The Shadow - Death From Nowhere Part 2

one.

level, but not from floor to floor.

a.s.serting that fact when he returned to the office, Cardona was rather surprised when Osman remarked stiffly: "It seems odd to me, inspector, that those shots were not heard in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"They weren't heard in the kitchen," argued Cardona. "How could they be heard a floor below?"

"Because of the hot-air pipes. This house used to have a system of registers, before we installed radiators."

Cardona noted that the office wall had a squarish bulge between its windows, a peculiarity that he had noted in other rooms. Tapping the wall, he discovered that it was hollow, with the register papered over.

"Some of the upstairs registers are not covered," declared Osman. "They are behind bureaus, bookcases, other furniture. Yet I should think that they would carry sound."

Mutters were coming from Archie and the poker players, who did not like this doubting of their testimony. It was Archie who became their spokesman.

"The furnace is at the front of the cellar," he declared. "The poker den is at the back. Besides, those old pipes have been closed off. Go take a look, inspector."

Cardona went down to the cellar and found that Archie's statement was correct. The pipe ends had metal caps that looked like box lids. Though the squarish pipes measured only a foot and a half across, Cardona managed to b.u.mp his head against one that followed the low ceiling; and when he returned to the office, he decided to waste no more time with secondary details.

"About this fellow who got away," said Cardona to Archie. "You say he jumped into a cab that was waiting in the back street?"

"Right," agreed Archie, "but it reached the corner before we could yell after it. We couldn't spot the license number."

The other poker players nodded their corroboration. Cardona mused a few moments, then said: "You've testified that you didn't get a look at the man's face. But tell me, Dreller - do you think he could have been somebody that you knew?"

"I don't think so."

"All right. Tell me then, who is Dwight Kelden?"

Archie's response was a stare featured by wide-mouthed astonishment.

Fortunately, Cardona was too busy watching him to observe Helene. The girl's face, at that moment, revealed an expression of horror. It was John Osman who answered the question; in his blunt style.

"Dwight Kelden," he declared, "is a nephew of Adam Rendrew, and he lives in San Diego."

Cardona swung about, took in both Helene and Froy with his gaze. He asked them if the killer could have been Dwight. By that time, the girl had steadied enough to declare that she did not know; and Froy made the same reply.

Taking Osman as the best person to question, Cardona asked if Dwight wore gla.s.ses. Osman did not remember; this time, it was Froy who volunteered a reply.

"Mr. Kelden had reading gla.s.ses, sir," said the servant. "He left them here, at the house, the time he was East a year ago."

Cardona produced the exhibits from the death room. The calendar with itstorn-off sheet was proof that Rendrew had expected a visit from Dwight. The eyegla.s.s wiper could easily have fallen from the killer's pocket when the man pulled his gun.

"'I'll check on the optometrist," a.s.sured Cardona. "When I find out that Kelden was in town -"

"He couldn't have been," interrupted Helene. "Louise received a letter from him this morning, and it came from California, by air mail!"

Helene didn't mention another letter that she, herself, had received -

one.

that might have proven very damaging to Dwight Kelden. The news of Louise's letter, however, was a surprise to both Osman and Archie, and it brought a prompt response from Cardona.

"Who's Louise?" demanded, the inspector.

"My sister," answered Archie. "She's at a party, over at Madge Witherspoon's apartment. Call her up, inspector. She'll talk, if she hasn't had too many c.o.c.ktails."

HELENE supplied the phone number. Cardona managed to get Louise on the wire; but he couldn't make much sense from what the blonde told him. He turned to Archie.

"Say!" exclaimed Cardona. "Is this sister of yours dizzy? She talks in circles! She got a letter, but she won't say who sent it. She keeps saying that her lips are sealed; that all is known only to those who know all."

"Tell her," suggested Archie, "that Rahman Singh knows all. Say that it is his will that she should reveal whatever she knows."

Observing that Archie was serious, Cardona tried that formula, with prompt results. Louise poured so much conversation into the receiver, that Cardona finally hung it up. He told detectives to take charge during his absence; then, using the telephone again, he called headquarters to arrange for a flying squad to meet him.

"Your sister handed me an earful," Cardona told Archie, "once I got her started on Rahman Singh. He's some crystal gazer, who claims he's a Hindu and who's told her everything from the name of her great-grandfather's tomcat to her own hip measurements."

"Did she show him Dwight's letter?"

"She says she did," returned Cardona, "and then she says she didn't.

Which means she did. I know the way those fakirs work, getting information out of people and handing it back to them. If there's one person outside this house who knows what was going on inside, it's Rahman Singh. I hope he does know all, like your sister says. Because whatever Rahman Singh knows, I'll know by the time I'm through with him!"

Twenty seconds later, the slam of the front door denoted the departure of Inspector Joe Cardona, bound on his flying journey to the realm of Rahman Singh.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GHOST GRABBERS.

IN his quest for a murderer, it never occurred to Joe Cardona that RahmanSingh might already be under the surveillance of the law. Such, however, happened to be the case. Ever since half past eight, when the Hindu had begun his scheduled seance, certain persons in his audience had been giving him unusual notice.

One was a reporter named Clyde Burke, who handled a.s.signments for a tabloid newspaper, the New York Cla.s.sic. Clyde, it chanced, was also an agent of The Shadow, and was here under orders received from Burbank. For some reason, which Clyde had not asked Burbank to tell him, The Shadow had decided to put Rahman Singh out of business.

The simplest way to do it was to have Clyde sell the idea to the city editor of the Cla.s.sic and let the newspaper take the credit for exposing the Hindu as a fraud. The city editor had liked the suggestion, and, as a result, Clyde had shown up at the precinct police station and lodged the proper complaint.

With two plain-clothes men and a policewoman, Clyde was at present in Rahman Singh's seance room, the place with the platform and the chairs. All four had paid a fifty-cent admission fee, and were posing as ordinary members of a small audience until the chance for a raid looked ripe.

For an hour and a half, Rahman Singh had been lecturing the audience and answering questions, promising that ghosts would be forthcoming later. Clyde and the detectives were soon agreed that it would be best to wait until the Hindu produced the spooks.

Unwittingly, Rahman Singh was doing something else. He was building himself an alibi against a murder charge. Whatever might come later, there would be four witnesses - and reliable ones - who would testify that Rahman Singh had been in his own seance room between nine and quarter past.

Meanwhile, the detectives present were blissfully ignorant of the fact that their superior, Inspector Cardona, wanted Rahman Singh for questioning in the recent death of Adam Rendrew. Like Clyde, they were hoping that the Hindu would turn down the lights and let the ghosts gambol.

Rahman Singh was a good actor; that much, Clyde Burke would concede. But he wasn't convinced that the fellow was a Hindu. The beard, though it fitted well, could easily be a fake; and between it and the turban, there wasn't much of Rahman Singh's face to be seen. Given the same outfit, Clyde would have been willing to bet money that he could fool his own city editor with the disguise.

True, Rahman Singh's cheeks and forehead were dark; but ordinary grease paint would suffice for that. In fact, Clyde soon decided that when the others were s.n.a.t.c.hing ghosts, he would make a grab for the Hindu's beard, as a more certain trophy.

THE spook act was due at last. Rahman Singh had stepped to a corner of the room, where a curtain stretched at an angle to form an improvised cabinet. He called upon persons from the audience to tie him in a chair. One of the detectives was about to join the committee, when Clyde motioned him back.

The easier the knots, the sooner the spirits would arrive - in Clyde's opinion. The reporter was pleased when he saw that the faithful believers had done a third-rate job. They didn't want to hurt their beloved mahatma, or afflict him with the fear that they had become skeptics.

When they stepped out from the corner and drew the curtain shut, Clyde set three minutes as about the time that Rahman Singh would require to get loose.

Light faded when Rahman Singh's servant pressed the switch. Only a red lamp remained, glowing from the floor beside the cabinet. Clyde knew that red bulbs were popular with spirit mediums; their glow was almost as satisfactory as darkness, when it came to hiding gadgets.

All was silent in the seance room. From somewhere distant came the faint tone of a siren, that the believers took for the sigh of a wandering spirit.Then m.u.f.fled raps came from the street door. Those, in turn, might have been sound effects produced by Rahman Singh in his cabinet. Not even Clyde and the detectives realized that other raiders were arriving here.

The ghosts were coming from the cabinet; that fact made all others dwindle. Round, moonish faces glowed above the sitters, bringing amazed gasps from them. One woman was proclaiming that she recognized her departed grandmother, when Clyde voiced the signal: "Grab!"

The detectives and the policewoman s.n.a.t.c.hed for fat-faced spooks and found them. The moonish spirits squeaked when grabbed; their curious faces contorted in the gloom. Believers were scattering, overturning chairs in the confusion.

Hysterical screams completed the bedlam.

Clyde had reached the cabinet first, but couldn't find Rahman Singh, let alone the fellow's beard. As the detectives arrived, he yelled for one of them to press the light switch. At that moment, the door came sweeping inward, bowling Rahman Singh's servant with it. The man who saw the light switch and used it, was Inspector Joe Cardona.

Rahman Singh's disciples were cluttered along the walls amid a pile of chairs. A few of the more ardent were near the cabinet, clawing at Clyde and the other raiders who, in turn, were retaining their trophies of the ghost hunt. Cardona leveled a revolver as he heard a sharp report. Then he grinned.

One of the ex-ghosts had exploded. The things were oval-shaped balloons, daubed with yellowish paint that glowed in darkness. The luminous paint accounted for the faces; the squeaks, had been the rubber twisting and the air escaping under the squeezes of the hands that had grabbed the spooks.

Cardona faced the cabinet with his gun. From inside, he could hear a faint whir that sounded like heavy breathing. He ordered Rahman Singh to come out; the curtain stirred, but no one appeared. Cardona yanked the drapery aside.

The cabinet was empty, except for an up-tilted electric fan whose spinning blades provided the whir. Rahman Singh had placed it there to waft the fake spirits out into the seance room. But whatever his limitations when it came to materializing spooks, he had certainly staged an effective vanish of his own.

YANKING a drapery from the wall, Cardona saw a door that opened into Rahman Singh's sanctum, where the vanished mahatma had plugged the electric fan cord into a wall socket. Packing in a hurry, the Hindu hadn't waited to disconnect the fan.

An open door showed the rear route that he had taken; and in saving his crystal ball and other props, Rahman Singh had lost all the time that he could spare. Cardona and the others could hear the slam of an outer door at the rear of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

They took up the chase and reached a rear courtyard. There, Cardona shouted for everyone to spread and cover the entire area. Running to the next street, the inspector blew a whistle to bring in a hastily posted police cordon.

A police car suddenly wheeled the corner, flung its spotlight on a doorway across the street. The glare revealed a black-cloaked figure, which Clyde Burke recognized as The Shadow. A moment later, men were flocking in that direction, shouting for the fugitive to halt.

Helplessly, Clyde sought some way to end that misguided chase. He had expected The Shadow near at hand, to cut off the escape of Rahman Singh. Ill luck had intervened, putting The Shadow in a tight spot, instead of the wantedHindu.

The searchlight was sweeping wide, but The Shadow had managed to escape its path; which meant that he could have chosen one path only: an opening through the block across the way.

Converging police had spied that route and were heading for it, firing revolvers. Clyde's yells were unheeded, drowned by the bark of guns. He was pointing elsewhere, trying to divert the trail; but no one noticed him.

Joe Cardona had glimpsed The Shadow, knowing the cloaked fighter's antagonism toward crime, the inspector formed the same conclusion as Clyde.

Cardona used more drastic efforts to halt the wild chase. Leaping into the search-light's path, he waved his arms in an attempt to call the pursuers back.

Once recognized, Cardona managed to call off the police bloodhounds; but by the time that he was leading them back to hunt for Rahman Singh, the task was useless. The police had left a s.p.a.ce as ample as a prairie around the tiny alleys where the Hindu had last been traced.

The Shadow was safely away; but so was Rahman Singh. Whatever the bearded Hindu's part in present crime, only the future would reveal. Perhaps Rahman Singh would consult the crystal, to learn what his own fate would be.

If so, Clyde, hoped that the slippery Hindu would be confronted by a vision of The Shadow!

CHAPTER V.

AFTER MIDNIGHT.

SOON after midnight, Inspector Joe Cardona arrived at the exclusive Cobalt Club to confer with Police Commissioner Ralph Weston, who had just come back from Philadelphia, where he had delivered a lecture on crime prevention.

Weston was a man of military bearing, brisk even to the points of his short-clipped mustache. He liked the Cobalt Club because it was sw.a.n.ky and because the grillroom not only served good food, but made an excellent meeting place, where no one would be disturbed.

Cardona, however, was not surprised to find that Weston had a friend with him. The friend was one that the commissioner frequently called into conference when he happened to be around. He was Lamont Cranston, the millionaire who had introduced Ralph Weston to the Cobalt Club.

Seated across the table, Cranston gave Cardona a leisurely greeting that contrasted with Weston's brisk style. Nevertheless, Cranston's apparent indolence did not deceive Joe Cardona. The inspector knew that the brain behind Cranston's masklike face was keen; that the commissioner's friend could fling aside his idle manner and move to swift action, when occasion called.

Cardona spread his report sheets, gave a summary of the Rendrew murder.

He had gone back to the mansion after the futile hunt for Rahman Singh. There, he had checked over various details and had asked some important questions. For once, Inspector Joe Cardona felt that he had his finger upon the very pulsebeat of crime.

One by one, Cardona checked the known persons who had either been connected with Adam Rendrew, or mingled in the dead man's affairs.

"We'll start with John Osman," announced Cardona. "He's Rendrew's stepson.

Been managing the old man's business for years, and making a good job of it.

Building up for the future, of course, because he's to get the bulk of the estate; but Osman had nothing to worry about, because he was the only personthat Rendrew trusted.

"Anyway, Osman was at a cla.s.s-reunion dinner at his club from six o'clock this evening. The first he heard of Rendrew's death was when they phoned him from the house. He called headquarters, then came to the house with his attorney, who had been at the dinner with him. That covers Osman."

Commissioner Weston nodded prompt agreement. Cardona covered two more cases in his next verbal stride.

"The Drellers," he declared - "Rendrew's nephew and niece. I don't like the looks of that boy Archie, but he's got an ironclad alibi. He was playing poker with four friends down in the cardroom. All four come from good families, and their testimony fits. We know that Archie couldn't have sneaked upstairs and taken a shot at old Rendrew, even if he'd wanted to.

"As for Louise, the niece" - Cardona gave a hopeless shrug - "she's as dizzy as they make them! Some friends brought her home while I was back at the house, and she talked the same as she had over the telephone."