The Living Shadow s-1 Page 18

  English Johnny was a keen observer. He eliminated most of those in the car. There were only three or four others who impressed him as possible trailers, and he looked these over carefully.

  “Wonder who’s in on this game,” he said to himself. “It can’t be the bulls. They ain’t wise. Maybe some other crooks - but who?”

  The Shadow! This name puzzled him. He had heard talk of a Shadow - but no one had seemed to know who the man might be. The name was scarcely more than a myth among gangsters. Only a few had spoken of it; and they had said very little.

  There were those, of course, who claimed that they had heard his voice coming through the spaceless ether over the radio. But at the broadcasting studio, The Shadow’s identity had been carefully guarded. He was said to have been allotted a special room, hung with curtains of heavy, black velvet, along a twisting corridor. There he faced the unseeing microphone, masked and robed.

  The underworld had gone so far as to make determined effort to unravel The Shadow’s identity - if it were truly The Shadow whose sinister voice the radio public knew; for there were doubters who maintained the voice was but that of an actor representing The Shadow. But all crookdom had reason to be interested; those without the law had to make sure.

  So watchers were posted at the entrance to the broadcasting chain’s building. Many walked in and out; none could be labeled as The Shadow. In desperation, a clever crook whose specialty was wire-tapping applied for and secured a position as a radiotrician. Yet questioning of his fellow workers brought nothing but guesses to light. Around the studio The Shadow was almost as much a myth as on the outside. Only his voice was known.

  Every Thursday night the spy from crookdom would contrive to be in the twisting corridor - watching the door of the room that was supposed to be The Shadow’s. Yet no one ever entered that room!

  Could it be, then, that The Shadow broadcast by remote control that his voice was conveyed to the studio by private wire? No one knew. He and his fear-striking laugh had been heard - that was all.

  English Johnny’s train duly arrived at Newark. There he hired a cab which drove him to the airport.

  The afternoon was waning. He hurried over to a hangar. An aviator came out to greet him.

  “Howdy, Kennedy,” exclaimed English Johnny.

  “Hello, Johnny.”

  “Well, I’m here. Like I promised. Thought you’d be glad to see me.”

  “I sure am. You’re just in time to take a little hop.”

  “How much? I might try it.”

  “Nothing to you, Johnny.”

  The beefy-faced man darted a look toward the group of idlers who were standing near the hangars. None of them resembled the men he had suspected in the Tube. Nevertheless, Johnny was going on with the game he had planned.

  “All right, Kennedy. Let’s go.”

  The two climbed into a speedy cabin job.

  “I’ll take you up for about ten minutes, Johnny,” said the aviator.

  The mechanic spun the propeller, the motor revved smoothly, and the plane took off and circled above the field. When the ship was in the air, English Johnny leaned forward to tap the pilot on the back. By means of an emphatic finger and with gestures, English Johnny made his wants known. Kennedy must have understood him, for the pilot nodded.

  Although the group of idlers down on the field knew nothing of what passed between English Johnny and the bird-man, the consequence was not unnoticed.

  “That’s funny,” observed one of the hangers-on. “Kennedy must have changed his mind about that ten-minute trip. Looks mighty like he’s going some place, and in a hurry, too.”

  The plane had settled to an arrow-straight course. Headed toward the north, its hum grew fainter and fainter to the neck craners at the airport.

  As the monoplane became but a dot against the dusking sky, a man in a long, threadbare overcoat quit the hangar. Only the tip of his nose showed from behind the upturned collar of his overcoat. He strode along most rapidly, weirdly laughing to himself.

  Night had fallen; the hour was at hand when shadows come to life.

  CHAPTER XXX

  TRAIL’S END

  A car was rolling along a road not far from Long Island Sound. Harry Vincent was the man at the wheel. He was following another clew.

  At Herkwell he had traced the course of Ezekiel Bingham’s car. A man had seen an automobile turn off on the side road to Winster two days ago. Very few cars went that way. The man, an idler in the corner store, had noted the car quite closely. It answered the description Harry sought.

  Harry had stopped at a muddy spot along the road and had noted the mark of tires. The tread was of a peculiar design. This had been a valuable discovery. For two side roads led off from Winster. Both were muddy, but no one had seen a car go over either of them.

  Harry had made a long examination and had detected the telltale marks of the tread on one of the roads. Hence he had followed it instead of keeping through the town.

  This was the road that had carried him near the Sound. Now it ran into another road, and the course turned inland. The new road was well-paved.

  Harry had covered nearly thirty miles since leaving Holmwood, but the poor condition of the roads and the stops that he had made had consumed much time. It was now past four o’clock.

  Harry stopped at a gasoline station, where he inquired if the service man had seen a car like Bingham’s.

  The man laughed.

  “Lots of cars go past here, friend. I can’t keep track of them all.”

  “I thought perhaps this car might have stopped for gasoline.”

  The man shook his head.

  Vincent obtained a road map and consulted it carefully. He traced the course that he had followed from Holmwood. There were several ways to reach the spot where he was now located; and he felt sure that the roads he had taken were not the best.

  But if Ezekiel Bingham had been anxious to leave no trail to his destination, the course would have been logical. It was only by careful inquiry and keen observation that Vincent had managed to find the way so far.

  “Looking for a stolen car, friend?” quizzed the man at the service station.

  Vincent grunted in reply.

  “I’m not trying to find out your business,” said the man, “but I might be able to help you.”

  “How?”

  “Well, if the car came along here, you’ve got to take a chance on tracking it from here on. The road forks up ahead about a mile. Either road would be a likely one. But I’d advise you to take the one to the left.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it goes past Smithers’ garage. He’s got big signs out, advertising good gas cheap. Pretty near everybody stops that goes by there. What’s more, Smithers has got a cute stunt of listing the license numbers of cars that go by.”

  “What is the idea of that?”

  “Well, he figures that cars that go by a few times must be using the road regular. He finds out who owns them, and sends them advertising circulars.”

  “That is a good idea.”

  “I don’t know. Seems to me like a waste of time. But it’s good for you, because if that car went by there, Smithers may have its number.”

  Harry thanked the man and gave him leave to fill up the tank of the coupe.

  He turned left when he reached the fork and arrived at Smithers’ garage. A stout man, evidently the proprietor, came out at Vincent’s call.

  “Mr. Smithers?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  Explaining that he was tracing another automobile, Vincent gave the man the number of Bingham’s license tags, and asked if he had seen the car. Smithers became suspicious.

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

  “I’ve been sent out to trace it.”

  “Why are you after it?”

  “I have important reasons. That’s all.”

  “What makes you think I have the number?”

/>   “Because I know you keep a record of the numbers of cars that go by.”

  There was a positive assurance in Vincent’s voice that made the garage proprietor think the young man might represent the law. At least, he was sure that Harry had some way of getting information that was not widely known. Still he hesitated.

  “What if I do keep license numbers?” he demanded. “There’s no law against my doing it, is there?”

  “Certainly not, Harry replied. “And there’s no law against your giving me information from your list.”

  “I guess you’re right,” admitted the garage man.

  Vincent produced a ten-dollar bill.

  “Maybe you could use this,” he said casually.

  “What a minute.”

  Smithers went to the office of the garage. He returned in a few minutes and collected the ten-spot.

  “The number is there,” he said. “Went by day before yesterday.

  Hot on the trail, Harry urged his car along the road. He was entering wooded country, and was well away from the nearest town. Five miles beyond Smithers’ place, the road curved to the right and joined a broad highway where three automobiles were passing.

  This required a consultation of the road map. Harry pulled to the side of the road and studied the situation. The map showed that it would have been shorter and more convenient to have taken the right fork of the road than the left if anyone had desired to reach this highway.

  There would have been no reason for Ezekiel Bingham to have chosen the longer route, Vincent argued, as both roads came to the same turnpike. Why, then, had the old lawyer gone to the left?

  There was but one answer to the question. Somewhere between Smithers’s garage and the turnpike Bingham had turned off the road.

  Going into reverse, Harry swung back to retrace his course. He had a hunch that the road he wanted forked off to the right. A little later Harry found such a road - a dirt lane that twisted off toward a woods.

  Stopping the car, Harry alighted and examined the dust. The lane was dry; there were no tire tracks of the tread he sought, but it was possible that the marks had been obliterated. At least, the road was worth a look-see.

  He drove along the road through the woods. Coming to a stream, Harry found a bridge to be crossed alongside of an old ford. A mile more and the road ran into a paved highway.

  This perplexed Harry. Which way should he go? The road map offered no help in this quandary.

  Before choosing his course, Harry decided that it would be wise to return along the lane.

  He drove back to its starting point, stopping occasionally to search for traces in the dust, but none were visible.

  He continued along the lane until he came to the bridge again. At that moment he observed that the temperature had risen on the motor gauge until it had nearly reached the boiling point.

  “Forgot all about the water in the radiator,” he mused. “This bus has been traveling pretty fast lately. I must have boiled some out.”

  He peered over the edge of the rail on the bridge and saw the glint of a tin can.

  “That will do,” he thought. “It’s pretty small, but I can get plenty of exercise.”

  Descending to the stream, he retrieved the can and filled it with water. As he stopped at the ford, he whistled with delight. At the edge of the stream appeared the mark of one of Bingham’s tires - a mark pressed deeply in the muddy edge of the brook.

  Disregarding the heated radiator, Harry backed his car from the bridge and drove down to the ford. He crossed the stream, and as he ascended the farther bank he could make out the marks of automobile tires that led to the right.

  Harry piloted the car along a makeshift road, shifting to second gear and moving slowly to subdue the noise of the motor. The thickness of the trees and bushes made the pathway more evident, although it was merely two grooves along the ground. Branches brushed the top of the coupe.

  The car arrived at a dilapidated fence, which was broken by an opening. There were no bars across, but Harry felt uneasy about passing that barrier.

  Instead, he turned the car to the left and drove some forty yards along an open space beside the fence.

  Pocketing the ignition key, he closed the windows of the coupe and locked the doors. With cautious step he approached the opening in the fence. He followed the tracks of Bingham’s car to sight a house among the trees.

  Caution was vital. Harry realized that as he moved onward.

  A noise caused him to seek refuge behind a tree. He could see the house clearly from that point - an ancient two-story structure that looked like an abandoned hunting lodge.

  A man was standing on the porch, blue smoke curling upward from his lighted cigar - an elderly man who looked very much like Ezekiel Bingham!

  The man stood there a few minutes; then turned and went into the house. Coming from behind the tree, Harry obtained a new angle of vision. In front of the house stood an automobile - a car that he recognized immediately. There now could be no question of the man’s identity.

  Harry smiled with triumph.

  His quest was ended.

  He had trailed Ezekiel Bingham to his lair!

  CHAPTER XXXI

  HARRY’S MESSAGE

  As he stole back to the spot where he had parked his car, Harry realized that he had reached the emergency which Fellows had foreseen. Five miles from the nearest habitation, it would take considerable time for him to go and return. His watch showed that it was after five o’clock; perhaps Fellows had already left his office, and in that event, a trip to a telephone would be useless.

  Furthermore, it was his duty to watch Ezekiel Bingham. The car in front of the house suggested that the old lawyer might be ready to leave the building that stood in the woods.

  Harry’s first action was to turn the coupe so that it faced the crude roadway. If Bingham should drive from the house, Harry would then be able to follow without loss of time.

  Then he unlocked the back of the coupe and found the mysterious box which Fellows had spoken of. It was a fairly large box, occupying most of the space in back, and it appeared to be clamped to the bottom of the car to prevent it from shifting.

  Using the key which Fellows had given him, Harry unlocked the box and opened it. A flat inner lid met his eyes. Upon it lay an envelope. Vincent tore the wrapper and read the message:

  “You have a knowledge of radio. Follow the instructions on the bottom of the inner lid. Send your message, using the special code that appears within the instructions.”

  Lifting the inner lid, Vincent discovered a complete and compact wireless transmitting set.

  Satisfied that the car was far enough from the opening in the fence to be free from discovery, Harry set to work.

  Following the instructions on the lid, he strung an aerial between two trees. He worked quickly but nervously. His message was important and urgent.

  The sending key clicked beneath his fingers. He was following the strange code, forming his words slowly and carefully. His first words were these:

  “Am watching Bingham at house in woods.”

  Then, referring to the map, he described as best he could the location of the place, using the turnpike as his basis. That highway was easily accessible, and would be the shortest way to the old lawyer’s hiding place.

  He repeated the message again to make sure; then waited a few minutes while he checked the apparatus thoroughly. Then he sent his code through the air for the third time.

  Would the message be received? Would it be understood? Would it bring The Shadow to this place?

  These questions raced through Vincent’s brain. He wondered also how The Shadow had discovered his knowledge of wireless.

  The sky was growing dark. It was nearly six o’clock. What should he do next?

  Harry decided that a cautious visit to the house in the woods might bring important results. Dusk was approaching; he could still see clearly, yet he himself would be difficult to detect if he kept among the trees.
That was the best plan: to find out more and then to send another message.

  Leaving the wireless apparatus in place, he went back to the improvised roadway and approached the house. Bingham’s car was still standing there. Everything was silent in the gloom.

  Harry circled the house at a distance. A glow appeared at the bottom of a window. The shade had not been fully drawn; the light of a lamp showed through.

  Reaching the porch, Harry crept noiselessly forward and peered through the narrow space. The room within was furnished with plain chairs and a table, and was lighted by two oil lamps.

  Ezekiel Bingham was seated in one chair by the table; opposite him sat a man whom Vincent did not recognize.

  The two men were conversing, but Harry could not hear their words. He tried to follow the motions of their lips, but without success.

  This was a vantage point, however, and as the darkness increased, Vincent decided to remain. The longer he stayed the safer would be his position, and the opportunity might arrive to learn something.

  Time went by slowly as Harry held his gaze to the window. Then came the chance that he had anticipated.

  Bingham’s companion, a short, dark-faced man, with a sharp-pointed mustache, came to the window and raised the shade.

  Harry ducked in time. It was now quite dark, fortunately. A grating sound marked the raising of the window. The sound of the man’s footsteps indicated that he was walking back in the room.

  Harry raised his head and looked in the window.

  “Why open the window?” asked the old lawyer.

  “To get some air,” replied the dark man with a curling smile that featured a gold tooth.

  “The light will show outside,” protested the lawyer.

  “Let it show. Nobody will see it except our men. Nobody else ever comes out here.”

  “That’s true. Still, it’s wise to play safe.”

  “Yes. When it’s necessary.”

  “All right, Tony. It doesn’t matter. The others will be here shortly.”

  “They’ll be here by eight, sure. They’ve been waiting for this night. It’s the biggest yet.”