“They figure a gun the best way out.”
“Did you know this fellow, Cardona?”
“No. But I’ve heard of him. Mr. Lucaster’s identification settles it. Roke Rowden was a con man, commissioner. But I’m not sure he committed suicide.”
“Ah! You have a clue?”
“Ask Mr. Lucaster.”
“Why me?” questioned the Des Moines manufacturer, in a quivering tremor. “How should I have a clue?”
“From what you told me this afternoon.”
Eyes glimmered as heavy eyelids blinked. Joe Cardona did not catch the gleam. The Shadow, in his pose as Northrup Lucaster, was careful to keep the light behind him when he faced Cardona.
“I understand!” he exclaimed, in the crackly tone he had assumed. “There was a man to be here — with twenty-five thousand dollars, the same sum that I was to bring. And yet” — he paused — “yet why should Rowden have been murdered? He had no money.”
“No?” Cardona laughed. “You were falling for a con game, Mr. Lucaster. The man who was to be here must have been Rowden’s pal. They had the money, probably; and maybe — in fact, very likely — all of it was Rowden’s.”
“I see.” A nod from the pretended Lucaster. “Perhaps they had an altercation.”
“That’s it,” declared Joe. “The blind — that’s the other fellow — may have figured that Rowden’s dough was a better bet than yours.”
“Excellent deduction, Cardona,” commended Barth. “Have you any other clues?”
“This,” declared Joe, stepping to the desk. “It looks as though Rowden wrote it.”
“C-Y-R-O” — Barth paused in his spelling. The name is incomplete, Cardona.”
“I don’t think so,” responded the sleuth. “About a year ago, commissioner, a couple of Scotland Yard men came here from London. They told me about a swindler who was burning up the Continent. A fellow who had gypped members of the nobility. They said he called himself Cyro.”
“An odd name.”
“The one by which he was known to his confederates. They said to watch out for him in New York. Well, it looks like he’s been here.
“Yes. I don’t think a swindler of his class would have played for so small a stake as twenty-five grand. But he might have had a grudge against Roke Rowden. To bump Rowden and take the fellow’s money — well, that could suit Cyro’s style. That’s only my theory, commissioner; but—”
“It is a good one, Cardona. Proceed with your inspection. New clues may develop.”
FORTY minutes later. Joe Cardona was summarizing his findings. He was standing by Rowden’s desk, where he had placed torn letters and envelopes taken from the wastebasket. Commissioner Barth and Northrup Lucaster were listening to the acting inspector’s summary.
“Roke Rowden was murdered,” declared Cardona. “He was slain by the man who had come here to aid him in his swindle scheme. We have checked with the bank, regarding the key that was in Rowden’s possession. We know that he went to his safe-deposit vault and removed valuables just prior to his return here.
“The switchboard operator and the elevator man both testify that Rowden returned about twenty minutes before I came to arrest him. But they can furnish no clue to any visitor. Rowden’s pal must have come here earlier.
“We have the name ‘Cyro,’ which Rowden managed to write before he died. The job is to find Cyro. The chances are that the killer left town. The question is: Where did he go? These letters on the desk were picked up by Rowden a couple of hours ago. There are ten of them, all from different cities, and none of them look important.
“We’ve got about as much chance of tracing the killer through one of these letters as we have of locating him by one of those timetables over there in the alcove. The man may have gone to any one of these ten cities. Or he may have cut for anywhere on the map.”
Wainwright Barth approached to examine the spread-out letters. The commissioner shook his head. He walked around to the alcove and looked at the table drawer. A mass of timetables, spread in disarray. Barth looked about to find Lucaster standing near.
“Your false friend Rowden was ready for prompt departure,” announced Barth. “The way he mixed these timetables indicates that he was choosing some destination.”
“That surprises me,” replied The Shadow, retaining his crackly tone. “I should think that Rowden had already made his plans. But this other man — the one who killed him—”
“That’s a point,” put in Cardona. “Maybe Cyro dug into this table drawer. He must have been waiting here for Rowden.”
“May I look at these timetables?” came Lucaster’s inquiry.
“Sure,” agreed Cardona.
He watched indulgently while the gray-haired manufacturer made an inspection. Carefully, Lucaster was sorting out the schedules. At last, Cardona heard him speak.
“Quite odd,” was The Shadow’s crackled remark. “You would think that Rowden had gathered timetables for almost every point that can be reached from New York. But he has not.”
“Some are missing?” inquired Joe.
“Yes,” came the reply. “Certain Southern schedules, all of a definite sort. Florida timetables are here; but those to Atlanta, Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans are missing.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes. I had intended to take a trip to the Gulf Coast before returning to Des Moines. I am familiar with those particular timetables.”
“COME back to the desk,” suggested Cardona. “Let’s take a look at Rowden’s mail. Maybe he had a tip-off to something and the fellow who killed him decided to grab it for himself.”
They reached the desk. Cardona pointed out the various letters. Lucaster’s gray head nodded four times during the detective’s count.
“A letter from Atlanta,” began Joe. “One from New Orleans; another from Birmingham. The fourth is from Mobile. Those cities are all listed on the missing timetables?”
A nod from Lucaster.
“Four chances, commissioner,” said Cardona to Barth. “But they’re all slim ones. After all, these letters don’t mean a thing. They came to Rowden, not to the killer. There’s nothing about any one of them to indicate a con game.”
“There is a peculiarity here,” remarked The Shadow, in Lucaster’s tone. His eyes were gleaming as he stared toward the desk. “See this New Orleans letter, Mr. Cardona.”
“It’s from a shipping company,” observed Joe. “Gives information on cotton shipments. I don’t see anything special about it.”
“But the envelope—”
“Is addressed to Rowden.”
“Yes. But I should say that it was done on a different typewriter.”
“That’s a point, Mr. Lucaster,” agreed Joe. “But the envelope might have been typed by another stenographer.”
“It has no return address. Of course, Mr. Cardona, that is not entirely unusual. But—”
As the speaker paused, Cardona saw him carefully fold the torn letter along its creases. Then Lucaster’s fumbling hands tried to fit the folded letter into the rearranged envelope. They failed.
Cardona, without inquiring the purpose, tried to help. It was then that he realized what Lucaster was attempting to do.
“The letter won’t go in the envelope!” exclaimed Joe. “A long letter and a short envelope. They don’t fit.”
“That has significance,” put in Commissioner Barth. “Let us see. What could that signify—”
A crackly chuckle from Lucaster. Barth faced the gray-haired visitor from Des Moines.
“I am a business man,” stated The Shadow, with a beaming smile that fitted Lucaster. “I have received many letters at my office. They always fit inside their envelopes, commissioner.
“If I had a letter and an envelope that did not correspond, I would say that the letter did not come in that envelope. Maybe poor Rowden received two letters from New Orleans.”