The policeman ran around the low structure. He flashed his light in every direction. He saw no sign of the hideous monster.
Another policeman came running up. As he inquired what had happened, the first officer turned his flashlight upward as he heard a creaking limb. Poised upon the branch of the big tree was Sulu, about to attack the men below.
As the glare again disclosed his contorted form, the dwarf sprang downward, back toward the shed. Two revolvers thundered.
The intervening tree trunk saved Sulu as the shots were deflected. The long-limbed dwarf gained the shed; he bounded over its top and dropped between the small building and the house, while the officers again fired vain shots.
The policemen started in pursuit. Sulu, however, had gained the start. They arrived beside the house in time to discover the dwarf nearly a hundred feet away, making for a cluster of trees in a vacant patch of land.
Quick shots went wide. Sulu gained the safety spot he sought.
“Stay here,” said one policeman, to his mate. “I’m going over to the nearest house and call the county detective.”
PEOPLE in the neighborhood had been aroused by the shots. Seeing the policeman beside the old house, in the glare from the now-opened door, they subsided. It was several minutes before the first officer returned.
“What did Tharbel have to say?” his companion inquired.
“That guy beats me,” responded the officer who had telephoned. “He says he’s not worried about prowlers. He also says that because we uncovered this funny-looking bird, we don’t need another man on the job. He said that this afternoon; now he takes the attitude that this has proved it.”
“Maybe he’s right — but if that bimbo had plugged one of us from the tree, it wouldn’t have looked so good.”
“You bet it wouldn’t!”
The State policemen continued their patrol. Keyed by the episode, they watched for a return of the prowler. The dwarf, however, did not appear near the house.
The watchers would have been amazed had they known that Mox’s creature was not the first mysterious visitant who had been here this night. They had no inkling whatever to The Shadow’s visit.
Where Sulu had been unsuccessful, spotted almost at the moment of his arrival, The Shadow had gained the objective which he sought. Yet Sulu, as well as the officers, was in ignorance of The Shadow’s investigation.
Why had The Shadow come here tonight? What had brought Sulu to the premises, from which he had previously fled with Mox?
A partial answer to this question came later — in The Shadow’s sanctum.
LOCATED in his hidden abode, a black-walled apartment somewhere in Manhattan, The Shadow placed his long white hands beneath the bluish glare of the lamp that shone upon the polished table.
The Shadow held no trophy as a token of his trip to the old house in Darport. A sheet of paper — a pen — the sparkling girasol with its vivid flashes that turned from deep crimson to pure ultramarine — these were all that showed with The Shadow’s hands.
The Shadow, however, had discovered something. It was locked within his brain. He was about to place his findings into words. The right hand raised the pen; upon the sheet of paper it inscribed two names:
Hoyt Wyngarth
Irving Salbrook
To date, neither of these men had figured in any of the reports that The Shadow had considered. There was nothing to show that they were henchmen of the fiend, or that they might be other missing inventors.
The names glared in vivid blue; then faded as though erased by an unseen hand. These were names which The Shadow had learned through his visit to the deserted home of Mox.
There was premonition in The Shadow’s action. Although the names had disappeared, the men whom they represented were not forgotten. The Shadow had presaged their entry into the amazing case that involved Mox, the superfiend.
The light clicked out. A laugh resounded in the gloom. Sardonic tones of merriment awoke taunting echoes that whispered sibilant notes from buried depths of blackness.
When the last gibe had ended, deep silence pervaded The Shadow’s sanctum. The master of darkness had gone. His departure foretold the beginning of new and startling episodes.
The scheming of Mox had not yet ended. The Shadow had simply called the villain’s next turn; and with it, The Shadow had marked the counterstroke which he — The Shadow — would deliver!
CHAPTER XII
CARDONA DRAWS A TRUMP
THE morrow found Detective Joe Cardona impatiently pacing his office at headquarters. The star sleuth was in a grouchy mood. His trip to Darport had produced a tasteless aftermath.
Cardona picked up a newspaper; he read its front-page story. He threw the journal aside with a contemptuous snort. Angrily, he strode into another office, where he found the gray-haired inspector, Timothy Klein, seated at his desk.
Back on the job, Inspector Klein was taking matters easily after his long illness. He looked up as Cardona entered, noted the surly expression on the ace detective’s face, and ventured a remark of inquiry.
“What’s the matter, Joe?”
“Plenty, inspector,” retorted the detective. “I go out to cooperate on a case, and a hick county detective tries to show me up for a sap.”
“Hardly, Joe,” rebuked Klein.
“I can’t see it any other way,” growled Cardona. “This has made me look like small change with the commissioner, I guess. Even the newspapers are taking a slam at me. Joe Cardona — ace of the New York force — trumped by a deuce! That’s the way they’re putting it. What’s to be done about it?”
“Find a higher trump,” suggested Klein.
“I’d like to do that!” blurted Cardona. “I’d like to make that guy Tharbel crawl. Say — the way he treated me! If he ever drives that old buggy of his down here — which I doubt, because it would fall apart five miles out of Darport — I’ll have every traffic cop tipped to hand him a ticket.”
INSPECTOR KLEIN smiled. He felt that Cardona’s anger was exaggerated. Joe could become short-tempered at times. Nevertheless, Klein felt that the detective had cause for soreness. His visit to Darport had certainly not added to his prestige.
“The fox held out on me,” declared Cardona emphatically. “He kept me guessing — that’s all. I went up there because I was looking for a connection between Neswick and Greerson — both inventors. The newspapers brought it on; I followed it after I talked with the commissioner.
“I got the connection all right. But it wasn’t the one I was looking for. I expected to find that Neswick and Greerson knew each other. Instead, I learned that Neswick, like Greerson, was a friend of Schuyler Harlew.
“See how that has twisted it? Moxton — or Mox as he called himself — is the murderer. He’s the guy that got Harlew. He probably got Greerson. He was after Neswick. And all this while, I was looking for Greerson as a murderer. Who shows me I’m wrong? A hick detective, who holds back on the goods until he can make me look like a sap.”
“Don’t take it so tough, Joe.”
“I wouldn’t, if there was a way out. But the worst of it is that I’ve been trying to locate people whom Harlew knew. The only one I landed was Greerson — and he’s gone. Along comes Junius Tharbel, big frog in a little puddle — and a muddy one, at that — to produce Neswick.
“Besides that, he has Neswick’s testimony that Moxton was Harlew’s boss. Say, inspector, this has got me buffaloed. I’m ready to quit — that’s all. The newspapers have cut loose, and I’m a goat.”
“Steady down, Joe,” ordered Klein. “There’ll be some breaks coming along pretty—”