A HEAVY door marked the entrance to Loring Dyke’s private suit. The door was locked. A pick appeared in The Shadow’s fingers. It probed the lock but encountered no key. A muffled click came from within the lock. The door yielded to The Shadow’s hand.
Entering a dimly lighted room, The Shadow closed the door behind him. He used an oddly shaped key to relock it. Then he studied the room itself.
This was the small bedroom of which Shelburne had spoken. It contained a day bed in one corner; at present, that object was made up like a couch.
Ahead was the door to the laboratory. This portal was ajar; The Shadow could see a frosted window beyond. The laboratory, brilliantly lighted, was the room directly above the kitchen. There, The Shadow knew he would find Loring Dyke, if the chemist were still at home.
The Shadow advanced. He peered through the opening. His blackened form became rigid. His eyes turned toward the floor. The Shadow had arrived to find that death had preceded him.
Crumpled on the floor was the body of Loring Dyke. Grotesquely twisted, mangled to a hideous degree, the chemist had met the same fate that Meldon Fallow had encountered. The tiled floor of the laboratory was stained with pools of blood. Dyke’s head, its brutally hammered face turned upward, had been twisted almost completely about.
The body, despite its contorted position, was downward; but the head was opposite. The jagged beginning of a terrible gash showed at the front of the dead man’s shaggy hair. Not only had the killer choked the victim and broken his neck; fierce blows had been used to shatter Dyke’s skull.
The Shadow approached the body. With cold, unflinching gaze, he surveyed this murderous work. His eyes turned toward the frosted windows; through them, The Shadow could see the outlines of bars.
The window in the little room was also barred. Loring Dyke’s suite, with its locked door, was a stronghold. Yet the killer had found some means of entry and departure.
On the wall, close to the spot where Dyke’s body lay, was the opening of the shaft which contained the dumbwaiter. The sliding door of the shaft was raised. Here was proof of The Shadow’s keen discovery two floors below. The killer had come and gone by the lift in the dumbwaiter shaft!
To The Shadow, the fact was apparent. He had already discovered that the desk at Meldon Fallow’s had been a factor in the inventor’s death. The dumbwaiter shaft here at Dyke’s could have been used in the same manner as the desk.
Others, however, would be incredulous. Joe Cardona would never believe it possible that a mangling murderer could possess proportions small enough to admit him through the narrow opening at bottom and top of the dumbwaiter shaft.
Even to The Shadow, the situation remained paradoxical. This mode of vicious killing was unparalleled.
LONG minutes passed while The Shadow persisted in his investigation. He examined the body of Loring Dyke. Mangled, torn and beaten, it lacked the marks which The Shadow had hoped to find— prints that would lead to identification of the killer.
The Shadow gazed toward the open shaft. He saw an unlighted bulb beside it; he knew that this lamp must have come as a signal to Loring Dyke, indicating that the little lift was at the top of the shaft.
Assuming the part of Dyke, The Shadow approached the opening. Dyke had raised the sliding door of the shaft; then had come the action of the killer. Murder accomplished, its author had been lowered to the basement.
To what extent had the killer been aided? Had he come alone, or had he been carried here? The Shadow suspected an accomplice within the house; but his keen observation carried further. It told him a definite fact concerning the killer.
Whoever — whatever — had come up this shaft was capable only of one action: namely, the delivery of death. Brutal — totally inhuman — the slayer was completely lacking in brains. The answer was before the eyes of The Shadow. It was the raised door of the opened shaft.
Deceptive though this murder would be to the police, it lacked one obvious touch that would have made it perfect. The killer had slain Loring Dyke without molestation. He had hammered the chemist almost to a pulp — a procedure that was quite unnecessary. Yet the merciless slayer had omitted a simple and final action — the closing of the door which Dyke had raised.
Investigators would wonder about that opened door. It would stand as proof that Dyke had been slain immediately after answering the light on the wall.
Why had the strangler missed this point? Why had he failed to perform the action that would have diverted all speculation from the mode of entry which he had used?
The Shadow had already gained the answer. A brainless killer — a slayer who performed his monstrous deeds with machinelike stubbornness. From this point, The Shadow gained another. He began to picture the type of killer that must have entered here; one upon which the sender could absolutely rely for murder; but nothing else.
A solemn laugh sounded through the tiled laboratory. Its tones were an eerie shudder, confined entirely to the room itself. Grim echoes responded in creepy, fantastic whispers. They were the answer to The Shadow’s mirthless mockery.
Silence. The Shadow was moving about the laboratory. His eyes saw a lighted burner; beside it, a beaker, half filled with liquid. Dyke had been ready to begin a chemical experiment when the summons to death had come.
A pounding from the outer room. The Shadow listened. A muffled voice was calling. It was a servant, trying to summon his master.
“Mr. Dyke!” The Shadow, moving to the outer room, could hear the loudness of the tone. “Mr. Dyke! Are you there, Mr. Dyke?”
THE SHADOW made no response. The call was repeated; then came the sound of departing footsteps.
The Shadow produced the pick and opened the door. He closed it behind him, silently locked it with his peculiar key, and descended softly to the first floor.
A voice was coming from the library. The servant was using the telephone. The Shadow waited, listening beyond the opened door.
“Headquarters?” The servant’s tone was anxious. “Yes?… I am calling from the home of Loring Dyke… Loring Dyke, the chemist. My name is Parsons; I am his servant… I am afraid some harm has befallen him.
“Yes… Let me explain… A friend called him with an urgent message. I thought Mr. Dyke had gone out… Yes… I called the house where he was to be. He was not there… Where?… Unless something happened to him on the way, he is still here. No, I cannot reach him. He may be in his laboratory… Yes, the door is locked. He does not respond to the call…”
The Shadow had reached the outer door. He could tell from the tone of the servant’s voice that Parsons was genuinely alarmed. Soon the police would arrive. They would break through the locked door. They would find the mangled body of Loring Dyke.
The outer door closed and latched. A spectral form flitted against the surface of the brownstone steps. It glided past the range of a street light, then faded into darkness.
The Shadow had viewed the scene of the second crime. His task at Dyke’s was ended. Two deaths — not one — were to be avenged. The Shadow would find the mysterious murderer before the hand of death could strike again!
CHAPTER X. THE DECISION
“MR. CRANSTON is here, sir.”
The speaker was Bryce Towson’s servant. The man had entered the conference room, where his master and Herbert Whilton were engaged in conversation at the long table. The announcement brought an expression of surprise from Whilton.
“What!” exclaimed the old financier. “Eleven o’clock already!”
He drew a massive gold watch from his pocket. The timepiece corroborated his conjecture. Meanwhile, Towson was ordering the servant to admit the visitor. Lamont Cranston appeared at the doorway.