The Shadow - The White Skulls Part 4

If Ilga Vyx had some connection with this case, it wouldn't surprise Jud Mayhew at all. With a red-head and a brunette already mixed in it, there was certainly room for a blonde. But that had nothing to do with Jud's next mission, which was to turn in a report to Philo Brenz.

Taking a cab to Brenz's building, Jud went directly to his employer's private office. The president of Brenz, Incorporated received his star investigator with a warm hand-clasp, then turned to introduce him to a calm faced visitor who was seated beside the desk.

"A friend of mine," announced Brenz, "who is very anxious to hear yourreport on what happened in Stanwich last night Jud, I want you to meet Lamont Cranston."

CHAPTER VIII.

THERE was nothing for Jud to do but give an honest report, something which he had planned to deliver anyway. But any temptation to let slip with names such as Zune or Ludar was immediately ruled out.

That Gail North was sincere, was something Jud Mayhew did not question.

Maybe she was blind in her loyalty to her father, Townsend North, whose peculiar practices had played hob with Brenz's contracting business, but that could be determined later.

Right now, Jud felt that he could concentrate on Alban Sark and the various happenings that Jud himself had witnessed in Stanwich, without committing himself too far.

So Jud began it very simply. He stated: "I located Alban Sark."

"Excellent!" exclaimed Brenz, rubbing his hands warmly. Then, his tone turning troubled: "But did he suspect that you were looking for him?"

"I'm afraid he did." As he replied, Jud looked straight at Cranston who met him with an impa.s.sive gaze. "I may have made a mistake in asking for Sark. He was registered under another name."

"What name?" interrupted Brenz.

"I don't know," replied Jud. "I ran into him by accident."

"The other name was Hubert Rudland," put in Cranston, placidly. "The room number was 720."

Wrenching his eyes from Cranston's somewhat hypnotic stare, Jud looked to Brenz for an explanation and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

"Cranston has been looking into those North contracts," Brenz explained.

"That was one reason why he was in Stanwich. When he found out that North had gained them through unusually low bids, he naturally wanted to tally with other companies. That is why he is here."

"And meanwhile," put in Cranston in an even tone, "I was interested in learning more about Alban Sark. He is something of a mystery in his own right, this man Sark; but the mystery that concerns us more is the collapse of the warehouse in Stanwich." Cranston's eyes were steadying on Jud, as he added: "Perhaps you can tell us more about it."

Jud could and did. In fact he was eager to cover that question rather than others.

"I saw the warehouse fold," a.s.serted Jud, "and the present theory is all wrong."

"You mean it wasn't due to the vibration?" queried Brenz in surprise.

"Why, the experts said -"

"The experts weren't there," interrupted Jud, "unless you count me as one; I saw the Remagen Bridge collapse after our army had used it to cross the Rhine.

It wasn't vibration that did it. The bridge was weakened."

Brenz lifted his gray eyebrows.

"You think the Stanwich warehouse was structurally weak?" he queried.

Then,turning to Cranston, Brenz answered his own question. "That would account for one of North's cheap contracts. Poor materials, insufficient labor, perhaps other contributing causes. Still, the experts may be right" - slowly, Brenz shook his head, as though to banish Jud's claim - "because the warehouse did collapse just as the parade went by."

"Before the parade went by," corrected Jud. "The tanks were still on the concrete bridge when the crash came. That's the key to the whole situation, if people would only see it. If anything had cracked from the vibration it would have been the bridge."

"But the bridge was concrete," argued Brenz. "I recall the contract for that superhighway, even though it was North who handled it."

"The warehouse had concrete foundations too," returned Jud, "and if North had skimped on one job, he would have done the same with the other. But you're missing the main point, Mr. Brenz. Any sway from those vibrations would have been confined to the bridge itself. They couldn't have carried to the solid ground and then to the warehouse. In my opinion, the collapse of the warehouse, occurring at the time it did, was purely a coincidence."

Cranston's tone came evenly, repeating those very words: "Purely a coincidence?"

"Unless somebody framed it," Jud declared, "which is quite possible. It would have been a smart stunt, even though they did beat the gun."

Brenz was keenly interested.

"What makes you think that?" he inquired. "It would have been suicide for men to enter that building and bring it down upon themselves."

"Not while they had an outlet," explained Jud, "and they had one. I think that building was sabotaged and the men who did it escaped through a culvert leading to an old junkyard. A batch of cars and trucks pulled out from there."

"You saw them?"

"Yes, but I couldn't stop them. What's more somebody stopped me first.

The same thing happened over again when I tried to take Sark's cab and find out what was in his bags."

Strumming the desk in his reflective style, Brenz decided that Jud had rendered a report both thorough and satisfactory. He ended the interview by making an appointment for the next day, which pleased Jud doubly.

Going down in the elevator, Jud was glad that he hadn't needed to go into details involving Gail North. He was sure that by tomorrow he would have more facts for Philo Brenz. The prospect of raiding Sark's own preserves, wherever they might be, rather appealed to Jud right now.

Except that there was now an unknown factor: Lamont Cranston.

How heavily Cranston figured, Jud couldn't guess, but he was forced to the conclusion that Cranston's path at least ran parallel to his own. Maybe Cranston knew a lot more than he had told; he was the sort who probably would. So it behooved Jud for the present to look closer into the Cranston situation.

Jud was determined on that policy by the time he completed the elevator ride. Out on the street, Jud began to study the possibilities of obtaining a cab, if he needed one in a hurry. This being Manhattan, not Stanwich, Jud preferred a more conservative method than borrowing a cab outright.

Across the way, Jud saw a likely opportunity. A cab was parked at a little lunch room and in the window was a cab driver specializing in coffee and doughnuts. So Jud crossed the street, tapped the window, and gestured to the cab with one hand while brandishing a batch of dollar bills with the other.

The cab driver was a peakfaced character who gave Jud a shrewd and pointedstare. At last he nodded as though he understood. Jud wanted to hire his cab on a continuous basis, which was a rather attractive idea.

But it wasn't just Jud's offer that brought the cabby's nod. Behind Jud's back, a little, stoop-shouldered man had sidled from the shelter of a news-stand and was poking his wizened face past Jud's shoulder. The nod that the little man gave in pa.s.sing, was the thing that brought a similar response from the cab driver in the window.

Jud didn't even have a chance to see the little pa.s.ser-by, let alone recognize him. The man in question was Hawkeye, the able spotter who had served The Shadow in Stanwich.

As for the cab driver in the lunch room, he was another of The Shadow's agents, Shrevvy by name. Not having met Jud, Shrevvy couldn't identify him and was therefore dependent upon Hawkeye. And now, Shrevvy, about to gulp his coffee, received another tip that Jud was the right man.

The tip came from Jud himself. He gestured for Shrevvy to take his time.

Lighting a cigarette, Jud idled by the window, looking across the street; then, when he saw Cranston emerge from Brenz's building, Jud turned and gave Shrevvy an impatient gesture.

By the time a big limousine was rolling up to take Cranston on board, Shrevvy appeared from the lunch room and took the helm of his own cab, with Jud as a pa.s.senger. When Shrevvy asked "Where to, mister?" Jud wasn't tactless enough to say "Follow that limousine" and no more. Instead, Jud took Shrevvy into confidence. This being in the Wall Street area, Jud had a take that sounded good.

"See that limousine?" queried Jud. "There's a customer in it and I'm a customer's man. In case you don't know, that means I work for a stock broker and try to keep his clients in line. So tag after that limousine for me."

Shrevvy nodded and obeyed, spurred by a few dollars on account which Jud thrust through the front window. Up ahead, Lamont Cranston looked back from his limousine and gave the slightest of smiles.

Giving Jud Mayhew a chance to run up an expense account with Brenz, Incorporated was quite to Cranston's liking, since it was just another thing that Jud would somehow have to explain. Cranston was interested in Jud's explanations - or lack of 'em.

Of course Cranston's interest was The Shadow's; but there were others who held similar notions, as events were soon to prove.

CHAPTER IX.

MARGO LANE blew a cloud of cigarette smoke that made her look like Ilga Vyx. Which meant that the smoke simply curled up and around her face, obscuring the dark hair that formed a foreground to her halo hat. Margo was wearing her favorite blue outfit, quite oblivious to the fact that Ilga was at present sporting a duplicate array.

It was early evening and despite herself, Margo was a trifle piqued at the way she and Lamont weren't getting anywhere. They had just drifted from one place to another and were at present in a little cafe having coffee, with no plans as yet for dinner or further functions. But if anybody deserved blame,it was Jud Mayhew.

Having trailed along from one spot to another, Jud was at present playing ostrich behind an evening newspaper at the far side of the little restaurant.

"What's he doing?" Margo asked Cranston. "Still trying to find out how much the newspaper didn't find out about what went on in Stanwich?"

"Probably," agreed Cranston, "but he's stalling, too. Those occasional phone calls that he's made aren't just reports to somebody. They've been too short. I'd say that he's been calling a number without getting an answer."

"And the number is Gail North," a.s.serted Margo. Then, abruptly, she queried: "What did go on in Stanwich? I still don't know the half of it."

"Nor do I," conceded Cranston. "It was rather uncanny the way that caravan disappeared from the superhighway. Quite as amazing as the collapse of the warehouse."

Margo smiled at Cranston's use of the words "uncanny" and "amazing," two adjectives which were usually applicable to his own activities. Then the very thought sobered her, for when Lamont became confronted with the impossible, it must mean that singular things were stirring.

"Vincent covered the terrain today," Cranston resumed, "and couldn't find a trace. He learned, though, that some trucks resembling those from Stanwich had gone through a couple of small hamlets, several miles away from where the caravan vanished."

"And from there?"

"No trace," replied Cranston. "We are right back where we started, if that far. Unless we count the deduction that I made from what Marsland learned at the Apex Garage today."

Immediately, Margo was agog, for the garage angle with the subsequent obliteration of Leo's cab, was important in itself.

"Marsland traced a chap named Jeff," explained Cranston. "This Jeff had been bootlegging gasoline that was left at the junkyard and Leo was one of his customers. Oddly, Jeff couldn't provide a single clue, even under pressure."

Realizing that Cliff Marsland was the dynamic sort who knew the meaning of applying pressure, Margo thought the matter closed. But she hadn't heard Cranston's deduction yet.

"The fact still stands," a.n.a.lyzed Cranston, "that Leo's cab was supplied with fuel brought from the junkyard that the warehouse raiders had left. Since we know that they carried a large load, those raiders, we may a.s.sume that Leo's gasoline was part of it."

Margo's eyes opened wide.

"You mean some super-explosive!"

"Exactly," nodded Cranston. "Self-acting under certain conditions, after a given time interval."

"And the stuff was in the warehouse!"

"Yes, until the raiders took it. Undoubtedly they used some of it to destroy the foundations of the building, which were probably already weak.

Therefore I would cla.s.s the stuff as a powerful disintegrating fluid, explosive under certain conditions."

Margo sat fully awed.

"Leo didn't go to pick up Sark by accident," continued Cranston.

"Somebody arranged it and since Jeff didn't; the blame hinges on the last man thatanyone would normally suspect. He was the garage foreman, Kromer by name."

"Did Marsland talk to him?"

"No. Kromer has disappeared too. He had an excellent record and was due for a vacation, which they think he has taken. By an odd coincidence, Kromer used to work for a construction company, now defunct -"

Cranston paused long enough only to watch a question start to form on Margo's lips. Then: "And that company," Cranston added, "supplied the materials used to convert the old brick mill into a factory. It was just another of those puzzling sub-contracts let out by Townsend North, as head of Universal Contractors."

"Then Sark must have known all about it?"

"Naturally, since he was the chief instigator. But matters went beyond Sark, as we learned last night."

"Yes, his friends were certainly out to get him."

"And Sark knew it," reminded Cranston. "That's why he tried to decoy Jud Mayhew into the cab. Fortunately, we intervened."

Margo began to speculate.

"If Sark saw what happened to Jud," she said, "he might have taken that cab himself. Unfortunately I didn't see whether he went out or not. I was trying to trace Gail. Besides" - Margo pursed her forehead - "I didn't get a good look at Sark in the first place, so maybe I wouldn't have recognized him."

For answer, Cranston placed a photograph upon the table. It showed the darkish face of Alban Sark, with all the insidious glitter of eyes and teeth that went with that insidious countenance.

"That is Alban Sark," declared Cranston. "Philo Brenz gave me the photograph today. Study that face closely, because you will be seeing it again; perhaps this very evening."

Margo's eyes were startled as she raised them. That Sark might still be alive was bad enough; that he might be seeking Margo, was something strictly horrible.

"Don't worry," soothed Cranston. "Sark won't be looking for you. I want you to go and find him."

Instead of calming, Margo's eyes fairly bulged with terror. She was staring straight past Lamont toward the wall, and her hands shook so badly that the photograph fluttered from her fingers to the floor. Stooping to regain the picture, Cranston allowed Margo a better view of what she thought she saw.