The Shadow - The Shadow Laughs Part 3

Some one crossed the outer office. The insurance broker looked up, and his mouth gaped. For there, in the door of the inner office, stood Lamont Cranston!

CHAPTER V. FELLOWS IS PERPLEXED.

FELLOWS arose, and ushered his visitor to a chair. His mind was working with strange, confused rapidity. He stared at the man who had come into his office.

Lamont Cranston was a tall man, with rather p.r.o.nounced features, who seemed to carry a very boredexpression, as though life was rather tasteless.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Cranston?" he asked.

The millionaire smiled wanly.

"I haven't come on business, Claude," he replied. "Why be so formal? You're an old friend. Call me Lamont."

Fellows laughed in embarra.s.sment.

"I don't see you very often," he said.

"That's because I'm away so much," answered the millionaire. "By the way, when did you last see me?"

Fellows hesitated.

"Don't you remember?" urged Cranston.

"Well, er-" replied Fellows. "It was the time I came out to your house-some time ago-when you were-when you-"

"When I was injured, and sent for you?" interrupted Cranston. "Did you come out then?"

"Yes. That was the time."

Lamont Cranston arose from his chair, and went to the window. He stood, looking over the sky line of Manhattan, tapping the gla.s.s with his knuckles. Then he turned suddenly, and faced the startled insurance broker.

"I can't understand it, Claude!" he said. "This is a real mystery to me. I didn't believe it until now."

"Believe what?" gasped Fellows.

"Believe that I am crazy."

"Why?"

"Well, here's the story, Claude. My hobby is to do what I please. I forget the past. I live in the present. I go away when I choose, and return just as unexpectedly as I wish. You know that from your own experience with me.

"My establishment is run by Richards, my valet. He has been with me for years. He knows that I come, and go.

"A few months ago I left for California. I returned home two days ago. I expect to stay here for a month, at least.

"Yesterday, I slipped on the stairs, and fell against my shoulder. It hurt me considerably for the moment.

Richards saw me, and rushed up in alarm. He asked if I had injured my wounded shoulder.

"This surprised me. My wounded shoulder! I never had such a thing. I demanded what Richards meant.

The poor fellow looked as though he would liked to have bitten off his tongue.

"He said that he had made a mistake; he couldn't explain his statement. Still, I insisted. He apologized, saying that he should not have mentioned something which I had ordered him never to discuss. Thatmade it worse.

"I realized that Richards was in a predicament. He evidently believed that I had given him some instructions which he must obey; and that he must not discuss the subject even though I now demanded it. At last he found a way out. He pa.s.sed the buck to you.

"He reminded me that you had come out to see me; that I had sent for you; and that he really knew very little about the purpose of your visit.

"So I told Richards to forget it. To-day I came in to see you. I want to know what it's all about."

THE millionaire's statements placed Fellows in an alarming position. Two thoughts dominated the insurance broker's mind.

First: that Lamont Cranston was The Shadow.

Second: that the episode of The Shadow's injury was to be forgotten.

Richards had unwittingly betrayed his knowledge. Fellows had just been coaxed into an unwise admission.

He felt that he was being tested. He resolved to meet the crucial situation.

"Perhaps your memory is at fault, Lamont," he said complacently. "At the same time I must confess that my own recollection is not very clear.

"I came out to see you some time ago. I don't recall whether or not you sent for me. It seemed to me that we discussed the subject of injuries-in reference to accident insurance.

"Richards was there at the time. He may have misunderstood our conversation, and thought that you had been injured, and that I was there to arrange an adjustment."

Lamont Cranston seemed puzzled.

"You did come out to see me once," he said. "We talked about insurance then; but it was fire insurance.

Furthermore, it was considerably over a year and a half ago-before I went to South America."

"We must have talked about accident insurance, too," insisted Fellows.

"No," replied the millionaire. "I have no need for such insurance. My income takes care of me.

"Furthermore, I gathered from Richards's remarks that this last visit of yours was quite recent. It must have been just before I went to California, six months ago."

Fellows shook his head emphatically. At the same time, he felt uneasy. His visit to Cranston's, when the millionaire had been injured, had taken place not more than four months before.

"Well," said the millionaire, in a doubting tone, "I guess I'm wrong about it. I've been away for six solid months. I picked up my affairs exactly as I left them. I don't bother much with business details. Richards must have been dreaming.

"Still, the whole thing is very queer. But I'm not going to worry about it. I can't see that it means anything has gone wrong. Richards is trustworthy, so I'll let it drop."

"How about lunch together?" suggested Fellows, taking advantage of the opportunity to change thesubject.

"Sorry, Claude," was the reply. "I have an engagement. Come out to the house some night next week. I'll let you know the date later."

The insurance broker agreed, and the millionaire left the office. But Fellows sat at his desk, and as the minutes moved by, his mind became more and more bewildered.

The only explanation he could give to Lamont Cranston's visit was that the millionaire-whom he had identified with The Shadow-was anxious to have the episode of his injury forgotten.

Fellows had promised to say nothing about it, when he had answered Lamont Cranston's summons four months ago. But what was the purpose of this strange attempt to ferret out his mind-to make him betray some recollection of the event?

Did The Shadow mistrust him? There could be no reason for that. Perhaps-the thought was impossible-he was mistaken in The Shadow's ident.i.ty! Fellows found himself leaning toward that idea.

Half an hour ago, the insurance broker had been sure that Lamont Cranston and The Shadow were one man. Now he had lost that conviction. He realized that his brains were like those of a child, when compared to the master mind of The Shadow.

The stenographer returned. Fellows still sat at his desk, staring into s.p.a.ce. At last he collected his thoughts, glanced at his wrist watch, and removed his spectacles.

It was time for lunch.

Fellows had been sitting, wondering, for an hour and a half. Yet he was still perplexed.

CHAPTER VI. THE SHADOW INVESTIGATES.

IT was late in the evening. A misty drizzle was falling, and the lights above the Philadelphia street were dim in the gloom. The front of Mrs. Johnson's boarding house was black and shadowy.

Pa.s.sing cars, sloshing through the muck, cast moving silhouettes upon the sidewalk and the wall of the house.

Black depths surrounded the steps of the building; and it was from this murky umbra that a shadow seemed to rise and blot out the door of the house.

In a moment, the blackness was gone, and no sign of it remained. Inside the rooming house, however, a singular phenomenon occurred.

The landlady, coming along the hall beside the stairs, stopped for a moment, startled by a peculiar gloom that seemed to flit toward the steps that led to the second floor. Then she realized that her imagination must be tricking her.

Quelling her alarm, she locked the front door, and went upstairs.

A new door had been placed in the entrance to the room where Frank Jarnow had been murdered. Had Mrs. Johnson come up the stairs ten seconds sooner, she would have been keenly startled. For there was a sharp click in the lock of the door, and the barrier had opened inward. But, an instant before the landlady turned at the top of the stairs, the door had closed silently.

The sight of the door made the woman pause. For a moment she listened instinctively outside the room,imagining that some one might be within. Hearing no sound, she pa.s.sed on.

Within the room, a being moved. So stealthy were his steps that they were soundless, even though the carpet was thin and worn.

The invisible visitor moved here and there, from door to window. Satisfied that the shade was down, he made his presence known by the thin ray of a tiny flashlight.

First the illumination fell upon the table, which still was in its same position under the hanging lamp. The quiet investigator could not be seen; only the beam of his light indicated his presence.

He moved toward the door; then back to the table. He took a position in one chair; then in the other. His little flashlight ran along the edges of the table; then toward the hanging lamp with its green shade.

Within two short minutes, this investigator had followed the same course that Detective Harvey Griffith had taken on the previous day.

He had learned the important fact that if Henry Windsor had used a pistol from a standing position, his vision would have been obscured by the shade.

The flashlight reappeared after a moment of darkness. It was at the door, running along the woodwork of the doorway.

It stopped, and was focused on a smudge in the white paint. A long, thin finger appeared in the tiny circle of light, and sc.r.a.ped the paint with its nail.

The doorway had evidently been painted while Frank Jarnow had been away. The paint had barely dried at the time of his return. Some one, moving slowly through the doorway, had pressed his left shoulder against the woodwork and had made the smudge.

The tiniest bit of cloth was in the paint; the finger nail removed it. The light went to the bottom of the doorway and up again, determining the exact distance of the smudge above the floor.

Then the light swept about the room, covering every inch of the floor. It stopped at a wastebasket in the corner. The basket was empty.

An unseen hand pulled it from the corner. There, in the s.p.a.ce behind, lay the fragments of a small green slip of paper, which had been torn to bits.

A hand gathered these and carried them to the table. There they were fitted together with amazing rapidity. It was the receipt of a Pullman ticket from Springfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, to New York City.

The light went out. The hidden person paced up and down the room as though imitating the action of some person who had been there before.

One chair moved slightly; then the position of the other was disturbed. Again the invisible being went to the door; then to the table; finally to the window. The shade was carefully raised.

The light, m.u.f.fled in the palm of a hand, now flashed upon the latch of the window, then went out.

The sash came up noiselessly. A figure, almost invisible, emerged through the window. The sash was lowered, from the outside, and a form dropped into the alley below.

The tiny light ran along the cement. There were no footprints there, but at one edge, where the cement ended, there was a slight mark on the ground, as though the toe of a shoe had overstepped the edge.A hand, holding a tiny steel tape measure, spread above the spot, and made careful measurements. The single hand worked alone, handling the tape deftly.

The flashlight's gleam was reflected by a large bluish gem that shone from the third finger. It was a girasol, or fire opal, that cast a strange, red reflection.

Then the light was gone. There was no sound; no movement in the darkness. A few seconds later, a window opened from a house in back, and the light from a room fell on the spot where the hand had been. No one was there.

THE door of the city morgue was heavy, and old-fashioned. To-night, a half hour after the episode at the rooming house, the huge portal opened noiselessly, and closed without even the slightest clang.

A shadow moved along the dim hall. The attendant in the office did not see it, although he was gazing in that direction.

The blot of darkness seemed to merge with the gloomy wall. It reached the steps that led to the room below; there it disappeared.

There were no bodies lying on the trucks to-night; the corpses of both murdered men had been removed.

Yet that lighted room seemed to await some messenger of death.

Into it came a tall black figure; a form cloaked in sable, with a broad-brimmed hat that hid the features beneath. The being might have been death itself; for he walked with an ominous stride that made no noise, even on that concrete floor.

As though summoned by the spirits of the murdered men, The Shadow moved unhesitatingly to the trucks where the bodies had lain, and stood there, contemplating the empty s.p.a.ces, as if visualizing the scene that had once been on exhibition.