“Mr. Glenn always insisted on this brand. I don’t think you could get them anywhere else in the city.”
Cranston pushed the Istanbul box aside, and selected a packet of a different brand. A short while later he left the club and entered a limousine that awaited him.
There, in the darkness, Cranston laughed softly as the car rolled northward. It was the same laugh that the pretended Fritz had uttered in the locker room at headquarters.
LOUIS GLENN’S apartment was deserted. It had been closed since the broker’s death. But tonight, less than an hour after Lamont Cranston had left the Merrimac Club, a light appeared in the empty apartment.
The rays of a tiny torch moved through the vacant rooms. They stopped here and there, and at one spot they rested upon an empty cigarette box.
A black-clad hand lifted the box. It was marked, “Istanbul.” It was identical with the box that had borne the tag, “Business Suit.”
The black thumb was beneath a series of Turkish characters. Eyes in the dark were reading them, as plainly as if they had been inscribed in English. Translated, the words declared:
Certified by the government.
That same statement was on the “Business Suit” cigarette box. It also appeared upon the box that Lamont Cranston had observed at the Merrimac Club.
It was, however, different from the single box that Cardona had labeled with the word, “Tuxedo.” On that one box, the Turkish characters had stated:
These cigarettes are certified.
A soft laugh. The light went out.
A few minutes later, the mysterious presence had departed from the apartment which had once been occupied by Louis Glenn.
THERE was no one at home in the Sutton house. The lock of the front door clicked, and the door itself opened ominously.
The little light appeared and made its way across the hall to the closet where Thomas Sutton had met his unfortunate end.
There the light remained while an unseen hand opened the door and the rays enabled invisible eyes to scrutinize the interior of the closet.
The light went out. It reappeared in the living room upstairs.
Prying hands found the dead man’s check book. The stubs showed beneath the light. Each stub was considered carefully.
The first inspection finished, a hand reviewed each stub in turn, and stopped on one that bore the amount of ten dollars, with a notation “Med.”
The light was gone; the soft laugh of The Shadow rippled forebodingly through the silent room.
Some time afterward, there was a slight sound in a small, close-walled room. The noise — no more than a soft swish — was followed by the sudden appearance of a lighted lamp. Covered by a shade, the rays of the lamp were focused upon the plain top of a table. There, two white hands appeared.
They seemed to be living things — detached creatures that moved of themselves. Each wrist came from a jet-black sleeve.
The hands were long and slender, but the tapering fingers showed that they possessed great strength. Upon one finger — the third of the left hand — glowed a large, mysterious gem.
Its colors changed beneath the light. One moment it was a deep blue. Then the jewel shimmered and took on a crimson hue. It sparkled and seemed to emit shafts of flame.
The stone was a girasol called the fire opal, because of its resplendency. There was no other jewel like it in all the world.
As the girasol glimmered, the hands produced pencil and paper. The pointed fingers wrote three names: Silas Harshaw, Louis Glenn, Thomas Sutton.
Beneath these a blank space remained. The hand made a check mark beside the name of Thomas Sutton. There, it placed the letters “Med.”
Now a small pamphlet came into view. Opened, it showed a list of the members of the Merrimac Club.
A low laugh echoed as the hand checked off a name in the book. Then the fingers added a check mark beside the written name of Louis Glenn.
Beside the written name of Silas Harshaw, the hand wrote the words:
Resume investigation.
The hand paused above the written list. Running to the bottom, it inscribed another name, segregated below. The name it wrote was Arthur Wilhelm.
Then the hand drew a circle about the name of Silas Harshaw. It drew another circle about the name of Arthur Wilhelm, and connected the two with a sweeping line.
On the right of the sheet, The Shadow inscribed the names of Max Parker and Homer Briggs.
Evidently there was some connection between the cracksman who had been killed at Harshaw’s, and the servant who had disappeared after leaving the old inventor’s employ.
A phone dial clattered. The light clicked out. A low, hushed voice spoke in the darkness.
“Ready, Burbank,” it said. “Report on H.V.”
The receiver ticked as a voice spoke over the wire. The report was short and definite.
“Tomorrow night,” came the whisper of The Shadow.
The phone call was ended. All was silent in the little room. Then came a shuddering laugh that crept to every corner, and died away in a ghostly echo.
It was the laugh of The Shadow — that ominous laugh that boded ill for men of evil!
CHAPTER X
THE WORRIED MAN
IN the dull light of an underground room, a man was seated, hunched on a wooden bench. He was smoking a cigarette, and the stone floor about him was studded with many butts that he had thrown away.
The man was nervous, and he appeared to be anxiously awaiting the arrival of another person. There was a reason for the hunted expression that the man betrayed.
He was wanted by the police. He was Homer Briggs, the servant whom Silas Harshaw had dismissed.
The door rattled. Homer’s nervous fingers sought the handle of a revolver. He let the weapon slide back into his pocket as he recognized the man who entered the room.
The newcomer was a shrewd-looking, middle-aged man. His arrival eased Homer’s worry.
“What’s doing, Farley?” Homer asked.
“They’ve got a line on Max Parker,” replied Farley, with a gruff laugh. “How do you like that?”
“You don’t think they’ll trace him here?”
Farley stared contemptuously at the man on the bench. It was plain that he did not share Homer’s trepidation.
Farley shrugged his shoulders as though the matter was of minor consequence.
“What if they do?” he asked. “I’ve given the cops the slip before. I’m ready to do it again. But they won’t get here. Not those blundering flat feet! I’m not thinking about them. I’ve got other ideas on my chest.”
“Well, I’m glad of that,” said Homer, with an expression of relief. “I’ve been worried, Farley, ever since I knew they were after me.
“If they ever got me, they’d lay the killing of the old man on me, sure!”
“Look here, Homer,” declared Farley. “I’m going to give you something to worry about. But I want you to buck up. Get that? I don’t like a guy that’s yellow. You’re going to get some nerve, or I’ll be through with you.”
“Don’t say that, Farley!” pleaded Homer. “Don’t say that! I’m not yellow. But this thing has got my goat, the way it’s broken against us.”
“Hank” Farley was a lone wolf of the underworld; a man who came and went without molestation. He ridiculed police and ignored mobsters.
No one knew his business — except when he required henchmen — which was seldom.
“So you think they’ll trace you, eh?” questioned Farley. “Well, when they do, you’ll be plenty of distance away from here.
“I’m referring to the coppers, now. We’re a hundred jumps ahead of them. But we’re not going to blow yet — not by a long sight.