“Sure thing.”
Wentworth was explaining his presence as they entered the hallway and ascended the stairs.
“We’re keeping watch on the place,” he said. “If this nut Double Z is mixed up in the killing, there’s no telling what may happen. He’s just bugs enough to come back to the place. Might have left something here. So we’re lying in wait.”
Wentworth unlocked the door of the third-floor apartment. He and Burke entered the gloomy room, where Caulkins had died. The detective pointed out the telephone, and indicated the position in which the body had been found.
“Who lived here?” questioned Clyde.
“Wish we knew,” said Wentworth. “Name downstairs says Joseph T. Dodd, but we haven’t got any clew from it. We do know that some fellow did live here a while. We’ve found clothes and other articles. The only trouble is, he seems to have been careful to keep himself unknown. Nothing is here in the way of identification.”
Clyde looked around the room, while the detective kept up a line of intermittent patter. The supposed actions that had taken place in the room were well established in Wentworth’s mind.
“Caulkins came in,” he explained. “He found the guy who had coaxed him here. They were talking about this Double Z stuff. Caulkins went to the phone— right there; the other bird was standing here.
“Just as Caulkins began to spill the story, the other fellow outs with a gat and plugs him four times.
Caulkins didn’t have a chance, even though the guy that killed him was a bum shot. Right here is where we figure the murderer was standing. Nervy, eh, while Caulkins was phoning?”
Clyde nodded. Somehow, Wentworth’s description, a duplicate of Cardona’s findings, did not fully satisfy him; yet he could not explain what was wrong. He and the detective left the house. Clyde grunted a good-by, and started back to the newspaper office. On the way, he stopped at the building on Twenty-third Street. Standing in the dim hall, he scrawled a short coded message, describing his visit to Eightieth Street, and dropped the note in the door that bore the name Jonas.
BEFORE the desolate-looking house on East Eightieth Street, Detective Sergeant Wentworth continued his vigil. Dusk came. The door of the old house across the street was dim in the increasing darkness.
Watching it, Wentworth fancied that he saw a moving blur pass momentarily in front of it. He strolled across the street and tried the door. Locked. Wentworth went back to his post.
As his footsteps clicked down the stone steps to the sidewalk, a low laugh sounded in the vestibule. The soft mirth did not reach Wentworth’s ears. A man was standing in the vestibule — a man clad in black. He was totally invisible in the darkness. He had entered the front door in spite of the detective’s vigil.
Now, a light appeared in the inclosure — a tiny spot of light no larger than a half dollar. It shone directly upon the lock of the inner door. A queer-looking key appeared within that circle of illumination. A black-gloved hand used the key to probe the lock.
The door opened. It did not close immediately. The man in black was still working at the lock. The key moved in and out, as though being used to probe the metal depths.
At last, the door closed. Silence reigned with darkness. The light shone at intervals, moving upward on the stairway. It stopped on the third floor. Its rays swinging pryingly, stopped at the very spot where Joel Caulkins had stood in the hallway, unobserved by the man he was following. The tiny light, close to the floor, revealed slight dust marks.
Metal clicked against metal. The door of the apartment opened. The ray of the flashlight widened as it advanced uncannily, not a foot above the floor. It seemed to be following an invisible trail.
It paused; then, swerving, went to the door of the side room in which Caulkins had hidden himself.
Next, the light swung around the room, and aimed downward, to reveal the carpet. The floor covering was cheap and plain. It showed wear near the door and by the table. There was another spot where it was worn. The flashlight paused at that place, then moved upward. Its light glinted back from the silvered surface of the mirror that hung on the wall.
After a pause, the light went to the table. It moved busily about. It showed the telephone, off slightly to one side, and the chair, placed at an angle.
It examined the far side of the table, and the floor beside it. There, in the carpet, was a tiny stain. The light started toward the door, probing the carpet. It revealed another small dark splotch.
Then it went down the stairs, seeking, occasionally stopping to note some trifling sign. It reached the vestibule and made a thorough search. Here were no splotches — only a broad smear, in the midst of a dust-streaked floor. The light was tiny now, as it ran up the side of the wall and stopped on the name of Joseph T. Dodd. Then the light went out.
The front door opened softly, and a thin figure slipped through, to merge with thickening night.
Wentworth became suddenly alert across the street. He fancied that he had seen another motion at the door of the house; then he laughed at his imagination.
Why should he be concerned with every fleeting shadow that might appear before that door? He was posted to watch for a living being— not a phantom!
And so, when Wentworth ended his vigil, being relieved by a plain-clothes man, he made out a simple report: namely, that no one had visited the house that day — with the exception of Clyde Burke, reporter on the Classic.
His report said nothing of a shadow in the dusk. If it had, it might have attracted the attention of the observant Joe Cardona. For the star detective knew more about shadows than did Wentworth.
Joe Cardona, alone of the New York detective force, might have suspected the truth: that The Shadow, living phantom of the night, had come and gone at the old house on East Eightieth Street. In answer to Clyde Burke’s messages, the strange man of darkness had investigated the spot where Joel Caulkins had died.
Silently, invisibly, The Shadow had learned facts which had escaped the observation of Joe Cardona; and those facts pertained to other than Joel Caulkins — namely, Judge Harvey Tolland, and to the man known only as Double Z.
CHAPTER V. CARDONA ENCOUNTERS CRIME
DETECTIVE JOE CARDONA was a man who played hunches. For months, he had been thinking off and on of Double Z. He had classed the man as an eccentric individual, who knew the inside of crookdom, and liked to display his knowledge by letters to the police.
He had harbored a hunch that Double Z might some day become dangerous, and he had been waiting for that time.
Now, the day had come. The murder of Joel Caulkins indicated action on the part of Double Z. It enabled Cardona to form his impression of what type of man Double Z might be.
He pictured him as one of those characters who fringe the borders of the underworld — perhaps a “fence” who disposed of stolen goods. Through contact with crime, the man had gained knowledge. Now, possessed of more intelligence than the average criminal, the lure of crime had caused him to enter the field himself, while his eccentricity still made him follow his old practice of writing letters to the police.
Cardona recalled that two of Double Z’s veiled tips of impending death had failed to materialize. Some months ago, he had said that a gangster was to be put on the spot, within a week. The killing had not occurred.
Then, he had hinted also the kidnapping of a prominent society woman. The police had become vigilant.
The abduction had not taken place. These, therefore, were indications that Double Z had known of crime, but had not planned them. On the contrary, most of his statements had proven true.
Three unsolved murders had been predicted by Double Z. In one case, he had been of aid to the police.