The Shadow - The Golden Dog Murders Part 1

THE GOLDEN DOG MURDERS.

by Maxwell Grant.

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," September 1, 1938.

The blood sapphires, heritage of the Dog G.o.ddess, drip their trail across Manhattan in The Golden Dog Murders.

CHAPTER I.

A PERFECT CRIME.

A MAN was moving cautiously through the landscaped grounds that surrounded the quiet suburban cottage. His feet made no sound in the darkness. The man moved swiftly, as though afraid to waste a moment of time.

The wind carried with it a strong hint of rain. Clouds raced overhead past a ragged moon. Whenever the moon shone, the furtive figure halted. As soon as darkness followed, he was again swiftly in motion, making his way grimly from bush to bush toward the rear of the silent house.

All the front windows were dark. The man had expected this. Circling the house to the rear, he made sure that the back windows, too, were unlighted. He was absolutely certain that this house was empty.

The intruder peered at the rear cellar window through which he intended to enter this house. He was less cautious now. Moonlight laid a quick-pa.s.sing brilliance on his out-thrust face.

Acting Inspector Joe Cardona, of the New York police, would have recognized that face. A sly countenance, with a brutal mouth and glittering, murderous eyes. The crook was Sam Baron. He was a trigger-man for a powerful underworld mob that specialized in "hot ice". Cardona had arrested Baron a half-dozen times, but had never been able to pin a single jewel theft on him.

A fence through which Baron worked remained unknown. So was the actual leader of this clever mob of thieves. Insurance detectives were as baffled as Cardona. And, no wonder! Not even Sam Baron himself knew who his big-shot boss was. A secretly relayed order had sent Baron to this quiet house in the suburbs.

He snapped the frail lock of the rear cellar window with a tiny bar of tempered steel. An instant later, Baron dropped inside. Moving swiftly toward the staircase, he snapped on a small electric torch. He didn't bother drawing a gun.

Drexel, the butler, was the only person who would normally be in the house at this time. But Baron had shrewdly taken care of that. A fake phone call had sent Drexel off on a wild-goose chase.

That left Sam Baron approximately fifteen minutes before Rodney Mason would arrive home with Isabel Pyne. Baron knew they were on the way now.

Acting on orders from his unknown chief, Baron had gone to a celebrated night club and had sat near the table where Rodney Mason was entertaining the beautiful Miss Pyne. He had been able to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Baron had heard Mason beg Isabel to drive out to his home for a highball before they ended a pleasant evening. Isabel had hesitated. Then Mason had told her about his private chemical laboratory. He had promised to show hersomething in the line of jewels that was worth seeing. Laughingly, the young chemist had alluded to the stodgy presence of his butler, Drexel, as a chaperon.

Isabel Pyne had smiled and nodded. She liked this tall, good-looking Rodney Mason. The two had leisurely left the night club and climbed into Mason's car.

It was then that Sam Baron had made his fake phone call to the unsuspecting butler. Now, having driven at reckless speed along back roads, he was alone in the young chemist's house.

He had a double plan in mind. If he failed to find the loot he was after, Baron intended to hide and await the arrival of Mason and Isabel Pyne. The chemist, anxious to impress the girl, would produce the jewels. The rest would be up to Sam Baron.

Theft or murder - or both - depending on the way events worked out. Baron had killed too many tough guys in his grim career to worry much about murdering a young research chemist and a blond "deb" from Park Avenue.

MASON'S laboratory was in a ground-floor wing of the cottage, just beyond the chemist's living room and study. The crook's electric torch probed the dark room, pa.s.sing swiftly across a bewildering array of apparatus. His attention focused itself on a safe in the corner.

Baron attacked the safe promptly. He used only his ears and his sensitive finger tips. In seven minutes, he clicked the tumblers and swung open the door.

Then he cursed viciously. The jewels he had hoped to find were not in the safe!

The crook slipped on gloves and removed all marks of his finger tips from the safe door. He began to move swiftly about the room, searching for a hidden vault and careful to disarrange nothing in his search. Baron had already determined on a "fall guy" to frame with the cops; he was going to pin this job on Drexel, the butler.

Suddenly, he heard a sound from the distant front door: the grate of a key in the lock! Instantly, Sam Baron snapped off his torch and shoved the tiny cylinder back in his pocket. Rodney Mason and Isabel Pyne had arrived.

Baron tiptoed behind a heavy drape and waited. He could bear Isabel's silvery laughter. It was followed by the clink of ice in tall gla.s.ses. Mason's deep voice said: "Here's to the loveliest girl in New York!"

"Thank you, Rodney." Isabel Pyne's gay voice sounded puzzled. "Where do you suppose Drexel is? You said that your butler would be at home."

"I can't understand where he went. I hope you don't think that I -"

"Of course not, Rodney! You're a sweet boy and I like you. But I really can't stay. It isn't quite proper - not while there are scandal columnists on the lookout for people like you and me."

"Please!" Mason sounded boyishly eager. "You haven't seen the surprise promised to show you. It will take only a minute or two. Then we'll go."

"All right."

THEY came into the laboratory. Mason switched on the lights. Sam Baron watched them grimly from behind the tall drape that concealed his rigid figure.

Mason was tall, slim, good-looking in his dinner jacket.

Isabel Pyne was a vision of gorgeous loveliness. She had honey-colored hair and deep-blue eyes. She was wearing an evening gown of powder blue, witha rather daringly cut bodice that revealed the smooth perfection of creamy skin.

She was aware that the s.h.i.+mmering gown outlined her attractive figure, and she enjoyed Mason's breathless admiration. But her voice was calm and matter-of-fact when she asked: "Where is this big surprise? In your safe?"

"Not at all. I have a special hiding place for my pets. Just a moment."

Mason moved a shelf sideways on a metal pivot. Bending forward, he opened a panel in the wall and removed a small chamois bag. The chemist emptied its contents on a table.

Isabel Pyne gasped with delight.

"Oh, how gorgeous! They're perfect!"

A dozen s.h.i.+mmering blue stones lay on the bare table. Sapphires!

"Not quite," Mason said. His voice sounded dryly amused. "Actually, they are not perfect. They're not even natural stones. They're the product of chemistry and heat. I made them here in my laboratory. But, unfortunately, I haven't yet succeeded in producing a large-size synthetic sapphire without a flaw. Hold one of them to the light and you'll see what I mean. Notice the blood smear?"

Isabel obeyed. In the center of the stone was a cloudy dot of crimson light. It was, as Mason had said, exactly as if a smear of blood were imprisoned within the sapphire.

Mason explained.

"Sapphires and rubies have almost the same chemical composition. The arrangement of the atoms within the molecule determines the color. All these synthetic stones are hybrids - sapphires with a faint trace of ruby in them.

They are useless as jewels until I can find out what's wrong with my experimental methods. I've been two years on this problem, but the stones are still commercially valueless.

"Your uncle, Julius Hankey, would tell you that if he saw these beauties.

However, I'm not ready to show them to a Fifth Avenue expert like Julius Hankey. Not until I have succeeded in removing the" - Mason laughed - "the fatal smear of blood."

Isabel s.h.i.+vered a little. "I don't like that talk about blood. It sounds sinister. Rodney, it's late! I want to go home."

The chemist smiled. "Of course! I had no right to bring you here so late.

But I just had to show you my sapphires. Promise to keep what you've seen a secret? I don't want other chemists to get wind of what I'm attempting."

Isabel nodded. Rodney leaned forward suddenly and swept her into his arms.

He kissed her pa.s.sionately, and for a second the girl lay in his arms without resisting. Then she stiffened and thrust him away.

"You're forgetting yourself!"

"I love you!" Mason gasped. "I - I -"

"I think you had better see me home!"

"Are you angry?"

"No. I'm to blame as much as you. I shouldn't have come here. Please get my wrap."

The two went out to the living room. Presently, they left the house.

There was the faint echo of a motor, then a silence flooded the house and the grounds outside.

SAM BARON, stepped from behind the drape that had concealed his presence.

His eyes were glittering with greed. Again his torch glowed. But this time, he did not approach the safe. He made for the shelf that Rodney Mason had pivoted back into place when he had replaced the blood sapphires.

In a moment, the synthetic gems poured from their chamois bag into theitching palm of Sam Baron.

The thief knew nothing about chemistry or heat. He knew less about atoms.

But he did know that Rodney Mason was a fool. And so was that blond dame with the cute figure. Both of them thought that these fake sapphires were valueless.

Sam Baron knew different!

He knew that the stones that lay in his gloved palm were worth the pleasant sum of two million dollars!

Hastily, Baron crammed them back into the bag. He stowed the bag in an inside pocket. A swift glance about the laboratory showed him that he had left no telltale marks of his presence to tip his ident.i.ty to the police.

Chuckling, Sam Baron turned on every light in the laboratory and stepped behind the curtain. He was waiting for the return of Drexel, the butler. Baron had condemned that innocent butler to death!

His fingers tightened about the handle of a long-bladed knife. He waited patiently. Finally, he heard the slam of the front door. Feet came slowly through the silent house toward the lighted laboratory.

"Mr. Mason!" The voice was Drexel's. "I didn't intend to be out at this time, sir. A very queer thing happened. Someone telephoned and told me -"

Confident that his employer was working in the lighted laboratory, the butler stepped across the threshold, saw that the room was empty.

Fear came into his eyes. He backed toward the doorway, shouting shrilly: "Mr. Mason! Are you home? Where are you, sir?"

Sam Baron leaped like a panther from behind the drape. Drexel had no chance to turn in order to grapple with him. The long blade of the knife plunged hilt-deep into the butler's back.

Drexel fell without a groan. He was dead before he hit the floor. The point of the knife had penetrated his heart.

Baron jerked the blade free. Coolly, he wiped it on the dead man's clothing; then bent over him and wrapped him in the rug underneath until the dead man was encased like a mummy. A stout length of cord made the gruesome bundle tight.

The window of the laboratory opened without a squeak. It was pitch-dark in the ground back of the house. A few drops of rain spattered on the peering face of the murderer. Baron grinned. A swell night for a job like this!

He lifted the wrapped corpse carefully over the sill and lowered it down to the lawn; then, his beady eyes made a last careful survey of the laboratory.

Not a single article of furniture was out of place; not a single betraying drop of crimson marred the floor or the window sill.

A perfect kill! All that was needed now was a perfect burial for Drexel's corpse. And Baron had arranged for that, too!

BARON'S car was parked under an overhang of shrubbery in a side lane. He placed the body in the back seat and drove off swiftly. His goal was a pond about eight miles distant. It was in a back area beyond the little suburban town, reached only by a rough and unfrequented road.

The drizzle of rain had stopped by the time Baron reached the pond. He was glad of that. This murderer was like a cat; he had an instinctive hatred of getting wet.

In a few minutes, he had carried Drexel's rug-wrapped body through a thick fringe of wind-tossed bushes. He stood on the muddy margin of the deep pond, keeping his neatly polished shoes out of the soft earth.

No footprints, thank you! Not for a wise guy like Sam Baron! He stood ona tiny ha.s.sock of gra.s.s, grinning ferociously as he eyed the surface of the pond.

It was covered with a flat, unbroken expanse of green sc.u.m.

That was the payoff - this green sc.u.m on the surface. Picking up a fallen branch, Baron pointed its thin end toward the pond. He used it like a makes.h.i.+ft knife, cutting neatly through the green muck.

The parted sections floated aside under the careful guidance of the stick in the hands of the murderer. Baron was very gentle in his work. A dark patch of open water widened bit by bit.

Drexel's body went feet-first into the watery grave. Baron was careful to avoid making a splash. The heavy stone he had weighted to the victim's feet drew the body downward into the deep water with barely a sound.

Baron waited grimly, a grin on his twisted lips. The slight swirl the body had made as it slipped out of sight was drawing the edges of the surface sc.u.m together again. The open patch of water was getting steadily smaller. Finally, there was no water visible.

The green sc.u.m formed a solid covering on the surface of the pond. The edges that Baron had separated with his stick now merged together without a sign of a break.

Drexel's murderer drew a breath of hissing satisfaction. A perfect murder had been followed by a perfect disposal of the corpse. Drexel would never return to deny that he had fled with Rodney Mason's synthetic sapphires.

Mason would take it for granted that a trusted servant had fallen for temptation. And the presence of Sam Baron in the riddle would never be suspected.

Baron hurried back to his car and slid jauntily behind the wheel. He drove to a main highway and headed swiftly back toward New York.

In a chamois bag in his inner pocket were a dozen blood-flecked, synthetic sapphires which Rodney Mason thought were valueless. But that only proved that crooks were a lot smarter than scientists! Baron chuckled at the size of the split he would get from two million dollars of good money!

All he had to do was turn the sapphires over to Otto Muller. Muller would pa.s.s them along to the unknown big-shot who ruled the mob in which Sam Baron was a trusted trigger-man. Neither Baron nor Otto Muller knew who their powerful boss was. Nor did they care. Not when they were to get a slice of two million in loot!

Sam's car scudded swiftly along. Theft and murder had been accomplished.