POCKETING the statement, Clyde was starting from the office. Tellert was spluttering. Rutledge Mann was on his feet, showing indignation. One of the photographers shouldered up and wanted their full names. The fact that Clyde had gotten them did not matter. The editorial and photographic departments were separate. Both had their routine orders at the Classic.
Tellert calmed as he gave his name. Mann managed a rather annoyed smile. The photographers followed Clyde Burke. The story was on its way to print, five minutes after the enterprising tabloid trio had breezed into Tellert’s office.
“Well,” decided Tellert, “there is nothing to do but wait. But I must see you tomorrow, Mann. We may be in for it.”
“By all means,” agreed Mann. “Here is my card, with my office telephone. I shall be there from nine o’clock on.”
They shook hands. Mann departed. Traveling down in the elevator, The Shadow’s agent wore a slight but steady smile. For Rutledge Mann knew that he had accomplished all that was needed for the present. He had paved the way for Clyde Burke; and the reporter had played the part of a stranger. Clyde, too, was under The Shadow’s orders.
Then Mann’s smile faded. His lips became tense. Mann was thinking of the morrow. As Tellert had said, half jesting: they might be in for it. In deeper, perhaps, thought Mann, than Tellert had suspected.
For The Shadow, through Mann, had played a card that the foe would be sure to trump. When the enemy moved, danger would begin. A bold stroke — one that risked a life — yet the only move through which The Shadow could counteract the terrible advantage that men of crime had gained.
CHAPTER XX
THE NEW PREY
BLACKNESS surrounded the blue glow in the corner of The Shadow’s sanctum. Outside it was afternoon; but here, no light of day was present. Twenty-four hours had passed since Rutledge Mann’s visit to Basil Tellert’s office.
Clippings lay on The Shadow’s table. Usually, these came to him through Rutledge Mann. Today, they had been supplied by Harry Vincent. Mann, on new duty, was in contact only with Burbank; and even that touch was limited to necessary phone calls.
The Classic had scooped the town with the story about Professor Baldridge Jark. The front page showed a photo of the shock-haired inventor working at a laboratory table. This picture was an old one, taken two years before.
Alongside was the picture of Mann and Tellert, both sour-faced, looking at a sheet of paper which purported to be a statement to the Classic. The features of both men had been clearly recorded by the camera.
Post-mortems about the Reisert robbery had been relegated to inner pages, along with pictures of the dragnet in operation. Other newspapers had featured this stuff. The Classic had scored a beat with its front-page smash, which credited Rutledge Mann with stating that Baldridge Jark had turned swindler.
A tiny bulb glimmered. It meant a call from Burbank. The Shadow received a terse report. Mann had called Tellert, putting off an appointment until evening, on account of difficulties with reporters. Mann had gone to the Cobalt Club. Tellert was at his home on Long Island.
The Shadow gave terse orders. He clicked out the bluish light. His whispered laugh sounded within the sanctum’s walls. Evening was close at hand; adventure lay ahead. Yet The Shadow’s laugh was grim and mirthless.
HOURS passed. It was half past seven when Rutledge Mann strolled from the portals of the Cobalt Club. Hardly had he appeared before a cab shot up to the entrance before the doorman had begun to beckon.
Mann entered; the cab sped away, leaving the uniformed portal keeper bewildered by the quickness of the service.
Moe Shrevnitz was at the wheel of the cab. Two blocks down the avenue, the speedy taxi driver negotiated a left turn, roared along a side street and swung left on another avenue. He followed with a right turn, then continued a threading course toward an East River bridge.
On the second avenue, a coupe had started up as Moe approached. The driver of that car had followed the taxi’s course through all the maze of streets. The coupe never lost the trail. Only one driver in all Manhattan was capable of keeping so constantly to Moe’s evasive track. That helmsman was The Shadow.
Basil Tellert’s home was in a Long Island suburb not far from Manhattan. It was not until Moe had almost reached the destination that houses thinned and the streets became at all secluded. At last Moe drew up in front of an unpretentious residence. Mann alighted, passed him payment, and Moe drove away.
The coupe had followed to the corner before Tellert’s residence. There, The Shadow had turned right, to park in front of a house. Lights extinguished, he stepped out in darkness. Moving across the blackened street at a spot midway between two well-separated lights, he gained the side yard of a gloomy, unlighted house.
The Shadow gave a soft hiss. A man’s form moved beside the house. Harry Vincent whispered a report that nothing had been observed. The Shadow skirted a hedge in back of Tellert’s house. He reached a vacant lot on the other side. Close to a pile of building stone, he gave a second hissed signal.
This time it was Hawkeye who whispered a response. Like Harry, Hawkeye had seen nothing. But as he stared through the darkness, trying to make out The Shadow’s position, Hawkeye spied a movement from across the street. Faint forms could be seen against a gray stone wall.
The Shadow, too, had spied the motion. Again came his low hiss, this time a warning, before Hawkeye could whisper the news. The Shadow swished softly forward to the edge of the lot. He saw other shapes. The men were cutting through from the back of an empty house.
View of Tellert’s home was partially obscured by a hedge, which lay between it and the empty ground. The Shadow spoke softly to Hawkeye, sending him to relay word to Harry. Approaching the hedge, The Shadow could see shapes beyond it.
There was a light in a living room on this side of Tellert’s. Just in front of its French windows lay a side veranda. One set of windows was open; it was probable, since the night was mild, that Tellert and Mann might decide to come out on the porch.
The Shadow watched huddled men crouch by the house. Then his keen ears caught a slight sound from the rock pile. Moving thither, The Shadow whispered to Hawkeye and Harry. The agents saw his shape, vaguely, as he twisted about between them and the house.
Harry was to watch through the hedge; Hawkeye, to follow The Shadow. The latter task would have been impossible, even for Hawkeye, for cloudy night formed a blackened shroud that The Shadow used as a mantle of invisibility. But as Hawkeye moved forward, he caught slight, hissed signals. He kept close behind The Shadow.
THEY reached the house across the way. Skirting it, The Shadow and Hawkeye spied two cars that had come into an obscure driveway from a rear street. The front machine was a sedan. A man was standing on the gravel beside it. Both The Shadow and Hawkeye could hear the crunch of his footsteps as he moved along by the car.
The rear automobile was a coupe, parked twenty feet behind the sedan. A whisper from The Shadow. Hawkeye followed to this car. Looking at the chromium handle of the rumble seat, he saw what looked like blackness come forth to cover it. It was the hand of The Shadow.
Noiselessly, the rumble seat came up. The Shadow’s hand probed the space beneath. Cushions had been removed. This compartment, when used at all, was required for carrying bulky articles.
Standing in amazement, Hawkeye sensed blackness rising. It settled; he realized that The Shadow had entered that vacant space.
Something clicked almost inaudibly. The Shadow was demolishing the catch that locked the back of the rumble seat. He was doing the job with some small, metallic instrument. Then, as Hawkeye leaned against the fender of the car, The Shadow spoke final orders.