The Shadow - The Whispering Eyes Part 14

"Our visitor," said Lang, as he paused. "But which?" He shrugged apologetically. "I phoned both Bogardus and Fontaine, mentioning that I had seen Gregg's notice. It was necessary, otherwise each might have overlooked it. So whichever man appears, we cannot condemn him on sight."

The buzzer sounded again. Lang snapped his fingers.

"I'd forgotten that my servant was off," he said. "It seemed best, considering the circ.u.mstances. After all, the apartment house has doormen and elevator operators, so we can summon them if needed. But first, I must let in our visitor."

Going out, Lang soon returned. With him was Professor Eric Bogardus. The portly hypnotist gave a flabby nod, then glanced about the room.

"Never been here before," said Bogardus. "Mr. Lang has invited me often, though, but I didn't want to interfere with his work. Each to his liking, you know. He prefers the crystal to induce hypnosis and I've nothing against it, you understand. I prefer to make pa.s.ses, according to Mesmer's system, but I have three lessons on crystal gazing in my course.

"You'll like the course, Mr. Gregg. I brought it along with all my charts. It's in a package out in the living room. Now you know, Mr. Gregg, if you want to finance something good, this course of mine -"

The buzzer sounded again. Turning his head, Bogardus apparently didn't notice how Gregg worried the brief case.

"Who's that?" demanded Bogardus. "Fontaine isn't coming here, is he?"

"He might be," Lang replied, "Suppose you wait in the living room, professor?"

Lang must have kept right on through after leaving Bogardus in the living room, for when he reappeared it was by another door that he had reached by a skirting hall. With him now was Fontaine, who seemed quite familiar with the place and was laughing about the round trip he had taken.

"My word!" said Fontaine. "When we stopped in the study so I could leave my package, I thought we'd reached the end of the line. Now here we are in the big room. But you should have let me bring thepackage. I'm sure that Mr. Gregg would like to see my hypnograph."

"Later," decided Lang. "If you'll go back in the study a few minutes, I'll summon you when Mr. Gregg is ready. You can take either of those two doors."

With Fontaine gone to the study, Lang formulated a rapid plan.

"Now we can relax," said Lang. "Let them worry, particularly the man who intends to show his hand.

Bogardus knows Fontaine is here. Fontaine suspects that Bogardus is present, because we came the long way round. But the one who is bluffing, the one who wants to swing a big game, will be the first to become impatient.

"I'm going out to the kitchen to telephone the commissioner. After that, I'll keep looking in on Bogardus and Fontaine, each in turn. Meanwhile, I suggest that all three of you keep looking at the crystal. It will be a lulling sign while I am on watch."

The crystal did have a lulling effect. Margo was grateful when she looked into its glowing limpid depths.

Briefly she noted that Cranston and Gregg seemed to appreciate it, too. Then Margo stared steadily at the huge ball until, just as the surface seemed to cloud, a sudden hiss alarmed her.

Momentarily, Margo thought she saw a cobra's shape in the glistening ball. She looked up, learned again that there were times when it was impossible to gasp.

Facing the three persons at the crystal was a man with the hood. It looked fresh and new, that hood, but it answered the specifications of the old one, where the eye s.p.a.ce was concerned. The hiss seemed to come from the glowing eyes themselves and their glitter caught the reflection from the crystal ball.

Whispering Eyes!

Well had the hooded man timed his whispered announcement. He'd caught the eyes of all three persons almost at a glance, was adding his commanding power to the hypnotic effect that the crystal had already provided. Now he spoke brief words: "Do not move. You cannot."

The command was hardly necessary with Margo, who already sat frozen. It took startling effect on Cranston, halting him as he shifted in his chair. He seemed to know both the eyes and whisper from the past, did Cranston. Gregg merely held the brief case more tightly and at that the hooded man laughed.

Spreading from a low crouch, he revealed a large package that he had brought with him. Opening it with a single sweep, he displayed the four portraits that had once belonged to Artemus Drade. Then, letting a long narrow cloth unroll itself, he neatly caught the Bucharest statuettes one by one, setting those trophies of Maresca Lepavnu in a row along the floor, Finally, he showed two fists filled with the Burmese rubies that he had taken from James Kelthorn. Interspersed with them were Maresca's missing pearls.

"This concludes our bargain, Gregg," declared the hooded man. "You are fortunate in that I have no way of disposing of these treasures, Otherwise, you would not receive them in return for your money. I shall take it now, Gregg."

Reaching across the crystal ball, the man of the Whispering Eyes took the brief case from Gregg's lap.

His triumphant hiss seemed echoed from a chair near by; then, the hooded man wheeled suddenly and was gone through another door.

A moment only, then Gregg was on his feet, shouting: "I've been robbed-robbed! I was a fool to bring that cash! Hurry, Lang, find him, wherever he went -"

Footsteps came pounding into the room; from one door Bogardus, from another Fontaine. They were much nearer than the kitchen where Lang had gone to phone and naturally had closed the door. It wasn't until Gregg had delivered another series of shouts that Lang arrived.

Then, seeing that the brief case was gone, Lang loomed above Bogardus and Fontaine, demanding hoa.r.s.ely: "Which one of you came in here? Which package is this"-he gestured to the open bundle and its treasures-"the one that was in the living room or the study?"

"It's not mine," retorted Bogardus. "Better ask Fontaine."

"Nor mine," put in Fontaine. "Let Bogardus explain this."

"You can both wait here while I look," decided Lang. "The absent package will certainly prove who brought this stuff instead. Or will it? No, either of you could have brought your own package inside of this. At least"-he looked from Bogardus to Fontaine-"I can trust one of you to watch the other. Stay here until I summon the police."

At that moment, Cranston seemed to come to life. Rising, he turned to a chair beside him, started to unfold black garments that were heaped there. Three men were watching him narrowly: Lang, Bogardus and Fontaine, as they thronged around the crystal ball.

"I can decide this matter now," said Cranston in a cool tone. "Since crime has been done, the services of an avenger are required. He is here!"

n.o.body realized what the black garments were as Cranston gave them a forward fling. In fact, they remained unnoticed in the moments that followed. For from the blackness launched a furry avalanche in white that sprang right to the top of the great crystal ball, and did not hesitate there long enough to lose its footing.

Bounding from the gla.s.s as if it had been a springboard, Washington Mews picked a human target and leaped with spreading claws straight for his head and shoulders. The valiant cat had gained the height it needed to launch itself in vengeance upon the man whose glowing, leering eyes it could not forget, even though they were masked with magnifying gla.s.ses that deceived all human observers.

Washington Mews was attacking Hanneford Lang!

Flaying his long arms, Lang dived across the room, flinging the cat away from him. After him sprang Bogardus and Fontaine, allies at last. Grabbing a chair, Lang whirled and flung it at them, made another long dart back toward the crystal from which both Margo and Gregg had fled. As for Cranston, he, too, was gone, though through which door Lang didn't know. Springing toward the shortest route to his study, Lang spun around, with a drawn gun, planning to shoot down attackers, when he heard a laugh behind him.

Wheeling again, Lang met The Shadow. Weird, sinister, was the laugh that taunted Lang, mighty mirth compared to the insidious hiss that denoted Whispering Eyes. Lang had flung away his gla.s.ses; his eyes now showed the shining, hypnotic force that the lenses normally softened. He recognized the eyes that met his above a leveled gun muzzle.

The Shadow's eyes, yet strangely Cranston's, for this was one time The Shadow did not care to disguise them. As Cranston's eyes, they were telling Lang much, too much. That duel of staring eyes at the time when Cranston had been half-trapped, was not a victory for Lang.

Then, Cranston himself had met Lang with a commanding gaze that had more than nullified the duel. He had let the hooded man go, rather than battle in too small a s.p.a.ce with Lang and the amnesia victim then known as Hudson. When Cranston had let the Whispering Eyes retire, he had actually sent their owner on his way. For now Hanneford Lang, the man of the Whispering Eyes, was going rigid under The Shadow's control!

A sibilant tone from The Shadows lips was telling Lang the facts of crime as Cranston would later discuss them with others.

"Your seances, Lang, were your only alibi," declared The Shadow. "At each you held one session only, not two, leaving yourself free to leave here for an hour or more. Last night for the first time, that alibi was threatened. You saw Margo Lane taking notes after the second session; knew she would wonder what had happened to those from the first.

"Earlier you had laid a death trap for her, knowing she was Cranston's friend. You let that trap remain so that her notes, if found, would stand to favor your alibi. You used one of your early victims, Lake, to send the cobra, thinking you would not need him longer. You thought you had found a better subject to use in the future, Cranston."

A low laugh followed The Shadow's reference to himself as Cranston. From then on, he dropped his reference to such dual ident.i.ty, as he spoke to Lang.

"The rock test looked genuine to you, Lang," said The Shadow. "Yet all I needed to perform my part were two hidden straps, girded above my knees. I took two hand straps from a taxicab, gripped them through my trousers and braced my back. With my arms as added braces, I was a human cantilever that could support the weight of that stone. Your smashing it meant nothing. The great ma.s.s of the stone absorbed the blows of the hammer and I never felt them."

Bogardus and Fontaine heard none of this from across the room. They thought The Shadow was holding Lang gun for gun; not by the growing application of hypnotic power. Slowly, cautiously, Bogardus and Fontaine were moving for the flanks, intending to rush in on Lang.

"Your height was your failing, Lang," concluded The Shadow. "To step from the fire tower at Kelthorn's, spring to the skylight at Maresca's, hold my gun swings beyond arm's length as you did at Drade's-Those were but examples of the things that betrayed you. Neither Bogardus nor Fontaine have the stature or the reach to accomplish what you did. You picked the wrong dupes in their case, as you did with me."

Lang was swaying now, his head weaving cobra fashion; as though he thought he still wore his hood.

Actually, he was reaching the drowsy stage that comes with hypnosis. A few moments more and he would have flattened to the floor. But Bogardus and Fontaine, despite their claims to hypnotic knowledge, were deceived. Mistaking Lang's sway as a prelude to an attack upon The Shadow, they hurled themselves upon him.

Lang came to life and savagely, striking out hard with his gun. The Shadow hurled forward, met Lang's revolver with the clang of an automatic. Bogardus and Fontaine went spinning from the fray as The Shadow drove Lang full about. Then, with a desperate dive, Lang went through the door that led to the study, shooting back wildly as he fled. The Shadow came close behind him.

Along a pa.s.sage, around a turn, into the study dashed Lang. There, he grabbed up Gregg's money-packed brief case, where he had left it after Fontaine had rushed into the crystal room. With the brief case, Lang s.n.a.t.c.hed his new hood. Wheeling toward the window, he stabbed shots at the door.From around its edge, The Shadow jabbed back bullets. One was intercepted by the fat metal base of a desk lamp, that Lang had once tapped to imitate the sound of a dinner gong over the telephone. Another struck Lang's private crystal ball, cracked it and sent it jouncing.

Then Lang was at the window, shoving its bars down like a big sash, that descended outside the wall.

The Shadow's mocking laugh told that he expected that trick, too, and Lang remembered that Cranston once had leaned against those bars and must then have learned that they were loose. From that The Shadow had gained the secret that went with Lang's alibis, the back route from the penthouse that enabled him to go and come, without the apartment house attendants knowing it.

Nevertheless, Lang followed through this flight. Over the ledge, down the window bars as if they were a ladder, Lang reached the roof of the connecting office building. Turning, he stabbed a shot up at the window, then headed for a doorway that would take him down through the other building. Whether for bravado or to escape recognition when he reached the street, Lang flipped the hood over his head as he drove onward.

A surge of men came to meet him, Inspector Cardona as their leader. Joe hadn't forgotten Cranston's advice to look for unusual ways in and out of Lang's. Up came Cardona's gun to meet the hooded menace; Lang's revolver shoved forward to beat Joe to the shot. But Lang's aim turned to a lurch as an automatic tongued from the study window, its bullet winging Lang in the back.

With the echoes of that shot came the avenging laugh of The Shadow, as Lang's revolver spurted wide and high above Cardona's shoulder. Simultaneously, Cardona's own gun spoke as did those of the men behind him. Riddled with bullets, Lang sprawled on the roof, rolled over and lost the hood. Beside Lang's dead face flattened the brief case, spilling the money that Lang no longer could claim as profit through the sale of murder-gained treasures.

Such was crime's pay-off. Throbbing with parting echoes, The Shadow's final laugh seemed a knell for Hanneford Lang, he of the Whispering Eyes that now stared silent and sightless toward the dark sky of night.

THE END.