The Star of Delhi s-225 Page 6

  THERE was nothing to do but go to Bayle's, so Weston started, taking Cranston and Margo along in his official car, while Cardona remained at Club Fifty-five to clear up what little he could in the Jorton case.

  Bayle's address turned out to be a small apartment house, a converted dwelling, and Weston was pressing at the button which bore Bayle's name, when a taxicab pulled up in front.

  It was The Shadow who stepped out to meet it, when he saw the driver give a puzzled stare into the rear seat. Before the driver could object, Cranston was opening the rear door of the cab.

  The act brought another shriek from Margo, who was standing by, though she managed to stifle the cry somewhat. However, it was enough to bring Weston full about in time to see the reason.

  A body was rolling from the cab, to hit the curb and stretch flat before The Shadow could stop the force of its dead weight. Arriving at Cranston's side, the police commissioner stared down at a horrible, grinning face, quite as bloated as Jorton's.

  Then came Cranston's calm-toned statement of identity:

  "Moreland Bayle."

  The Shadow was correct. Examination of the victim's pockets proved him to be Moreland Bayle, traveling representative of a large paper company. The gulping cab driver declared that he had picked up his fare at the Pennsylvania Station, from an incoming train.

  It was plain to The Shadow that murderers had not cared just where Bayle died, though they would probably have preferred him to fall from a cab, the way he had. The pressing question was whether or not Bayle's death would produce another planted lead, as Jorton's had.

  No other name was indicated among Bayle's effects, but the man was wearing something which, to The Shadow, was a menacing token.

  The object was a cheap ring, but its stone was Spanish quartz, rather than Brazilian. Almost colorless, the so-called gem had a faint tint of amber, which might have led a person of credulity and imagination to accept it as a topaz. It wasn't in keeping for Bayle to be wearing such a ring, any more than Jorton.

  Accepting Cranston's suggestion that they go up to Bayle's apartment, Weston was going through the door of the house, when his friend stopped him. In the slit of Bayle's mailbox The Shadow observed the mere corner of a sheet of paper, and drew it out.

  The paper had a calling card attached to it by a paper clip. It bore the printed name: "Arthur Halden."

  Down in a lower corner was the name of a hotel, the Marwood.

  It wasn't far to Halden's hotel. Having hailed a patrol car and putting the officers in charge of Bayle's body, Weston suggested a quick trip to the Marwood. The place turned out to be a small one, and an affable clerk nodded as soon as Halden's name was mentioned.

  "Mr. Halden is in," the clerk said. "He called me a while ago. At least, he started to, and then hung up. I'll ring him."

  "We'd better go up," decided Weston. "Give me a passkey."

  THEY reached Halden's room. While Weston was unlocking the door, Margo stepped forward, only to be pressed back by Cranston's arm. That left it to Weston to utter the gasp of horror, when he pressed the door wide.

  The commissioner voiced Cranston's name, and his friend stepped calmly past him, to view a sight which he fully expected.

  Flat on the floor lay a tall man, his face turned toward the doorway, his features skewed in a one-sided smile that was very far from pleasant. But it wasn't the glimmer of bulging eyes that attracted The Shadow's chief attention.

  He had expected to find Arthur Halden dead. More important was the gleam that came from the finger of the man's stiffened hand, the one that clamped the telephone, which Halden hadn't quite been able to put in use for a frantic call.

  The gleam was of a slightly pinkish hue, produced by a stone which The Shadow classed as rose quartz, quite as cheap as the settings in the finger rings worn by the two previous victims, Jorton and Bayle.

  Again, death had arrived ahead of both The Shadow and the law.

  Murder still reigned, how many more victims it would take was a matter for conjecture, even by The Shadow. He, the inspector who had so often run down crime, could only hope that the toll of dead men would stop before it reached the total of six!

  CHAPTER X. THE STOLEN LINK

  THE clerk at the Hotel Marwood was a better informant than either the bartender who had seen Jorton die, or the cab driver who had brought Bayle's body home. The clerk knew quite a lot about Arthur Halden. The dead man, he said, was a former stock broker who had retired during a flush period of more than ten years before.

  Halden was quite wealthy and still had dabbled in the market, advising friends, as well. However, he was living on his investments, which weren't paying the old-time dividends, hence he preferred a reasonably priced hotel like the Marwood.

  In trying to recall the names of Halden's friends, the clerk promptly remembered one. The man in question was Kirk Raft, who had a real-estate office on upper Broadway, not far from the Marwood.

  The clerk remembered Raft, especially, because there had been a phone call from the realtor's office while Weston and his friend, Cranston, were coming down from Halden's apartment.

  Since Raft's office was near, Weston suggested an immediate trip there. On the way, he confided:

  "This is horrible business, Cranston, but we're getting to the heart of it. I wouldn't be surprised if this man Raft is the murderer!"

  The Shadow deemed quite otherwise, but did not express his real opinion. As they were alighting from the commissioner's car, he helped Margo out and remarked that she was looking pale.

  "You'd better stay outside," said The Shadow, "and get some fresh air."

  "A good idea," returned Margo. "I'll walk to the corner, Lamont, and get some cigarettes."

  A gesture of The Shadow's hand had given her the cue. As Margo stepped away, she heard Cranston's undertone:

  "Try to get Shrevvy here."

  Margo knew how that could be accomplished. It meant a call to a man named Burbank, who always seemed to be on duty. He was a contact with Harry Vincent, Moe Shrevnitz, and other agents. If they were available, Burbank would summon them. But Margo really felt sick as she walked toward the store.

  She'd received her first indication that Cranston did not consider the chain of death ended. She realized that he was hoping for another link from Raft's, further on, and that this time he would seek some pretext to get away from Weston and speed ahead of the commissioner, in an effort to forestall some other tragedy. That was why Shrevvy would be required. His cab would help.

  Meanwhile, Commissioner Weston was striding into Raft's real-estate office with an air of self-satisfied importance. He saw a girl seated at a desk and introduced himself, along with Cranston.

  The girl said that Mr. Raft was working late and didn't like to be disturbed, but that she would ring his private office. Stopping her, Weston said that he would go into the other office without such unnecessary formality.

  The commissioner drew a gun as he opened the door. Just why he pictured Kirk Raft as a hand in crime, was something that Weston couldn't explain afterward. His mistaken confidence, however, reversed itself in a fashion that jarred him worse that at Halden's. Half into the lighted office, Weston actually dropped his gun and clamped a hand to his dampening forehead.

  KIRK RAFT was a worse sight than any of the former victims. He was a scrawny man, with tight-skinned face, and the effects of the poison had changed his dead face into a human skull.

  Lips were scarcely visible above and below his grinning teeth. His eyes seemed sunken in their sockets, but small though they were, they carried the ugly death glisten that Weston had viewed before.

  One of Raft's hands, his right, was stretched so far across the desk that it dangled from the edge. Its fingers were spread like a starfish, but none of them wore a ring. However, the left hand was still to be considered. It was doubled beneath Raft's slanted body, quite out of sight.

  Helping Weston to a chair, The Shadow rounded the desk and started to draw the doubled left han
d into sight. It was then that Weston's wits returned.

  "No, no, Cranston!" he exclaimed, rising. "Touch nothing for the present! I must call Inspector Cardona and have him catch up with us, bringing the police surgeon. Four deaths within a half-hour! They are more than I can stomach!"

  The Shadow could have suggested that Weston get over his weakness and prepare for further shocks, but he was more interested in the ring, that now showed on Raft's partly raised left hand.

  It was another specimen of cheap jewelry, a smooth, roundish stone like those that had adorned the other victims, but this one had a trifling lavender tinge. It was a poor variety of domestic amethyst, nothing more, and as The Shadow tilted a light toward it, what little color the stone had faded very promptly.

  The girl was corning from the front office. The Shadow stopped her on the threshold. He used Cranston's way of breaking the news calmly, but he was glad when Margo appeared, for Raft's helper had gone white and limp, even without seeing her employer's body.

  Margo produced some smelling salts, but before bringing the stenographer from her fainting spell, she thought it wise to mention something that Cranston wanted to know about.

  "You can expect Shrevvy," she whispered, "in about ten minutes."

  Back in Raft's office, The Shadow found Weston rummaging through the realtor's desk. He'd reached Cardona by telephone, and the ace inspector was on his way. When things became desperate. Weston sometimes relied on Cardona's hunches - for which Joe was famous; though, ordinarily, the police commissioner scoffed at guesswork.

  Being in one of his hunch-accepting moods, Weston still insisted that Raft's body be left untouched, on the chance that Cardona might learn something when he viewed it as it was.

  The wait actually worried The Shadow. He was looking at Raft's right arm; beneath its elbow, he saw something that appeared to be a memo pad. It was very possible that such a pad would show a notation leading to someone else. However, since The Shadow was depending upon Moe's cab, it was as well to wait.

  Had Moe arrived first, The Shadow might have done some deft work, sneaking the telltale pad from under the dead arm. But it happened that Cardona was the first man to appear. He entered the office and stared glumly at Raft's body. The Shadow was about to point out the memo pad, when an interruption came.

  A telegraph boy had entered the real-estate office and was arguing with officers outside. They sent him in to the commissioner, and the messenger stared blankly at Raft's body.

  He was an oldish chap, the messenger, well over twenty-one, of the jockey type that never seemed to outgrow the job of delivering telegrams. He handed the telegram envelope to Weston, mentioning that it was for Mr. Raft.

  The telegram wasn't very important. It was from an upstate real-estate concern, quoting prices on some lots. Cardona crowded in to have a look at it, while the commissioner was showing it to Cranston.

  The messenger inquired drearily if there was a reply. When Weston told him no, the fellow shambled from the office, clamping his hat upon his head.

  Looking outward, The Shadow saw Moe's cab pulling up in front. Officers were going out to order it away, and it was Cranston's part to explain the cab's arrival.

  He motioned Margo toward the outer door as the messenger passed through; then, following, The Shadow quietly told the officers that the cab had come for Miss Lane.

  HELPING Margo into the cab, The Shadow was about to tell her to have Moe cruise around the block, when a better idea occurred to him. In this weird trail of death, the merest trifles might prove important.

  Certainly, anything that the police ignored was worthy of observation.

  At the corner ahead, The Shadow saw the telegraph messenger turning from sight, whistling as he went.

  On a hunch less justifiable than most of Cardona's, The Shadow said to Margo:

  "Have Shrevvy follow him."

  Returning through the outer office, The Shadow indulged in one of the slight smiles that sometimes showed themselves on the usually immobile lips of Cranston. He'd supplied another little touch, to dispel Margo's long-held belief that Cranston was The Shadow.

  Sending her with Moe along the route of a sauntering messenger-boy wouldn't strike Margo as worthy of The Shadow. She would regard it as real stupidity on Cranston's part, when the trail wound up at a telegraph office.

  Of course, the cab would then return, and The Shadow would have it later; at least, so he thought, until he reached Raft's private office again. He came just in time to see Cardona reach for the dead man's right arm, raise it and look beneath.

  The memo pad was gone!

  Only one person could have taken it: the telegraph messenger! Small wonder that he had looked so old; the fellow was a fake, a crook disguised in uniform, like the men in the truck at Sherbrock's!

  The Shadow recalled instantly how Cardona had blocked his view of the messenger while the fellow was in Raft's office. That was when the pretended messenger had snagged the memo pad and slipped it into his cap!

  Like other planted clues, the memo pad had been a link arranged by murderers to carry the death trail farther. For some reason, men of crime had found it necessary to eliminate that lead. But the stolen link still existed, and The Shadow had sent Margo along the trail!

  It was fortunate that she was in Moe's cab, for Shrevvy was a very clever hackie, a good man at dodging trouble. Nevertheless, The Shadow promptly told Weston, in Cranston's calmest manner, that four deaths were enough for anyone.

  Weston agreed. He couldn't blame Cranston for deciding to go back to the club.

  Thus did The Shadow manage to be on his way, to again become a figure clad in black, a hidden crime hunter who would be in readiness for whatever word might reach him, regarding the trail of the stolen link to death!

  CHAPTER XI. THE BATTLER IN BLACK

  MARGO LANE was more than ever convinced that Lamont Cranston was The Shadow. Only The Shadow could have snapped up so innocent a trail as that of a loitering telegraph messenger and picked it as a prize.

  For two blocks, Margo had felt herself upon a stupid quest, wondering why Moe, the patient hackie was falling for the joke and sneaking the cab at a snail's pace along the curb.

  Then, when the messenger looked back from another corner, Margo's opinion reversed itself. He didn't spot the cab, for Moe had it out of sight between two other cars that were parked on the street. But Margo saw the messenger's face, with its ugly, triumphant leer. She also spied him start into a run as he took the corner.

  Moe followed after him. Around the corner, the fake messenger was peeling off his uniform jacket as he sprang into a waiting car manned by other thugs. From then on, Margo was glad that she wasn't at the wheel of her own coupe, trying to trail the group ahead. Shrevvy was much better qualified for that very ticklish job.

  He let the other car get out of sight before its passengers could notice the cab behind. Then, taking cross streets, mingling with traffic, Moe picked the right car from a dozen others and was back on the trail again.

  Not only on the trail, but free to follow closer, because the men ahead did not suspect his cab. Of all vehicles, taxicabs, the commonest type in Manhattan, were the best to use in work like this.

  Margo was gradually piecing facts together. She knew that each murder had been the lead to the next, and reasoned that, in this case, something different had occurred. It could only be that the fugitive messenger had taken the clue that linked Raft's death to one to follow.

  But Margo couldn't quite figure why crooks had planted something and then removed it. She felt sure, however, that The Shadow could answer that question, and probably would - through Lamont Cranston

  - when she met him later.

  Events caused Margo to drop that problem. The trail was leading into a rather sinister portion of the East Side, where shabby old buildings ranged on each side of an elevated line. Such neighborhoods were all right normally, but when mobsters dived into them, every house became menacing.

  When
the car ahead rolled into a side street that stretched, dark and gloomy, toward the river, Margo felt that they were near the end of the ride.

  She was right. Crooks halted their car and disembarked, while Moe deftly extinguished the cab lights and slid into a parking space some distance behind. Margo watched slinky figures cross the sidewalk and sneak into a basement. She couldn't even tell which one had been the messenger boy.

  The fact pleased her. It meant that the sidewalk was dark enough for her to do some stealthy work on her own. She opened the rear door of the cab, caught a warning gesture from Moe. Coolly, Margo said:

  "It's all right, Shrevvy. I'll be careful."

  "They may have a lookout," voiced Moe, shrewdly. "Those guys can konk you quick. I ought to know."

  He rubbed his head, as though recalling a few such experiences. Margo laughed lightly, though she was taking the words to heart.

  "I'll be very careful, Shrevvy."

  MARGO was true to her word. She was wearing a dark dress, which enabled her to keep nicely unobserved as she moved along the line of basement fronts. But, as she neared the one where the crooks had entered, she remembered her promise to Moe.

  It was well that she did. As Margo waited, one doorway short, she saw a huddling man shift from the adjoining doorstep.

  Drawing back, Margo felt quite secure, though annoyed because she couldn't get closer. This was really a job for The Shadow, and Margo realized it. There was just a chance that luck might come her way -

  and it did.

  The reason that the lookout had shifted was because a door was opening. Men emerged in a shaft of dim light, and Margo was able to overhear their voices. Not only that, she saw a face exceedingly like the sleek but sallow countenance of Dwig Brencott.

  The sleek man spoke.

  "A couple of you lugs cruise around," he said. "The Shadow has got wise to too much, and even when The Shadow learns too little, he knows too much. So keep cruising for a half-hour; then duck out. I'll call you later."