WHEN Cardona knocked at the front door of Tharbel’s unpretentious home, the county detective, himself, was the one who answered the door. Cardona stated that he was going back to New York, that he might communicate with Tharbel later.
Joe extended his hand. Tharbel received it and said good-by. He closed the door as soon as Cardona had turned away.
In the car with Burke, Cardona grunted. He was glad that he was through with Tharbel for the time. Burke laughed as he backed the car to turn around in the street.
“You don’t know Tharbel, Joe,” he said. “That fellow just sits back and lets things break. He seems to know when events are going to turn his way. He always figures that some one is going to slip him some needed information.”
“Talk about your New York stool pigeons — they’re nothing. Tharbel always seems to be getting anonymous letters and what-not—”
“Any on this case?”
“None as yet — so far as I can see.”
The glare of Burke’s headlights had swung across Junius Tharbel’s lawn. Cardona heard a gasp come from the reporter. The detective stared ahead. On the fringe of illumination, he caught a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be a huge, living spider, leaping away from the glare.
“What was that?” he queried.
“I don’t know,” responded Burke, as he swung the car to the street. “Some person, maybe, cutting across lots in back of Tharbel’s. It may have been an animal. The lights make shapes appear odd.”
Burke was driving toward the station. There were only a few minutes in which to make Cardona’s train. The reporter had suddenly assumed his secret role, as agent of The Shadow. He made no further comment.
Cardona, too, was silent. He was thinking of what the State policeman had said.
A spidery creature — all arms and legs — had been seen near the house of Mox.
Junius Tharbel had decided that an additional watcher was unnecessary. Now, Joe Cardona had seen a distorted creature near the home of Junius Tharbel.
The star detective pondered over these matters as he rode toward New York in the train. He also thought of the secret rooms in the old house. He wondered what their purpose might be — if other than a hide-out.
Most of all, Joe was thinking of Tharbel. He decided that Burke was right. The county detective was playing a cagey game.
Joe Cardona had a hunch. He felt that he would soon encounter Junius Tharbel again, and that future meetings would involve a battle of wits between himself and the smart county detective.
CHAPTER XI
WEIRD VISITORS
AS soon as he had reached the Darport Inn, Clyde Burke made a telephone call. It was not to the Classic office. The call was made to Burbank. Clyde reported his observation of a distorted, long-limbed creature in the neighborhood of Tharbel’s home.
The call put Burke off duty. Nevertheless, The Shadow’s agent could not shake off the thoughts that the sight of the monstrosity had given him. Clyde Burke, like Joe Cardona, was puzzled by events which had occurred in Darport.
As a matter of routine — serving both The Shadow and the Classic — Burke took a ride in his coupe and rolled past the old house where State police were on guard. His headlights, as they swerved, cut a swath of light across the front of the rambling mansion.
This time, the headlights revealed nothing. Yet they had actually uncovered a figure which Clyde Burke did not see.
After the reporter’s car had rolled away, a soft, whispered tone of mockery sounded near the wall of the house. It was the laugh of The Shadow!
The master who solved crime had returned. His invisible shape edged toward the wall. It moved up the stone surface. It reached the window of the living room. One hand — The Shadow’s right — raised the sash to form a narrow crevice.
Peering eyes saw the flicker of a fire in the grate. A State policeman was standing in the living room. As The Shadow watched, the officer strode away and went down the corridor.
The window opened farther. The Shadow entered. His sharp gaze turned toward the cupboard in the corner. Sulu’s former abode had been opened by searchers. The door was wide; the cupboard was empty.
The Shadow, as he moved toward the corridor, showed the same swift precision that he had exhibited on his first visit to this house. As he sidled toward the wall, his right hand was at the front of his cloak; his left moved — rather slowly — at his side.
The Shadow had evidently recovered from the effects of the knife wound in his left arm, but he was also careful not to use too great effort. He reached the corridor and approached the panels at the side of the wall. The State policeman had gone downstairs.
THE SHADOW tried the panels. He raised one. His flashlight flickered through the long, narrow secret room. The Shadow threw the beams along the thick wall at the left. Then the light turned to the low ceiling just above his head. It remained there.
Returning to the corridor, The Shadow closed the panel. He ran his light along the corridor wall, past the next panel, then to the third. He opened this one. He entered the second secret room — the long, low, narrow chamber which was the counterpart of the first.
Again, the searching rays of the flashlight enabled The Shadow to make a thorough study of this room. A soft laugh resounded as The Shadow stepped back to the corridor and closed the secret panel. Slowly, with measured stride, he covered paces toward the first panel which he had opened. He stopped.
Some one was thumping up the stairs. With a swift whirl, The Shadow started for the living room. He arrived there just as a State policeman, on a tour of inspection, appeared at the head of the stairs.
When the officer arrived in the living room, The Shadow was no longer there. The master of darkness had returned into the depths of night. His presence, however, still remained in the neighborhood of the rambling mansion.
A swish — almost inaudible in the cool night air — announced The Shadow’s arrival at the rear of the house. The Shadow paused beside the shed which served as a garage. Beneath the heavy branches of a tree, the black-clad phantom climbed to the top of the outlying building.
From that spot, he gained the sloping roof of the mansion. Dull moonlight showed his form as a moving blot as it crept upward and reached the blackened side of the chimney. Clouds obscured the moon. Stygian darkness kept The Shadow unrevealed.
Half an hour passed. The Shadow’s return was announced by a sighing whisper that came from the roof of the shed.
The Shadow had regained that spot after his unseen investigation. Silently, invisibly, the figure in black glided toward the side of the house. A State trooper, standing at the opened door of the mansion, was staring into the night. He did not see The Shadow.
The master of darkness had departed. His mission to the old house had been fulfilled. The Shadow, like Junius Tharbel, was playing a waiting game. He knew — The Shadow — that Mox, whoever he might be, still contemplated mischief.
ONE hour after The Shadow’s mysterious departure, one of the State policemen heard a sound as he stood by the opened door. The noise seemed to come from the shed at the rear of the mansion.
The officer closed the door behind him. Cautiously, he stalked through the darkness. He heard the noise again — a grating on the roof of the shed.
Clicking his flashlight, the policeman raised his gun. The glare of the electric torch revealed a creature poised between the roof of the shed and the roof of the house.
Never before had the officer seen such an ugly monstrosity. The crooked dwarf, spread-eagled between the roofs, snarled furiously as the light showed his brownish face.
Writhing almost in mid-air, he shot back to the roof of the shed, just as the policeman fired his revolver. Sulu, unhit, disappeared over the other side of the shed.