"It will take forty-eight hours," he declared. "Then, Garmath will deliver the replica. After that, I can sell you the Star of Delhi. I shall put the false stone with my other sapphires, where anyone can view it, while I smile. Anyone, including Jan Garmath, should he visit me!"
Margo thought that the visit was completed, but she was wrong. For the next fifteen minutes, the Rajah of Lengore continued to talk terms with Uriah Crome regarding the future sale of the real Star of Delhi.
When she left with the rajah, Margo felt nervous. As they rode in their limousine, she was sure that another car was following them.
A word from the rajah to the chauffeur, and the big car pulled suddenly into an obscure parking place.
Looking back, Margo saw a car round the corner and roll past. After it came a taxicab that looked very much like Moe Shrevnitz's. Margo turned to speak to the man beside her. Her new friend, the rajah, was gone!
The cab was slowing, but only for a moment. As it picked up speed, Margo saw blackness within its door, which had opened, and now was closing as if of its own accord. It was Moe's cab, and it had picked up a cloaked passenger, to take him along a new trail.
Alone in the limousine, Margo Lane, the erstwhile Hindu princess, realized very suddenly that Lamont Cranston couldn't have gone to the Cobalt Club this evening. Instead, he had come to take her to Crome's.
For Lamont Cranston had played the part of the imaginary Rajah of Lengore; now both - Cranston and the rajah - had merged into the cloaked personality of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIX. CRIME'S FORCED THRUST
IN a little boxlike room, Jan Garmath sat at a desk studying an array of gems. He recognized the knock at the door and spoke for his visitor to enter. Dwig Brencott stepped into sight. Without looking up, Garmath used a pair of tweezers to lift a fair-sized ruby and hold it into the light.
"How do you like it?" queried Garmath. "I fused it from three smaller stones. One good way to dispose of stolen goods at high prices. This work intrigues me, Dwig -"
"Trouble, chief," Dwig interposed. "Thought I'd better tell you."
"Is it Sherbrock again?" snarled Garmath. "We've been too lenient with the fellow. Maybe he realizes that we are feeding him well, and keeping him in good health, so they will not believe him should he claim that he was kidnapped."
"We can put Sherbrock back in circulation soon enough," affirmed Dwig. "He's the fellow to take the rap for all the job's we've pulled. But Sherbrock isn't the trouble. It's Crome."
Garmath perched his thin chin in his hand and gave Dwig a very dubious stare.
"Listen, chief," Dwig insisted earnestly. "You've got to take this seriously. Only two nights ago, I tried to trail the Hindu who stopped in at Crome's -"
"And failed -"
"Yes," Dwig, conceded, "I failed. But suppose The Shadow was around. What if he trailed me back here?"
Garmath shook his head, as though the argument wearied him.
"If The Shadow had located us," declared Garmath, "he would have attacked at once. Calm yourself on that point, Dwig. Now - what about Crome?"
"I called our look-out over there," replied Dwig. "He says that Commissioner Weston just dropped in for a chat with our dear friend, Uriah Crome!"
There wasn't a flicker of alarm on Garmath's dryish features. Rather, the situation intrigued the master murderer. He drew a watch from his pocket and noted the time; then remarked:
"Only an hour more -"
He shrugged, as though a trifle disappointed. Then, gathering his fused gems into a box, Garmath considered the changed situation. He finally explained it, for Dwig's benefit.
"I had intended to let you deliver the synthetic sapphire that Crome wanted," Garmath said. "Partly as a test; also, so that you could get a good look at his premises. Had he decided to sell the Star of Delhi to the Rajah of Lengore, it would have meant the end of my promise to protect him. I planned to wait and see."
"And send me to Crome," reminded Dwig, "if you found out he'd double-crossed you."
"Precisely! His receiving the police commissioner is the equivalent of a double cross. It gives us the privilege of reprisal. Go there at once, Dwig, with your crew, and settle scores with Crome."
"We're to handle the commissioner, too?"
"Of course! By this time, Crome is probably telling him the whole story. Bring back all of Crome's jewels, including the Star of Delhi."
With Dwig, Garmath walked from the tiny room into a larger one. Lights showed a stone-walled passage just ahead. This hide-away was underground. Dwig started out through the passage, then paused.
"If I pull away the whole crew," he reminded, "the place won't be safe -"
"Anything unknown is safe," interrupted Garmath testily. "Try to forget The Shadow, Dwig. However, you may leave one man, to answer the signal when you return. Of course" - he nudged toward a narrow stairway that led upward - "I still have Krem. He is worth half a dozen of your men."
Dwig didn't dispute the question. He went out by his own route, taking along five men who were waiting in another room. Cautiously, they left by a steel door and came up to the level of the sidewalk. Sending four men across to a darkened alley, Dwig told one to wait.
"We're going on a job," Dwig informed the guard. "Three raps - two quick, then a slow one" - Dwig illustrated, by clanking a revolver butt against the door - "means we're back. Don't waste time letting us in. We may be in a rush."
Dwig waited until the guard had gone back into the hide-away and bolted the door, then he joined his companions, glancing along the street as he crossed to the alley. He didn't observe the long, black form that detached itself from the wall beside the door to the hide-away.
The Shadow was here!
QUITE in variance to Garmath's theory, the cloaked investigator had attempted no invasion, even though he had discovered the hide-away two nights before. Garmath had disregarded one very vital point: the fact that Sherbrock was a prisoner.
Perhaps Garmath thought that The Shadow didn't know it. Possibly, Garmath's own disregard for human life was so inbred that he couldn't credit The Shadow with changing vital plans on the slight chance that a man like Sherbrock might be still alive.
But The Shadow was gambling much on that possibility. He was making himself a double task, just on Sherbrock's account.
Having reasoned that Garmath would treat Sherbrock well if he kept the prisoner alive at all, The Shadow had seen no need to hurry a rescue. He wanted to make the rescue sure, and the departure of Dwig's crew increased that prospect.
Yet there was something else to do before attempting to aid Sherbrock. Gliding in the other direction, The Shadow passed beneath the abutment of a great East River bridge. He reached a car of his own and started a quick trip around by streets that led up to the bridge itself.
The hide-away was on the Long Island side of the river. As The Shadow sped up the approach, he saw Dwig's car ahead, but paid it small attention. He was more interested in taking another look at the top of Garmath's hide-away, which squatted just below the bridge, visible in the glow of lights that lined the approach.
It was a squatty, concrete structure, simply the windowless foundation of a building that had gone no further in construction. In the top was a black square that represented a trapdoor, but from one angle the bridge lights gave that patch a silvery glisten. The trapdoor was covered with steel, making it too stout a barrier for ordinary attack.
Certainly, Jan Garmath had chosen himself an unusual hide-away; a veritable stronghold. Whether or not it would come up to the conniver's expectations was something that The Shadow hoped to settle later.