Last of all, the arrival of the murderers there. Since the mystery of the house stood as Kermal’s strongest protection; since its supposed evanishment left no beginning from which to pick up the lawyer’s trail, why had he not warned Yager’s murderers to stay clear of it after delivering death?
Obviously, they had gone to warn the men who were already there. Why, again, had that been a necessary move? Yager had not named the location of the house.
Goodling and the others were heading for Yager’s cabin, two miles beyond the house. The prowlers who had come in place of Croy could easily have finished their search and departed with the trunk.
Confusion on the part of Yager’s murderers was no explanation. Men who fired point-blank through the window of a prosecutor’s office were too hardened to become stampeded after a simple get-away.
THE SHADOW’S finding was definite. The capture of Lanford, by Croy, constituted the final step in a policy of craft and strategy. The murder of Yager, very shortly after Lanford’s capture, began a policy of open defiance; a series of bold moves that nullified all the cunning measures that had preceded it.
Taussig Kermal had become a hunted man. The murder of Yager had aroused the law to a high pitch of action. The trail to the house that he had left had cleared all mystery. The law had not even stopped to analyze the sudden change of action.
Only The Shadow was making such analysis. He could see the reason behind the bold murder of Yager and the flight of killers to the mystery house. His answer was a whispered laugh that spoke of hidden knowledge. His long fist crumpled the paper that bore the written columns.
A NEW matter concerned The Shadow. That of Kermal’s present hideout. Quick comments appeared upon new paper; these were inscribed in vivid blue ink.
Croy close by… Daggart wounded… Bandages… Hypodermic…
Informant needed… Security in new hideout… Quick seizure of
Lanford.
A pause. The last word faded. Then, in vivid letters, The Shadow wrote a name upon the paper:
Doctor Leo Claig.
A whispered laugh sounded as the name faded, letter by letter. Again, The Shadow had pieced important points. Daggart had been wounded. Clyde’s report stated that Lanford had spoken of his paleness; the freshness of the bandages.
All pointed to skilled medical attention. Someone at the mystery house had tended the wounded secretary in capable fashion. Goodling and Lanford had been treated with a hypodermic needle. A likely item in the kit of a medical practitioner, on hand because of a wounded patient.
Claig had thrust himself straight into the investigation. It was he who had examined Goodling and Lanford after their experience. As an informant for Kermal, none could be better than Claig.
The doctor’s old sanitarium could fill the bill as the new hideout in this emergency. Croy’s quick seizure of Fred Lanford at the traffic light proved that the servant did not have far to go.
Searchers were already on the job. They would scour the countryside for abandoned houses. They would pass up Claig’s house as a matter of course. The physician had worked himself into the affairs of the law.
The Shadow, however, remained undeceived. The light clicked out; a cloak swished in darkness. A few minutes later, Clyde Burke’s coupe rolled from its parking space behind the Weatherby Hotel.
The Shadow was on his way to pay an unseen visit to the country residence of Doctor Leo Claig.
CHAPTER X
KERMAL DECIDES
“WELL, doctor, we’ll probably be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m glad you stopped off to say hello.”
“We saw you pulling into your garage. Though we’d better find out if you’d spotted anybody suspicious.”
“I wish I had, Carter. But I didn’t pass a single car coming up from town.”
“Well, I guess we’ve been chinning long enough. Good night, doctor.”
Three men stamped down the steps of Doctor Claig’s front porch. They were deputies, headed by a man named Carter. Claig had encountered them just outside his drive. They had strolled up to the porch for a chat.
Doctor Leo Claig was both well known and well liked in Sheffield. In the days when his big house had served as a private sanitarium, his wealthy patients had spent large sums of money in the town.
Always ready to chat with those whom he met, Claig had given greeting to the deputies. They were returning from the search that Goodling had ordered; they were wearied with their tramp about the hills and were glad to rest a while at the physician’s invitation.
Claig had gone into reminiscences. He had recalled many places in the neighborhood of Sheffield that he thought would be worthwhile investigating. Carter had thanked him for the tips.
Claig chuckled as he unlocked his front door. He planned to stay at home tomorrow. There would be more deputies prowling about. He would greet them as he had greeted Carter.
Closing the front door, Claig turned on the light. He walked from the hall into a comfortable, old-fashioned sitting room. He turned on a light there; then went back through the hall and into a parlor that served as waiting room for the few patients whom he occasionally received.
Claig went through and turned on the light in his office. Beyond was a door that opened into his bedroom. But instead of going in that direction, Claig used another door to enter a long passage that ran to the dining room and kitchen.
The physician turned on a light in a small alcove. Directly in front of him was a heavy door, with a large lock. The bottom of the barrier was above the level of the floor. This was the entrance to the stairway that led to the second and third floors.
Presumably, these upper stories were no longer in use. Claig had abandoned them when he had given up his sanitarium. They had formerly been the quarters occupied by the doctor’s patients.
Tonight, however, Claig had reason to go upstairs. He unlocked the big door, stepped through to the darkened stairway and closed the door behind him. The lock clicked automatically.
Viewed from outside, Claig’s house was a somber structure. The lights which the doctor had turned on modified the gloominess of the ground floor; but the upper stories looked barren and forbidding.
Faint moonlight showed blackened windows, most of them fronted by steel bars. One large window at the side of the house was unbarred; but its darkness made it as forbidding as the others. This window was on the second floor, just above the roof of a small side porch.
Off to the rear of the large house was a darkened garage. It was a large structure also, of sufficient size to accommodate four or five automobiles. The garage had a low second story, which possessed half a dozen windows. It had once been used as quarters for servants.
Off beyond the garage was a line of thick trees that marked the path of an old dirt road. It was from that streak of blackness that a vague figure appeared in the moonlight, only to fade in ghostlike fashion as it neared the garage.
THE SHADOW had come by a back route to Claig’s. He had studied maps of the district. He had read Clyde Burke’s details of the reporter’s chat with the physician. Clyde had gained a good idea of where Claig’s house was located.
From the garage, The Shadow studied the dimly lighted windows of the lower door. In their appearance, he detected the physician’s bluff.
Claig had definitely made an effort to indicate that he was at home, yet might be anywhere on the ground floor. To the average late visitor, those scattered lights would serve as explanation if Claig should prove slow in answering a ring at the doorbell.
To The Shadow, the lights meant that the first floor needed no investigation. He looked upward and spied the unbarred window that was conspicuous above the roof of the little side porch. The Shadow moved toward the house.