The Shadow - The Devil's Partner Part 3

Sight of this urgent caller brought a frown to The Shadow's eyes. He recognized him instantly.

It was Jonah Minter, a well-known and respectable banker. In fact, Minter was the head of the bank on which Anthony Kilby had just drawn a check for twenty-five dollars.

Minter apologized confusedly for his hasty b.u.mping into Cranston. But he hardly seemed to see Cranston. His gaze was on the open doorway of the mansion where Oliphant was still visible.

"I say! Wait a minute, Oliphant!... Oh, excuse me, Cranston! I didn't mean to run smack into you like that! Pardon my carelessness, won't you?"

"Of course," Cranston murmured.

He watched Jonah Minter race to the doorway. He saw on the banker's face not only the evidence of hurry, but something more disturbing than that. Fright! Minter was so scared that he hardly realized what he was doing.

The Shadow was close enough to be within earshot of Oliphant and Minter. Before the door closed he heard Minter's voice rasp harshly: "Tell Dr. Kilby that I'm here. Tell him I've got to see him at once, on a matter of terrific importance!"

The door swung shut. Lamont Cranston departed slowly, in the manner of a wealthy clubman with nothing much to do.

But as soon as he had pa.s.sed from sight of the front windows, he made a quick leap over a hedge that enclosed a well-landscaped patch of lawn at the side of the house.

Screened by clumps of trimmed bushes, The Shadow approached the outside of the black-curtained window of Anthony Kilby's consulting room.

CHAPTER IV. A TREACHEROUS TOY.

THE SHADOW was not the only one who realized that something was seriously wrong with Jonah Minter.

"Are you ill, sir?" Oliphant asked, in a tone of quick concern.

"I'm all right," Minter muttered. Oliphant was far from a fool. The bluish tint of Minter's lips, the bulge of his eyes told their own story to the experienced butler. Minter had all the outward signs of a man with a bad heart condition.

"Wait here, sir. I'll get you a gla.s.s of water. Sit down, please." "d.a.m.n the water!" Minter gasped. "Get Dr. Kilby!"

There was a quick step in the foyer. Anthony Kilby appeared quietly from his room in the private wing.

He seemed pleasantly surprised by the visit of Minter. There was no hint on his face that he had been on tenterhooks for the past few minutes, trying to get rid of Lamont Cranston so that no one would be present when the banker arrived.

Kilby didn't show any awareness of Minter's bluish lips. He merely said to the perturbed butler, "You may go, Oliphant."

Oliphant bowed and departed.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," Kilby went on smoothly. "I'm always glad to see patients of my late father. Won't you join me in my study?"

He didn't give Jonah Minter a chance to talk. Hooking his hand in the banker's arm, he conducted him to the private office where he received patients who came to him for treatment.

He closed the door. Deftly, he motioned Minter toward a comfortable chair. He looked the picture of a genial host.

But Minter did not accept the chair indicated so suavely to him by Kilby. He remained on his feet, his face livid.

"Kilby, you've got to help me! I... I -"

He swayed. Kilby sprang forward with a cry of a.s.sumed concern.

"What's wrong, sir? Really, you must sit down."

The banker waved him away. He remained standing. He was so upset he scarcely knew what he was doing.

"I need your help. I've just received an alarming message. Blackmail! Someone hinted at horrible things that would happen to me! Unless -"

"Blackmail?" Kilby echoed.

For a moment, he seemed shocked into silence. Then his face cleared.

"Why not go to the police? That would seem to be sensible."

"I can't," Minter groaned. "I... dare not."

"Perhaps a private detective -"

"No! The information that the blackmailer threatens to publish is too horribly important to me to risk the slightest danger of publicity. You are the one who must help me!"

"Of course," Kilby murmured. "Anything that I can do for you, consider it done. But you'll have to confide in me."

He leaned forward, his eyes warm with friendliness The Shadow leaned forward, too. No time had been wasted by The Shadow after his quick fade fromthe front of the Kilby home. He was now inside the window, the lock of which he had released earlier from within the study.

Cloaked in black, hidden by the thick folds of the curtain that draped a tiny alcove on the inner side of the window, The Shadow's invisible gaze was at a tiny break in the dark curtain folds.

His eyes missed nothing of what was going on in the consulting room of Anthony Kilby. His ears, too, were sharpened to an alert pitch.

"CONFIDE in me, Mr. Minter," Kilby said calmly.

"I can only hint at my trouble," Minter replied shakily. "Some years ago, when I was younger - and foolishly impulsive - I committed a bad blunder. A criminal blunder. If the news of that... mistake... were divulged to newspapers or the police, I face certain ruin. To protect myself, I've got to get hold of certain papers."

He drew a gasping breath, continued: "As you know, I was a patient of your father. I had a nervous disorder that worried me. I came to your father for treatment by psychoa.n.a.lysis. In order to cure me of this mental... obsession... he had to know all the details of my earlier life. I told him those suppressed facts in strictest confidence. They are written down in my private case history. An unknown blackmailer has found out all this. To protect myself, I've got to get back that confidential case history of mine and destroy it. You understand me?"

"Of course," Kilby said soothingly. His manner radiated friendly understanding. "That will be easy.

Shortly after my father's death, all his private records were transferred to me. They are here in my own safe, each case record in a sealed folder. I shall be glad to return yours to you. Then, if you wish, you may destroy it right here. You can burn those incriminating papers in my study fireplace. Will that ease your worry?"

"Yes! Thank G.o.d I came! Open your safe. Hurry!"

Kilby turned toward his office safe. It was a large one, in a corner of the consulting room. The corner was diagonally opposite the black drapes of the side window. Kilby turned the dial calmly back and forth.

The Shadow watched intently, through a powerful gla.s.s he had taken from inside his cloak. Too far away to notice the exact numbers of the safe's combination, he, nevertheless, saw enough to bring flame to his hidden eyes.

The ponderous door of the safe swung open. Kilby opened an inner door, disclosing a steel drawer filled to capacity with sealed envelopes. He withdrew one, handed it to the trembling Minter.

"Very simple," he said. "No need for further worry. As soon as you are satisfied that your case history is intact, we'll just strike a match and - Good heavens, sir! What's wrong?"

Minter had uttered a shrill cry. He stood swaying, the opened envelope in his hand. In his other hand was a sheaf of papers he had drawn from the envelope.

"Gone!" Minter gasped. "My case history! It's been stolen!"

"But... I don't understand. Aren't you holding it in your hand?"

"Blank sheets," Minter said in despair. "Somebody has stolen the case history and subst.i.tuted blankpaper!"

Anthony Kilby s.n.a.t.c.hed at the sheets. He registered dismay, as he said, "How could such a horrible thing have happened?" He frowned in pretended amazement. Then slowly his puzzled expression cleared.

"There can only be one rational explanation. As I told you, the records of my father were sent to me shortly after his death. They came by van. I can only a.s.sume that the theft occurred during transit.

Somebody gained access to the van. Someone, intent on blackmail, stole those incriminating papers before the records reached me. It must surely have happened in that manner. My safe has obviously not been tampered with. See for yourself!"

He spoke the truth. Minter, examining the dial and the handle of the safe, saw no evidence of tampering on the part of a burglar. The pallor in his face deepened to a livid gray.

Kilby noticed the pallor, but he said nothing. He expected Jonah Minter to collapse at any moment. In fact, knowing Minter's heart condition, he was counting on that. But he didn't allow anything to show in his face.

"Perhaps all of those folders have been stolen," Minter groaned. "Perhaps I am not the only victim of an unknown blackmailer. Let me see if all of them have been tampered with."

The safe door was still open. Eagerly, Minter fumbled for another of the envelopes in the steel drawer.

But Anthony Kilby caught at his wrist and jerked it away. The face of the psychoa.n.a.lyst was stern.

"I'm sorry, but that is something I cannot permit. Those case histories were told to my father in strictest confidence. I cannot permit you to examine any of the envelopes except your own."

"But how can we know -"

"I'll examine one myself. Since I helped my father before his death, I am aware of the contents of most of those folders. I shall pick one at random."

He did so. With the envelopes averted from Minter's bulging eyes, he tore open the sealed end, glanced at the papers inside. Then he uttered a sound of relief.

"Completely intact," Kilby said. "Exactly the way it has always been."

"Then... then my record is the only one that has been stolen?"

"I'm afraid so," Kilby murmured.

His voice was smooth. It did not for a single instant occur to Jonah Minter that Kilby was lying.

The second envelope was exactly like the first. It contained only sheets of blank paper!

"WHAT am I to do?" Minter asked.

"We'll have to try to think of some way to protect you from harm," Kilby replied.

He was watching Minter more narrowly. Terror and despair were doing their work to the worried banker. His eyes were gla.s.sy. He tottered as he turned to rest his hand on the back of a chair. Suddenly, his hand clutched at his heart.

Kilby caught the banker as he collapsed. He eased him into the chair, helped him to recline comfortably with his head propped against the chair's high back. He could see at a glance that the attack was not a fatal one. Jonah Minter was in pain, but he was not unconscious. The twisted look on his bluish face was characteristic of sufferers from angina pectoris. It was the dreadful anxiety of impending death that always characterizes such heart attacks, however mild.

"Let me get you a gla.s.s of water," Kilby cried.

He turned quickly away. There was a lavatory basin close by. Kilby turned on the water and filled a small gla.s.s. He came back with it to the man in the chair. But he returned by a slightly different route.

It enabled Kilby to press a b.u.t.ton that made an electrical contact. Something began to whirl without sound on a small table, a little to the left of the high-backed chair where Jonah Minter was huddled.

The banker was unaware of this. His bulging eyes saw only the gla.s.s of water in the hand of Kilby. He reached tremblingly for it.

Kilby supported him gently, held the gla.s.s to his lips.

"Drink," he said. "It will do you good."

At the same time, he held the gla.s.s at such an angle that the head of his patient had to turn slightly to the left.

Semiconscious, without actually knowing it, Jonah Minter's gaze stared at the tiny, whirling instrument on the table. Kilby's left hand kept Minter's head rigid, so that the eyes of his victim continued to stare in the same direction.

"Just take it easy," he said in a low tone. "Just relax for a moment."

The thing on the table continued to whirl. It was bright and s.h.i.+ning. It looked like a tiny weather vane, except that its fins were polished to a sheen of bright silver. Light from a strong overhead lamp had been turned on by the same electrical circuit that had started the swift spin of the disk. The light increased the glitter of the whirling toy.

Watching grimly from his concealment behind the heavy window drape, The Shadow knew that this sinister little instrument was far from a toy.

It was a device to induce auto-hypnosis!

Like his father, young Dr. Kilby used hypnosis as part of his treatment for neurotic patients. Half the time, patients were unaware that they were allowing their will and their judgment to be gently withdrawn from them by the glittering whirl of the polished disk.

This was particularly true in the case of Jonah Minter. With his senses clouded by pain, his ailing heart like a tight band in his chest, Minter could think of nothing but the gla.s.s of water that Kilby held to his colorless lips. He sipped the water slowly.

"That's better," Kilby murmured. "That's much better. Much better -"

His voice was barely audible. It was drowsy. He kept saying the same thing over and over, while the disk whirled, and his hand at Minter's head kept the banker's gaze immovable.

The water was no longer at Minter's lips, but he had forgotten. He had forgotten everything except that his ailing heart no longer ached, and that he was filled with a delicious sense of rest and peace.

"RELAX," Kilby said softly. "No more worry. No pain. You came for help. You are getting it. Help...and peace! You believe that with every atom of your mind. Why not say so?"

"Help... and... peace," Minter breathed.

Kilby smiled faintly. "I am your friend, Jonah Minter."

"Yes, you are my friend."

"There is no need for you to worry about blackmail. You have many friends. I am only one. There is another man who can help you even more than I can. He is your best friend on earth! You hear me, Jonah Minter? You understand?"

"Yes. My best friend on earth."

"His name is known to you. It is Simon Swade. He was the confidential business agent of my late father.