shoulder first.
It was a cushioned armchair, the kind it had to be to give sufficient bulk
to the improvised dummy. Taking the chair with him, The Shadow somersaulted at
an angle past the trunk, to a corner of the room, where he landed, chair
uppermost.
And just in time.
As the chair legs kicked toward the ceiling, the trunk exploded with a
sullen blast that filled the room with a pungent white smoke which echoed with
the rattle of flying metal fragments, ricocheting from the walls!
CHAPTER XIV
VIEWED from the street, the old brick house seemed to jolt and shake
itself under the force of the blast. If the charge had been planted in the
cellar, the structure might have given way, but as it was, the building settled
back to normal, except for a flying shower of broken windows that burst from
every floor.
Curiously, the crash of the windows was like a sequel to the explosion and
another follow-up occurred a dozen seconds later. The front door came flying
open, disgorging a plunging figure that righted itself at the bottom of the
steps and arose to reveal itself as Trent Stacey.
At least Cardona recognized the man as Stacey, though the detectives
didn't know who he was. Except that they were sure the man couldn't be
Malmordo, the writhy thing that had entered the house only a short while before.
Stacey looked bewildered for the moment, then hearing the pound of
approaching feet, he knew that they must mean Cardona's squad. With an eager
wave of his arm, Stacey gestured the detectives into the house and led them in
a rush up the front stairs, with Cardona pressing to the fore.
Meanwhile, the smoke was clearing in the third floor room that Malmordo
had designed as a death-trap. From the corner came a whispered laugh, a
battered chair came flinging through the air to land where the trunk had been.
Enveloped in the remnants of the smoke, The Shadow appeared as a ghost as he
arose and surveyed the damage all about him.
The room was really wrecked. Chunks of plaster had fallen from the walls,
along with portions of the ceiling. On the floor lay a broken square of wood;
above it, a similar hole in the ceiling, indicating that the thing was a trap
door. Malmordo's papers had vanished in a puff of brilliant flame, accompanying
the blast. If The Shadow had been caught unshielded in the midst of that
explosion, he would have been hurt badly and perhaps permanently.
As it was, he remained unscratched, thanks to the protecting chair which
had taken the brunt of the blast.
And now, with footbeats pounding on the stairs, The Shadow needed the
quickest exit that would keep him in active circulation. One loomed above, the
gaping hole where the trap-door had been. Using the now unsteady chair, The
Shadow reached the hole with his hands and chinned himself through, fading like
the drifting smoke, just as Stacey arrived with Cardona and the crew of
detectives.
The devastation amazed them, so much that Cardona's men weren't surprised
to see the inspector talking things over with a total stranger, which was what
they regarded Stacey to be.
"Malmordo was here!" asserted Stacey. "I was looking at some papers in the
tray of a trunk that was right in the center of the room, when I heard him
coming up the front stairs. So I sneaked down the back way."
"You saw him come in here?" queried Cardona.
"Yes," replied Stacey, "and he closed the door. It was open when I first
came here."
"What about the papers?"
"I snatched a few that looked important." Stacey tapped his inside pocket.
"I didn't want to disturb too many, not after I heard Malmordo coming. He might
have noticed it."
"Looks like he did notice it," gruffed Cardona. He was looking along the
carpet, scorched by the blast, and now showing the line of the wire. "That's
why he rigged this room into a trap. Unless -"
Joe had glanced up. He saw the open gap above the rickety chair.
"That's where Malmordo went!" exclaimed Cardona. "Out through that trap
door! We'll go after him!"
On the theory that what goes up must come down, Cardona was too smart to
take his whole squad to the roof. He sent men to the ground floor to cover the
front door and the back, gesturing Stacey along with them. The detectives were
to spread, while Stacey was to stay across the street and watch the front door.
From there, he could signal up to the roof as needed.
This was decided amid the sweep of flashlights, for the explosion had
snuffed Malmordo's candle. It was during one of those sweeps that Cardona had
spotted the open trap-door, but now Joe was using a flashlight to bore straight
up through that space as two detectives gave him a hoist and then prepared to
follow.
Sweeping the flashlight around the flat roof, Cardona saw only blackness,
so he turned off the light and laid low while one detective boosted the other,
who promptly leaned back through the opening and helped his companion up to
join him. Then, as the three men spread, they began to slice everywhere with
their flashlights, producing prompt results.
From behind a chimney, where only blackness seemed to dwell, an automatic
opened fire.
Those shots weren't directed at Cardona and the detectives. They stabbed
toward the roof of one adjoining house, then at the other, in quick,
alternating precision. They brought wild yells and even wilder fire.
The Shadow fired those initial shots. He was aiming at crouched gunners
who were entrenched on each side of the empty house. Catching them unaware, The
Shadow had broken up an ambush that would have been ruinous to Cardona and his
men. As it was, the return fire was hasty and most of it directed at the
chimney. This gave Cardona and his two companions time to flatten and start
jabbing at the ambushed crooks.
Those gunners were ambushed no longer. They heard a fierce, strident laugh
from behind the chimney, a taunt that mocked their futile gun fire. Recognizing
that laugh as The Shadow's, the crooks turned and fled down through trap-doors
in the adjoining houses, peppered by gunfire as they went.
From their appearance and the fact they shouted in English, it was
apparent that these were hired hoodlums of the breed that had served as waiters
at the Cafe de la Morte. Since Malmordo was gone, it seemed obvious that he was
using this crew to cover up his flight instead of employing his own band of
slinky rats. This fitted with Stacey's data regarding Malmordo and the
alliances he formed with local criminals wherever he operated.
The Shadow wasted no time in going after one batch of fleeing hoodlums.
Hearing the laugh trail in that direction, Cardona recognized the fact and
motioned his men to pursue the other half of the fugitive tribe. People living
in the houses adjoining the empty were startled and cowed by what seemed human
stampedes coming down the stairways.
All was quiet on the street until suddenly two doorways gushed a divided
human tide. Three men poured from each exit; those from the house where The
Shadow had headed were staggering, the reason being that two were literally
carrying along a third. He was coughing his last, that thug, so they dropped
him on the steps.
Across the street, Trent Stacey dropped away from the light and into
shelter just as a rakish car came roaring from the corner. Five hoodlums should
have hopped on its running board, but only four did. The fifth man had a wounded
arm that dangled so that its hand couldn't grab, so he dived for shelter in the
darkness in front of Malmordo's house.
In the wake of the rakish car came a speeding cab and as it passed the
doorway just beyond Malmordo's, a cloaked figure whirled down the steps,
cleared the dead thug lying there, and sprang into the cab as it briefly
slackened speed. All with one twist, The Shadow opened the cab door and closed
it with himself inside; then was off to the chase.
There was an interval between; in fact, the car had turned the corner
before the cab arrived. During that interval, Stacey emptied his revolver after
the fleeing car, but its speed carried it beyond range. By then, Cardona and his
two detectives were piling from the other house; from both corners came other
headquarters men who had spread themselves too far.
Stacey shouted to them that one of the thugs was still at large; then,
looking up, he waved his arms in a mad warning. The detectives looked up to the
roof of the empty house, as Stacey sprang into the shelter of its doorway.
The shout that Stacey gave was this:
"Look out! Malmordo is still up there!"
Cardona bellowed for his detectives to dive to cover instead of standing
flat-footed in the middle of the street. They did and thereby cleared the way
for the crippled thug to make a rush for it. The fellow popped from the
darkness of an area way in front of the empty house, but that lunge was his
last. Hardly across the sidewalk, he sprawled as something overtook him and
planted itself between his shoulders.
The thing was a long-bladed throwing knife that had whizzed down from the
dark. Its glinting handle told what it was and instantly Stacey leaped down the
high steps from the doorway of the empty house and turned to aim his replenished
revolver straight upward.
Stacey's stream of bullets did nothing more than nick the cornice along
the roof-front and the same applied to the leaden deluge that spurted from the
guns of Cardona's squad as they sprang out to copy Stacey's example. Cardona
bawled for some of them to race up through the empty house again and find
Malmordo on the roof, but Joe didn't go along; he knew it would be useless.
With dozens of adjoining houses to choose from, in this block and the
next, Malmordo would be sure to reach the ground. The only thing was to spread
out through the neighborhood and try to spot him, but knowing the elusive
qualities of the Master Rat, Cardona doubted that he could be snared.
More imperative at the moment was the questioning of the dying thug who
had received the blade of Malmordo's uncannily thrown knife. With Stacey,
Cardona stooped above the man and recognized him as a free-lance thug named
Kirky Schleer. Seeing that Kirky was nearly gone, Cardona lost no time in
trying to make Kirky talk.
"Hello, Kirky," put Cardona. "We know you were working for Malmordo. He
double-crossed you when he saw you couldn't get away. We'll square it for you
if you tell us all you know about Malmordo."
"Malmordo." Kirky repeated the name parrot-style, with a spread of ugly,
leathery lips, "Double-cross. You want to know about Malmordo. I'll tell you -"
That sentence ended with a grimace, Kirky's last. Kirky Schleer sagged
back and the facts that were on his lips died with him in an unintelligible
groan.
CHAPTER XV
SHREVVY'S cab pulled over to let a patrol car shriek by with its siren
going full blast. There was no use in going further. The carload of crooks had
made its getaway, despite Shrevvy's efforts to overtake it.
Inspector Cardona had calculated too well. In hope of trapping Malmordo,
he had brought in police from everywhere. With its head start, the rakish car
that had made away with a load of gunzels had found the clear, while The
Shadow's cab in hot pursuit had been snarled by the incoming traffic.
If Shrevvy expected criticism, he didn't get it. Instead, a low, whispered
laugh sounded from the darkened back seat of the cab. Low spoken orders; then
the slight slam of a door. The Shadow had left, after telling Shrevvy to report
in order to be available later, if needed.
This was over on the East Side, well-remote from the house where Malmordo
had stirred up so much chaos. In a slight way, however, Malmordo had done The
Shadow a favor, or rather the fugitive car had. The Shadow was in a vicinity
where certain information awaited him, information which the pressure of other
business had prevented him from gaining earlier.
On foot, The Shadow covered several blocks in rapid, phantom style. He
reached an obscure doorway in a row of silent houses and paused there. From his
lips, came an unexpected sound, a chirp much like a bird's.
The signal was answered.
From a darkened window beside the door came an answering chirp, a genuine
one. Then, barely discernible in the darkness, a green love bird fluttered from
a slightly opened window and placed a fortune card in The Shadow's hand. The
bird flew away and The Shadow focused his concentrated flashlight upon the card.
Instead of a name, this card bore a drawing. It was simple and
hand-colored in crayon. The sketch showed a tiny yellow lantern.
The Shadow's whispered laugh was whimsical. He had come a long way to
learn where he could have gone immediately after leaving Malmordo's house. The
Yellow Lantern was the name of a small, obscure cafe over on the West Side. It
had taken a trip to the East Side to acquire the necessary facts.
So The Shadow set out upon what was a trail in reverse, confident that the
gypsies had learned something about the Yellow Lantern which would develop when
he arrived there.
Something was already developing at the Yellow Lantern.
The little restaurant was quiet and not too crowded. Nobody seemed to
notice the girl who had slipped in from the side street. She was wearing dark
clothes again tonight, but just for luck - good or bad - she was wearing a
yellow daffodil.
The girl was Janice Bradford.
Quiet though the place was, Janice felt nervous.
From her purse, the girl had taken a folded slip of paper, half of a
larger sheet. She kept reading the brief message that was written on it. The
message said:
"The Yellow Lantern, Wednesday evening, eight o'clock."
A yellow lantern - a yellow flower.
The connection was enough to bring Janice here. She felt no danger, rather
a sense of assurance. However this message might relate to Malmordo, it had been
given to her by someone who had helped her, the gray man with the blunt square
features whom she had encountered after her flight from the Cafe de la Morte.
That was why Janice kept looking up from her table, hoping that the gray
man would arrive. Suddenly her hopes were realized. Strolling in from the front
door came the very man she wanted to meet again.
The man was Trent Stacey.
In his bland fashion, Stacey came over to Janice's table and sat down.
From his pocket he produced a batch of papers and glanced through them. Then,
looking at Janice, Stacey smiled slightly and said:
"These belong to the police, but I won't have to deliver them until later.
Meanwhile, suppose we introduce ourselves. My name is Trent Stacey. And yours?"
"Janice Bradford."
Stacey's gray eyes fixed steadily.
"You are Andrew Bradford's daughter?"
The girl nodded.
Putting away the papers that he had brought from Malmordo's, Stacey
produced the compact credentials that he carried in his lapel and presented
them to Janice. The girl's eyes widened when she saw their reference to
Scotland Yard.
"We nearly trapped Malmordo tonight," stated Stacey. "The police are
searching for him now. I couldn't help, so I excused myself, because I
remembered my appointment with you. I should like to hear your story."
"Very well," Janice decided. "My father had a partner named Lucien
Thorneau, who handled business here while my father and I were in Mexico."
"I know," nodded Stacey. "An oil business."
"Correct," said Janice. "Then Thorneau died and we came to New York.
Everything was wonderful until a man named Malmordo sent word to father that he
wanted a mere quarter of a million dollars to hush up a slight scandal that
involved the business."
"And your father told you about it?"
"No. I found out for myself. I saw the letters that came and I overheard
some phone calls. It seems that Thorneau faked a deal with some Nazi agents and
wrote off a half a million dollars profit as loss."
"Your father knew about it?"
"Of course not!" Janice's tone was indignant. "Now Malmordo is trying to
collect half of that money. He said he would suggest a way that would be
mutually satisfactory."
"What way was that?"
"I don't know. Father was to meet Malmordo at the Cafe de la Morte,
wearing a yellow flower to identify himself. He decided not to go, so I went
there instead."
"Were others to do the same?"
"I think so. But since father, an innocent man, refused to go there, it's
not surprising that guilty parties wouldn't. I was just foolish enough to want
to see what would happen. I waited three nights for Malmordo to arrive and when
he did come, he murdered Gregor."
Stacey gave a slow, understanding nod.
"Gregor was the reason," he decided. "Malmordo must have known he was on
the watch for him. That was why Malmordo wouldn't talk to you. Has your father
heard anything since?"
"Not yet."
For a while, Stacey pondered. As he did, he brought a half-sheet of paper
from his pocket and matched it with the torn note he had given Janice.
"Just my way of positive identification," explained Stacey. Then he added,
emphatically: "I think, Miss Bradford, that you should await further word from
Malmordo."
"But I can't!" Janice objected. "You see, father, has been moving from
hotel to hotel, so there is no way of tracing us. I'm not afraid of Malmordo."
The girl set her chin defiantly. "In fact, I want to meet him. If you know
where he is, tell me!"
Stacey pointed from the window. Across the street, Janice saw the looming
bulk of an old warehouse that bore a huge black star painted on its wall.
"That's where he was," expressed Stacey. "In the Black Star Warehouse,
living with the rats he called his followers. That's why I wanted you to come
here."
"So I could meet Malmordo!"
"Quite the contrary," declared Stacey, coolly. "I knew that Malmordo would
be avoiding this neighborhood. By present calculations, his human rats are now
infesting the building owned by the La Plata Grain Storage Company, four blocks
north of here. I intend to report that to the police tonight."
Still wearing that determined expression, Janice opened her lips, then
closed them. What she was about to say, she didn't say, but it would have been
another defiance of Malmordo. Perhaps Stacey realized it, because his tone was
serious when he said:
"Believe me, Miss Bradford, you must avoid Malmordo. Whatever I can do to
help your cause, I shall. If you will tell me where I can reach you -"
"At the Azalea Plaza," interposed Janice. "Any time you care to call
there, Mr. Stacey. Father is registered under the name of Howard Gantry."
Stacey arose with a bow.
"It would be better if we left separately," he decided. "If the coast is
clear, as I am sure it will be, there will be no reason for me to return. Allow
about five minutes and if I do not come back, you can go" - he paused and gave
Janice a steady look - "directly home to the Azalea Plaza."
Janice nodded that she understood. She watched Stacey leave and waited the
full five minutes in accordance with his instructions. But from then on, Janice
decided to act upon her own. Instead of leaving by the front door, as Stacey
had, she went out the side way. Then, instead of hailing a cab, Janice turned
directly north for a four block walk.
Despite Stacey's advice, Janice was determined to meet Malmordo, the
arch-fiend who would at least recognize the token of the yellow flower.
Or would he?
Debating it, Janice could see no reason why he wouldn't. Yet as she walked
bravely northward, Janice felt worried. Looking back to see if anyone were
following her, the girl saw only blackness.
There were wavers in that blackness as though some phantom figure had
picked up the trail that Janice Bradford hoped would bring her to Malmordo.
Such wavers could not be real. In forced fashion, Janice laughed them off
as she trudged onward.
CHAPTER XVI
FINDING a way into the La Plata Storage Building was a problem in itself.
The place appeared to have only one door, big enough to drive the biggest truck
through, and blocked by a steel barrier that would have stopped a Sherman tank.
Going around the building, Janice looked in vain for other entrances and
in her hunt, she was annoyed when her high heels caught in a steel grating that
looked like the opening of a culvert. Stumbling onward, Janice decided to be
more careful, so she looked back at the grating to check it in case she
encountered another like it.
That was when footsteps shuffled up beside her. Turning, much startled,
Janice found herself confronted by a pair of leering faces that looked yellow
and apish in the dim light. Instantly, she knew that these two men must belong
to Malmordo.
They proved it by the deft quick way they laid their slimy hands upon
Janice's arms. So tight was the grip that the girl was afraid to resist. She
felt that if she did, those hands would go to her neck and strangle her on the
instant.
Now, swiftly, these fiends were sweeping Janice back to the broad grating.
They lifted it, slid her through, and the bars dropped with a clang, against the
sidewalk above. Bent forward by the gripping arms, Janice was rushed through a
low, pitch-black tunnel, where she heard things scurrying ahead.
Those things were rats and big ones.
Janice saw the rats when she emerged into the dim light of a lower cellar
that they reached by a downward slope. But the rats - and there were dozens of
them - were not the worst sight that Janice faced. In fact, the rats were
scurrying for cover, as though they dreaded something.
That something could well have been Malmordo.
He was standing there beyond the brink of a slimy pool that ebbed in a
corner of the slanted cellar. The pool was composed of stagnant water that had
accumulated as the result of a stopped drain and it looked deep and sullen.
So deep that Janice shuddered. Somehow, she felt as though that Stygian
pool had been gathered to receive her. For at sight of Malmordo, Janice found
herself wishing that she had never wanted to meet him.
The other night, Janice had no more than glimpsed Malmordo's face. He had
been in action and murderous, but he had seemed more like a fighter finishing a
feud than something belonging to an actual realm of fiends. Now, snakish, his
body practically coiled, his face as twisted as his contorted frame, Malmordo
was his most terrible self.
The words that Malmordo mouthed were unintelligible to Janice, but the
fiend's followers understood them. Dragging Janice along, they brought her past
the far end of the pool, to a ledge that ran along its brink. As they passed
Malmordo, he whipped a knife from a frayed jacket that he wore and Janice, her
gasp stifling the scream she wanted to give, found herself staring at the
deadly blade, raised to the level of the ugly fangs that were Malmordo's bared
teeth.
All this was by wavery light, the glow from ship's lanterns hanging along
the low ceiling. The recoil that Janice gave brought a happy snarl from
Malmordo and it was echoed by similar glee from other ratty throats. For now,
as Janice's two captors pressed her against the wall at the ledge, the girl
could see a dozen or more of Malmordo's ugly clan, peering from niches and
other openings in the cellar wall.
Small wonder the rats had scurried away, when this fiendish assemblage was
about to hold court! This was no feeding time for the pets kept by Malmordo's
followers. Malmordo, champion of injustice, was about to deliver some evil
verdict.
It dawned on Janice then what Malmordo intended. The two men were starting
Janice along the ledge, dragging her between them in what could best be
described as a sideward single file. From further along came a sucking sound
and as Janice turned her head, mostly so she wouldn't have to look at Malmordo,
she saw where the sound came from.
There was a gap in the ledge, crossed by a plank, which was at the mouth
of a small, low archway, no more than waist high. The sound came from that
arch; it was an outlet that sucked the overflow from the stagnant pool which
was being gradually replenished by water seeping from the walls about.
And it was down through that black, forbidding arch that Malmordo's two
followers intended to thrust Janice!
"Ni mortigos la malliberulo senpere!" announced Malmordo. "Morgau la
laboro estos finita!"
Those final words echoed: "La laboro estos finita" as if uttered by the
leering lips that showed from every crevice. Yet it was not Malmordo's men who
added that shout. The echoes were from Malmordo's voice alone.
The very tone made Janice shudder. If she could have translated that
statement, she would have realized that it was her epitaph. What Malmordo had
announced was this:
"We shall kill the prisoner immediately! Tomorrow the work will be
finished!"
The pair who were working Janice along the ledge understood what Malmordo
meant. The man on her left was already on the plank that bridged the open arch,
hauling at Janice to bring her along, while the man on her right was pushing
from his side. A few feet more and Janice would be on the plank alone, ready
for a tilt that would carry her back and down into that flowing depth that
emptied into some pit from which there would be no return.
And then, as if picking up the echoes of Malmordo's pronouncement came a
shivery laugh that rose to a sharp crescendo which ended in these words:
"Mi estas malgusta, Malmordo! La laboro komincegas nuntempe!
That pronouncement was The Shadow's. He was saying, "You are wrong
Malmordo! The work is beginning at this moment!" Those words, understood by
Malmordo's followers, produced a consternation that proved his statement.
Whatever Malmordo's idea of work, The Shadow's was rapid action. Instinctively,
Malmordo's men swung into it thereby playing into The Shadow's hands, since they
were complying with his wish.
Guns spurted everywhere - at echoes.
The Shadow's tone, caught up by the walls, was quite as elusive as
Malmordo's. The shots that were fired at him never found him, but they formed a
camouflage for his own. For among the numerous gun-bursts, there was no way of
identifying which The Shadow supplied. Malmordo's men began to reel among their
niches, but which shots produced that result, nobody knew.
Not even Malmordo.
At least the Master Rat realized the futility of combating The Shadow.
"Zorge!" came Malmordo's shout. "Venu! Rapidu!"
He was telling his followers to look out, to come along, and to hurry.
Like the rats they were, they dived among the crannies. They fired parting
shots at the only targets they could see, the lanterns, hoping to black out The
Shadow's marksmanship with them.
Only two remained, deserted by their fellow rats. They were the pair who
held Janice captive. One lantern had been missed in the general barrage; it was
the lantern hanging near the planked ledge. Its glow showed one man hauling, the
other shoving, in a last effort to get Janice on the plank; to hold her fate in
their own hands as a threat to The Shadow, or at least a compromise.
But already, blackness was gliding into that lamplight, along the ledge
itself, like an encroaching mass of doom; not for Janice but her captors. And
with it came The Shadow's sinister tone telling Malmordo's stranded malefactors
that they were too late:
"Tro malfrue!"
The man on the near side of the plank let go of Janice, whipped out a
knife and flung it into blackness, shrieking: "Prenu la ponardo, Ombrajo!" but
The Shadow did not take the knife as the hurler hoped. The blade flicked into
blackness only and from below its line of flight came well-placed gun stabs
that toppled the chunk of human scum into the shallow slime of the unsightly
pool that flanked the ledge.
Next, The Shadow was gripping Janice's arm as he sidestepped as far as he
could to aim at the man still on the plank. But before The Shadow could fire
what would have been a certain shot, Janice's other captor released his hold.
The plank swayed and heaved as Janice left it, hauled to safety by The
Shadow. The girl heard a wild, incoherent shriek behind her and turning, she
saw her late captor writhing in a strange fantastic twist that carried him away
from sight, down through the arched opening. With him went the plank, crackling
as it disappeared, as though some superhuman force had carried it along with
its occupant.
The walls quivered with solemn echoes. This time, The Shadow's laugh was
like a knell, in appreciation of justice singularly delivered. Whatever it was
that produced that sudden climax, snatching a foe from the very muzzle of his
gun, The Shadow seemed to know its source.
But now The Shadow was rushing Janice up through the grating, where on the
sidewalk, he paused long enough to deliver bullets, turret-style, at scattering
creatures who represented some of Malmordo's human rats, fleeing their
underground lair. Next, police cars, with whining sirens and slicing
searchlights, were roaring into the scene, but by then, The Shadow had rushed
Janice well away.
There was a cab around the corner and The Shadow pointed Janice to it.
Stumbling ahead, the girl was sure that her cloaked friend was in the
background, ready to aid her in case of last minute complications. She thought
she was meeting such when a man sprang suddenly from the curb and gripped her
arm. Then she recognized his voice:
"Miss Bradford! Why did you come here?"
It was Trent Stacey, chiding Janice on the fact that she had come to this
vicinity against his advice. In her turn, Janice was stammering that she was
all right, that she was sorry, that all she wanted was to get away. They were
at the cab door; the driver was opening it, and Stacey saw that the cab was
empty. He helped Janice inside and closed the door.
Then to the driver, Stacey said:
"Take this young lady wherever she wants to go - and forget where you took
her."
To remind the driver to forget, Stacey handed him a five dollar bill and
the cab wheeled swiftly away. Turning, Stacey went to look for Inspector
Cardona, who by now had probably reached this area.
If Trent Stacey thought that he was really Janice's rescuer, he was wrong.
He was mistaken, too, if he thought that the cabby would purposely forget the
address the girl gave him. For the cab driver happened to be Shrevvy, The
Shadow's stand-by.
Back by the corner a whispered laugh denoted The Shadow's satisfaction as
Janice's real rescuer faded into the thickness of night.
CHAPTER XVII
"Kion vi demandis?"
"Nenio."
"Pri kio estas?
"Me tute ne scias."
"Kion vi volas?"
"Parolu pli laute."
The little man who had been asking the questions gave a nod and mopped his
forehead with a handkerchief. Commissioner Weston, who had given the answers,
leaned back in his chair and beamed across the desk.
As a chance visitor, Lamont Cranston looked puzzled. The Commissioner gave
a gesture to the little man.
"This is my Esperanto teacher," defined Weston. "He has been giving me
questions and I have answered them."
As proof, Weston handed Cranston a list of questions and answers. The
first three, which were checked, ran thus:
What did you ask?
Nothing.
What is it about?
I haven't an idea.
What do you want?
Speak louder.
"A few more lessons," decided Weston, "and I can question any of
Malmordo's men we capture. In fact, we nearly captured some last night."
Cranston's expression remained unchanged, so Weston decided he was
interested.
"They had a quarrel among themselves," explained Weston, "in the cellar of
a warehouse where they made their headquarters. One of them was killed."
"Too bad you didn't have a chance to quiz him," remarked Cranston. "Where
did the rest go?"
"To some other warehouse," returned Weston. Then, glumly, he added: "We
don't know which. We shall have to wait until we learn where the rats are the
thickest."
Cranston gave a nod as though he understood and Weston in turn was quite
surprised. Then Weston demanded:
"How would you know, Cranston?"
"The same as you would, Commissioner" Cranston replied. "From our mutual
friend Mr. Stacey."
"You mean you know Trent Stacey?"
"Of course I know Trent," returned Cranston, picking up the first name
instantly. "I met him in Europe."
The Shadow was playing a good hunch that Stacey had recently come from
Europe in order to know so much about Malmordo. Weston, nodded, then said
dubiously:
"Odd that Stacey didn't tell me you were a friend of his."
"Not odd at all," declared Cranston. "He doesn't know you are a friend of
mine. He wrote me he was coming here on business and would look me up later. I
assume he is still busy."
"He is," said Weston. "How long ago did he write you?"
Cranston pondered, as though trying to recall the exact time. Weston put a
prompting question:
"Was it after he came back to Canada?"
"It was" replied Cranston. "Not more than a week or two ago."
The Esperanto teacher having left before this conversation started,
Commissioner Weston decided he could speak quite freely. And since Cranston, in
whom Weston usually confided important matters, knew so much about Stacey
already, it wasn't long before the commissioner detailed the remaining facts.
All those details interested Cranston. Stacey's Canadian background, the
fact that he had gone to school there, the way he had acquired other languages,
gone out to see the world, and finally become invaluable to Scotland Yard in the
widespread search for Malmordo - all marked Stacey as the one important key to
quick results.
Which in turn meant that the sooner Cranston contacted Stacey, the better.
Indeed, Cranston expressed that point in a calm, casual way, when he spoke:
"Morgaula laboro estos finita."
"What's that, Cranston?" Weston looked up to see his friend glancing at
some of the language sheets. "Did I hear you saying something in Esperanto?
"I was trying to pronounce the words in this lesson." Cranston laid one of
the sheets aside. He stared at some papers Weston had taken from the desk
drawer. "But what do you have there, Commissioner?"
"Some odd papers Stacey picked in Malmordo's place," Weston declared.
"They give something of an insight to Malmordo's ways, but not enough. Here is
evidence that Malmordo was recently in Algeria, under the name of Pierre
Dubroc. More references to certain notorious New York criminals, at present in
Sing Sing Prison. Apparently Malmordo wanted them to operate with him here, so
I have sent some detectives to Ossining to question them.
"This European police report" - Weston tossed another paper across the
desk - "proves that some of the gypsies there were leagued with Malmordo. The
same may be true here" - Weston gave a frown - "because that local leader of
theirs, King Dakar, has been dodging me consistently."
Gathering the incomplete papers, Weston thrust them back in the drawer and
brought out a large-scale street map. While he was doing this, the phone bell
rang; Weston lifted the receiver, found that the call was for Cranston, so
passed him the receiver and continued to open the map.
Cranston's call was brief. He spoke in monosyllables, then finished the
call abruptly. By then, the map was spread and Cranston was watching Weston
point out certain buildings, each marked with an X.
"We have checked this map with Stacey," stated the commissioner. "All
these are warehouses where Malmordo's band may be hiding, but there are too
many of them."
"Of which, Commissioner? Warehouses or rats?"
"Of both," affirmed Weston. "Now we have learned this: there are
underground connections between some of the warehouses. Stacey suggested that
fact, through having observed the way Malmordo's men appeared in various
unexpected places. We made a brief check to prove the fact, but it would have
been suicide to send men probing further or deeper."
Remembering the arched pit that had swallowed one of Malmordo's men as
substitute for Janice, Cranston could have certified the commissioner's
statement, but didn't. Instead he broached a theory of his own.
"There could be other passages," suggested Cranston, "leading to the
river. They would account for the fact that stowaways disappeared so remarkably
along the waterfront."
Cranston was harking back to that first night when, as The Shadow, he had
witnessed the disappearance of stowaways plopping overboard from the Santander.
However, Weston, though he approved Cranston's theory with a nod, also found
reason to smile.
"Stacey has already analyzed that situation," declared the commissioner.
"But he added a point to prove it."
"I can do the same," declared Cranston. "There must be connections between
the river and the warehouses because of the rats. They wouldn't have traveled
above ground as Malmordo's men might."
"You've struck it exactly!" exclaimed the commissioner. "Stacey's proof to
the dot. But you see what would happen, don't you, if we invaded the warehouses
wholesale, to capture Malmordo's human rats?"
"They would take the quickest route out to the river."
"Precisely. But where would that outlet be?" Weston shrugged hopelessly.
"We would need all the available men to stage the warehouse raids, but that
leaves too few to watch the piers. Nor do we have enough police boats to do
more than patrol the water front. However, we are ready, because if we drive
those human rats from the warehouses, we will have accomplished half the job
and can then concentrate on the rest."
Cranston let the discussion end there, since he had an appointment
elsewhere. But as he left the commissioner's office, Cranston did something
rather rare for him. He smiled.
Doing things by halves did not satisfy Cranston, either as himself or The
Shadow. He could foresee that if Malmordo's men were driven from some warehouse
out to the river, only to be allowed to scatter, they would assemble again and
reoccupy a warehouse as soon as the police had left it.
However, there could be a way of finding the right warehouse and, after
that, the outlet which belonged to it. But first, the person to find was
Malmordo. Cranston had hinted that to Weston by saying "Morgau la laboro estos
finita" which Weston, if he'd progressed enough in Esperanto, would have
interpreted as "Tomorrow the work will be finished."
Malmordo's words, and today was the tomorrow that Malmordo had meant!
Yet there was still time for Lamont Cranston to act as The Shadow. Like
Trent Stacey, The Shadow had a single lead that could prove vital. That lead
was Janice Bradford.
Like Stacey, Cranston was following the lead. The call that Cranston had
received in Weston's office was from Burbank, his contact man. Hawkeye had just
reported seeing a man who looked like Stacey entering the Azalea Plaza, the
hotel where Janice and her father, Andrew Bradford, were living incognito.
Hawkeye had been watching the Azalea Plaza ever since Shrevvy took Janice there
last night.
Whatever Trent Stacey learned from Andrew Bradford, The Shadow intended to
be on hand to learn it too!
CHAPTER XVIII
IT was only afternoon, but the day was rainy and the low clouds made it as
gloomy as dusk.
And such gloom made Janice shudder, even though she was safe in a hotel
suite, in the company of her father, Andrew Bradford, and her good friend,
Stacey Trent.
Andrew Bradford was a man of elderly appearance but Janice could testify
that his age had begun to show only recently. Even his broad, rugged features
were sagging through worry and his eyes, usually keen, had become hunted when
not listless.
It had taken Janice half an hour to convince her father that he should
meet Trent Stacey. Once Bradford had agreed and had seen Stacey face to face,
the result was like a tonic. They had come right to business, these two, and
Stacey's blunt insistence on settling the Malmordo question once for all, had
given Bradford the real lift he needed.
"The situation is plain," declared Stacey. "Obviously, Mr. Bradford, you
are not to blame because your business partner, Lucien Thorneau, wrote off half
a million dollars to business losses on account of South American shipments
which were purchased but never delivered."
"Those shipments were to come from Nazi firms," declared Bradford,
seriously. "Thorneau gave the orders just before the firms were blacklisted."
"Which left the whole case legal -"
"Except that Thorneau knew the inside facts," inserted Bradford. "The
shipments were never even planned. Thorneau paid a quarter million to a Nazi
agent who represented those firms and received a receipt for a half million.
Each profited equally. Thorneau thought the deal ended there."
"You found evidence of this among Thorneau's papers?"
"Not enough to matter. Here is the real evidence." Bradford brought some
sheets of photostats from his pocket. "Exact copies of papers that the Nazis
kept. The originals are in the hands of Malmordo; he sent me these to prove it."
Stacey nodded.
"Quite simple," Stacey decided. "Now Malmordo wants the other quarter
million for the originals."
This time it was Bradford who nodded and Janice gave another shiver, but
not from repressed fright or harrowing recollections. It happened that Janice
was seated by the door to a connecting room and she felt a draft from an open
window.
This was odd in itself, because she was sure the window was closed.
Getting up from her chair, Janice went into the other room to see and found
that the window really was closed. What she didn't observe was the blackness
that glided away from that window just before she arrived. In the dusk of the
room, the blackness followed unnoticed around the wall and stationed itself
behind the open door through which Janice had come.
There the blackness stayed while Janice went back to join Stacey and her
father; living, shrouded blackness that Janice would have welcomed had she seen
it. For the arrival was her cloaked rescuer of the night before, The Shadow.
"My dilemma is this," Bradford was telling Stacey. "Malmordo wants to pin
Thorneau's guilt on me. Given time, I can assemble facts that will uphold my
innocence. Then I can turn all the data over to the government and let them
decide the case."
"At a cost of a quarter million dollars," put in Janice, as she resumed
her chair. "They will probably demand its repayment."
"The government may demand a half a million," declared Bradford, "but
Thorneau's estate will be forced to pay it, once I can prove that the claim
belongs to his account, not mine. I believe, however, that Malmordo's original
documents, which include some that he did not copy, will clear me completely.
But I can not gain them without paying Malmordo for them."
From his listening post, The Shadow could well appreciate the dilemma
which confronted Bradford. It was up to Stacey to provide a solution and Stacey
set to work.
"About the yellow flower," said Stacey. "Malmordo wanted you to wear one
to identify yourself."
"Yes," replied Bradford. "I was to come to the Cafe de la Morte and bring
the money with me in cash or securities."
Janice gasped at that and Stacey heard her.
"That must have been your mistake," Stacey told the girl. "Malmordo picked
you as a substitute or a decoy. He was sure you wouldn't have the money."
"But why," asked Janice, "did he kill Gregor instead of me?"
"Because Gregor was watching for him. Maybe Malmordo was tipped off by
Madame Thalla. He uses gypsies, Malmordo does, and Gregor was no gypsy."
Stacey's analysis was good, a good one hundred percent wrong, since it was
based on the mistaken notion that the gypsies were leagued with Malmordo. The
Shadow made a mental note of that and waited to check Stacey's further theories.
"Since you did not contact Malmordo," Stacey told Bradford, "it is obvious
that he needed some stronger threat against you. When Janice acted against my
advice and fell into his hands last night, Malmordo must have decided that by
holding her a prisoner, he could make you come to terms."
"Janice is always acting against people's advice," declared Bradford.
"That is why I didn't want her mixed in this situation at all. You see,
Janice?" Bradford turned to the girl. "Where would I be now, if you were
Malmordo's prisoner?"
"You mean where would I be!" exclaimed Janice. She swung to Stacey.
"You're wrong about Malmordo wanting to hold me as a hostage. His men were
trying to kill me!"
"Dead or alive," stated Stacey, coolly, "you would still have been a
hostage, or a garantiulo in Malmordo's language. Did you hear him use any word
like that?"
"No. He called me a malliberulo or something of the sort."
"That means a prisoner. But whether he intended to keep you as such or
kill you, he would have told your father that you were still alive and
redeemable at a cost of a quarter million dollars. Since you managed to escape,
you can be sure that Malmordo will attempt some new move."
Stacey's statement brought a worried look from Bradford who inquired:
"How soon?"
"Very soon," replied Stacey in a positive tone. "The police are pressing
Malmordo hard and from the way his scurrying rats were shouting 'Ombrajo' they
were unquestionably having trouble from an enemy called The Shadow."
"I'll say they were!" expressed Janice. "So that's what Ombrajo meant!"
"And in your case, Mr. Bradford," continued Stacey, "Malmordo must know
that any delay is in your favor, which is not true where the others are
concerned."
Bradford's expression went surprised.
"What others?"
In reply, Stacey reached to the right lapel of his coat and zipped it
open, to produce some thin papers from a hidden pocket, much as he had once
brought his own credentials from the other lapel. Going through the papers,
Stacey queried:
"Did you ever hear of Jerome Ghent?"
"The rubber wholesaler!" exclaimed Bradford. "Why, Ghent had a regular
black market in that commodity. We even heard about his operations in Mexico,
but nobody could prove anything against him."
"Malmordo could," declared Stacey, "at least where dealings with Nazi
agents were concerned. Next" - Stacey thumbed to another paper - "we have
Clinton Waybrook."
"An exporter." Bradford nodded slowly. "With a reputation beyond reproach.
That is why he could have covered any Nazi dealings, but it is not for me to
judge. Waybrook may be as innocent as I am."
"I don't think so," declared Stacey. He came to the third paper. "Felix
Kelfert, the jeweler is most certainly involved. We have already traced false
sales of diamonds that were shipped from Amsterdam and they lead to Kelfert
through Nazi channels."
"Who has traced all this?" inquired Bradford.
"Scotland Yard," explained Stacey. "You see, there were British
black-lists of firms with Nazi inclinations, differing from the American. This
is confidential data, not final evidence. Unless certain facts are admitted by
the persons involved, I have no right to make such cases an international
matter."
"But why should guilty men admit anything?"
"Because by now they must fear Malmordo. The fact that they were afraid to
contact him is proof. They are even afraid to contact each other, but if one man
were bold enough to suggest it, I believe the others would agree."
Even before Stacey finished, Janice caught the logical conclusion. She
turned to Bradford and exclaimed:
"You, father!"
Half-bewildered, Bradford stared at his daughter, then turned to Stacey,
who nodded.
"She is right," Stacey declared. "Your position is enviable, Mr. Bradford.
Since you are innocent, you would be inclined to regard others as the same. If
you called any of these men, told them your predicament and said that you had
heard them mentioned in the same connection, they would be only too glad to
come here for a conference."
Rising, Bradford became his old strong self, as he announced with ringing
emphasis:
"I shall call all of them!"
Call them Bradford did and with the result that Stacey had predicted. The
very mention of the dread name Malmordo was enough to make men like Ghent,
Waybrook and Kelfert listen. Bradford, a man of strict integrity, whose very
tone expressed his indignation, was the perfect man for such a mission. Through
his whole discourse ran a challenge that he wanted others to accept and in one
brief speech he expressed it thus:
"Together we shall find a way to end the menace of Malmordo, once and for
all!"
Grandly though Bradford handled it, the effect was a strain. Finished with
the phone calls he sank back in his chair, turned to Stacey and said wearily:
"They will all be here at nine o'clock. But what shall we do then?"
For answer, Stacey picked up the telephone and made a call of his own. The
call was to Inspector Cardona.
"Hello, Inspector," said Stacey. "Yes... This is Stacey... I've arranged
for another try tonight... Yes, we'll need a squad and a cordon... No, not too
tight... We can go over the details together and profit by previous mistakes.
"I can tell you the location now, so you can check the neighborhood...
It's a hotel, the Azalea Plaza... No, not Aurelia. It's Azalea...
A-Z-A-L-E-A... Not C... Z as in Zenith... P-L-A-Z-A... That's right... Azalea
Plaza..."
The phone call finished, Stacey turned to find both Bradford and his
daughter facing him in amazement and Janice, for one was quite pale.
"Do you mean" - Bradford's voice came with a falter - "do you mean you
expect Malmordo here tonight?"
"I do," returned Stacey, in a positive tone. "He had local criminals
covering for him last night, but the police lost track of them. You can be sure
that Malmordo is using some of those crooks to keep tabs on Ghent and other men
whose names the police don't even know."
"Then when Ghent and the rest come here -"
"Malmordo will show up, expecting it to be the pay-off; and it will be,
but not in the way Malmordo expects. Don't worry" - Stacey was putting on his
hat and opening the door - "I'll be here before nine o'clock."
As the door closed behind Trent Stacey, Janice Bradford thought she felt a
draft of air from the hallway. She was wrong; it came from the window in the
other room. That window had opened and closed again, to let a cloaked figure
slide out and find a rubber-soled footing on the rain-drenched cornice.
Obscured by the settling dusk, The Shadow delivered a whispered laugh that
was anything but a parting token. It meant as much as Stacey's stated words,
that mirth.
The Shadow, too, would be here by nine o'clock, prepared to deal with
Malmordo!
CHAPTER XIX
IT was really pouring rain when nine o'clock approached. From the doorway
where Inspector Cardona had posted them, the detectives could scarcely see the
dim lights that represented the windows of the sizeable Azalea Plaza. It was a
bad night for the police, which made it a good night for Malmordo. Perhaps
Stacey had taken that into consequence when predicting that Malmordo would
appear.
Cardona had compromised by moving the cordon in a trifle closer, but it
still wasn't close enough. Joe could see better hiding spots nearer to the
hotel, but decided not to use them. They were the sorts of places that might be
noticed by any one entering the hotel. Remembering how well Malmordo had taken
the bait the night before and realizing how capably Stacey had functioned as
the inside man, Cardona was resolved to play the game as Stacey wanted it.
Cars were stopping in front of the hotel and some had the lights of
taxicabs. Which was bringing whom, Cardona didn't know, except that Stacey was
among the visitors. If Joe had let his men move to closer posts, they might
have identified some of the arrivals, but it didn't seem important.
Perhaps it was more important than Cardona supposed. At any rate, watchers
were at those posts, having reached them easily in the rain, by keeping clear of
the hotel lights. Those watchers were the crooks who had fled from Malmordo's
roof the night before, hoodlums like Kirky Schleer and the other thug who had
been left dead on the battleground in front of Malmordo's house.
Again, those hoods were here to cover, without the knowledge of the police!
Tonight, however, there were others.
Figures were snaking into the Azalea Plaza right through the outer cordon
of detectives and the inner circle of crooks. Figures that emerged from
culverts and man-holes, wriggled to the gutters and gave the effect of swimmers
as they moved through the torrents that flowed there. That was, they would have
looked like swimmers, if anyone had seen them, but no one did.
They were Malmordo's own breed of human water-rats. They'd left the
warehouses that the police were watching, to infest this fancy hotel. Arrived
beside the Azalea Plaza, they wiggled in by side passages and delivery
entrances, found cellar windows to their liking and plopped into the preserves
of the hotel itself.
Whether he noticed any of these snaky figures when he stepped from
Shrevvy's cab, Lamont Cranston gave no sign. At least he had provided for
future developments, because over his arm he carried what looked like an opera
cape but wasn't. It happened to be a black cloak, neatly folded, with a slouch
hat beneath.
Crossing the lobby, Cranston didn't go to the fifth floor by elevator. The
fifth was Bradford's floor but Cranston preferred to use the stairway. Hardly
past the first turn, he paused, put on his cloak and hat and became The Shadow.
From the hat, he removed a small, waterproof bundle which be tucked beneath his
cloak.
Cranston's guns, the automatics which were The Shadow's, were already
packed beneath his well-fitted evening clothes in special holsters. So now, in
the evasive, almost invisible style that characterized his black clad self, The
Shadow continued up to Bradford's apartment. Choosing a side hall, The Shadow
paused outside a door which had a lighted, half open transom above it. From a
small box that he produced from a fold of his cloak, The Shadow released a
little green bird that promptly flew through the transom.
In her own room, Janice Bradford gave a sharp start and a little cry as a
bird fluttered to her hand and dropped a fortune card from its beak. On that
card was a silhouetted profile of a hawkish face topped by a black hat, with
cloaked shoulders beneath. Looking toward the door, noting the open transom,
Janice hurried there and admitted The Shadow.
It was hardly necessary, this form of entrance, for The Shadow could have
easily unlocked that door, but he was sparing Janice's well-shaken nerves.
Besides, he had instructions to give the girl and along with those
instructions, a revolver.
"Stay here," The Shadow undertoned to Janice. "If anything happens, go
there" - he gestured to a closet in the corner - "and if you need to use the
gun, do so. I can assure you that any danger will be brief."
Then, moving to a far door, The Shadow inched it open. There was a short
passage beyond so he went through to the next door and handled it in the same
style. This time, however, The Shadow halted the door after the first few
inches. He was looking into the main room of the suite, where Andrew Bradford
was receiving his guests.
Ghent, Waybrook, Kelfert - all three could be defined by their faces as
men of guilt.
They had no reason to hide that guilt, rather they were proud of it,
although their situation made them tense. But it was plain that Ghent, a man
with a big-jawed, overbearing face; Waybrook, of bloated visage with a triple
chin; Kelfert, sallow and scheming in expression, regarded themselves as
comrades in a cause that included Andrew Bradford. In fact, this was their way
of congratulating Bradford for his smart work in arranging a rendezvous with
Malmordo on a common meeting ground.
Yet honest Mr. Bradford hadn't tumbled to a thing. He wasn't even
surprised by the fact that these visitors had brought well-padded brief cases
with them. Charitable at heart, Bradford was hoping that they, too, were
innocent and he felt the brief cases might contain documents to prove it.
A knock sounded at the door of the apartment and the visitors became
alert, Ghent's hand, for one, going to a pocket of his coat. Bradford stepped
over, opened the door and admitted Stacey, who stepped into sight wearing
evening clothes. At sight of such a visitor, Ghent relaxed, thinking perhaps
that Stacey was another member of the subversive brotherhood, come here to
discuss terms with Malmordo.
Then Bradford made the introduction:
"Gentlemen, this is Mr. Trent Stacey of Scotland Yard. He has data that I
think will interest all of you."
Stacey did have. From his pockets he produced it, separate bundles, small
ones, yet much larger than those tissue paper reports he had shown to Bradford
that afternoon. Stepping behind a table, Stacey laid the packets in a row and
his viewers noticed that his right hand had gone to his hip.
And Stacey's eyes were watching Ghent so coldly, so steadily, that the
big-jawed man let his own hand move free from his pocket. Then, in a blunt tone
that carried the hardness of flint, Stacey said:
"Let me see what you have brought."
Three men opened their brief cases and brought out the contents.
"Securities," said Ghent. "All negotiable."
"Cash," declared Waybrook. "Large denominations, but I suppose you can
find a way to pass them."
"Diamonds." Kelfert presented a square package. "Good anywhere."
There was still suspicion in their eyes and noting it, Stacey laughed.
With his free hand he picked out a packet from the four that he had laid on the
table and tossed it to Bradford.
"I have already settled with Bradford," declared Stacey. "His case was
rather special. He will assure you that he is receiving the documents he wants."
Beyond the door, The Shadow was removing his hat and cloak. Hanging them
on a hook in the passage, he stepped into the conference room quite calmly,
just as Bradford gave an amazed exclamation.
"Why, these are the originals of Thorneau's papers!" exclaimed Bradford.
"They clear my case entirely. Why - why, you must be -"
Bradford was looking up at Stacey, ending the sentence in a gasp. It was
Cranston's calm tone that completed the statement.
"Yes," announced Cranston. "Stacey is Malmordo."
Although ready to admit the fact himself, Stacey couldn't repress a snarl
at hearing it from this unexpected quarter. He was drawing his revolver as he
wheeled back from the table, but he stopped the draw half way. Cranston was
already covering him with a very convincing .45.
"I heard about you from my friend the Police Commissioner," Cranston told
Stacey, in an even tone. "You knew a great deal about Malmordo, so much that
you should have been right on all the facts. For instance, such points as
Malmordo using local criminals and inducing gypsies to serve as his
accomplices. I was quite sure that Malmordo did neither."
The snarl that Stacey gave in reply belonged distinctly to Malmordo.
"It was remarkable how well you set the stage," continued Cranston. "Too
well in fact. As Malmordo you slipped from the Cafe de la Morte; as Stacey you
met Janice soon after. When you told the police to give you leeway in order to
enter the empty house, you did not go there at all, until you arrived as
Malmordo. Then you came out as Stacey."
This time Stacey's snarl became an off-key laugh.
"Very well," he conceded. "I fooled the police, didn't I? Particularly
when I knifed that crook, Kirky Schleer, from the doorway and then took pot
shots at the roof, claiming Malmordo was still up there. They were making
trouble for me, that gang, and Gregor was spying for them. I had to make the
police think they were part of the Malmordo set-up."
These statements were bringing a narrowed look from Ghent, the most
aggressive of Stacey's victims. Ghent's left hand was moving now, not to his
coat pocket, but to his vest, and only the forefinger and thumb were on the
creep.
"I warned Bradford's daughter about a trap," added Stacey, "because I knew
that would make her walk into it. I was in and out of it, acting as Malmordo in
between. I suppose The Shadow guessed it and told you, whoever you are."
"You told me yourself," stated Cranston calmly. "I happened to overhear
the phone call you made to Inspector Cardona this afternoon." From the way he
spoke, Cranston gave the impression he had heard it from Cardona's end. "You
had told Commissioner Weston that you were educated in Canada. Your phone call
disproved that you were a Canadian."
Stacey, his face showing an ugly scowl that suited Malmordo, was staring
at Cranston, puzzled.
"In Canada," declared Cranston, "the letter Z is called Zed. When you
spelled Azalea Plaza, you used the letter Z twice, even terming it 'Z as in
Zenith' - an odd thing for a person who would hardly know that Zed is sometimes
called Z."
It was Jerome Ghent who supplied a short laugh of approval. He turned to
Cranston with a bow.
"Very good," asserted Ghent. "The little details are the sort that crack
big cases. But what about these local criminals you mention? Who could have
hired them?"
"You did," returned Cranston. "They fit with your black market operations.
You were using them to trap Malmordo. He called in the police to counteract
them."
"Correct," acknowledged Ghent, "and the police are always prompt to
respond to a whistle. That is a little detail which also could work two ways."
With a sudden twist behind Waybrook and Kelfert so that their bodies
shielded him from Cranston's gun, Jerome Ghent flipped a whistle from his vest
pocket and gave it a shrill blast that could be heard for blocks around.
It was Ghent's summons for his waiting mobsmen to appear and deal with
both The Shadow and Malmordo!
CHAPTER XX
GHENT'S act produced chaos.
Before Cranston could shift and produce a second gun to cover the black
marketer, Bradford made a spring to grab Ghent and inadvertently blocked
Cranston's drawn gun, which was aimed at the man who called himself Stacey.
Already Malmordo had begun to drop the Stacey pose, now he was acting in full
Malmordo style. Hurling the table ahead of him, Malmordo sent its papers and
its wealth scattering everywhere, then dropping behind it with a writhe, he
swung his gun upward, and blasted at where he thought Cranston was. Except that
Cranston was no longer there; he had wheeled back through the door to become The
Shadow.
Outside, whistles were blaring everywhere and guns were barking in
response, which left Jerome Ghent frozen in horrified surprise. Ghent's great
stunt had backfired the moment he staged it, for his cordon of crooks had been
surrounded by a larger cordon of police.
The moment Ghent's men had risen from cover and surged toward the hotel,
Cardona's sharpshooters had sprung out to chop them down. Even Malmordo
couldn't have figured out a better trap for Ghent's doomed crew.
Tonight, Malmordo had figured out a device all for his own immediate
benefit.
Just as blackness swung from the connecting passage, skirted the group of
men and came with a surprise lunge toward Malmordo, doors buckled everywhere
and slinky men with baggy clothes and drawn knives took over the apartment.
Malmordo had lost sight of Cranston and was receiving The Shadow instead.
The Shadow, in his turn, was to become the focal center of a mass drive
delivered by this tribe of murderers who, as humans, did the term 'rat' an
injustice.
Janice's gun was popping from the closet in the other room, but Malmordo's
men weren't stopping on account of it. Bradford was flinging Waybrook and
Kelfert to an isolated corner of the big room and both were taking the hint,
thoroughly willing to escape with their lives and take whatever other
consequences followed.
Ghent, hauling out his gun, was lunging at Malmordo, who was now
completely his writhing distorted self, his evening clothes rendering him the
uglier and more incongruous than ever. All Ghent gained for his effort was a
deluge of knives that came in response to Malmordo's snarled order:
"Mortigu!"
And then, as Ghent sprawled, Malmordo, twisting half to his feet, met the
cloaked figure of The Shadow in a sudden surprising grapple. In all that chaos,
Malmordo's arriving followers had scarcely seen The Shadow's launching form
until the tangle came. Now from the whirl that followed, they heard Malmordo's
call:
"La Ombrajo! Mortigu lin!"
The Shadow! Kill him! Unnecessary orders to these fiends. Their question
was how to manage it as The Shadow spun about with Malmordo in his clutch. All
they could really see were snatches of Malmordo himself, in the midst of a
kaleidoscopic whirl, his hands and face disappearing and reappearing like a
blinking light.
The Shadow held the upper hand in that grapple, but to finish Malmordo
would have been suicidal. Any let-up in the struggle would define The Shadow
clearly enough for Malmordo's men to strike with their regained knives. In
fact, some were already preparing to hack at The Shadow as he whirled past them
with Malmordo in his grip.
Whatever The Shadow might have done on his own account - and he had turned
the tables on enemies like these more than once before - delay was imperative to
protect Bradford and the two men who had now become his willing prisoners:
Waybrook and Kelfert. Janice too would be in danger if any of Malmordo's crowd
returned, to seek her. Right now, all of Malmordo's followers were in a sense
immobilized, since they were concentrated on the question of The Shadow.
And The Shadow himself settled that question by changing it, producing a
new bewilderment among his foemen.
A slouch hat scaled across the room; next, a black cloak went flapping
after it, as two fighters sprawled apart, then came to hands and knees, facing
each other. Somehow, The Shadow had lost his identifying garb and was now
unmasked. To pick him from Malmordo would be easy, so it seemed. Ready to
spring with their knives, Malmordo's followers paused briefly, then retained
their pose like statues.
Writhing from the floor were two Malmordos, each contorted and vicious.
They were pointing at each other and their faces registered all the venom that
belonged with their snakish postures. And from each pair of lips came the
selfsame snarl:
"La Ombrajo! Mortigu lin!"
The man who was known as Malmordo had encountered an actor whose skill was
equal to his own. That actor was The Shadow. He was able to distort his
features, those of Cranston, as capably as Malmordo could twist the face he
used when he styled himself Stacey. As they were now, there was no choice
between them.
How could Malmordo's followers kill when they saw no one to be slain
except Malmordo?
Both figures were in disheveled evening clothes. Each spoke the language
that the murderous rat-men understood. If Malmordo had straightened and let his
features snap back into joint, he would have identified himself as Stacey,
whereas The Shadow, doing the same, would have answered to Cranston.
Still there would have been no choice.
There lay Malmordo's weakness. His followers knew him only by that forced
appearance which made his features hideous. To show any other face would have
been a symbol of weakness on Malmordo's part. As Stacey, he would be accepted
as the false Malmordo, just as The Shadow would if he reverted to the looks of
Cranston.
Snarls passed back and forth and the listeners understood them.
Accusations, but always in the language that Malmordo had taught his followers
to use. All was at a standstill and the longer it remained so, the more to The
Shadow's advantage it would be. And so it remained.
As moments turned to minutes, the time limit ended. Footsteps came
pounding from the hallway, announcing the arrival of the law. One Malmordo
snarled "Foriru!" telling his followers to go away and the other gave the same
word in the next breath. With that, the police appeared.
It was then and only then, that the situation broke. One of the writhing
figures turned, scooped up the slouch hat and the black cloak and made a dive
straight for the window. As the window crashed, knives followed, but they flew
wide, for the police were pumping shots at the men who threw them.
Half-cloaked, the Malmordo who had thus declared himself The Shadow, made
a landing on an adjoining roof a floor below. His rival, left on the scene as
the real Malmordo, straightened in a swift lunge for the door, reaching it
despite the grabs of the detectives, shouting "Venu!" as a call for his men to
follow, which a few managed to do.
Down the stairs and out to the street went the man in tattered evening
clothes, the last of the rat men dashing with him. Swallowed by the rain, they
were on their way to the warehouse area, with a slender chance of beating the
round-up planned by the law. Elsewhere, his course unknown, a figure garbed in
black was bound for the same destination.
So far at least, The Shadow had scored. For up in Bradford's apartment,
the law was taking over in a thorough way. Bradford was safe, so was his
daughter Janice; while two men who had traded with foreign enemies, Waybrook
and Kelfert, were prisoners, along with their funds and the papers that proved
their guilt, all abandoned by Malmordo.
They were glad to give up, that pair, rather than share the fate of Ghent,
who lay dead on the floor, with the evidence of his transactions spread about
him.
The Shadow had cracked Malmordo's game. The next task was to settle scores
with the Master Rat himself!
CHAPTER XXI
POLICE whistles were shrilling in the warehouse sector when a little
cluster of men came tearing from a side street toward a bulky brick building
that bore a big sign saying:
WESTERN CORN EXCHANGE
Sweeping searchlights picked out those fugitives, scrawny men in baggy
clothes followed by a loping figure that wore the remnants of a dress suit.
Police guns barked, but as they did, a grating came flying up and the fugitives
dropped through it with all the speed that characterized Malmordo's rats.
By the time police reached the grating it was clamped and guns were
shooting up from among its slats. If the police intended to enter the corn
warehouse, they would have to find some other way.
There were other ways. Around the corner, a cloaked figure was already
using one. He was climbing the fire escape of an adjoining building to reach a
little window that led into the warehouse. He was gone by the time the police
came around the corner.
Sirens screeched announcing the arrival of more police cars. From one
sprang Inspector Cardona, ready to take command. Informed that Malmordo had
gone into the corn warehouse, Cardona urged his men to continue their present
plan of invasion and hunt crooks down to the last rat.
The police were smashing doors leading into the warehouse when someone
thrust an envelope into Cardona's hand. By the time the inspector looked
around, the donator was gone; all Cardona saw was a quick, shambling figure
making off through the heavy rain. Tearing the envelope open, Cardona read its
contents by the scanty light about him.
That note, delivered by Hawkeye, was a message from The Shadow, who had
posted Hawkeye in this area to give it to the right man at the right time. What
Cardona read was something that caused a complete change in his personal plans.
Leaving the capture of the warehouse to his subordinates, the ace inspector
sprang into the nearest police car and ordered it to take him straight to the
waterfront.
Deep beneath the corn warehouse was a scene even more extravagant than the
one that Janice had viewed the night before. Here was no mere cellar with a
shallow, slimy pool. Malmordo's men had reached a sub-cellar consisting of a
succession of low brick arches through which gushed a broad stream of water
flanked by stone paths that looked like shelves.
At the last arch in the line, four of Malmordo's reserves were prying at a
huge grating that looked like a prison entrance. Once loose, that would give
them exit to a channel leading out to the river. They would have to swim for
it, because past the arch the outlet became no more than a rounded pipe, filled
almost to capacity. But these human water-rats were used to such methods of
transit.
From somewhere far above came clangs and pounding sounds, indicating that
police were crashing their way into the warehouse. Then, louder than those
muffled beatings, the clatter of footsteps sounded on stone. From narrow
openings on either side of the sullen stream, men appeared, arriving from old
stairways that led down from the cellar.
These were the rest of Malmordo's depleted horde, the survivors from the
lopsided fray at the Azalea Plaza, less a few who had been clipped by police
bullets during flight, but plus a quota of reserves that had been stationed
upstairs in the warehouse.
As the big grating wavered, Malmordo appeared from one pair of steps and
snaked his way along the ledge, shouting to his men above the gush of the
swollen stream. As they turned, the slinky men saw Malmordo point across the
channel. There on the other side, another figure had arrived.
The Shadow!
If Malmordo's men could have found a better footing on the ledges, they
would have blasted their cloaked foe before he could have opened fire. But the
slime handicapped even these creatures who loved it and being men who were
quick with knives, they were naturally slower with guns. By the time they were
taking aim, a snarl came from The Shadow's side and with it, he peeled off his
cloak and hat, flinging them across the torrent.
The black regalia landed squarely at the feet of the other Malmordo!
Facts dawned suddenly in the ratty minds of the ugly men who saw this new
change of affairs. They had been tricked at so many turns that they were ready
to accept things in reverse.
There had been two Malmordos up at Bradford's. One had seized upon The
Shadow's garb just as the police arrived.
Why not the real Malmordo?
As for the other, the one who had called upon surviving rats to follow
him, why could he not be The Shadow? He had let the fugitives outrun him and in
doing so, they had led him straight to Malmordo's own stronghold, the place that
the real Malmordo could reach more swiftly as The Shadow!
And such was the real answer!
Two men were straightening on their respective ledges. The one who had
come here as Malmordo revealed himself as Cranston. The other, who had just
flung the hat and cloak to their real owner, showed the blunt, square-jawed
features that went under the name of Stacey, Dubroc, or any of a dozen names
that Malmordo chose to call himself, according to whatever nationality he
needed to adopt.
And yet the question of identity was still in doubt among members of
Malmordo's tribe who still had no way of telling their real chief from the
false. The doubt might have persisted had The Shadow cared to let it. But,
knowing the frantic mood of Malmordo's men, he foresaw a serious problem.
Malmordo was drawing a gun and The Shadow, as Cranston, would have to do
the same. Whichever fired first and surest would have the satisfaction of
spilling his adversary into the flood. But in the minds of half the witnesses,
the victim would be the real Malmordo. They would aim at the victor the moment
that the vanquished fell.
Whatever the case, justice would be the winner, for Malmordo would perish.
But The Shadow would be a loser too, from a personal standpoint. It would be
better to declare himself and shoot it out with Malmordo's crew at large,
before they had a chance to aim his way. It would mean avoiding Malmordo's own
fire meanwhile, but that was the risk The Shadow took.
There were factors that decided The Shadow's choice. One was the topple of
the grating, down there at the lower arch; a few more tugs and it would fall.
The other was a peculiar swirl in the stream itself, a sign for which The
Shadow looked and saw in the vague light of lanterns that Malmordo's men had
brought with them.
Twisting skillfully along the slippery ledge, The Shadow scooped up the
black hat and cloak, planting one upon his head, the other over his shoulders.
With a challenging laugh that hurled back separate echoes from every arch, The
Shadow opened rapid fire with his automatics.
Malmordo made a quick writhe along the opposite shelf and his men did the
same to avoid the ricocheting bullets. The Shadow found it both hard to aim and
difficult to tell if he scored a hit, the way his enemies acted. They were
shooting back and wildly, but every blast was helpful to The Shadow.
For those shots, with their deafening detonation in these cramped
quarters, were producing what The Shadow wanted, a strange, twisty commotion in
the stream as though the water itself had begun to rise in protest. Then, from
beneath his cloak, The Shadow flung the packet that he carried, ripping its end
as it left his hand.
The missile struck the water down toward the final arch. There was a
terrific burst of flame, for the packet contained a chunk of potassium. The
rest of its contents consisted of a reddish dye, that spread like a gushing
blot of blood amid the water. But the flame was the feature that counted at the
moment.
Heaving itself from the water came a great shape more than twenty feet in
length, a thing that outwrithed even Malmordo. The creature was an anaconda, a
giant snake of the constrictor class, recently a dweller among the coastal
lagoons of the South American jungle. As it swept its great head along the
ledges, lashing its coils as if to encircle its tormentors, the anaconda
created terror among Malmordo's crew.
The grating fell with a loud clang and toward the wide opening rushed the
human rats, their leader Malmordo among them, all anxious to reach that outlet
and escape the anaconda. After them trailed The Shadow's laugh, bidding them a
bon voyage as they slipped and slid into the water, just as some of them had
splashed overboard from the Santander.
This scene linked with that night.
It was then that The Shadow had recognized the presence of the anaconda.
Only such a creature could have crushed the unlucky stowaway who had fled to
the hold to hide among the mahogany logs. The giant snake had come aboard with
that shipment in search of rats and birds as food.
Only something as powerful as an anaconda could have broken the hatch
above the hold of the Santander. Once on deck, the snake had slithered
overboard like the rats and stowaways that preceded it, finding the same
pipeline that they used, leading in from the river to one of the warehouses.
The anaconda was the reason why rats vanished from each warehouse that
Malmordo picked for his men to use as temporary headquarters. It went where
they went, because they coaxed more rats to become their pets, which in turn
meant more food for the snake.
And this anaconda was the thing that The Shadow alone had seen pluck one
of Malmordo's men off the plank from which The Shadow had rescued Janice
Bradford. That was the reason why The Shadow had expected the monstrous reptile
to be around tonight, ready to act again if bothered.
It was turning now, this massive writhing foe that Malmordo's followers
had so unwittingly harbored, and what disturbed it was the echoing clang from
the grating. By then, Malmordo and his companions had been carried into the
pipe beyond the final archway, so The Shadow had no reason to remain.
Blackness faded from the lantern light as The Shadow went up the stone
steps leading from the ledge on his side of the underground channel.
Out in the river, Inspector Cardona had taken command of a police boat and
had sent orders to all others to sweep their searchlights in among the piers.
Finding human figures would have been difficult, almost impossible, in such
sweeping style, but the police were looking for something else.
They saw it.
From beneath a pier came a great, spreading splotch of dark crimson that
seemed to be reaching for the boats themselves. It was the dye that The Shadow
had flung into the stream beneath the warehouse, the type of dye used by planes
to mark large spots in the ocean.
The tremendous potency of that dye was proving itself as usual, but
tonight its purpose was unique. Having preceded Malmordo's men in their last
flight, it was marking their outlet into the river. Instead of continuing a
blind search, the police boats were converging upon one spot.
This was Cardona's follow-up of the instructions he had received from The
Shadow.
And now, as heads began to bob from beneath the fringes of a pier,
revolver shots peppered at them while machine guns raked the bottom of the pier
itself. Malmordo's water-rats came out, waving their hands in wild surrender
from amid the red-stained water. Some of them didn't wave, they merely floated,
indicating that they had stopped some of the bullets. Nevertheless, the police
hauled them into the boats too, just to make sure that they were dead.
Among the faces that he saw, Cardona was looking for one that would answer
to either description of Malmordo, his twisted features or the blunt visage that
enabled him to pose as Trent Stacey, the man with credentials that Cardona now
knew had been forged.
Malmordo was not among any of the prisoners or dead men that Cardona's
boat took on board.
Then came a shout from another police boat. Men were pointing out a figure
that was doing a swift twist back toward shore, hoping to reach the concrete
buttress of the pier, where bullets wouldn't count.
It was Malmordo, clear of The Shadow's vengeance and now eluding that of
the law. Yet his fate was already sealed.
Something curled around the frantic swimmer. A horrible scream came from
Malmordo's twisty lips as huge coils embraced him. Hoisted there, he was a
struggling thing in the grip of the great anaconda, which had fled the
warehouse last of all and had overtaken the one man who had made an effort to
retrace his path.
Cardona could almost hear Malmordo's body crunch as it went beneath the
surface, warped more grotesquely than Malmordo had ever managed to twist
himself when faking the part of a human freak. Such was the fate of the evil
genius who had followed the ruin of war to perpetrate crime and had met his
match in a new land where he had dared defy the power of The Shadow.
Silence settled above the murky water where the great ruddy spread upon
the surface was thinning, as though its work were done. Silence, except for the
beat of rain, the lap of waves, and something else that seemed to blend amid
those natural sounds.
That something else was a weird laugh that Cardona heard from the shore
beside the pier, telling that its author had arrived to witness the climax that
he had arranged as an end to monstrous crime.
It faded into shivering echoes that the blanketing night absorbed, The
Shadow's laugh of triumph!
THE END