“You’ll hear about it.”
“How soon?”
“Call me on the telephone. Give your name; ask to be connected with the penthouse. But don’t bother me more than once an hour. Is that understood? All right; get out your pencil and copy paper and take down the details.”
Fifteen minutes later, Clyde Burke appeared upon the street outside of the Hotel Salamanca. He strolled to a store a block away. He put in a telephone call to Burbank. Methodically, Clyde gave all the details of the double murder in the Salamanca penthouse.
In addition, he listed the names of the guests who had been cleared and dismissed. He added the numbers of their rooms. That finished, Clyde Burke left the phone booth and headed for the Classic office.
ONE hour elapsed. The search was still continuing in the Hotel Salamanca. Cardona had begun with the twenty-fourth floor. He had then headed up to the penthouse, leaving two detectives to patrol the twenty-fourth floor. Not a possible hiding place had been missed.
A third detective was standing by the elevators. He was within earshot of his companions. His duty was to watch the stairway. He was following the same procedure that had made it possible for Clyde Burke to come upstairs as a false detective: in brief, he was watching to see that no one left the twenty-fourth floor, not to look for any arrival.
Hence his eyes were not toward the stairway. They were turned toward the corridors where the patrolling detectives were in charge. These men were pacing back and forth; occasionally one strolled up to the penthouse to report to Joe Cardona.
The stairway that led below was black. From its solid darkness came a strange, moving patch that extended along the floor. It became the silhouette of a hawklike profile. It rested almost at the feet of the detective who was standing by the elevators.
The patch moved inward. It was followed by a form. The sinister figure of The Shadow came in sight. Noiselessly, the tall being approached until he reached a corner of the wall beyond the elevators. The single detective was standing near the corridor. The Shadow was less than three feet from him.
Silently, The Shadow waited. The detective, wearied of what seemed a useless vigil, drew a cigarette from his pocket. He followed with a match. He turned as he applied the flame to the cigarette.
Strolling from the entrance to the corridor, he approached the elevator. The flicker of the match showed his face to The Shadow. The sleuth, however, busied with his light, did not observe that tall black shape in passing.
The Shadow swung noiselessly from his hiding place. He swept toward the corridor. The doors of rooms were opened. A patrolling detective was moving in the opposite direction. Before the man had reached his turning point, The Shadow had glided into one of the empty rooms.
There The Shadow waited until the man had passed in the opposite direction. Again, the black-garbed phantom moved into the corridor — across — then through another open door: the one marked 2410.
Safe in Professor Devine’s suite, The Shadow began an intermittent investigation. He timed his actions to the passing of the detective. Whenever the man’s footsteps approached, The Shadow slid to cover; at other times, he continued his examination.
THE SHADOW had chosen this suite with a purpose. The Hotel Salamanca, though tall, was a narrow building. It fronted for half a block on Seventh Avenue. Its north side was high above an empty lot that awaited new construction. Its western exposure was a solid wall. Its south side, however, loomed above the dark cross street. There were but four rooms on this side street. Two were in an unoccupied suite; the others belonged to Professor Devine.
The Shadow had picked 2410 before examining the empty suite. His keen eyes, peering about the professor’s living room, told him that there could be no one hiding here. But they saw items of interest which Cardona had not noticed.
Beneath the radiator beside the opened window, The Shadow spied a cylindrical object. Swiftly, he crossed and picked up the mailing tube. He carried it to the bedroom. He opened the capped end. The tube was made of more than cardboard. It had weight, due to a hollow metal cylinder within. A faint, whispered laugh came from The Shadow’s hidden lips.
Peering from the bedroom, The Shadow noticed three canes in the corner. He glided forward, touched each in turn; then moved back to the bedroom with the cane that the professor had furnished with tip and knob.
Removing the silver ornamentations, The Shadow examined the cane. He saw that it was a plain one; that no scoring had been provided for cap and ferrule. The Shadow replaced the cap and the tip. He waited until the patrolling detective had passed the door of 2410; then he went into the living room and put the cane in the corner; the mailing tube beneath the radiator.
Returning to the bedroom, The Shadow observed the professor’s empty bag. He noted the bed lamp, which was still lighted. Again, The Shadow moved into the living room. He paused beside the open window. He noted scratches upon the sill; stooping, he saw where paint had been rubbed from the iron pipe of the radiator.
This time The Shadow was forced to move swiftly before the detective again passed the door of 2410. Gaining the bedroom, the black-cloaked investigator waited calmly while long minutes passed. At last came the sound of voices. Men had arrived from the penthouse. Joe Cardona was talking in the corridor, near the open door of 2410.
“Somebody’s gone looney,” the ace detective was announcing. “We’ve gone through this whole place clean. There’s no sign of the guy we want. He must have made some sort of get-away down those stairs.
“I figure he passed the house detective. At any rate, he’s not on this floor; he’s not in the penthouse; he isn’t on the roof. I even sent two men up into the water tank.
“The hunt is off. I’m leaving two of you men up in the penthouse; but that’s all. So far as this floor is concerned, there’s no use watching it.”
Tramping footsteps were followed by the clangor of the elevator doors. Then came silence. The Shadow was alone on the twenty-fourth floor. Gliding out into the living room of the suite, he turned off the main light; then moved to the open window.
THE roof of the opposite apartment house lay dull beneath the city’s glow. The Shadow’s gaze looked toward the parapet; then beyond it, to the upright of the water tower on the deserted roof.
As clearly as if it still stretched above the chasm of the street, The Shadow could visualize the cable-line that had been provided for Fullis Garwald’s escape. The mailing tube was evidence of the final fish line. Knob and ferrule, attached to the wrong cane, were proof of another shaft — the one which had been used like a harpoon. The empty bag told of the cable itself.
The Shadow had found the answer to the killer’s escape. He had not learned the identity of the murderer who had made a get-away with Gaston Ferrar’s highly valuable collection of gems; but he had settled upon one person who had been accessory to the crime.
With Clyde Burke’s detailed description of the crime; with the reporter’s added comments upon the guests who had removed from the twenty-fourth floor, The Shadow had picked one member of the crime chain. Though he had not yet learned of Crime Incorporated, the master sleuth had made his start toward the unknown goal which he had determined to reach.
The Shadow had gained the identity of one man through whom others might be forestalled before new evil struck. By working backward as well as forward, he had opportunity to solve baffling cases of the past while he worked to prevent crime of the future.
Through one man, whom he would trail with unrelenting skill, The Shadow could find the facts that he needed. A sibilant laugh came from The Shadow’s unseen lips. Whispered mirth floated above the stilled canyon that lay between the high-walled buildings.