“Perfectly,” nodded Harry. “You have put it very clearly, Mann. I have been moved into many unexpected squares, like the knight on a chess board. Yet there have often been times when you were never moved into play, just like a chess bishop on the squares of the wrong color.”
“Yet I,” remarked Mann, “have been quite as desirous of difficult assignments as have you. I should like my turn; nevertheless, I hate to deprive you of the opportunity. By the way, Vincent” — Mann glanced at his watch — “we have plenty of time to talk this over. It is only half past eleven. We have until two for our decision. Suppose we go over to the Cobalt Club for lunch.”
Harry suspected that Mann was working out some plan of choice. Therefore, he willingly accepted the invitation. The two left the office and rode by cab to the Cobalt Club. They chatted a while on other subjects; then went to the grillroom for lunch.
It was nearly one o’clock when the agents arose from their table. With a smiling glance at Harry, Mann put an unexpected question:
“Just how good a chess player are you, Vincent?”
“Not bad at all,” laughed Harry. “Out home in Michigan, I was picked as the best player in St. Joe’s county. And they play real chess, out there. They have plenty of spare time in the winters, between the mint crops.”
“Good,” said Mann, decisively. “Let us go up to the library. I want you to see the corner nook.”
THE spot to which Mann referred was a quiet corner where a chess table stood with the quaint pieces all set up ready on their squares. Mann flipped a coin; Harry called heads. The coin fell heads.
“White,” chose Harry, as Mann motioned to the table.
Harry took the white side of the board; Mann the black. As they studied the pieces, Mann leaned forward and spoke quietly:
“The stake in this game—”
“I understand,” nodded Harry. “Knight or bishop.”
Harry used the Ruy Lopez opening. Mann met it with a customary defense. The game progressed; both players forgot their surroundings in the slow tenseness of the play. Pawns were sacrificed; other pieces were exchanged.
Harry saw himself the coming victor. His pieces were well clustered about his king. Mann’s queen was across the board. Harry moved a pawn to threaten it. Deliberately, Mann placed his fingers on a black bishop and moved it in to take an unguarded white knight that was on a square diagonal from Harry’s king.
“The bishop takes the knight,” asserted Mann, significantly. “Check, and Mate. Bishop wins from knight.”
Mann’s queen was covering the bishop that the round-faced broker had moved. Except for his king, Harry had no piece that could eliminate the bishop. The game belonged to Rutledge Mann.
“Quarter of two,” remarked the investment broker, as they shook hands across the board. “I must be going, Vincent. You will attend to Twenty-third Street?”
Harry nodded his agreement. Mann had reference to an office in an old building where messages to The Shadow were deposited. That was usually Mann’s task. Under the circumstances, it would be Harry’s.
When they parted at the entrance of the club, Mann took a cab and ordered the driver to travel to Times Square. Riding in that direction, the investment broker considered well the part he was about to play. For Rutledge Mann had banked on winning his game with Harry Vincent.
As a friend of Bruce Duncan, Harry would have had one opening for the coming duty. Mann, as an investment broker, had another. But in his inside pocket, Mann had the object that he needed — a letter, addressed to himself, from Bruce Duncan. The Shadow had included it with the morning messages.
Mann had another letter also. One from Bruce to Harry, which he was to have given Harry, had the latter needed it. Mann had carried it along, in case Harry won the match. Since Mann was the winner, this second letter was no longer needed.
Drawing the extra letter from his pocket, Mann tore it to shreds between his chubby hands and let the tiny fragments scatter at intervals from the window of the moving cab.
The taxi reached Times Square. Mann alighted and paid the driver.
Then, with a quiet air of confidence, the investment broker set out afoot in the direction of the Lambreth Building. As a first step in this special duty for The Shadow, Rutledge Mann was paying a visit to the office of Basil Tellert.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WAY IS PAVED
“Most astounding, Mr. Mann! Most astounding!”
Basil Tellert, his curve-streaked face aghast, was half indignant, half troubled, as he spoke from behind his desk. In one hand he clutched a letter that Mann had given him to read.
“You were acquainted with this man Bruce Duncan?” inquired Mann.
“I have seen him,” responded Tellert. “His claim is correct. He was formerly Professor Jark’s secretary. But why do you suppose he wrote to you, and not to me?”
“A few years ago,” explained Mann, “I handled some investments for Duncan. Since then, I have neither seen him nor heard from him until this morning. I suppose he wrote to me, knowing that my contact with investments would make me the logical person to visit you. He might have chosen some friend; but perhaps he could think of no one available.”
“There appears to be no way of communicating with Duncan,” decided Tellert, studying the letter. “Naturally not, since he states that his life is in danger.”
“Our only hope,” returned Mann, “is to follow the plan which he suggests. He promised to call on you personally, once you have made public these facts concerning Professor Jark.”
Tellert dropped the letter on the desk. He arose from his chair and paced to the window, where he stared in meditation. Then, turning about, the promoter nodded his accord.
“That is right, Mr. Mann,” he decided. “We have only one course. We must issue a statement to the newspapers. And yet” — he hesitated — “we must use discretion at the start. Until we have actually talked with Duncan; until we have him present, to swear to these revelations that he has made—”
“I agree with you entirely,” interposed Mann. “Duncan’s letter is no proof. It might even be a hoax; or a forgery.”
“No, no,” insisted Tellert. “It has truth in back of it, Mr. Mann. I am sure of that much; and I realize what a fool I have been not to see the vile scheme myself. Day after day, I have been reading of these robberies; yet never once did I think of connecting them with Professor Jark’s disintegrating ray.”
“You saw the machine that Jark invented?”
“A crude model of it, yes. But one that had nothing like the power that the present device must certainly possess. Then this dynamiting business fooled me, besides. I thought that the criminals had blasted their way into those vaults they robbed.”
“That was the police version.”
“Exactly.”
Again, Tellert paced. Then he sat down in his chair, folded his hands and faced Mann. Straightened lips formed an odd contrast to the ever-present curves of the promoter’s face.
“In this letter,” declared Tellert, “Bruce Duncan states that Professor Baldridge Jark has called in the services of two dangerous criminals, whose names, Duncan says, can be made public later.”
Mann nodded.
“Also,” continued Tellert, “Duncan affirms that Jark has chosen a new headquarters, location unknown, from which — so Duncan believes — the crooks are making their forays and are returning with their spoils. Duncan also expresses belief that Jark holds a physician named Nordis Baird. That is quite possible.”
“Why would Baird be a prisoner?”
“Jark would need some physician to attend him. The old inventor had some strange malady which demanded constant treatment.”
“Was Baird his physician?”