Whenever Cranston spoke to Weston, Corlaza chanced to be close by. Cardona noticed it, but gave the matter no special significance. Then came the cry of “All Ashore” and Weston’s friends began to pick up their hats and coats.
Corlaza watched Cranston walk to the corner of the room. There, Cranston carefully lifted his hat and coat. The hat dropped from his hand. It fell by Weston’s cane. Stooping to regain the hat, Cranston let his coat press against the wall. He arose and Weston’s cane went clattering to the floor.
Hat on head, coat over arm, Cranston reached down and picked up the Malacca walking stick. He set it back in the corner and strolled over to shake hands with Weston. Encountering Corlaza on the way, he first shook hands with the South American.
Once again, eyes met. Keen, burning optics viewed the crafty gaze of Marinez Corlaza. Cranston’s lips formed a thin smile; Corlaza’s twisted cunningly. Then Cranston gave a brief good-by to Ralph Weston.
He strolled on to the deck.
Joe Cardona had shaken hands with Weston just before Cranston had said good-by to the ex-commissioner. Overtaking the detective, Cranston clapped him on the arm and spoke in greeting. He offered him a ride uptown; Cardona accepted. They reached Cranston’s limousine parked near the pier.
Cranston carefully lifted his coat from his arm and laid it on the seat; then pointed Joe into the car and followed.
Cardona left the limousine near Times Square. Cranston ordered Stanley, the chauffeur, to take him to the Cobalt Club. As the car rolled along an eastbound street, Cranston turned on the light above the rear seat and lifted the topcoat that he had laid so carefully. From its folds dropped Ralph Weston’s Malacca cane!
A soft laugh followed. Long, thin hands examined the gold-tipped walking stick. A finger pressed the light switch. When the limousine drew up at the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston alighted. He was carrying his coat over his left arm; with his right, he was swinging the cane that he had gained as trophy of his visit to the Steamship Equinox.
Strange purpose of The Shadow! Guised as Lamont Cranston, he had gone to say good-by to Weston.
He had come back with the ex-commissioner’s most prized possession, filched from a thronged room.
He had gained the Malacca cane under the very eyes of Marinez Corlaza, by the simple expedient of covering it with his coat and carrying it away in the folds.
Yet Marinez Corlaza had not seen The Shadow execute the theft of Weston’s cherished cane. In fact, at the very moment when Lamont Cranston was swaggering into the Cobalt Club, Corlaza, aboard the Equinox was looking at what he thought was Weston’s Malacca cane.
The steamship was in the harbor. Weston and Corlaza were seated in the ex-commissioner’s living room.
The South American, glancing toward the corner, was idly noting the cane that stood there. It was so like Weston’s walking stick that Corlaza thought it was the same. So, in fact, did Weston.
The Shadow, when he had come aboard as Cranston, had carried a duplicate cane within his coat. When he had lifted Weston’s, he had let the hidden cane fall. Corlaza, seeing the act, had thought that Cranston had merely knocked over the original walking stick. He had failed to see the perfect, well-timed substitution, all completely covered by the coat.
HOURS passed. Corlaza had retired to his own suite. Weston had retired to his sleeping-room. The door to the living room was open. The Equinox was cleaving steadily southward through the open sea.
Half asleep, Ralph Weston stirred as he heard a strange, buzzing sound.
Like the alarm of an unbelled clock, the noise persisted from the living room, coming above the rumble of the steamship’s engines. Rising, Weston entered the living room and turned on the light. He located the sound, in the corner behind a chair.
Weston picked up the walking stick as he sought to investigate the mysterious buzzing. To his amazement, the cane was vibrating in his hand! Twisting the stick to determine the source of its strange protest, Weston was further astonished when the head came loose. Instantly the buzzing ceased.
Peering, Weston discovered that the cane was hollow. Something white showed within. He drew out a roll of paper. Dropping the cane, he spread this strange document upon a table. With blinking eyes, he read a message inscribed in ink of vivid blue:
Danger awaits you in Garauca. Your plans will be hampered from the outset. You were summoned to Garauca so that your investigations in New York would cease.
Those who will appear most friendly are actually your enemies. The present government is controlled by secret friends of President Birafel. The one man who can aid you is Colonel Jose Daranga, who is at present in the Province of Malastanda.
Summon Daranga. He is ready to form a military junta. He fears to do so until he can actually discover the real leaders of the cabal. The names of those plotters are given here. Act against them before they bring about your assassination.
As Weston completed his reading of this message, he happened to glance up toward the top of the page.
To his amazement, the writing was disappearing, letter by letter — word by word. As his eyes followed down, Weston saw the entire message fade into blankness.
Quickly, Weston unrolled the last six inches of the thin scroll. There, he saw the tabulated list of a dozen names — these in letters of vivid red that did not vanish. They were the names of the traitors mentioned in the message. Weston gasped.
The first name on the list was that of Marinez Corlaza. The genial representative who was taking him to Garauca was the chief plotter among those who sought his life. With trembling hands, Weston tore the precious list from the bottom of the scroll. He looked for a place to put it; then smiled.
Throwing the blank paper in the wastebasket, Weston picked up the pieces of the cane. He stuffed the little list back into the hollow section; then replaced the head. It clicked firmly into position. There was no recurrence of the buzzing.
Seated at the desk, the Malacca cane across his knees, Ralph Weston repeated the name that had been in the message: that of Jose Daranga. He would remember that name. As head of the National Police, he would invoke the aid of the militant colonel who stood ready to win justice for his country.
But there was another name that ran through Weston’s brain. It was that of the mysterious friend whom he knew had aided him — the only personage in all the world who could have gained this information and passed it along in writing that vanished once it had been read.
For Ralph Weston knew who had moved to aid him. He realized that he had one more debt of gratitude to a being whom he could never pay. Weston knew that the scroll within the Malacca cane was a message from The Shadow!
CHAPTER V. THE MONEY MASTER
NOON the next day. Screaming headlines still blared from New York newspapers. Worthless bonds remained the subject of their theme. The death of Sigby Rund; the departure of Ralph Weston; the statements of Wainwright Barth — these tied into the big news stories.
A squatty, big-shouldered, chunky-headed man was standing in the center of a magnificent office. His face — fierce, yet keen — was straight-nosed and marked by a protruding chin. Black eyebrows bristled below his massive forehead; wiry, short-clipped black hair sprang brushlike above his brow.
Leaning with heavy fist upon a desktop, this man was glowering at the spread out copy of an evening newspaper. His lips were forming silent epithets. A buzzer sounded on the desk. The man did not answer it until the second buzz; then he picked up a telephone and spoke:
“Dunwood Marrick speaking.”
Words clicked through the receiver.
“Stokely is here, eh?” responded Marrick. “Send him in at once.”