The Shadow - Foxhound Part 5

Already, his brain had fathomed things about the museum outrage that had been overlooked by police and reporters. Unlike them, he did not suspect the vandals as madmen. He noted that among the twenty-two pictures that had been destroyed were four Remy Colettes, all that the museum possessed. The other eighteen had been ruined for pure camouflage. It didn't suit the purpose of the criminal leader with the disguised metallic voice, to have police or reporters realize that his sole interest was in those four Remy Colettes.

The Shadow smiled coolly, as he studied the list of the destroyed paintings. Not one of them was the "Landscape with Flowers," which had arrived two weeks earlier by air aboard the dirigible Hindenburg.

The desperate raid of Foxhound had been in vain!

The Shadow dressed swiftly. He called a taxi and drove to the imposing stone structure of the Museum of Art. There was quite a large crowd of curious onlookers drifting back and forth in front of the building, kept in motion by the vigilant eyes of a score of policemen. The broad steps in front of the museum, however, were clear.

A policeman stopped Cranston as he alighted from his cab and started up the steps. Cranston showed his card, explained that he was a personal friend of the curator of paintings. He was forced to wait a few minutes, then he was admitted.

THE curator was alone in his office. He looked pale and distraught, but he smiled as Cranston entered with a murmur of apology for a visit at such a time.

"That's quite all right, Mr. Cranston," the curator murmured. "I knowyour professional interest in art, how shocked you must be at this - this devilish outrage."

His voice trembled. There were tears in his eyes. An artist himself of no mean ability, he would have given his life unhesitantly to save a single one of those forever-lost masterpieces.

Cranston soothed him by suggesting that the police would undoubtedly capture the masked men before long.

The curator nodded sadly. "I'm not a revengeful man, Mr. Cranston, but I hope to see the day come swiftly when every one of those - devils - are caught and punished."

Cranston rose from his chair. "By the way," he said, quietly, "I notice you've had one piece of good luck."

"What do you mean?"

"You managed to save one of your Colettes. The 'Landscape with Flowers,'

that arrived two weeks ago by air. Thank Heaven, the thieves didn't get that!

No doubt, you had it carefully boxed in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the moment it arrived, waiting for it to be properly prepared for hanging among the collection already on display."

The curator nodded listlessly. He wasn't paying much attention to his caller's words.

"I wonder if I might have a brief took at it," Cranston persisted, smoothly, "before I leave?"

"I'd like to oblige you," the curator said, "but, unfortunately - or rather, most fortunately - I can't. The 'Landscape with Flowers' is no longer in the museum."

"What!" Lamont Cranston masked the explosive surprise of his exclamation with a pleasant smile. "Where in the world is it?"

"It was borrowed, yesterday afternoon, on loan."

"On loan? You mean to the private collection of one of the museum's trustees?"

"Certainly. We're constantly loaning pictures."

"It wasn't, by any chance, a woman who took it?"

The curator looked puzzled at the question. "Of course not! A man. The chauffeur for Harley Vanderpool. As you know, Mr. Vanderpool has a tremendously valuable private collection, that will some day become the property of the museum. Naturally, we like to do favors for him for that reason. I'd already promised him the 'Landscape with Flowers' when it arrived. He is to keep it until such time as we are ready to display it to the public. So, naturally, when his chauffeur came late yesterday afternoon -"

"Did you turn over the painting yourself, to the chauffeur?"

"No. I had already left. It was turned over by Mr. Dixon, who is in charge of the receiving vault in the bas.e.m.e.nt." The curator saw the grave look on Cranston's face and his voice became shrill with sudden alarm.

"Do you think - do you suspect that the chauffeur -"

"You had better call Mr. Vanderpool's home, at once," Cranston said, in a dead voice. "Ask him if he really sent his chauffeur to get that painting."

The curator leaped to the phone. He spoke only a couple of sentences, then he sank back in his chair, white-faced, looking like a man who has received a mortal blow.

"The chauffeur was a fake!" he whispered. "Mr. Vanderpool sent no one to the museum yesterday!"

THE SHADOW'S eyes were as hard as jewels. "Quickly!" he cried. "Send for Dixon, the man in charge of the bas.e.m.e.nt vault. Get him up here, at once."

The message that the curator sent over the departmental telephone brought Dixon up on the run. Dixon was an oldish man, with a pointed gray beard and bald head. His breath wheezed in his throat.

"Anything wrong, sir?"

"The Colette!" gasped the curator. "Did - did you -" He gulped, was unable to finish the sentence.

"I gave it to Mr. Vanderpool's chauffeur," Dixon said.

"Sit down," Cranston said, quietly. "Are you sure the man was Vanderpool's chauffeur?"

"Why - I thought so. I never saw him before yesterday. But Mr. Vanderpool is always changing his servants, so I thought -"

"Describe this man to whom you gave the painting."

Falteringly, Dixon began to describe the uniform, the leather leggings, the visored cap of his visitor.

"The face!" Cranston said, swiftly. "Forget what he was dressed like. His eyes, his nose, color of his hair! What did he look like?"

Dixon took a deep breath and recovered his scattered wits. Fortunately, there was a strong electric light just outside the door of the bas.e.m.e.nt vault, and he had been able to get a good look at the stranger. He described him with accurate, painstaking care.

Cranston gave a low exclamation.

"Do you recognize the fellow?" the curator asked.

"No. I have no idea in the world who he might be," Cranston replied, his voice dull, no longer filled with that grimly electric tension. "You had better report this whole matter to Acting Inspector Cardona. He's the man to investigate this, not I. I'm merely" - he laughed strangely - "Lamont Cranston."

THE SHADOW left the museum a few minutes later. He pushed through the crowd on the sidewalk and hailed a cab. He gave no address to the driver. His destination was a street corner in that part of the city that housed the secret, black-swathed sanctum of The Shadow.

The description that the aged and trembling Dixon had given of the mysterious "chauffeur" was an exact portrait of Doctor Bruce Hanson!

In the speeding taxicab, Lamont Cranston laughed quietly. From now on, the gentleman from the Cobalt Club was retiring from the scene, vanishing into obscurity. In his place would emerge a black-robed figure that moved stealthily and surely to grimly appointed ends. The eyes of The Shadow were about to be focused on the lavishly furnished apartment of Doctor Bruce Hanson!

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAN IN THE TUB.

SOMETHING had gone wrong with one of the lights on the eleventh floor of the Dorsetshire Apartments. There were three frosted lamps in the ceiling of the broad, quiet corridor. One was directly opposite the elevator shaft; a second at the left end of the hall; a third at the extreme right.

It was this third lamp that had gone out. The result was almost complete darkness in front of the last apartment door.

There was no name-plate on the door. Yet the door in front of which thecorridor light had so mysteriously gone out, was the entrance to the apartment of Doctor Bruce Hanson.

The yearly rent of this apartment was worth many times the meager salary earned by Doctor Hanson from the medical research foundation where he was employed. The renting agent of the building was aware of this. However, Hanson's references were excellent; his rent was paid promptly. He had few callers and no noisy parties.

In this respect, Hanson was perhaps the best tenant in the house.

A quiet laugh came from the darkness that shrouded Hanson's door. The man who uttered that laugh was dressed entirely in black. His hands were gloved.

All that could have been seen by a close observer was the deep-socketed, glowing eyes, the beaklike nose, the grim lines of a mouth that was partly hidden by the upturned collar of the cloak.

The Shadow laughed because he knew that the mysterious Doctor Hanson was not within that discreet apartment. Harry Vincent had provided the information which had been relayed to The Shadow by the crisp, dry tones of Burbank.

Vincent was trailing Hanson. The suspect was loitering in the vicinity of Herald Square, apparently waiting for someone he expected to meet.

In his absence, The Shadow intended to get possession of the only undestroyed Colette painting in America.

THERE was a faint click in the darkness, and the apartment door opened.

The Shadow glided inside and the door closed behind him. He stood motionless, his back to the oaken panels, listening intently. If anything, the darkness was deeper than it had been outside.

The Shadow discovered the reason for this, as he moved quietly, through the suite of rooms. Every shade in the apartment had been drawn tightly down over the windows. Brocaded curtains were an added precaution against prying eyes from the outside.

The Shadow turned on a floor lamp in the living room. Instantly, he observed evidence that told him this apartment had recently undergone a thorough and most peculiar search. Without moving from his tense position in the center of the living room, he deduced the fact that Jimmy Dawson had visited this apartment, that a vicious struggle had occurred between Hanson and the sly little gunman, that the apartment had been searched from top to bottom -.

by Doctor Hanson himself!

It was impossible to doubt this latter fact. The search had been made in too orderly a manner. Had Dawson triumphed in the struggle everything would have been topsy-turvy, ripped to violent confusion. The only sign of confusion was a felt hat lying upside down and trampled in front of a bookcase near the shaded window. The initials on the stained sweatband were clearly visible from where The Shadow stood: "J. D."

Dawson would never voluntarily leave such a clue to his illegal presence.

Therefore, he was still in the apartment!

The Shadow moved quickly from room to room without finding a trace of him.

Finally, he turned to the closed door of the bathroom.

Here, too, the shade was drawn over the small ground-gla.s.s window.

Pale-green shower curtains shrouded the outline of a built-in bathtub. The Shadow drew the curtains, aside with a steady hand - and Dawson lay full length under the burning eyes of the detective.

Flat on his back, his legs doubled at the knees, there was no sign of a wound on him. But his eyes were closed tightly and there was a bluish pallor on his leathery cheeks. He was not dead. The Shadow tested heart and pulse and found them beating strongly, although with r.e.t.a.r.ded rhythm. The grim explanation for Dawson's condition was not hard to find.

There was a drop of blood on his neck, and just above it an almost microscopic bit of jagged steel.

The broken end of a hypodermic needle!

THE SHADOW sniffed at the wound, but was unable to determine from the smell the drug that had been used by the cunning Doctor Hanson. A quick search of Dawson disclosed that his pockets were empty.

The queerest thing about him was the leering grin that remained stiffly etched on his unconscious face. There was sly triumph in that grimace, a mocking satisfaction. Not even the effects of a strong drug had been able to wipe it from the lips of the gunman.

The Shadow coupled that grin with the fact that the search of the apartment had been made by Hanson himself. The puffed black eye of the gunman did not escape his attention. Had Dawson already managed to steal and secrete the Colette painting before he was surprised by the unexpected return of the doctor?

His defiant and c.o.c.ky grin would seem to indicate so. There was no other reason why Hanson should search his own apartment or pause in the bathroom to smash an angry fist into the face of the unconscious crook in the bathtub before he rushed away in a rage.

Why had Hanson hurried to Herald Square? The Shadow abandoned any further thought of a search.

He glided to the telephone, whispered a number in a voice that was barely audible. There was a brief silence, then: "Burbank speaking."

"Desire last report from Harry Vincent."

"Report received five minutes ago. Place - Hoboken, New Jersey. Message as follows."

The Shadow listened, not a muscle moving in his gaunt face. Only his deep-set eyes gave a hint of the satisfaction that filled him. The eyes glowed like living flame. He hung up, and immediately made a second call.

This time, he telephoned police headquarters and asked to speak with Acting Inspector Joe Cardona. His message was a single crisp sentence. The sentence told Joe the address of Doctor Hanson and added the information that the drugged body of Jimmy Dawson was lying, face-upward, in the doctor's bathtub. Before Cardona could yell a surprised question, the line was dead and The Shadow was moving swiftly toward the apartment door.

The report of Harry Vincent had brought an unexpected change to the plans of The Shadow. Hanson had gone to the vicinity of Herald Square to meet a woman. The woman was Madge Payne! She was carrying a heavy suitcase, which she had immediately handed to Hanson. Both had descended the street stairway to the terminal of the Hudson Tube trains.

Vincent had followed. When the pair had arrived in Hoboken, they bought railroad tickets to Denville, New Jersey. Vincent made sure that they had boarded the train, then he hurried to a public phone and reported to Burbank.

He was waiting in a hotel at Hoboken to receive further commands.

The Shadow had given no command. Vincent would have to stand by, for the present. There was a strong possibility that his surveillance had been noted by Madge or the doctor. Vincent's usefulness was ended, as far as Madge and the doctor were concerned.

The darkened light bulb outside Hanson's apartment was again glowing in the deserted corridor. The Shadow was nowhere to be seen. Not a sound indicatedthat he was already descending the enclosed staircase, hurrying swiftly to a side entrance on the street level.

THE apartment of Doctor Bruce Hanson remained for only a few minutes in the darkness in which The Shadow had left it. Outside the shade-drawn window in the bedroom came a sudden, sharp snap. The sash lifted and the shade was left drawn. A figure squirmed over the sill into the room.

There was a thud of heavy feet, then the light in the living room clicked on. It disclosed a tall, muscular man, whose face and head were entirely hidden beneath a silver-gray silken cloth in which tiny slits had been cut for eyeholes. A .45 automatic gleamed dully in the powerful hand of the intruder.

He stood a moment, listening intently, then with a lithe bound he ran straight for the bathroom. A snarl sounded in his throat as he viewed the unconscious body of Jimmy Dawson still lying limp in the bathtub.

The masked man wasted not a second. Apparently, he had known what to expect and what to do. From his pocket he took a syringe and a long hypodermic needle. He filled the syringe with a colorless liquid from a small bottle with a metal cap. He pulled back Dawson's collar, exposing the flesh at the base of his skull. Into a spot near the top of Dawson's backbone he drove home the hollow needle of the hypodermic.

The result was like magic. In a second or two Dawson stirred, groaned, opened his eyes. They froze as they saw the hooded face above his. Into Dawson's eyes came a peculiar mixture of terror and bravado.

He said nothing, nor did the masked man. Tremblingly, Dawson rose from the tub and staggered to the tiled floor. The man who had revived him threw an arm under the crook's armpit and hurried him across the living room, pausing only to retrieve Dawson's trampled hat from in front of the bookcase and to jam it with a savage pressure on the crook's head.

They ran together to the bedroom, and here Dawson swayed. The masked man clutched at him with an oath. He pushed the crook through the open window to the platform of a stone balcony outside. Beyond it was another balcony. Not more than, three feet separated the two stone projections.

"Wake up, d.a.m.n you!" the masked man breathed, savagely. "If you don't get a move on, I'll drop you eleven stories and smash you so that no one will ever recognize you - not even the wise Joe Cardona!"