Crime, Insured s-129 Page 8

  Five minutes later, there was a silent, deserted area in the midst of the wide circle where hordes of crooks skirmished with squads of arriving police. The truck was ten blocks away, finding a route that a convoy of thugs had hewn. Looking from the rear of the truck, Strampf saw the sequel.

  The night air was ripped by a tremendous upheaval of flame. The volcanic blast tossed chunks of masonry above surrounding buildings. Ground shook; even the elevated posts seemed to rattle from the vibrations that shuddered through the solid rock that formed Manhattan's base.

  Then the muffled roar of the settling debris. The shudder was ended. Tons of masonry had crushed all remnants of the hollow chamber that had once been The Shadow's sanctum. It had gone, with his ruined laboratory.

  Even the body of The Shadow, like those of the buried crooks, would be consumed by the scorching gaseous flames that seared through the shattered foundations of the blasted building.

  The truck was away to safety. It rolled southward, into Manhattan's financial district. It reached a skyscraper that pointed far into the darkened sky. The building occupied a full block; at one corner was a special entrance for vehicles. Big doors opened; the truck rolled through.

  In a gloomy confined space, picked men worked as Strampf ordered. They removed everything that had come from the sanctum; they loaded the goods into a freight elevator. They rode forty stories upward.

  They unloaded the cargo at the end of a short corridor. A door stood open at the left. The load went through; up a steep stairway.

  SOON afterward, Strampf stood alone in a squarish room that his men had carpeted with black. The walls were hung with the sable draperies from The Shadow's sanctum. The table was in one corner, the archives coffer beside it and the bluish light above. The file cabinet was in the corner opposite.

  Strampf broke open the coffer that contained the archives; made a brief study of the books that it contained. He went to the file cabinet. He opened each drawer and made a quick, but methodical, run through the index cards.

  Strampf was working by a regular light that hung in this room. That light and the vaulted roof were the only features that made the place differ from The Shadow's sanctum, as Strampf had found it.

  Satisfied with his general inspection, Strampf left the tower room. He closed a heavy door behind him and bolted it solidly from the outside. His footsteps rang out on the steep metal stairs. Strampf had finished with that room for tonight. He had other duties to perform.

  Strampf would not have credited his own senses had he remained to learn what happened afterward in the tower room.

  First there was a dull metallic sound from the file cabinet - a sound that came like some unruly echo from the past. There was a swish, somewhere in the room; a flashlight formed a gleaming beam.

  A whispered laugh echoed in the darkness as the sweeping ray completed its circuit from the room. That laugh was ghostly.

  It was the laugh of The Shadow!

  No longer was The Shadow a mere wraith from the past. He was himself; his hand turned on the bluish light. Beneath that glow came black-gloved hands, the gloves peeled off. A gleaming gem showed from a finger to throw back the blue light's sparkle in many varied hues.

  That gem was The Shadow's girasol - the rare fire opal that he used as token of his identity. Those hands produced the vital documents that The Shadow had bundled from his files before the explosion.

  In the past, The Shadow had returned in amazing fashion from depths to which powerful enemies had consigned him. Tonight's ruins had been greater than any before. Often, The Shadow had come into strange places after escapes from death; never before had his first outlet been so unique as this one.

  The Shadow had returned to his own sanctum!

  Its location was changed but the fittings were the same. Strampf had taken them as trophies, for Marvin Bradthaw. Tomorrow the crime-insurance man would view this transplanted sanctum.

  Tonight the sanctum was again The Shadow's own abode!

  AFTER a short while, The Shadow returned to the file cabinet using his flashlight. The glow explained the clever method by which he had so completely deceived Strampf.

  The drawers of the cabinet were deep; but they did not extend clear to the back of the cabinet. They were short enough to allow a six-inch space between them and the rear wall.

  Strampf had not noticed that difference; for the rear space was too cramped to hold a hidden person.

  That space told only half the story.

  The base of the cabinet was heavy; it formed a six-inch platform that seemed shorter because it tapered.

  That base was hollow; moreover the bottom of the lowermost drawer was raised a matter of a few inches.

  The space in the bottom of the cabinet was large enough for a person's legs when that person was seated cross-legged. The space at the back was deep enough for torso and head.

  Though neither the base nor the back space could have concealed The Shadow alone the two together had been ample. In seated position, he had been half in the base, half in the back. With the drawers locked so they could not be pulled clear from the cabinet, The Shadow had remained secure from discovery.

  The cabinet was where The Shadow had gone after fixing the gas machinery in the laboratory. All that Strampf had seen through the smoke was one of the low black benches that had been part of the lair's equipment.

  Relocking the cabinet so that the drawers could not be completely taken from it, The Shadow made another inspection of his files. He had taken the most important papers that he needed; he had decided on a few others, having gained plenty of time to look for them. He replaced several that he had taken in his hurry, but kept the bulk.

  Extinguishing the blue light, The Shadow moved through the darkness of the restored sanctum. He found openings in the drapery; used his flashlight on the walls behind the curtains. There were spaces in back, for the walls curved downward from a dome. Irregular and unfinished, they had steel struts and rafters.

  The Shadow found a steel-shuttered window. He loosened it. He swung outward, while wind whipped through to sway the black curtains. The Shadow closed the shutters, jamming them tight.

  He was on a ledge forty stories above the street. Far below lay myriad lights that stretched like a gleaming carpet miles to the north.

  From depths below the city's streets, The Shadow had traveled to heights, along with his transplanted sanctum. The altitude and the location told him that he was atop the Solidarity Tower. Below, ornamental cornices, ledges and windows offered footholds.

  The descent was a dizzy one, but The Shadow accepted it as a simple route to some convenient office a few floors below, where he could enter and find an inside stairway.

  The Shadow swung downward from the ledge. He was starting his return to earth to begin a twofold campaign. Supposedly dead, The Shadow intended to preserve the illusion. His tasks might intertwine; but the first would be the rescue of his agents.

  After that, The Shadow would be ready for a thrust against the supercrook who had so relentlessly sought his life. Despite the protection that he could command from hordes of crime, Marvin Bradthaw would feel The Shadow's wrath.

  CHAPTER XIV. BRADTHAW MAKES A DEAL

  EARLY the next afternoon, Strampf appeared in Bradthaw's office. The rugged-faced insurance magnate greeted the cadaverous investigator with a smile and a cigar. Strampf sat down wearily. His haggard appearance showed that he had been up most of the night.

  "I read your report, Strampf," approved Bradthaw. "I commend the manner in which you handled matters."

  Strampf looked pleased. He had not been entirely satisfied with everything that had happened.

  "Our object was to destroy The Shadow," continued Bradthaw. "That accomplished, we have made new activities possible. True, there was a great stir last night. Dozens of our men were shot down by the law.

  But that served to cover the real purpose that we had."

  "The big-shots will have to remain quiet for a time," re
minded Strampf. "That will postpone the issuing of new crime-insurance policies."

  "Only for a few weeks, Strampf. Meanwhile, I shall complete one transaction, that will make the books show their required business. Caudrey is coming here soon. I intend to issue him a Preferred policy on the Melrue money."

  Strampf looked pleased. Caudrey's proposition was a sure-fire one. As Bradthaw said, it would produce more than the minimum profit that was expected within the next two weeks. After that, business would be as brisk as ever from usual sources.

  "There was something that I did not mention," stated Strampf. "I visited The Shadow's agents at midnight and talked to them as you suggested."

  "You told them they would not be injured if they behaved themselves?"

  "Yes sir. That is our best policy considering the incomplete state of The Shadow's files. There are questions that those agents can answer."

  "Of course. When we prove to them that The Shadow is dead, they will be demoralized! But what was the trouble?"

  Strampf brought out report cards that he had picked up that morning, from guards in charge of the captured agents.

  "The prisoners had a radio," he explained. "They were listening to news flashes; but none mentioned The Shadow. I let them listen, thinking that they would worry."

  "Good judgment Strampf!"

  "Unfortunately after I left, that fellow Burbank began operations. He turned off the radio. While the others chatted, he rigged the set into a sending device and started to transmit messages in code."

  "Impossible!"

  Bradthaw's exclamation was emphatic. So was Bradthaw's responding headshake.

  "Burbank did it," insisted Strampf. "The guards caught on at last and stopped him. This morning, I checked with some of my operatives who listen to police calls nightly. They heard Burbank's signals."

  "Did they read them?"

  "No. They were in a special code. My men did not know that Burbank sent them, until I checked on the time that the signals were given. Of course, the prisoners have been deprived of their radio -"

  "And that settles it," interrupted Bradthaw. "The only message that Burbank could possibly have dispatched was one stating that he and his companions were not in danger. The only recipient on whom Burbank counted was The Shadow; and he was dead. Burbank could not have told where he and the other prisoners were, for he does not know."

  Bradthaw regarded the matter as closed; and Strampf concurred. The investigator reported on another matter. He had learned through cablegrams that the real Lamont Cranston would soon be in London.

  "Excellent!" decided Bradthaw. "We shall start the false report that Cranston has sailed for England. His absence here will be accounted for. We shall see to it that the real Cranston is interviewed in London after he arrives there."

  ANNOUNCEMENT came that Mr. Caudrey was outside. The actuary was admitted. Caudrey had read the newspapers; he felt sure that The Shadow had been eliminated in the explosion. He was highly pleased when Bradthaw announced that such had been the case.

  "Here are the papers concerning the Melrue money," stated Caudrey. "I brought them along for your inspection, Bradthaw."

  The documents impressed Bradthaw. First there was the letter written by old Melrue to his friend Wilmot. It stated definitely that Wilmot would find "undisbursed funds" within the wall of the study in the brownstone house.

  Caudrey produced account sheets that had been among Melrue's papers. His lists showed clearly that more than three million dollars had been retained, apart from the million divided between George and Francine.

  With these, Caudrey supplied a floor plan of the old brownstone house. It showed a closet in a thick wall that made a partition between the second-floor study and the hallway that passed it. The closet however did not occupy the entire space. The wall was four feet thick: and there was a corresponding width beyond the end of the closet.

  "Provided that anything is in there," declared Bradthaw, in his modified bass tone, "we shall issue you a three-million-dollar policy - Preferred Class, Triple A. At the usual premium, three hundred thousand dollars."

  "With the premium deductible?" queried Caudrey. "I have the ninety thousand to buy the house, with cash for Hurden's commission; but that's all."

  "Premium deductible from the proceeds," agreed Bradthaw. "But with our special Speculation Rider attached to the policy."

  The Speculation Rider was a new one to Caudrey. It was not dependent upon the figures that the actuary had prepared for crime-insurance premium rates. Bradthaw explained the rider.

  "We found it necessary to have actual proof that certain funds or jewels existed," declared Bradthaw. "If they were seen by witnesses that was sufficient. In this case we have a method of learning if some object is in the wall. But that will not prove that said object - say a metal chest - contains the funds.

  "Therefore the rider. When the wall is opened, it must be done in the presence of myself, or some representative. If the funds are intact but less than the estimated three million, we cannot pay the difference. We shall simply deduct the proportionate premium."

  Caudrey nodded his understanding.

  "If it's all there - but only a million instead of three I pay a hundred thousand dollars. That makes it quits."

  "Yes," smiled Bradthaw. "And if there is nothing, you receive nothing and pay nothing."

  "The Speculation Rider's fair enough," declared Caudrey. "But how are you going to find out if there's anything there?"

  Bradthaw glanced at his watch.

  "Get hold of your proxy, Hurden," he ordered. "Have him go to that lawyer's office - what's the fellow's name?"

  "The attorney for the Melrue estate? Reddingham."

  "Have Hurden see Reddingham. Tell him he wants to inspect the house; that he wants to bring in furnace men, plumbers, electricians, to see that everything is in good shape. We'll do the rest."

  "And Hurden buys the place?"

  "He's to be waiting for a telephone call. You'll make it, telling him what to do."

  ONE hour later, Hurden reached Reddingham's office. The proxy was a dapper, middle-size man; a contrast to Reddingham who was a withery old fossil.

  The attorney hemmed and hawed, declaring that he was no real estate agent; but finally he decided to show the house.

  The pair took a taxi trip to the obscure street where the mansion stood. There, they met George and Francine Melrue; for Reddingham had insisted upon calling the heirs.

  The house was furnished, but in an ugly, old-fashioned style. None of the furniture was old enough to come in the antique class. It was all too out-of-date to have any resale value.

  Realizing that he was paying more than double the mansion's value, Hurden took the stand that he expected to buy the place furnished. George Melrue raised a whiny objection at first; then agreed.

  Hurden seemed pleased. George slipped a wink to Francine.

  The girl totally disliked the whole procedure. Though Hurden seemed satisfied with the deal, she felt sorry for the fellow.

  The electricians had arrived, bringing an odd-looking apparatus that they called an improved "circuit tester." They started through the house. Furnace men and plumbers were next. They kept everyone busy with questions, while the electricians were on the second floor. The electricians came downstairs to say that the wiring was ship-shape. They left, taking their tester with them.

  WITHIN the next hour, a special messenger brought an envelope to the offices of the Solidarity Insurance Company. It was delivered to Bradthaw, who still had Caudrey and Strampf in his office.

  Bradthaw opened the envelope and brought out three but recently developed photographs. He smiled as he passed two of them to Caudrey.

  Each picture was a mass of blurred gray; but a solid chunk of blocky blackness showed in the center.

  The photos had been taken at different ranges; hence the black rectangles varied in size. Bradthaw pointed to dimensions marked on the margins.

  "The gray," he explained, "is t
he wall of old Melrue's study. The black object is obviously a metal chest, three feet wide and two feet high. Estimated at two feet from front to back. This photo" - he handed the third to Caudrey - "was taken from the hallway."

  "X-ray photos!" exclaimed Caudrey. "Taken by the fake electricians! But how did they handle it?"

  "With a camouflaged apparatus that they called a 'circuit tester'; we have used the device on previous occasions."

  Bradthaw lifted the desk telephone. He gave the Melrue number to the switchboard operator; told her to ask for Mr. Hurden. He added that no name was to be mentioned. Bradthaw handed the telephone to Caudrey. Soon Hurden's voice came over the wire. Eagerly, Caudrey told Hurden to buy the old mansion.

  As soon as Caudrey had replaced the telephone, Bradthaw produced a fully typed insurance policy from his desk drawer and handed it to the actuary. He also gave Caudrey a promissory note made out for three hundred thousand dollars. Caudrey signed it. Looking through the policy, he noted that the Speculation Rider had been attached.

  "Hurden will have the deed tomorrow," declared Caudrey. "He tells me that the place is furnished. He can invite friends to a house-warming tomorrow night. I shall be there -"

  "And so shall I," inserted Bradthaw. "At your invitation, Caudrey. Strampf will stop in to see me on some matter. Meanwhile, Strampf will see to it that the house is undisturbed, between tonight and tomorrow."

  As he arose, Bradthaw added with a smile:

  "We take care of such details, Caudrey. After all, I now have more at stake than you. You can rest assured that we shall find that chest exactly as old Seth Melrue left it."

  Bradthaw spoke with rich-voiced confidence. Perhaps the crime profiteer would have lacked that deep-toned assurance, had he known that The Shadow had survived last night's bombardment.

  CHAPTER XV. THE SHADOW'S MOVES

  WHILE Hurden was completing his inspection of the old Melrue mansion, a middle-aged man was seated in the small living room of a comfortably furnished apartment. His eyes were keen; his hardened face looked crafty, topped by its grizzled hair.