“I had been expecting instructions,” declared Mann quietly, “but until today, all was silence. I read of the Andrews suicide in the newspapers, and I actually passed by it. Then came the word. That is why I called you at the Classic office. You are to get information on Andrews immediately.”
“At his apartment?”
“No. That is either unimportant, or has been taken care of. Your investigation must be made at the morgue. You are to view the body of George Andrews.”
“That’s easy enough,” said Burke. “I can go down there right away.”
“Good!” said Rutledge Mann. He stared at the wall and spoke as though repeating words which he had read. “Look for anything unusual when you see the body. If you find it, report in full. If you see nothing, report to that effect. Learn all you can.”
Mann became silent. Burke knew that the discussion had ended. He arose and left the office.
Mann remained at the desk, studying the newspaper clipping. He put it away in a desk drawer, called the stenographer, and dictated some letters to his investment clients.
AN hour later, Mann was once more alone in his inner office, when the stenographer appeared to say that Mr. Burke had returned. The reporter was soon cloistered with Mann.
There was a tone of repressed excitement in Burke’s voice as he related the details of his investigation in the Andrews case.
“I went to the morgue,” he said. “I ran into Steve Brill, covering the story for the Classic. Brill took me in to see the body.
“It was an ugly sight, but that didn’t concern me. I was interested in the rope mark about the neck. It left a big welt — almost like a scar. You could see the twists of the rope.
“I’ve seen marks like that before, so I knew what to expect. I had a chance to look at it closely. And that’s when I saw something else!”
The reporter leaned forward, and his right forefinger traced a line on the palm of his left hand.
“Right with the rope mark,” he said, “was another line — so thin you could hardly see it. Just a faint, narrow trace, almost like a thread. It may have been red once; but it’s white now.
“It followed the rope mark so closely that it was lost at times. It looked to me exactly as though the rope had been set to cover that very line!”
Mann was listening with implacid countenance to Burke’s words. It was not Mann’s business to theorize too frequently. He was a collector of facts. Nevertheless, he could see the obvious connection toward which Burke was working. Mann made no comment.
“When I saw that,” continued Burke, “I did some more looking. That’s when I spotted something else. I looked at the dead man’s face. On his forehead, I saw a mark like this.” The reporter made a tracing with his finger. “A round spot, no bigger than a dime!”
“A scar?”
“It looked more like a burn,” Burke went on. “It was whiter than the surrounding flesh, and I never would have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking mighty close.
“Brill wasn’t watching me at the time. I heard him speak to some one, and I looked to see Detective Sergeant Cleghorn. He was handling the case. I listened while he spoke to Brill.
“It’s just another suicide, in Cleghorn’s opinion. He’s moving the body out of the morgue. He says that Andrews hung himself, and that all strangled people look a lot alike.
“He’s right on that — but he’s missed his guess about how George Andrews was strangled!”
Rutledge Mann nodded. “Have you made your report?” he questioned.
“No,” replied Burke. “I thought you might intend to include this with your own—”
“Yours will be sufficient,” interposed Mann, pushing pen and paper to the reporter.
Deftly, Clyde Burke began to write a message of coded characters. He wrote swiftly, and in five minutes his task was done. He folded the paper and inserted it in an envelope which Mann provided.
“I’m going downtown,” he said, as he sealed the envelope.
Mann nodded.
Clyde Burke left the office. He reached the street and took the subway to Twenty-third Street. There he entered a dilapidated building, ascended the stairs, and dropped the envelope in the mail chute of a deserted office.
The door of the office bore a name upon its cobwebbed glass panel. The title was:
B. JONAS
Clyde had never been inside that office. He had never known it to be unlocked. He knew only that a message dropped there was sure to reach The Shadow.
Clyde Burke was meditative as he rode uptown in the subway. He was thinking of the report he had just dispatched; and that report took his mind back to a very definite scene — the body of George Andrews lying in the morgue.
As Clyde half closed his eyes, he could picture two sights — that rope mark, with the thin white line running through it, and the round white spot in the center of the dead man’s forehead. The meaning of those discoveries was now plain to Clyde Burke.
He knew, with all positiveness, that George Andrews had not committed suicide! Andrews had choked to death — that was true — but not because of the rope that had been found around his neck.
He had been strangled with a slender cord, that had left its narrow indelible trace. And the murderer, whoever he might be, had implanted his mark upon the dead man’s forehead as a ghastly symbol of his evil deed!
Very shortly, another would know the truth about the death of George Andrews. Clyde wondered what this amazing information would mean to his mysterious chief — The Shadow!
CHAPTER III
WATCHERS OF THE NIGHT
THE following afternoon, Rutledge Mann was again seated in his office in the Badger Building. Once more he was considering a newspaper clipping. This one told of a more startling case than the death of George Andrews.
The body of Dale Wharton had been washed ashore on Long Island. This was a step toward the solving of the mystery which had shrouded the disappearance of the wealthy sportsman. But both police and journalists had met with disappointment.
The latest report — the one on Mann’s desk — said that the police could find no evidence of foul play.
Wharton, it was known, had been under the influence of liquor when he had started on his trip through Long Island Sound. Two bottles, one empty, the other nearly so, had been found in his pockets:
Everything indicated that Wharton had fallen overboard from his boat and had drowned. This solution was both simple and practical.
An intoxicated man, at the helm, might well lose control of the craft. A sharp turn, and overboard he would go. That, the authorities said, was what had happened to Dale Wharton.
Yet this case was not a closed issue so far as Rutledge Mann was concerned. The investment broker was patiently awaiting a report from Clyde Burke.
In response to instructions from The Shadow, Mann had dispatched the alert reporter to Long Island. Burke had found no difficulty in convincing his city editor that a look into the Wharton death might be advisable.
The afternoon was waning. Burke’s report should be there soon. Mann showed no signs of impatience, but he was actually anxious to obtain progress in this matter.
The telephone rang. Mann answered it. He recognized the voice of Clyde Burke. The reporter’s message consisted of a single, cryptic word that came over the wire.
“Identical!”
That was all that Rutledge Mann heard. It produced immediate action. He called a telephone number and repeated the word to the man who answered. After that, Mann waited.
It was nearly five o’clock when the stenographer entered the private office, carrying an envelope.
“This came through the mail chute,” she said.
Mann took the envelope. He closed the door after the girl had gone. Then he began to read a message from The Shadow — another of those strange, fading notes that told its story in cryptic code, then disappeared so no prying eyes could study it.