Saybrook had just lighted a cigarette. He walked to the door with his visitor, and bade the physician good night.
Standing coatless in the illuminated doorway, Willard Saybrook stared out into the night and kept his eye fixed upon the departing physician. Behind him, also framed in light, Mahinda, a gleam upon his dark face, was watching Saybrook.
A strange combination. Shores was leaving, oblivious to the fact that he was being studied by Saybrook, who in turn did not know that he was under the observation of Mahinda!
Saybrook finished his cigarette. He flicked it toward the lawn. He turned back into the house. By this time, Mahinda was gone.
Saybrook went back to his book. He saw Mahinda appear and bolt the front door. The servant’s work was ended for the night. As Saybrook watched him walk away, he felt sure that Mahinda was retiring.
ONE thought dominated Willard Saybrook. Tonight — as Saybrook had previously suspected — Doctor Shores had come here on a pretext. His purpose had presumably been a friendly call. Actually, the physician had come to confer with Mahinda.
Saybrook now had evidence that the two had talked together. He knew their secret meeting place — the old, unused workroom that was always locked. An ideal spot for an unnoticed conference.
This answered a question that had been baffling Saybrook ever since the night of Arthur Preston’s death — the night that Doctor Shores had sent Mahinda for a glass of water, and then himself disappeared.
Vague conjectures swept through Saybrook’s brain.
Doctor Shores and Mahinda were plotters. What had brought them together? Josiah Bartram’s death? If so, it was logical to suppose that they could have engineered that death?
Other deaths had occurred in Holmsford. Saybrook suspected Doctor Shores as the murderer, with Mahinda his accomplice!
Saybrook realized that his own presence in this house was something that Doctor Shores could not logically have foreseen. If Shores were a criminal — and Mahinda knew the fact — it was only likely that the physician should choose this place as his secret headquarters, figuring that Grace Bartram would suspect nothing.
Shores had been here every night that a murder had occurred — always at an hour following the crime.
Sometimes he had been here earlier.
Had another killing transpired tonight? Morning would tell; and in the morning, Willard Saybrook would, himself, hold a conference — with Adams.
In the meantime, Saybrook decided that a very definite step would be advisable. Perhaps some evidence lay within that room where Shores and Mahinda had met. The door was probably locked; and entrance might be difficult. Nevertheless, it was worth trying.
Stealthily, Saybrook left the room and prowled through the rear portion of the hall, which was dimly lighted. He reached the darkened passage toward the parlor. He stopped at the door of the workroom.
Beyond lay a secluded door that opened to the outside of the house, through a narrow vestibule, situated between workroom and parlor. Saybrook did not go that far. He wanted to enter the workroom, and as he turned the knob at the foot of the steps, he was surprised and pleased to find the door yielding to pressure.
A moment later, the young man stood within a narrow, low-ceilinged apartment. A match flickered in his hands. Saybrook saw a lamp, and turned it on. He noted that the room was quite small, and had no windows. A table stood in the center, set upon an old, dark rug.
BACK by the door, Saybrook dropped the burned match on the steps. Confident that the glow of the lamp could not be seen beyond the confines of the passage, he went to the table in the workroom and began a careful survey of the place.
His eyes were keen, his ears were intent. Yet Saybrook did not hear the stealthy approach of a man who entered the room behind him. His first knowledge that he was not alone came when a form plumped upon him from behind.
As a fierce arm twisted itself about his neck, and his breath came in a harsh choke, Saybrook, trying to wrest himself free, peered squarely into the dark face of Mahinda.
The Hindu’s eyes were blazing with a glow of fury. He had gained the advantage in the fray, and he intended to keep it. Saybrook was strong, but he found himself no match for the Hindu.
Twisting backward, Willard Saybrook slumped against the table. Black hands gripped his throat. His head was thumped against the table; then, as he subsided, Saybrook received another heavy jar as his head banged the floor.
After that, all was black. Bereft of consciousness, Willard Saybrook lay helpless in the Hindu’s grasp.
Mahinda arose then and extinguished the light. Long minutes crept by, while vague, mysterious sounds occurred. The door to the steps closed as Mahinda stole away. Once more, the room was empty — and locked!
The strange and unexpected attack had been witnessed by no one. Mahinda had deliberately lured Willard Saybrook into betraying himself. No better spot could have been chosen for such swift and certain action.
Mahinda’s footsteps stole upstairs, but not until after the servant had put out all lights on the ground floor.
The house was completely dark within — and the all-pervading silence extended even into the empty workroom, where Willard Saybrook had been overpowered and where he no longer lay!
CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW ARRIVES
ALL this time, Harry Vincent, seated at the wheel of his coupe, was watching the Bartram mansion. He had been deputed to keep tabs on whoever visited there tonight, and from a secluded parking spot, Harry had made careful observations until finally the living-room light had been extinguished, and the house was wrapped in blackness.
Instructions, tonight, were for Harry to await word from The Shadow. How that word would come, Harry did not know.
He was anxious to communicate with his mysterious chief, for Harry’s observations tonight had been unusual. With the house darkened, Harry peered vainly across the recesses of the lawn, off to the rise of ground where Josiah Bartram’s mausoleum formed a dim, white cube.
For a moment, Harry fancied that he had seen a fleeting patch of black cross that distant white surface.
He watched, but saw no similar manifestation. He settled back into the seat of the coupe, and rested there in total darkness.
Despite the fact that the door on the right of the coupe was scarcely more than an arm’s length away, Harry did not hear it open and close a few moments later. The Shadow’s agent was totally unaware that some one had joined him in the coupe, until a low, whispered voice spoke from the darkness close beside him.
“Report.”
The Shadow!
Harry Vincent was amazed. With uncanny stealth, the master of darkness had joined his agent in the car.
To Harry’s mind came the recollection of that distant patch of black against the whiteness of the mausoleum. The strange phantom of the night must have come from that direction.
Word from The Shadow!
The Shadow was here, in person, waiting to hear what his agent had observed during the long vigil that had commenced since early evening!
In a low, cautious tone, Harry spoke to the unseen personage beside him. He could not see The Shadow. To all appearances, the car was empty save for Harry himself. The darkened interior completely masked the presence of the black-garbed listener. The Shadow was as obscure as darkness itself.
Harry named the time that Doctor Shores had come to the house. He added how Willard Saybrook had appeared at the door to watch the physician leave. He mentioned that Saybrook was in his shirt sleeves.
He also told of seeing Mahinda stare at Saybrook from the hallway, without being noticed by Saybrook.
Harry’s voice denoted an apprehension. He had seen the lights extinguished some minutes afterward. He recalled that he had glimpsed Saybrook’s white-shirted form moving across a window of the living room; after that, he had seen a momentary trace of Mahinda.