The Shadow - Death's Bright Finger Part 12

Both were now gone! Where they had been was only an ugly smear of blue-gray ash! The Light had done his evil work in the short s.p.a.ce of time when The Shadow was rescuing Vincent.

THE SHADOW glided back to where Vincent lay. His agent was unconscious. The Shadow made him as comfortable as possible and turned toward the house. More secrets had to be learned about this mansion. Surmises had to be turned into accurate knowledge.

The Light was not escaping as easily as he imagined. It was not the method of The Shadow to chase after criminals. When all the facts were known and the true ident.i.ty of the Light established, The Shadow would force the master criminal to come to him!

There was a tin mailbox in front of the house. The Shadow examined it carefully. Something on the outside of the box drew ironic laughter from his tight lips.

He found that there were three or four letters inside. He used patient care to get them out without disturbing the dust film on the outside of the box.

The letters contained nothing more valuable than printed circulars from stores in the nearby village. The Shadow didn't waste any time on them. What interested him was the address on each of those letters.

They were addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. John Gordon."

A smaller sheet of paper was in the mailbox along with the printed circulars. This folded sheet was not in an envelope. Someone had dropped it in the box fairly recently, judging from the whiteness of the paper.

There were just three sentences on the note. They were typewritten, and there was no signature: Be careful about Bascom. He knows about Crane Worthington. It was Bascom who sold Worthington the house on the North Sh.o.r.e of Long Island.

The Shadow laughed. He was certain who had placed the message in the box. The folded note had been left by the Light! He intended it to be read by The Shadow.

The note was a decoy. It was cunning bait intended to lead The Shadow into a trap. Later, The Shadow would pretend to swallow that bait. But right now, there were more facts to be learned. For instance, the ident.i.ty of Mr. and Mrs. John Gordon.

Mrs. Gordon was obviously Dawn Reed. But who was her secret husband? Who was John Gordon? Forcing an entrance to the silent house, The Shadow went upstairs to search for something he knew that most women never threw away: a marriage certificate.

He confined his search to Dawn's bedroom. It didn't take more than five minutes to find what he was seeking. The certificate was at the back of a bureau drawer, rolled up neatly and secured by a rubber band.

With it was something even more interesting. The Shadow stared with quiet interest at a faded snapshot of "Mr. and Mrs. John Gordon."

Mrs. Gordon was Dawn Reed. No doubt of that whatever. But it was the face of her secret husband that drew ominous laughter from The Shadow's lips. The man in the picture was Tony Bedloe, the slot-machine racketeer who had been scared into taking a jail sentence by the power of the Light!

Leaving the house, The Shadow paused outside and examined again the dusty mailbox where he had found the decoy note from the Light.

There were marks on that dusty box that looked like a secret message in code: a cross--a circle--a star--two more crosses. The last symbol was so blurred, it was meaningless.

But it held meaning for the keen intelligence of The Shadow. It told him an important secret.

The Shadow knew at last the ident.i.ty of the Light!

He hastened back to where he had left Harry Vincent. Harry was groaning, he had recovered consciousness. He protested bitterly about his own stupidity, as The Shadow lifted him and carried him down the dark lane where Vincent's car was hidden. The Shadow silenced him gently.

"Not stupidity."

But Harry remained remorseful about his failure to recover the jewel bag. "Wait!" whispered The Shadow.

The Shadow had propped Harry in the front seat of the car. He vanished into the bushes for a moment.

When he came back, he was holding something that made Vincent's eyes pop.

"But the Light stole it!" Harry gasped. "He stole it before he cremated the girl and fled!"

"Duplicate," The Shadow explained.

It was clear now to Harry. The Shadow, warned in advance by Harry's report over the phone from Dawn's house, had brought with him a cunning duplicate of the light bag. He had subst.i.tuted it for the real one when he had crept noiselessly into the outdoor fireplace.

The Light had gotten away with--nothing!

THE SHADOW smashed the lock of the bag. Vincent grunted as he saw again the glitter of hundreds of valuable gems. Their cold blaze almost hurt the eye. Rubies and diamonds, pearls, star sapphires. It was breath-taking!

"Stolen," The Shadow said curtly.

Proof of that were the stones themselves. The Shadow recognized some of them. They had been thefted over a year ago. Police and private detectives had hunted in vain for clues. The stones had not reappeared in any of the underworld gem markets. Dawn Reed and Tony Bedloe had an extra racket unguessed by police: fencing stolen gems!

The Shadow opened an inner flap in the bag. On a sheet of paper he found a complete inventory of the stones. It listed the names of the wealthy victims from whom the gems had been stolen, the market value of the gems, as well as the price Bedloe had paid to the thieves.

It revealed how profitable Bedloe's secret racket was. He had paid practically nothing. He could afford to wait a long time before the heat went off. The thieves couldn't. They had been glad to accept prompt cash and get rid of their dangerous loot.

The Shadow knew now why Tony Bedloe and Flash Snark hadn't minded going to jail for a short stretch. Both crooks had double racket! In the case of Bedloe, it was slot machines--and stolen gems.

The latter was by far the richest graft. Bedloe hadn't minded quitting his slot-machine racket in order to get rid of the threat of the Light. The gems that Dawn was holding for Tony would still be worth millions when Bedloe finished his short jail term.

The same motive held true for Flash Snark. Why should Snark worry about his numbers racket. His real graft--hidden, as he thought, from everyone--was an enormously profitable blackmail business operated secretly by Ron Dexter.

But the Light hadn't been fooled. In each case, he had gone after the secret racket of his victim--not the one so highly publicized in the newspapers.

The Shadow knew why the Light was able apparently to suppress crime as a fake champion of law and order. Greed--criminal greed--was the Light's only motive. The ident.i.ty of the Light was also known to The Shadow. All that remained was to nab the master criminal without allowing him a chance to cover his tracks.

It was still a grim a.s.signment, even for The Shadow! He realized the dreadful power that could come from the Light's pointing finger.

Bullets could quench that silver beam, but its light would dazzle again. If The Shadow blundered by a hairbreadth, the penalty would be instantaneous cremation!

CHAPTER XIII. MR. CRANE WORTHINGTON.

THE SHADOW was in his sanctum. Every piece in the criminal jigsaw puzzle was now in his possession.

Most of the pieces had been fitted together. But the picture still lacked three or four bits to make it perfect.

These final jigsaw pieces lay on The Shadow's desk. One was a copy of the Daily Cla.s.sic. Another was a confidential report concerning Carl Trevor. Still another was an enlarged photograph.

The final clew was a lengthy report from The Shadow's financial expert, Rutledge Mann.

The Shadow examined the Daily Cla.s.sic first. Twin headlines divided the news interest on the front page.

The Shadow devoted equal attention to both.

Another racketeer had surrendered to the police. This time an arson king. He had walked calmly into police headquarters and surrendered. It was an exact duplicate of the surrenders of Flash Snark and Tony Bedloe. The crime to which the arson king pleaded was a minor one. It would put him behind bars for not more than a year or two.

The Daily Cla.s.sic agreed with the theory of Inspector Joe Cardona: an unknown champion of the lawwas working powerfully on the side of justice. Investigation showed that many of the crooks suspected of being henchmen in the arson ring were already taking it on the lam. The news column was headed triumphantly: SUPER-SHADOW TERRIFIES.

UNDERWORLD IN BATTLE.

TO UPHOLD THE LAW!.

The laughter of The Shadow held a note of calm amus.e.m.e.nt as he scanned this ridiculous perversion of truth. He read the headlines at the opposite corner of the front page.

It was a story about a successful kidnap outrage. The kidnapped victim was George Stoker. He had been s.n.a.t.c.hed in spite of police protection. Two fast cars loaded with heavily-armed thugs had staged a night raid. The cop who had been stationed outside the home of Flash Snark's ex-lawyer was badly wounded as he bravely tried to reply to the fire from Tommy-guns. A small group of the mobsters stormed the door of the lawyer's home. Their pals outside filled the street with a curtain of fire that drove back the few uniformed patrolmen who were nearest to the scene.

It was a criminal blitzkrieg, carried out with blinding speed! Stoker's bodyguard was killed. Stoker was carried away, still in pajamas and bare feet. A pursuing radio car was rammed by a truck. The thugs in the smashed truck had escaped in another car.

The Shadow put the newspaper aside. His sensitive fingers moved beyond the oval of light on the polished surface of his desk. When they returned to view they were holding a report from one of The Shadow's agents. It concerned Carl Trevor. Carl Trevor had vanished. The sleek band leader at the Club Penguin had faded suddenly from his usual Broadway haunts. No one could be found who had seen him during the past twenty-four hours. Had Trevor, too, been kidnapped? Or had he dropped from sight deliberately?

THE SHADOW didn't speculate. There was no need to. He examined more positive information on the subject of the elusive Carl Trevor.

This time, it was a photograph. It had been snapped at La Guardia Field by a newspaper photographer.

The Shadow had enlarged it in his own private laboratory. Blown up to huge dimensions, it revealed some rather peculiar information.

It showed a dead woman and a missing man!

The missing man was Carl Trevor. He was standing at the rear of a crowd of spectators who had gathered to watch the take-off of an early morning plane for Miami. Trevor had pulled his hat brim down and his coat collar up, but the enlargement identified him without a chance of mistake.

The dead woman was stepping into the plane, her face half turned as she waved a gay farewell with a handkerchief. She had to be dead, because she was--Dawn Reed!

It was a masterly piece of deception. In face and figure, this fake Dawn Reed was a twin sister to the unfortunate night-club singer who had been cremated by the Light in an outdoor fireplace behind a lonely country house in New Jersey.

Had Carl Trevor not discovered the fake? Or was he slyly aware that the girl entering the plane on the first leg of a supposed journey to Rio was doubling for a woman who had been viciously murdered?

Laughter echoed in the sanctum of The Shadow. There remained only one last jigsaw piece to complete the puzzle picture. Crane Worthington!

Who was this "Crane Worthington" whose name bad appeared on that strange note The Shadow had found in the mailbox in New Jersey? The report from Rutledge Mann threw light on the subject.

Worthington, a supposedly wealthy inventor, had appeared briefly in New York several months earlier.

He seemed to be something of a recluse. Few newspapermen saw him, none interviewed him. He had very seldom left his hotel. Finally, he had quit Manhattan. He had purchased an isolated home on the North Sh.o.r.e of Long Island.

All this had been patiently dug up by Rutledge Mann. But he had been unable to find any trace of Crane Worthington or, indeed, to interview any person who had actually met and talked with him.

Mann's investigation proved one thing, however. The message which The Shadow had found in the mailbox in New Jersey told the truth. Peter Bascom was the broker who had sold the isolated Long Island estate to Worthington.

The Shadow now had all the information he needed. The light over his sanctum desk went out. Darkness filled the room. Only silence remained. It persisted endlessly.

The Shadow was gone!

NOT long afterward, Lamont Cranston appeared at the Cobalt Club. He entered his awaiting car and drove downtown. He had an appointment with Peter Bascom.

The appointment had not been too hard to arrange. Lamont Cranston was an important social personage in New York. Bascom had been very cordial over the wire. He had said he'd be delighted to see Cranston.

Bascom's office was in the tower of a huge skysc.r.a.per. It was a small suite, without much furniture.

The thin young man who usually apologized for the absence of Bascom, was not in evidence today.

Cranston was met in the outer room by a shapely-looking blonde with a childish smile and hard, straight eyes. She conducted Lamont Cranston at once to the inner office.

Bascom seemed delighted to see his visitor. He was friendly in his talk, cordial in his manner. But The Shadow was conscious that he was under careful observation.

They chatted about hunting and fishing. They discussed a new exhibition of paintings at one of the Fifth Avenue galleries. Finally, Cranston came to the matter of his visit.

"I'd like to buy up some industrial property in Long Island City," he murmured. "I understand you do considerable realty work. I thought perhaps you could help me select a plot suitable for the erection of a large factory."

Bascom smiled. A spark glinted behind his eyes for an instant. He shrugged.

"I hardly know what to say, Mr. Cranston. I've handled real estate, though scarcely on a large scale.

Frankly, I think you'd do better to get the advice of a specialist in industrial property."

Again the spark glinted in his eyes. Was it mockery?

"I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades," Bascom continued suavely. "Just enough real estate to amuse me. A bit of stock market trading. I've also been a patent attorney at times. In fact--" He waved his arm vaguely, as if to suggest that for Peter Bascom, the whole world was a pleasant place to dabble in.

The Shadow asked a leading question--asked it deliberately.

"Talking about patent attorneys--I wonder if you could tell the anything about an inventor chap I once knew. A very interesting fellow. Crane Worthington, his name was.

There was no trace of interest on Bascom's face as he said slowly, "Worthington?" He lit a cigarette. The match flame and the cigarette were both steady. "The name sounds vaguely familiar. Seems to me--Wait!

I'll ask Miss Davis. She's invaluable."

He pressed a buzzer. His shapely blond secretary walked in almost instantly. The Shadow wondered if she had been listening outside the door.

"We've been discussing patents and inventors," Bascom murmured. "Have we ever done any business with an inventor by the name of Crane Worthington?"

She didn't hesitate. She looked like an actress who had rehea.r.s.ed her part until she was letter-perfect.

"Worthington? Why, yes. Don't you remember, Mr. Bascom? You sold him a house several months ago."

Bascom chuckled.

"Of course! Now I remember! It was a real-estate deal. Your talk about patents confused me, Mr.

Cranston. Crane Worthington wanted to buy a place where he could hole up and work in complete privacy. I sold him an estate on the North Sh.o.r.e of Long Island. Why? Friend of yours?"

The Shadow made a swift change in his approach.

"Hardly," he said in the soft voice of Lamont Cranston. "The reason I'm trying to find out something about the fellow is quite the reverse of friendship. He trimmed me very badly in a financial deal."