“I thought he had started home.”
“Probably he got talking with Goodling. Claig likes to talk. He chatted with me for half an hour while we were waiting for you to come back.”
“What was his topic?”
“A lot of bunk about the swell sanitarium he used to run. It’s off on a hillside, about three miles north of town. I mentioned the place in my report.”
“He’s retired now, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Living alone amid the ruins of his former glory. Wants to sell the old place. But he can’t find a buyer.”
Claig had come across the street while the two men were talking. The physician had entered a coupe that was parked in a space beneath the side of the hotel. Clyde and Harry heard the starter; they saw the gleam of lights. The coupe pulled out and started northward.
Clyde had regained his hired coupe on the way into town. He had found it undisturbed in front of the traffic light. At present, it was parked at the rear of the hotel.
Claig’s car was the last that had been at the side of the hotel. To Harry and Clyde, the space seemed empty as they stared downward into the darkness.
THEY were wrong. There was a figure in that blackened space beside the old hotel. A shrouded form had arrived shortly before Doctor Claig. Silently, unseen, the shape was entering a side door of the hotel
Looking up from below, The Shadow had seen his agents at the window. He was coming to gain their reports. Yet neither Clyde nor Harry suspected the proximity of their invisible master.
“I hope we receive a call from Westbury,” remarked Clyde, in an undertone. “Of course, there’s a lot of dope we can’t give over the wire, even though we’re supposed to be working for the press.”
“That’s true,” agreed Harry, “but I’ve a hunch that we’ll gain different contact, Clyde. A closer interview. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I was out at the house on Dobson’s Road.”
“You mean you saw someone there?”
“No. But I’m sure Goodling was wrong on one point of his theory. His idea was sound about Kermal’s men being there to cover up; but—”
“That was Parrell’s idea.”
“One and the same. Goodling agreed with it. The fellows went from here after they shot down Yager. But it wasn’t Blissop’s pals who gave them trouble.”
“Then who were the men there?”
“Some more of the same bunch. Some came to cover the courthouse. Others went to search the old house. And then—”
Clyde nodded as Harry paused. The reporter understood. Harry had viewed the scene of the fray and had recognized that The Shadow must have battled alone against two groups of crooks. Those who had slain Yager had come to warn their fellows.
Both agents were thinking, picturing the lone fighter and his odds. Clyde’s face was serious. He was wondering if The Shadow had come unscathed from the fray. Harry’s face was troubled also. Both agents stared musingly from the window.
The door behind them opened. Without noise, almost imperceptibly at first. Then, into the dull light of the room came the living figure of their chief. Beneath the table lamp lay the sealed envelopes; near by were the keys of Clyde’s coupe
The Shadow approached. He picked up the envelopes and thrust them beneath his cloak. He detached one of the keys from the ring. His eyes viewed his agents by the window. Stealthily, The Shadow withdrew.
Unseen, unheard, the master sleuth had come and gone. But as token of his departure, he did not close the door as silently as he had opened it. From the hallway, The Shadow drew the door shut with a slight thump.
Harry and Clyde swung about, electrified by the sound. They saw the closed door. They stared at the table. They observed that the envelopes were gone. For a moment, Clyde showed alarm; then Harry’s chuckle made the reporter smile.
Someone had entered unnoticed to gain those envelopes. That same person could have departed just as silently. The click of the door had been a deliberate signal on the part of The Shadow. An act that told his agents that it was he who had removed their messages.
SHORTLY afterward, a light gleamed in a room on the same floor of the hotel. The Shadow had chosen an unoccupied room as a temporary sanctum. Blinds were drawn over windows. The glare came from a shaded table lamps, its rays centered downward upon the woodwork.
The Shadow was reading the reports of his agents. They were inked in code. Writing faded as The Shadow perused separately folded pages. But with pencil in an ungloved hand, The Shadow made notations as he continued his perusal. The reports finished, his hands brought a large sheet of paper into the light.
The Shadow compiled a column of notations, that read as follows:
Empty house as hideout.
Death of Blissop.
Disposal of Goodling and Lanford.
Removal to new hideout.
Encounter with Croy.
Capture of Lanford.
The Shadow paused. Instead of continuing the column, he started a new sequence at the other side of the paper. This second column stated:
Arrival of Yager.
Murder of Yager.
Prowlers at house.
Arrival of murderers.
What Harry Vincent had guessed, The Shadow knew. The band that had come to the abandoned house were on their way to contact those already there. Both groups had joined in battle with The Shadow.
But Harry had not even guessed at one fact which The Shadow had definitely noted. That was the sudden break which had come in the sequence of events. That break explained the reason why The Shadow had formed two columns instead of only one.
Events that concerned Taussig Kermal had begun with craft and strategy. Blissop had been slain; but the death of that servant had not been an open one. Only the chance arrival of Goodling and Lanford had made Blissop’s death a fact known to the law.
Goodling and Lanford could easily have been murdered in the old house. Instead, they had been doped and removed. That showed that Kermal still preferred craft; that he was confident that his trail would not be followed.
Upon that point, The Shadow made side notations; this time in ink, that dried, then faded. Thoughts that The Shadow gave in brief consideration; then dropped in order to return to his main theme.
Murder not needed.
Accidental death.
The creek.
His references were to Goodling and Lanford. Kermal could not have known that the pair had met Turner on the road from Sheffield. Goodling and Lanford had been found in the prosecutor’s coupe, on the very edge of Roaring Creek.
Had Kermal seen necessity for their death, he could have seen to it that the coupe was rolled into the creek, with the motor running. The doped men would have perished. Their deaths would have been classed as accidental — without Turner’s testimony, which Kermal could not have anticipated.
Kermal had been confident that his new hideout would not be discovered. He had deliberately allowed Goodling and Lanford to live, despite the testimony that they would later give concerning the body of Blissop.
Moreover, Kermal had allowed Croy to travel from the hideout on this very night. Encountering Lanford and Clyde Burke, Croy had captured the former and shaken off the latter. Up to that point, Kermal and his aids had persisted in their policy of avoiding unnecessary killings.
Then came the break. Yager, murdered under the very nose of half a dozen witnesses. Why had the policy been changed? Yager could have been seized as readily as Lanford. Unless Yager’s contact with Blissop had been unknown to Kermal. In that case, there would have been no use in watching the courthouse at all.
The prowlers at the house showed the next step in this new and perplexing policy. Since Croy had ventured from the new hideout, why had Kermal not sent him alone to the old house?