The Shadow - The Whispering Eyes Part 7

"You have the money with you?" "Yes."

What prompted Clyde to give those affirmative replies, he never could have told. It was as if a whisper, so low that only he could hear it, had spoken the words for him, through Clyde's own lips. The answers satisfied the woman, for she laughed, and in less raspy fashion. Then: "You know who I am, of course."

"You are Maresca Lepavnu." Clyde picked up the name from a whisper that stirred within his mind. "You have brought twelve golden statuettes from Bucharest, which you are willing to sell for five thousand dollars each."

How Clyde knew these facts, he could not say. He could hear his own voice giving them, as though the words were stated by someone else. Nevertheless, the woman accepted them.

"And cheaply enough," she declared. "Since you are here to buy them, you will want to see them. Look over there."

She gestured to a wall of the room and copied the motion with the gun. Clyde turned, went to the wall and stopped short in front of a large framed portrait of Maresca herself, which portrayed her at least twenty years younger, Maresca followed close behind Clyde, and her cold tone carried all the chill that Clyde had sensed in the revolver muzzle, which he felt was still trained on him. The woman spoke again: "Press the upper corners of the frame."

Clyde obeyed. The portrait slid downward, revealing a cabinet built in the wall. It had three shelves: on each stood four golden statuettes, amazing examples of a goldsmith's skill. They were of medieval craftsmanship, portraying knights in armor, bowmen and other warriors, all worked to the finest detail.

"The money first," came Maresca's sharp tone. "Then you can take -"

The sentence broke off in a peculiar hiss, that Clyde could not understand. This was not surprising, because all that he had heard or done, had been in groping fashion, as if through a mental fog. Yet, dulled though Clyde's faculties were, holding him in a state of obedience to hypnotic command, he had not lost all control of his senses. To a degree, he had regained them, due to the fact that the mind which commanded him had relaxed its power so that Clyde could do what Maresca Lepavnu told him. Now, gripped by a strange mental turmoil, Clyde turned about.

Sheer horror broke the spell. The word "Murder!" fairly shrieked itself through Clyde's brain. He saw Maresca struggling madly, clutching at her throat with one hand, swinging the revolver backward with the other. Behind Maresca was a hooded figure of a man whose hands had gripped the woman's necklace and twisted it like a tourniquet around her throat, to strangle her. Maresca couldn't reach the hooded man with her gun. The very frenzy of her contortions proved that this was her last frantic effort in a losing fight for her life.

Clyde lunged forward to the rescue, unmindful of the sharp words "Stay back!" that came from the hooded strangler, as his eyes came up to meet Clyde with a glare. Clyde was his whole self again, taking orders from no one; but his surge was misunderstood by Maresca, who could only a.s.sociate him with the strangler. She waved the revolver Clyde's way now, and pulled wildly at the trigger.

As the bullet whined past his ear, Clyde made a sidestep, then dodged as the gun turned his way and fired again. A third shot blasted as Clyde lunged up from the floor and it was Maresca's last. By then the gun was pointing straight upward and the hooded murderer twisted it from the woman's hand, muzzlefirst.

With the same motion, the killer drove the gun down toward Clyde's rising head. Clyde tried to bob aside, but it was too late. The gun b.u.t.t caught him above the ear and the blow sprawled him to the floor.

A moment later another figure thudded beside him, the body of Maresca Lepavnu.

CHAPTER X. EYES IN THE DARK.

THE reports of Maresca's gun shots brought bedlam to Washington Mews. Not since the days of boisterous coachmen and yelping carriage dogs had this private thoroughfare known such commotion.

Here at the doors of the very stable from which Nick Carter had once raced forth behind a team of tandem horses to outspeed notorious criminals, police were flooding in from prowl cars to seek a scene of murder.

Inspector Cardona, wheeling up in a squad car, saw the activity and sprang out to take charge. He'd put the law into motion on the strength of The Shadow's tip-off and though the trouble wasn't at the exact corner that The Shadow had specified, it was near enough to satisfy Cardona.

As yet, however, n.o.body was quite certain as to the house in which the shots had been fired. The shots were m.u.f.fled and probably wouldn't have been heard at all, but for the patrolman on the beat. He'd met the first prowl cars when they arrived at Washington Square and had reported suspicious sounds in the Mews. Hence several officers had been investigating along the little street when the shooting began and ended.

Police whistles shrilled. Fists began hammering on doors. Enough racket, all in all, to scare away any criminals within half a dozen blocks. It wasn't exactly the way Cardona would have gone at it, if he'd been here early enough; still, Joe couldn't disapprove. The best way to end a shooting match was to worry the shooters and it might be that the shooting had just started. Right now, the proper scheme was to round up anyone who tried to flee the scene, wherever it was. To do that, the best system was to guard the back of each building as well as the front.

At least, the police who invaded the Mews knew which side of the street the shooting had come from.

So Cardona headed back to Fifth Avenue, flagged some patrolmen and plain-clothes men who were arriving there, ordered them to cover the area in back of the row of houses.

"Regard anybody who comes out that way as a suspicious character," Cardona added. "Hold them until they can show a clean bill of health."

One of the patrolmen turned to start up the avenue. Cardona waved him back.

"Where are you going?"

"To make an arrest, inspector. You said to hold anybody who came out of here."

"Either you're seeing things," snapped Cardona, "or I'm not. n.o.body's come out since we got here."

"But there was a guy came out before. A big tall fellow, who looked like he was walking in his sleep. I saw him turn west on Eighth Street and go into one of those Village joints -"

"You mean back before the shooting started?"

"That's right."

"Then forget him. You'd better go around to the front. We have enough men back here. They may needmore there."

Muttering over the patrolman's stupidity, Cardona went in back of the houses, where flashlights were already sweeping the walls. One light outlined a big dog kennel; stopped there and focused on a Great Dane that was sitting placidly with its snoot high in the air. Cardona hurried over, stopped short as he gained a close look at the dog.

"A big tall fellow," muttered Cardona. "Walking like he was asleep. Say, that's the way this dog is sitting, like he was asleep. This thing has got a hypnotism slant." Joe turned to an officer standing by. "You'd better call back that patrolman I sent around to the front. I want him to look up a fellow he told me about."

The officer took the simplest system for the call back. He drew a police whistle, blasted it. He thought that would bring half a dozen men on the run, the patrolman among them. It did more. The shrill blare snapped the Great Dane from its trance. The dog went into action. Then men were shouting, dodging, clubbing with guns and flashlights in a mad, wild whirl. They finally suppressed the Great Dane because of its own exhaustion through trying to tackle ten men at once. A detective came crawling out of the kennel, so they could put the dog back where it belonged. Another poked his head out of a door in the back of a house. Cardona saw him.

"How did you get in there?" demanded the inspector. "Was that door unlocked?"

The detective nodded.

"Then maybe it's the house we want," a.s.serted Cardona. "Come on!"

The police had found the right house, but hardly soon enough. While they were outside, a hooded murderer had been busy upstairs. On a table lay the golden statuettes, neatly rolled in hand towels.

Around the floor were papers, dumped from drawers of tables and a secretary desk. Beside Maresca's body lay a few loose pearls from the strands of the necklace that had strangled her. The rest were in the hooded killer's pocket.

Hearing footsteps pounding downstairs, the killer tilted his head to listen. The footsteps were answered by crashes that sounded like a battering ram against the front door. The police out front had found the right house, too. They'd discovered it by a simple process of elimination; namely, because every front door along the street had opened voluntarily except this one. Hearing shouts downstairs, the killer knew that the police from the back were pausing to let the others in from the front. That gave him a minute or so more, so he made the most of it.

Pulling a dark slip from a pillow on a couch, the hooded man stuffed the towel-wrapped statuettes inside it. Stooping, he hauled Clyde Burke to his feet, planted Maresca's gun in the reporter's hand, and steered him out to the stairway. The bag over his shoulder, the hooded man steadied Clyde by gripping his chin and raising it; then he met Clyde eye to eye.

"Remember!" The murderer's voice breathed harshly. "You killed her. When the police arrive, you will repeat three words: 'I killed her-I killed her.' Remember and obey!"

Clyde was sensing the whisper, but not the eyes. He was not fit to think, after the jolt he had taken from the gun b.u.t.t. The ache in his head was his chief idea of a present impression. Besides, his eyes were closing as he met the other man's stare. Now Clyde was standing there alone at the head of the stairs, as footsteps pounded upward. He didn't hear the scuffling sounds behind him, as the hooded man sprang to a window ledge, flung his precious bag up through an open skylight, caught the edge of the opening with a long fling of his arms and pulled himself up through. Suddenly roused, Clyde opened his eyes, jabbed the gun forward to challenge the throng that reached him from the stairs. Weakly, Clyde said, "I killed her!" not realizing that guns were bristling in response to his and that his forward totter could well be mistaken for a murderous lunge. But Clyde's feeble words were drowned by the shout of the man who led the others: "Burke!"

It was Joe Cardona. With an impetuous spring, the inspector gained a double step ahead of his men, blocking the aim of their guns. Catching Clyde as he staggered, Cardona guessed enough of the truth to come to sound conclusions. He figured that if Clyde had fired those shots, they must have been dealt in self-defense. Clyde looked as though he'd been in a fight, which in turn indicated that someone else would be found around these premises.

"Who is he?" demanded Cardona. "Where did he go?"

Clyde tried to gesture back to the room where Maresca's body lay. Already slumping, he let his hand point off in the wrong direction. Cardona's eyes followed up toward the ceiling, just in time to see the skylight clamping softly shut. Joe sprang for the window ledge, called for his men to give him a boost.

So far, so good, except that the police had wasted much of the head start that The Shadow had given them. The Shadow himself was verifying that fact as his cab pulled up at the gate end of Washington Mews. He could tell by the way reserves were pouring into one open door, that there must have been a lot of hue and cry before the police had found the place where crime had struck tonight.

The Shadow wasn't thinking in terms of a back way out. That low-built row of houses were the sort to invite invasion from the roof. What was needed was a higher perspective and The Shadow saw a way to gain it. Cloaked in black, he sprang from the cab, filtered through the gate, followed the darkened wall line to a fire escape attached to a taller building near the corner. Speeding up the fire escape, The Shadow had almost reached the level of the nearest roof when a sharp clang sounded just above him.

Somebody had swung for the fire escape and reached it, whether by an arm swing or with the aid of a rope. Drawing an automatic from beneath his cloak, The Shadow made an upward lunge to meet the man above, knowing that he must be the fugitive wanted by the police. Given a few moments more, The Shadow would have settled the menace of the hooded terror then and there. Unfortunately, those moments were not granted. Inspector Cardona had done too well in making up for lost time.

Powerful flashlights blazed from the low roof, converged in a single spot upon the fire escape. As if in answer, a searchlight blazed from a police car below, picking the same objective. Instead of trapping a killer, the brilliance saved him. The hooded fugitive, already starting down the fire escape, saw The Shadow driving up to meet him.

Even the hooded man's eyes were hidden from The Shadow, for the killer's left arm was across his face, helping hold the bag that was obscured behind his right shoulder. Without giving The Shadow an instant's leeway, the hooded man gave the bag a long, terrific sideward swing. Even a deluge of bullets couldn't have stopped that stroke, for with the force of his sweep, the hooded man was carrying himself with it.

The Shadow simply took the line of the least resistance and the best.

Clearing the rail of the fire escape with a backward vault, The Shadow caught one of the steps above, did an acrobat's spin and was back at the rail again, as his foeman went reeling by. The hooded man hit the turn of the steps below, bounded back and went tumbling further down, bag and all. If he'd halted anywhere along that zigzag path, he would have been easy prey, not only for The Shadow, but the police.

Maybe the killer realized it; possibly he was just lucky. In either case, managing to catch his footing, he continued to reel downward at full tilt. With that, the hooded killer carried himself right out of the limelight, leaving The Shadow master of the show, and not liking it. Too many iron steps intervened for The Shadow to take a down shot at the fugitive, who had left the scene so rapidly that the police failed utterly to spot him. In his place was The Shadow, a black-ma.s.sed target in the spotlight's glare and, therefore, the very thing for the police to shoot at.

The first shots were hurried and, therefore, wild. The Shadow didn't take any chances on the rest, nor did he count on recognition by Joe Cardona, whose shots would have been drowned in the gunfire, anyway. The Shadow simply flipped back over the rail, made a downward feint, then went into what was literally an upward dive along the very slant of the rising steps. It was neat business, doubly neat, giving the impression that he'd headed for the ground. Not only did it mean that the police would carry their fire downward; it added the chance that they might spot the fugitive they actually wanted.

The hooded man, however, had gained too good a start by staking everything on his wild tumble. He reached the darkened sidewalk, scooted across the street and took the far gate before the searchlight finished its descending probe of the fire escape. By then, the man who handled the searchlight figured that he'd guessed wrong. He swept the glow upward, hoping to find the black shape that had so suddenly evaporated. Clear to the top of the tall building went the searchlight's beam, showing never a trace of The Shadow.

Rather than wait to be openly spotted again, The Shadow had taken a long swing from the fire escape to the lower roof. Now, in the darkness that practically absorbed him, he was picking a path right through Cardona's squad, all of whom had their flashlights focused for the longer range. Reaching the open skylight, The Shadow dropped down through.

When Cardona returned to view the scene for the first time, he found Lamont Cranston talking to Clyde Burke, in the room where Maresca Lepavnu lay dead. Cardona wasn't particularly surprised to find Cranston there. Joe had notified Commissioner Weston that he was coming to this neighborhood and supposed that Weston had contacted his friend Cranston. Cardona hoped that Cranston could help get a coherent story from Clyde Burke, but it didn't work.

"Those eyes," Clyde was saying, as he pressed his hand to his head. "Whispering eyes-they are all I can remember. They told me to come here, but how I did or what happened, I don't know. Except for the gun." He gestured toward the floor. "She had it. She was shooting with it when I tried to save her."

"Save her?" queried Cardona. "From what?"

"From the eyes," replied Clyde. "They were trying to kill her, to choke her. That was what jarred me out of it."

Cardona nodded that he understood. He was recalling his own experience with the stiletto at the Cobalt Club, how the suggestion of committing an actual murder had horrified him. Cardona knew, too, that by "eyes," Clyde meant the man they represented. In looking at Maresca's throat, Cardona could see the deep indentations from the necklace. The few odd pearls beside the body bore mute testimony to the fatal deed. And Cardona, picturing Maresca's dying struggle, could very well understand that Clyde had only seen the glaring eyes above her.

After staring at the body, Cardona turned to Clyde.

"Do you know her name, Burke?"

Clyde frowned, as though seeking some recollection, then shook his head. "Some of this stuff ought to tell us," said Cardona, gesturing to the papers that littered the floor. "Let's look through it without disturbing it too much."

It didn't take long to turn up a few papers bearing the name of Maresca Lepavnu. Some of these were press sheets, which proved the woman to be a former actress. Apparently, she had been in America since before the War, living in New York, but there was no trace as to her exact nationality.

"We'll check with the FBI on this," decided Cardona. "But it's a safe bet this fellow with the eyes was after some of her papers, the same as Kelthorn's. What's bothering me now, though, is something a patrolman told me about a big fellow who walked out the back alley like a zombie, just before the shooting started. Who could that be, Burke?"

Clyde groped mentally, but to no avail.

"I've just gone blank," Clyde declared. "It must have been from the sock I got, here on the head."

"n.o.body socked you before you were arguing with me up at Bogardus'," retorted Cardona. "Saying you couldn't see Hudson's hat, when he was holding it in his hand."

Cranston's eyes went keen as he heard Joe's comment. Then, before Clyde could speak, Cardona continued: "Let's drop that for the present, Burke. Get back to the murderer. You're sure you saw him go up through the skylight when you pointed there?"

"I didn't point to the skylight," rejoined Clyde. "I was trying to steer you in here, Joe, so you could find the body."

"And maybe the murderer." Sharp in tone, Cardona reached for his stubby-nosed police revolver. "I'd begun to think we started on a blind hunt. There wasn't anybody on that fire escape after all. The guy couldn't have gone out the front way or the back, not without hypnotizing half a dozen of my men at once. There's a chance"- Cardona was swinging about, alert-"that he is still here in this room!"

It wasn't a very large room, but it did have hiding places. One in particular was an alcove with a very flimsy drape hanging in front. Cardona eyed the curtain suspiciously, realizing that the stuff was so thin that from the alcove, anyone could easily see all that happened in the lighted room. With a forced laugh, Cardona shifted his attention elsewhere; nudged Clyde to one side, did the same with Cranston. Then, with a sudden dart, Cardona reached the edge of the alcove, s.n.a.t.c.hed the curtain away and shoved his gun around the corner.

In the alcove were some clothes, hanging almost to the floor, but evidently with a s.p.a.ce behind them. As Cardona edged a closer look, he saw something that bulked irregularly in that deep s.p.a.ce, possibly a human figure crouched there. Figuring where the head would be, Cardona side-stepped for a slanted view between the clothes hangers.

There Cardona's gaze met the eyes.

They were eyes that glowed, unblinking, and Cardona recognized that they intended to outstare him.

They weren't Bogardus' eyes, which was a point in the professor's favor, but Cardona didn't waste time checking that factor. These must be the eyes that Clyde had mentioned, for Cardona could hear their accompaniment, the whisper that Clyde had mentioned.

The Whispering Eyes! As the phrase rang through Cardona's mind, he saw the shape beneath the eyes stir. Blurting the order, "Come out of there!" Cardona aimed his revolver not for the figure that might even now be drawing a gun, but for the eyes themselves. The eyes moved sideways, but not forward, and a sudden, grim desperation urged Cardona's trigger finger to its pull. He was deliberate, though, and took time to announce: "All right, I'm letting you have it!"

Those words took just long enough. Cranston had stepped up beside Cardona; with a quick stroke of his hand, he drove the inspector's arm downward, a split second before Cardona fired. The gun shot echoed in the alcove like the report of a cannon. There was a crash of tumbling boxes and Cranston, thrusting his arms between the hanging dresses, caught something that came hurtling outward, eyes first, as Cardona dropped back in sheer surprise.

Cranston swung about. In his arms, he was holding a magnificent white half-Persian cat, which stared rebukingly at Inspector Cardona with that same glowing gaze and delivered a plaintive "Meow" in protest over the blast that had all but wrecked its favorite resting place. Then, nestling deeper in Cranston's arms, the cat began to purr in recognition of its newfound friend.

CHAPTER XI. THE TALE OF A CAT.

COMMISSIONER WESTON arrived a short while later along with the medical examiner. Weston was not surprised to see Lamont Cranston. It happened that Cardona had put in calls to several places for the commissioner, including the Cobalt Club, so Weston supposed that Cranston had been called there.

Besides, Weston wasn't interested in minor matters. He was too intrigued by the scene of murder, including the white Persian cat that now rated as a witness.

Weston emphasized that point after hearing the testimony that Clyde Burke offered.

"If that cat could talk, Burke," commented the commissioner, "it would probably tell us more than you have. At that, it's done a better job, because you've told us less than nothing."

Even Cranston was looking rebukingly at Clyde, though that was only an act on Cranston's part. But Clyde could count one friend, his fellow-witness, the cat. The Persian, strolling about the room, kept rubbing against Clyde's legs, giving well-modulated purrs of approval. Then, as it stalked over toward the door, the cat suddenly arched its back, looked upward, and gave the peculiar hiss that Cardona had earlier mistaken for a whisper.

Weston was looking down at the cat, and he gave a disapproving grunt.

"You're a trifle mixed, kitty," said the commissioner, "You've no reason to be annoyed at me. Go over there and glare at Inspector Cardona. He's the man who disturbed you."

Apparently, the cat was paying no attention to Weston, which wasn't particularly unusual. From its manner, though, it was interested in something, so Cranston gestured the commissioner aside in order to watch the cat. Instead of following Weston with its eyes, the cat arched its back further, turned its gaze toward the door and began a slow, defensive retreat.

Cranston caught the idea at once.

"Intelligent creatures, cats," remarked Cranston, "Less responsive in some ways than certain other animals, but far ahead in matters that concern their own world or disturb their habits. They seldom display the imitative traits that cause people to consider animals clever. You might call it indifference, but that in itself is something akin to wisdom. "Cats combine instinct with experience," continued Cranston. "During kittenhood, they stalk each other, taking turns at pretending they are prey. They scramble up trees as far as they can climb, as if measuring each attempt against the previous. But when the test comes, they reach the first branch, even if it is higher than the cross-bars of a telephone pole."

Cranston's remarks were punctuated by plaintive meows from the white cat. Either it understood his comments or expected him to understand cat language.

"When cats are treed," declared Cranston, "they know it. Check with the fire department, commissioner, and ask them how often they are called to Brooklyn, or wherever else trees grow, to rescue cats with fire ladders. That's not a sign that cats are stupid; quite the contrary. You won't find other animals smart enough to depend on humans to help them out of a dilemma.