The Shadow - The Mask Of Mephisto Part 8

CHAPTER XV

MARGO LANE was getting tired of reading up on a man named Dominique whose name was short for Dominique You. In her opinion, Dominique was the least picturesque of all the Baratarians, those swashbucklers headed by Lafitte and who were termed pirates or smugglers, according to the point of view.

Those bullies of the bayous dated back more than a century. They had reformed long enough to help win the Battle of New Orleans; then they had gone back to their questionable ways. All except Dominique; he'd become a ward politician in New Orleans.

Margo expressed her disappointment to Joan.

"What a tame ending for an adventurous career!"

"You don't know our ward politicians," rejoined Joan, sweetly. "If you're really thinking of tame endings, consider those who left New Orleans and wound up among the bayous." Joan's sweet tone had grown bitter, word by word: "Like Fred Ferrand!"

Margo looked across the courtyard. She and Joan were doing the Dominique research in an empty studio just off Ken's patio. From where they were, they could see Ken working on Wingless Victory, whose bullet wounds had long ago been plastered.

Following Margo's gaze and noting that it contained no envy, Joan queried softly: "Do you think I'm right?"

"If you mean because you've gone sculptor-minded," returned Margo, "yes."

"Ken is a realist," considered Joan. "Take his Wingless Victory. He decided that Victory needed a head more than wings, so he swapped. I like that."

"Wasn't Fred a realist?"

"If you mean because he bayed around the bayous, I suppose he was. But let's forget Fred."

"What about Rolfe Trenhue?"

Joan shook her head.

"If you must bring up comparisons, Margo, I suppose I'll have to a.n.a.lyze them for you. Let's take the Krewe of Hades as the balance point. Can you think of anything sillier than sponsoring a thing like that?"

"Off-hand," admitted Margo, "I can't."

"Well, I can," retorted Joan. "Starting such stupid organizations is bad enough; trying to stop them is worse. That sums Rolfe."

Margo admitted that it did. Then: "Tell me, Joan," queried Margo. "What do you think of a man who spends his time looking at old coins but never buying any?"

"If you mean Lamont," returned Joan, "I'd say he's just trying to avoid something worse, like doing research on Dominique."

"I'm not so sure," said Margo. "Old coins are getting scarcer and therefore worth more."

"But Lamont isn't buying any, is he?"

"He isn't and that's the funny part about it. Maybe the business is only booming locally. Still, old coins ought to be a good investment."

Remembering something, Joan went through a batch of clippings and found the ones she wanted.

"Speaking of investments," she said, "Dominique was a bad hand at them.

He was practically broke when he died and that's a real mystery."

"I'll tell Lamont," decided Margo. "He likes mystery, though I can't say he's been working at it lately." Right then, Cranston was really working at it. In a secluded courtyard behind the old Hoodoo House, he was helping Jim Selbert reconstruct a crime, though the police captain didn't know it. In Selbert's opinion, they were merely adding to the intricacies of an existing mystery.

Cranston was standing directly below the tiny window of that little second floor hallway where pursuers had barged in from two directions to find that Mephisto had continued along his way, which could only have been further upstairs.

In the window itself, Selbert's head and shoulders were framed with little s.p.a.ce to spare.

"Here's a question," called down Selbert. "Ever hear of a midget who was a contortionist too?"

"Can't say that I have," Cranston called up. "Why do you ask?"

"Because n.o.body else could have squeezed through this window," Jim decided. "Well, it proves one thing. The murderer must have gone up to the cupola or the roof. Come around to the front door and I'll meet you there."

Coming around to the front door was easy. Cranston simply went around the side of the house, through an adjacent pa.s.sage, and opened the unlocked iron gate that brought him to the front door of the old stone house. He was there before Selbert had time to come downstairs and since the door was open, Cranston entered.

Men were at work hacking the cement floor of the Devil's Den with pick-axes. When Selbert came down the stairs, Cranston asked: "What are you doing? Hunting for Ferrand? I thought you said that he wasn't hiding here."

"Not my idea." Selbert shrugged in the direction of the workmen.

"Improvements, that's all."

"Who ordered them?"

"Trenhue or Aldion; maybe both. They've got to liquidate this architectural horror in order to get back their investment."

"They're going to tear down the house?"

"No, indeed." Selbert seemed outraged by the suggestion. "That's no longer being done in New Orleans, now that historical landmarks are running out.

They'll just remodel the place and rent it out as studios or apartments."

After watching the workmen hack away a while, Selbert decided to go outdoors. From the front alley, he surveyed the Hoodoo House again and gave a puzzled head shake.

"If it had been The Shadow," Selbert said to Cranston, "I could understand it. The disappearing stuff is his specialty. But I can't see how Ferrand dropped out of sight so fast, if he did drop."

With the final comment, Selbert looked up to the roof to make sure that it was as high above the alley as it always was. Satisfied that the mad escape of the Masked Mephisto still rated as a superhuman achievement, Selbert decided to let it rest at that.

"There's something I want to ask Miss Marcy," Selbert told Cranston.

"Let's go over to the studio and see her."

Questions from Selbert had become part of Joan's daily dozen, so she wasn't surprised when the police captain arrived in the recently formed bureau of research that was devoting itself to data concerning Dominique.

Nor was Margo surprised when she saw Lamont. He'd said he would stop around to learn how the work had progressed. Nevertheless, Margo wasinterested in what Selbert was asking Joan, but it turned out to be the usual routine.

Selbert wanted to know where Joan had been at every odd minute on Mardi Gras Night and all the persons she had seen. He was still trying to get some trifling fact that would lead to Ferrand.

Joan tried to help, but managed it only in a negative way.

"I've told you I expected to meet Fred," she declared. "Rolfe was looking for him, too. Only I couldn't tell Rolfe that Fred was going to the Hades meeting. Rolfe wouldn't have believed that there was such a thing as the Krewe of Hades."

"Be specific," insisted Selbert. "What happened and at what time?"

"Rolfe left me at seven -"

"That was just when the guests were coming into the Hoodoo House,"

tallied Selbert. "Since Ferrand was already there, Trenhue couldn't possibly have found him. n.o.body could enter the Devil's Den without an invitation and then only as a guest. Go on."

"Well, I couldn't find Fred either," stated Joan. "I was supposed to meet Rolfe at seven fifteen, at the coffee stand in the old French Market."

"Which coffee stand?"

"The one on the side toward the Cabildo, but I went to the other one first, by mistake. You see, I was walking through Frenchtown, while Rolfe was driving out to Fred's apartment and back -"

"But why were you walking through the Quarter?" broke in Selbert. "Be specific, please."

"Because Fred was so often around there," explained Joan, patiently. "He had a favorite drinking place in nearly every block."

"And you looked into all of them?"

"Yes, but no Fred. Anyway, at about seven thirty, Rolfe found me. He'd parked his car at the other end of the Market and had been waiting for me there. Only he had sense enough to decide that I'd gone to the wrong stand. So we drove out to the Borneau Mansion."

"And?"

"And that was all. You've heard the rest a dozen times."

Deciding that he'd heard all that was needed, Selbert went his way and Joan resumed her filing of the Dominique data. It was Cranston who put the next questions and his were addressed to Margo Lane.

"Speaking of time elements," said Cranston, "how soon did you get out in front of Hoodoo House after that Mephisto murder?"

"Soon enough," replied Margo. "If Friend Fiend had come that way, I'd have seen him."

"People were still chasing up to the roof?"

"Yes, and to the cupola. You know, Lamont" - Margo's expression became quite wise - "if the murderer could have squeezed through that tiny second floor window, he might have gotten away."

"Only he couldn't make the squeeze," modified Cranston, "but what makes you think he'd have gotten away if he had?"

"Because a car drove away from out back. Now if Ferrand had dropped out that window -"

"He'd have done it in pieces," Cranston interposed, "which he didn't. He was very much together when we saw him later. Ever hear of a midget contortionist, Margo?"

"Why, no!"

"Neither did Jim Selbert. Find one and you'll have a murder suspect. Only he would have to be twins to fill the Mephisto costume. So Selbert is still looking for Ferrand."

Dusk was closing in, the time when Lamont Cranston could become TheShadow and do some expert searching on his own. That was exactly what he planned, for his low laugh, heard only in the archway as he left the patio, marked the advent of another personality cloaked in black.

As Cranston, The Shadow had learned much; far more than anyone else supposed. Selbert's questions to Joan, plus those Cranston had asked Margo, were fitting some important pieces in murder's jigsaw.

Frederick Ferrand was still the man to find and perhaps The Shadow could accomplish it here in New Orleans while others were wasting time in their search of the bayou region.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE chronicles of crime teem with instances of murderers who have returned to the scene of their deed, but the purpose behind that folly has been attributed to reasons more foolish than the thing itself.

Some a.n.a.lysts have attributed it to a killer's conscience, as if murderers were commonly burdened with such a handicap. Others claim that some horrible fascination is the cause, bringing the killer back to mope or gloat, according to his peculiar inclination.

Such theories, of course, belong to fiction, something in which The Shadow had never dealt.

To The Shadow, criminals were men whose game was to outwit the law. The best police officers were those who could outwit criminals at their own game.

Therefore the test of a good police officer was how well his mind could duplicate the thoughts of the man he hunted. Hence in this case, Selbert's impressions were an index to Ferrand's.

Now it was neither conscience nor fascination that had caused Selbert to haunt Hoodoo House with the tenacity of a pet ghost. It was just that something didn't quite add up around the place and Selbert wanted to find out why not.

Should Ferrand be apprehended and Selbert find himself confronting the alleged killer in a courtroom, Jim would have to give answers to everything.

The same applied to Ferrand. He would have to prove Selbert's figures wrong. Maybe Ferrand had calculated everything beforehand, but that was prior to Selbert's connection with the case.

An exhaustive search of criminal records will produce few, if any, instances of a murderer returning to a scene of crime until after the police have been there. That was the nib in Ferrand's case. Guilty or innocent, he was prey, and like the forest deer, Ferrand would sniff the camp-fire smoke and from the darkness try to view the hunter who would be gunning for him on the morrow.

This evening, Hoodoo House was comparable to a camp-fire. From its windows came a wavery glow, while m.u.f.fled sounds could be heard within, as though a horde of ghoulish goblins were hard at work.

The night crew that was hacking up the cement floor looked like goblins, too, for they were knee deep in rubble and therefore appeared of dwarfish stature. Taller were the two men who watched the work: Hubert Aldion and Rolfe Trenhue.

They were equally glum. Both were making the best of a bad thing, for Aldion owed no special thanks to Trenhue for having taken up Ferrand's share in this questionable piece of real estate. Aldion couldn't have made good onFerrand's note and Trenhue knew it, so the deal was purely automatic.

From the open front door, through which the stone dust drifted, The Shadow viewed the hazy interior. His ears were alert for he recognized the advantage of the smoke screen that the dust cloud formed. It would be an excellent lure for Ferrand, should the latter be about. Jim Selbert was missing his best opportunity tonight.

Guarded footsteps proved it.

Those footfalls came from the mouth of the alley, working their way along the friendly side wall. As dust swirled, the approaching sounds halted, then resumed as the cloud gradually thinned.

The Shadow had timed it nicely and managed it neatly. His twist from the enveloping dusk was responsible for the swirl that improved the visibility to just the right degree.

The iron gate neither groaned nor clanged as The Shadow manipulated it.

The dim light from the dust-shrouded doorway showed the bars and braces of that gate against a solid background that to all appearances represented a vacant pa.s.sage. The Shadow had the qualities of a chameleon when it came to blending with such settings.