He had been struck down in the dark — that was all he could remember.
The odds had been four to one. Yet from the story, Cardona learned that the suspected killer had escaped without firing a single shot, although the minions of the law had blazed at him in vain.
That savored of The Shadow — the strange, mysterious man who had no quarrel with the police, but who battled crooks and defeated them on their own ground rather than operate by accepted police methods.
The Shadow! The very name was taboo, now, so far as Cardona was concerned. The report must label the escaping man as an unknown killer.
That would be the logical description, but if it had been The Shadow, why had he acted in such an amazing manner?
He had used a gun to kill an enemy. He had not resorted to the same device in order to escape. It did not seem consistent — unless one recognized The Shadow.
The sight of the dead man on the floor perplexed Cardona. He began to wonder. Perhaps, at last, the conditions had been reversed.
Given two men, one waiting in the room, the other entering by the window — which would be The Shadow? The man in the room, Cardona supposed.
This man on the floor had been facing the window. He could have been shot down by some one who had entered by the window.
Could this be The Shadow?
Mayhew entered. Cardona began to question the detective sergeant. Mayhew’s story was of little help.
When he had entered the bedroom, he had been attacked in the dark. He had pursued a man, and had caught but a few meager glimpses of him.
The Shadow was elusive, Cardona knew, but The Shadow did not often resort to flight.
Doggedly, Cardona began a search of the premises in hopes of uncovering some new clew. The task was a vain one. He had sought to capture an expected burglar.
He had succeeded in effecting such a capture, but it failed to explain the mystery. The man on the floor of Silas Harshaw’s study could never tell whatever he might have known.
A third death. Was this one, too, intended? That was a riddle that perplexed Joe Cardona as he looked down at the face of the dead man.
CHAPTER VII
DEATH CONTINUES
IT was nine o’clock in the morning when Detective Joe Cardona left Silas Harshaw’s apartment. It was exactly twenty-four hours afterward when he appeared in Commissioner Weston’s office to discuss the only new development that might be a clew.
This was a third note, which Cardona had brought with him from headquarters.
The detective nodded grimly to both Weston and Biscayne, who was present. Without a word, he laid the letter on the table, so the other men could see it. It was in the same form of typing. It read:
IN MEMORY OF
T.S.
WHO DIED
LAST NIGHT
HE WAS THE THIRD
“What do you think of it, Cardona?” questioned Weston.
“It’s a tough case,” declared Cardona glumly. “The further I go, the worse it gets. I only hope we’re reaching the end of it.”
“What about the dead man up at Harshaw’s?” questioned Biscayne.
“Well,” said Cardona, pointing to the note, “here’s the way I figure it: He is the third victim. His initials must be T.S. But we haven’t been able to identify him.”
“Wait a moment, Cardona,” suggested Biscayne. “How about the time element?
“First, Silas Harshaw died; the next morning, you received a note. Second, Louis Glenn — just two nights after Harshaw was killed. You received a note the next morning.
“I expected a lapse of forty-eight hours before the third killing — if there was one. Instead of that, this man was shot twenty-four hours after Glenn was murdered.
“That seems wrong to me. He should have died last night — not the night before — if he is T.S.
“This note” — Biscayne glanced at the envelope — “must have come in this morning’s mail.”
“That’s when the sender expected it to reach me,” declared Cardona, “but I got in ahead of him.
“The post-office authorities sent that letter down to headquarters at eleven o’clock last night. They were looking for it, and they got it. Where do you think it came from?”
“Where?”
“From the mail box in the Redan Hotel!”
“What!”
The exclamation was uttered by Weston and Biscayne in unison. Cardona nodded.
“Sure enough,” he said. “The killer is somewhere around the hotel. We’ve been on the job up there all night — quizzing guests and watching the place. But we haven’t got to first base.
“All we know is that the dead man in Harshaw’s apartment had been staying at the hotel for five days. He registered under the name of Howard, or Horace, Perkins.
“You can’t tell which from the way he scrawled his name on the register. That’s an alias, of course.
“He brought the collapsible ladder in with him in the suitcase. He must have gone to 918 — the room under Harshaw’s study — on the night that the old man was killed.
“So, according to my theory, he was the guy that bumped Harshaw. But, night before last, he tried to gain entrance to Harshaw’s suite again from 918 — and he got bumped himself.”
“Which supports my theory,” smiled Biscayne. “I said that the burglary and the murder were two different motives, involving separate persons.”
“Well, professor,” declared Cardona, “we’re getting to the place where we’ve got to figure on this theory stuff.
“I thought your idea of Harshaw being killed inside the apartment must be phony. But now — since night before last — your idea looks O.K.
“There was a fellow in there, somehow, but I can’t understand how he got by Mayhew.
“I’m going to tell you the way I dope it,” Cardona went on. “Somebody — the guy who has sent these notes — is the big brain in back of it. He’s bold, all right, for he’s operating right around the hotel.
“There’s three fellows he wanted to get: S. H., that’s Silas Harshaw; L. G., that’s Louis Glenn; and T.S. who must be the fake Perkins; the third dead man. I’m going to call T.S., the third man, because that’s who I think he is.
“I’m going to accept your theory about Harshaw. The big brain bumped off the old man. Then he killed Louis Glenn.
“But he knew that this fellow T.S. who was living at the Redan Hotel, had tried to get in Harshaw’s apartment. and would try again.
“So the big brain got in instead, and laid for T.S. Bumped him off and got away. What do you think of that?”
“It doesn’t explain one important factor,” declared Biscayne. “Why didn’t the murderer send the third note the same night, instead of waiting twenty-four hours?”
“I’VE doped that out,” said Cardona. “From what the post office says, all three notes were mailed from the Redan Hotel.
“Now, the murderer couldn’t have mailed that third note, very well, before he bumped off T.S., because he couldn’t be sure the man was coming up to Harshaw’s that very night.
“After the bump-off, he had to run from the hotel, and it was too late to send the letter. So he waited until last night — then sent it—”
Biscayne shook his head solemnly and peered, owl-like, through his spectacles. He slapped his hand upon the glass-topped desk.
“Cardona,” he said, in a convinced tone, “you are getting too much unsupported theory into this case. Do not think that I am criticizing, because I am not.
“You are working with facts and you are trying to make them lead you to the solution. You will get there, because there is bound to be a break sooner or later.
“But if you listen to me now, I think we shall arrive at some more definite conclusion much sooner.
“I still believe that it is a matter of cross-purposes. We shall commence with Silas Harshaw.