The Shadow - Death Turrets Part 7

Plucking up the coin, Allard's fingers let it slip into the vest pocket where it belonged. There was a dull clink as the coin settled there.

Soon afterward, Allard came into the house to find a group in the living room. Lucille was there, talking with George Brendaw and Lenley, while AuntAugusta looked on without comment. Deputies were present, as the sheriff had ordered. Daylight seemed to dispel mystery from Five Towers. The conversation was something of an armistice.

Allard joined the group for a short while. Though he still appeared tired, he was actually noting the expressions of the others. It did not take him long to a.n.a.lyze how certain persons felt.

Lucille still had trust in George, and she showed it. Her eyes, though, were nervous when they looked in Lenley's direction. It was plain that Lucille regarded the inventor as the plotter who had slain twice, and who had sought her life. She felt safe, only because George was present.

Aunt Augusta, on the contrary, gave every indication that she was balancing matters the other way. She smiled whenever she looked toward Lenley, but her face became stern and mistrustful when she glanced at George.

As for the two suspects, they seemed as good friends as ever, but Allard could tell that they were playing a part. George's square-jawed face was set with determination; his eyes were firm in every look they gave.

Lenley's beard hid any facial expression, but his gaze was constantly a shrewd one.

t.i.tus, at the doorway, was watching both, with a stare of admiration.

Apparently, t.i.tus had accepted the obvious conclusion that one of those two men was a crafty murderer; the other, a protector ready to stand between the killer and his prey. One man's pose could therefore be genuine; while the other's was merely a copy. Which was which, t.i.tus could not tell.

That meant something to The Shadow. He had not forgotten that t.i.tus had been brought to this house by Lenley. There was something known only to the inventor and the servant; of that, The Shadow was sure. t.i.tus, it was evident, did not consider the hidden fact to be sufficient cause for Lenley to indulge in wholesale murder.

UPSTAIRS, Allard went to his room. Leaving the door ajar, he stretched out on the bed and went to sleep. His slumber, though steady, was a light one.

A few hours later, he awakened almost instantly when the telephone began a distant jangle from downstairs.

Allard was at the stairway when a deputy answered the call. Some one was asking for the sheriff. The deputy was telling the caller to get in touch with the sheriff's office, when Allard intervened.

Knowing that Allard had been appointed chief deputy, the man turned the telephone over to him. Allard's conversation was quiet, toned directly into the mouthpiece. The deputy could scarcely catch a word that was said. When he finished, Allard hung up; turned to the deputy with the comment: "A reporter from New York. I cut off his questions. If any others call, refer them to Sheriff Cravlen."

Allard went upstairs to take another sleep. Unseen by the deputy, Allard's lips showed a thin smile. The reporter on the wire was Clyde Burke.

He had arrived at the town of Northridge.

From Allard, Clyde had received brief instructions, telling him what he was supposed to do.

The Shadow had extended his investigation beyond the walls of Five Towers. He had performed one action on his own; he intended to let Clyde Burke do the rest. An agent of The Shadow, the reporter was qualified to dig up information that The Shadow wanted.

The facts that Clyde gained would be useful to his chief when night arrived. That was the time when The Shadow expected new moves from the murderer. Then, danger would lurk again within the walls of Five Towers.

Danger for the others, not for The Shadow.

Such was The Shadow's actual opinion. Yet, circ.u.mstances were to confront him with a menace as great as any that had hovered within the gray, stone bulwarks of Five Towers.

CHAPTER XI.MISSING FACTS.

CLYDE BURKE was the only reporter to arrive at Northridge early that afternoon. He found the town a sprawling one, located along a single main street. The county courthouse occupied a small square at the end of the thoroughfare.

There, Clyde inquired for the sheriff. A few minutes later, he was introduced to Amos Cravlen.

The sheriff was not pleased to see the reporter, for he took Clyde's arrival to be the forerunner of a plague of news-hawks. So far, the news of double death at Five Towers had been kept to the country town of Northridge.

On the way to the courthouse, however, Clyde had picked up plenty of information.

Realizing that, Cravlen wanted to know how Clyde had gotten the tip in New York. The reporter had an excellent explanation.

He had happened to go to Fant's office that morning, he said, and had heard that the lawyer was absent. There had been some mystery about it, but Clyde had learned that Fant had gone to a place called Sunnyside, near Northridge. So the reporter had come, seeking an exclusive story for the New York Cla.s.sic.

Cravlen's manner became cordial.

"Since you're the only reporter on the job," said the sheriff, "maybe you'll be willing to play ball. I don't want a lot of hubbub around Five Towers-photographers and all that, until I've had a chance to track the case.

"Give me until to-night"-Cravlen was emphatic-"and maybe there won't be any mystery behind these deaths! Wait a minute, though, Burke." The sheriff's eyes became stern. "You haven't called Five Towers, have you?"

Clyde admitted that he had called from the station, thinking that Cravlen might be at the house. When he added that he had talked only to Allard, Cravlen nodded that it was all right. He took Clyde into an office and introduced him to the coroner and the county prosecutor.

BRIEFLY, Cravlen related the story of the murders and the attempt on Lucille's life. That finished, he pointed to the desk.

"One man sent those telegrams," declared the sheriff. "That same party tampered with the gully bridge. He committed the murders, but he failed to injure Miss Merrith. Today, he has no chance to make another attempt.

"I feel confident that the murderer has no confederates. I cannot see how any other person would become involved in such a fantastic scheme of brutal death. We have narrowed it down to two persons, Burke. Either George Brendaw or Robert Lenley."

"What about that servant t.i.tus?"

"He is clear," returned Cravlen. "I've just figured out something from statements that were given. t.i.tus was at Five Towers when Roderick Talroy arrived there. So the servant could not have been down at the station, to dispose of Talroy's telegram."

Clyde agreed with Cravlen's one-man theory, and on the face of it, t.i.tus was therefore eliminated. George Brendaw, though, had come in quite some time after Roderick arrived at the house.

Lenley, the evidence showed, had not appeared until dinner time. The inventor could have been out of the house, although he claimed that he had been busy in the cellar laboratory.

"The revenge motive makes it look bad for George Brendaw," a.s.serted Cravlen, "but we can't bank on it while Lenley is a doubtful factor. I want to know more about that invention of his. Until I do, we've got to count him in the picture. I'm going to look into it this afternoon."

Clyde thought the idea a good one. The sheriff added that a ballistics expert was coming from New York to examine the bullet from Roderick's heart.

The same man would also study the revolver that belonged to George. Cravlen pointed out the weapon; it lay on the prosecutor's desk."Brendaw admitted owning it," said the sheriff. "He couldn't help doing so. He showed it to a couple of us once before-a time we went up there to investigate gunfire, when he was shooting weasels. Besides, that .38 has his initials, G. B., on the handle."

Clyde asked if he could call the newspaper office by long distance, to tell them that there might be a story later. Cravlen agreed; he suggested that Clyde ask if the Cla.s.sic had any facts on Lenley and the man's invention.

Clyde included that question when he made the call. He learned that there was nothing in the files.

"I don't know whether that's good or bad," grumbled Cravlen. "It still leaves Lenley doubtful. As for Brendaw, he could have that revenge motive, but he swears that old Lionel meant nothing to him. That's something I'd like to know more about."

The remark paved an opening for Clyde.

"Suppose I do some research here," suggested the reporter. "I've got the afternoon ahead of me. I might find something."

Cravlen gave his approval; he had no idea that the suggestion had actually come from Kent Allard. So Clyde left the prosecutor's office and began his task of learning what he could about the Brendaw family.

THE job looked easy, but it wasn't. Clyde started with the county records-and promptly learned from a clerk that old doc.u.ments had been destroyed by a fire some years previously. There was no way to learn whether old Lionel Brendaw had been born in the county, or whether he had ever married.

Inquiries around town brought little result. Some people remembered having seen the old man in the vicinity of Five Towers, but no one had ever talked to him. In the Northridge library, Clyde found an old genealogy book that gave him some ancient information.

It appeared that Lionel had been born near Northridge, and was the only son of his parents. His date of birth was 1870, and the book had been printed in 1885. It gave no further data regarding that branch of the Brendaw family.

Clyde traced other lines of the family, through other records and learned that George was exactly what he claimed to be: a distant relative of Lionel. Also, so far as the books showed, George was the only possible heir to the old man.

There were lawyers in town who had handled the Brendaw estate, and their information simply checked with what Clyde had gained. There was one idea, though, that others had apparently overlooked. Since Lionel had been born in the county, old files of the local newspaper might mention it.

Clyde went to the newspaper office. He found the file for 1870. Going through the yellowed pages, he uncovered exactly what he wanted. Lionel Brendaw had been born on July 7, of that year. With that start, Clyde continued through the files.

The reporter's search was accurate, despite its speed. Whenever the name Brendaw appeared on a page, it almost jumped in front of Clyde's eyes. Such references, however, were few. The local editor joined in the hunt, and he and Clyde made rapid progress through the years.

The newspaper was a weekly, and had only four pages to an issue. That helped, but results were small. The Brendaw references gave only pa.s.sing mention of Lionel's parents.

Then came an odd discovery. In the file for 1893, Clyde struck a gap.

One weekly issue of the newspaper was missing. The editor looked through his spectacles when Clyde mentioned the fact. He shook his head; examined the file closely.

"Looks like that number had been clipped out," drawled the editor. "Tsk, tsk! That's too bad! This is the only file in existence. A missing copy can never be replaced."

They resumed the search, and all the while, the thought was drilling through Clyde's brain that the missing issue had something to do with LionelBrendaw. It was in a file three years later, that Clyde suddenly hit a clue.

An obscure item in an issue printed in July, 1896, mentioned that Mr.

and Mrs. Lionel Brendaw had stopped at the Northridge House.

CLYDE kept that discovery to himself. He and the editor finished their search. Clyde was copying his notation from memory when he walked from the newspaper office. Just outside the door, he ran into Sheriff Cravlen.

"h.e.l.lo, Burke," greeted the sheriff. "They said you were here. Come along; we're going up to Five Towers."

As they turned from the door, Cravlen saw the paper in Clyde's hand. He questioned, in an undertone: "Did you find out anything?"

Clyde would have preferred to keep his discovery exclusively for The Shadow, but that was impossible. He had made an open deal with the sheriff, and had to go through with it. He showed the paper to Cravlen as they were getting into the sheriff's car.

"What do you make of it?" asked Cravlen, as they started off through the gathering dusk. "I can't figure how old Lionel's being married could mean anything. Can you?"

Clyde shook his head. He decided, though, to mention the matter of the missing file, since the editor knew about it. It was Cravlen's turn to deliver a headshake.

"Those two points don't link," declared the sheriff. "If anybody clipped one issue because it mentioned Lionel Brendaw, the same person would have clipped the other."

The sheriff's words were logical; so Clyde let it go at that. In the back of his head, The shadow's agent had found an answer that did link. He was confident that no one could have gone through the files year by year, for the editor would have remembered it. But some one could have dropped in and taken a brief look at a single volume, to find a certain date.

That person could have picked the year of 1893, to cut out a number that listed a most important item: the marriage of Lionel Brendaw. It would have included the maiden name of old Lionel's bride. With county records burned, and that one newspaper issue destroyed, a vital fact of the past was forever gone.

The vandal who clipped the bound newspaper volume had never looked farther through the files. Therefore, Clyde had been the first person to uncover the all-important fact that Lionel Brendaw had once been married.

That, at least, was certain, from the issue in 1896.

A clue for The Shadow, and a good one, Clyde hoped. In that surmise, Clyde was right.

The sheriff's car had pa.s.sed the temporary bridge, and was moving through the woods that fringed the driveway. Ahead, Clyde gained his first glimpse of the grim stone walls of Five Towers.

With him, to those turrets of death, Clyde Burke was bringing the very fact that The Shadow wanted. Despite the accurate information that was no longer available, Clyde's indirect clue was all that his chief needed as a keystone to a well-completed theory.

Clyde, however, had not yet delivered that clue to The Shadow. Darkness was wrapping Five Towers, and with gloom, danger would stir there. If a murderer discovered what Clyde had guessed as well as learned, there would be a chance for death to rise again.

That chance might prevent Clyde from ever revealing his discovery to The Shadow.

CHAPTER XII.

THE THRUST FORESEEN.

"WHATEVER you've learned, or whatever you've guessed, keep it toyourself. Remember, you'll be talking with a murderer."

Sheriff Cravlen spoke those words to Clyde Burke as their car halted outside the front door of Five Towers. There was a grimness in the sheriff's tone that tuned with the ominous bulk of those gray, turret-topped walls.

The automobile and its pa.s.sengers seemed dwarfed within the hush that fronted the great mansion. Their arrival was tinged with the same gloom that had marked Roderick Talroy's one visit to Five Towers.

Clyde understood. With darkness, last night's menace had returned. The sheriff knew it, and deemed the warning necessary. The facts that Clyde had learned to-day, spa.r.s.e though they were, might be enough to put him under threat.

"I'll introduce you as a reporter," said the sheriff, as they rang the doorbell. "That's all they need to know. You'll get a look at both George Brendaw and Robert Lenley. Act like you didn't suspect either of them."

Some one was opening the big door. The sheriff had just time to add: "I'll want your opinion afterward, Burke."

It was t.i.tus who admitted them. They went into the living room and there met George Brendaw and Lenley, along with Lucille and her aunt.

The sheriff had hardly finished with his introduction of Clyde, when Kent Allard appeared from the stairway. The tall guest was just in time to hear George snap angrily to the sheriff: "You say that Mr. Burke is a reporter? Why didn't you notify me before you brought him here?"

"I didn't consider it necessary," returned Cravlen. "Let me remind you again, Brendaw, that I am in full charge of this investigation!"

"Sure you are," agreed George. "That's why you're trying to bag all the cheap publicity you can get! I had an idea that you'd have the reporters flocking here as soon as you could manage it!"

Cravlen showed no anger. Coolly, he explained that Clyde had come there on his own; that there would be no others. The sheriff declared that he, himself, was anxious to avoid an influx of reporters and cameramen. He called upon Clyde to support the statement.

Clyde did. He recounted his own meeting with the sheriff and the annoyance which Cravlen had first shown. That mollified George. His face looked sulky, but he mumbled that he guessed it was all right for Burke to be here.

All the while, Lenley had listened to the argument with a smug air. The inventor seemed to relish the fact that George was under fire. Clyde noted Lenley and observed the contrast between him and George. The two, despite their friendship, were distinctly opposites in type.

George was blunt; Lenley, crafty. Clyde doubted that the bearded inventor would ever be foolish enough to lose his temper the way that George had. In that guess, Clyde was wrong. Lenley's turn was almost due.