The Shadow, believing that all was well, had departed while a stroke was under way. Though he suspected the existence of a menace, The Shadow, as yet, had not gained an inkling of its terrible reality.
Crime was to win in its first endeavor. It was to follow with repeated strokes which The Shadow, alone, could meet. Those blows were to be the work of a master who commanded the efforts of the most amazing enemy whom The Shadow had ever encountered.
Insidious crime — baffling crime — such would be the elements of a coming problem. To uncover them, The Shadow would be forced to solve the methods of Charg.
CHAPTER IV. MURDER UNSOLVED
“A MURDER, Joe.”
The speaker was Inspector Timothy Klein. The police official was seated at his desk in headquarters.
Red-faced, with hair of iron gray, Klein was grave in expression as he spoke to the man who had just entered his office.
The entrant was a man of stocky build. His face, firm and swarthy, showed keenness and determination.
His steady eyes, which stared inquiringly toward Klein, were sharp and observant. This man was Detective Joe Cardona, ace of the New York force.
“The details came over the phone,” declared Klein, in answer to Cardona’s unspoken query. “The victim is a fellow named Meldon Fallow — an inventor — who lived in an apartment on Fifty-second Street. That’s where they found the body. Come along. We’re going up there.”
Inspector and detective left the office. The gloom of late afternoon was apparent when they reached the street. Entering a police car, they rode northward toward their destination. Their trip ended at the entrance of an old-fashioned apartment building on Fifty-second Street.
A uniformed policeman was at the door of the apartment house. He recognized the arrivals and motioned inward, as he gave them the preliminary information which they required.
“The third floor,” he said. “Apartment 3 H. Officer Loftus is up there, inspector.”
KLEIN and Cardona entered. The inspector seemed anxious to reach the third-floor apartment. The detective, however, was shrewdly observant as they made their way to the stairway. To Joe Cardona, every detail was important. He was studying the floor plan of the building as they proceeded upward.
They found three men clustered in a hallway, with the policeman— Loftus— standing by. The officer recognized the inspector. He saw Klein look at the group of men. He hastened to explain.
“This fellow” — he pointed to one — “is the janitor. The others are moving men. They came this afternoon to get Fallow’s furniture. The janitor brought them up here and unlocked the door of the apartment. That’s when they found the body.”
Klein turned toward a door marked 3 H. It was closed. Joe Cardona put in a word to the officer.
“You locked the door?” questioned the detective.
“Yes,” admitted Loftus. “Maybe I shouldn’t have; but it was locked when I got here. These fellows shut it after they saw the body. They were standing here when I came in; here’s the key the janitor gave me. After I saw the body— well, I figured it was best to lock the door again. I had to put in a call; and there wasn’t any use going back in with the dead man. He isn’t good to look at.”
There was a peculiar emphasis in the officer’s final words. Joe Cardona’s eyes narrowed as the detective watched Klein unlock the door with the key given him by Officer Loftus.
Shoulder to shoulder, inspector and detective entered the apartment of death. They stopped a few paces past the threshold. Their impression justified the policeman’s statement.
KLEIN and Cardona were standing in a small living room. The place was oddly furnished; chairs of varied pattern, small tables, bookcases and a couch formed the chief items of furniture. There was one object, however, upon which their gaze turned.
This was a desk in the far corner of the room. It was a one-sided affair, with a row of three wide drawers running from top to floor at the left side. Beside the desk were scattered papers, strewn on the floor; in front was the form that commanded full attention.
This was the body of Meldon Fallow. The inventor lay sprawled in a crumpled heap. His body was twisted in curious fashion. From the hips up it had assumed a corkscrew pose that terminated with head turned toward the door.
Neither Klein nor Cardona had ever seen a body more hideously bashed. Fallow’s clothing had been half-ripped away. His torso showed terrific bruises and long, bloody gashes. His chest had been caved by a powerful blow.
The man’s neck, gripped by some terrible hands, had not only been clutched in strangling fashion; it had been broken into the bargain— hence the crazy tilt of Fallow’s head.
In addition, the slayer must have driven sledge-hammer blows to the inventor’s face and skull. The dead man’s jaw was askew. His features were scarcely recognizable. His forehead showed the mark of a brutal, crushing stroke that could only have been delivered with some instrument of metal.
Inspector Klein, hardened though he was to the sight of death, stood gazing in fascinated horror. It was Joe Cardona who first freed himself from the terrible spell and began the investigation.
The detective went to the windows. He noted that they were locked. He stepped to an inner door and entered a small bedroom. A brief inspection showed no traces of an occupant; Cardona also found the windows locked.
Back in the living room, where Klein was still gazing at Fallow’s shattered form, Cardona looked among the papers beside the desk. He saw a letter; its heading bore the name of Morris Jackling, attorney. The text referred to patent royalties due Meldon Fallow.
Cardona went to the telephone. He called Jackling’s office. He found that the lawyer had not yet left.
Gruffly, Cardona stated that Fallow had been murdered. He asked the lawyer to come at once to the apartment.
KLEIN was looking at the windows which Cardona had examined. When the inspector had finished, the detective nodded. He could see that Klein’s examination substantiated his own.
“Not a chance that any one came through there,” declared Klein. “Locked and dusty. That’s the only way the murderer could have taken.”
The inspector pointed to the half-closed door. Cardona walked in that direction. With Klein, he examined the lock and found it untampered.
“Let’s hear your story,” said Cardona, to the janitor who was standing pale-faced in the hallway. “How and when did you find the body?”
“It was on account of the moving men,” stated the janitor, hoarsely. “I was downstairs, sir, when they came and told me they wanted the furniture. I knew it was going out. Mr. Fallow told me about it a couple of days ago.
“When I came up here, of course I knocked. I thought maybe Mr. Fallow might be in. When I didn’t hear him answer, I used the pass-key. Then I saw— well, I saw it.”
“And you men?”
Cardona’s question was put to the two moving men. One, a big fellow, acted as spokesman for the pair.
He thrust forward some folded papers.
“This is all we know about it,” the man stated. “We do movin’ for old Goggins, that runs a second-hand furniture place on Ninth Avenue. He always gives us the dockaments — so’s we can move out the stuff that he’s bought.
“Here’s our orders an’ directions; that there paper is signed by this guy that was killed. We showed ‘em to the janitor here, so he brought us up. We seen the body along when he did.”
Cardona nodded as he made a note of the address on the paper which bore the name of Ephriam Goggins, dealer in furniture. He noted the anxious expression on the moving man’s face. He looked toward Klein and nodded.