Solemnly, Caffley indicated the corpse. The police surgeon had turned the body face upward, revealing a wound that matched those that Lentz and Morath had received.
“I was down in the lobby when Mr. Caffley came in,” stated Lewis. “I heard him talking to Shaw, who was on the desk. Even before Shaw called me into the discussion, I knew it must be an urgent matter.
“I hadn’t been in the lobby when Frieth came in at quarter of seven. But when I saw the body, I knew, of course, that he couldn’t have been dead for more than fifteen minutes. I didn’t see how anybody could have done a sneak down and out of the building — that is, by way of the lobby. It looked to me like somebody must have been laying up here, waiting.
“I’ll tell you why. On account of that door over there. See it? The one with the spring lock? Well, sir, that door leads into an inside fire exit. Right down to a little cement passageway alongside of this hotel.”
As Lewis paused, Cardona pounced across the room and unlatched the door at the rear of the bedroom. Opening the barrier, Cardona revealed a darkened stairway of fireproof construction.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Barth. “This is interesting! What is your theory, Lewis? Do you think that the murderer came up by this stairway?”
“He could have,” affirmed the house dick. “Only thing is, how could he have unlocked the door from the other side? You can unlatch it from in here; but from the—”
“Looks like this lock has been picked,” interrupted Cardona. “Take a look, commissioner. See those scratches? Somebody jammed a tool into it.”
“So it appears,” nodded Barth. “You are right, Cardona. The murderer must have effected entry by this route.”
“There’s another locked door at the bottom of the stairs,” declared Lewis. “Latched on the inside, the same as this one. The idea is so people can go out in case of fire; but nobody can come in.”
“Let us go below,” decided Barth.
The investigators formed a procession down the stairs. Cardona led the way, using a flashlight all along the route. He found the lower door locked and unlatched it as he had done with the one above. Joe blinked his light on the outer lock.
“This one’s scratched, too,” stated the detective. “The guy had to pick it first. No signs of fingerprints, though. That’s tough; but maybe—”
Joe interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation. He had turned the flashlight to the cement of the passage. Excitedly, he pointed out a new clue. It lay in a muddy spot a few feet from the door.
The object was the flattened stump of a cheroot. Someone had apparently dropped it to the cement and had extinguished it by pressing his heel upon it. For the cheroot butt was surrounded by the imprint of a rubber heel, with diamond-shaped markings.
“It matches again, commissioner,” declared Cardona. “Right to a dot. The same guy we figured on before. At Lentz’s office and Morath’s apartment. The cheroot and the heel print right together.”
“Our trail continues,” affirmed Barth, wisely. “Good work, Cardona. Have a flashlight photograph taken of this evidence. Place an officer in charge; then meet me in the lobby. We must question Shaw, the clerk.”
FIVE minutes later, Wainwright Barth was staring eagle-eyed at the phlegmatic countenance of Shaw. The desk clerk was corroborating the statements of Hiram Caffley and the house detective. But he had an added piece of information.
“At about half past six,” stated Shaw, “a stranger came in and asked for Mr. Frieth. I told him that Mr. Frieth had not come in. He stated that he would wait.”
“Can you describe the man?” questioned Barth.
“No,” returned Shaw. “I was sorting mail when he spoke to me. I should say his voice was harsh. Rather abrupt. When he went away from the desk, he took that chair yonder.”
The clerk pointed to a large chair that was placed in a most obscure position of the lobby. The back of the chair was toward the desk.
“I saw him sitting there,” added Shaw, “but his back was toward me. All I noticed was his dark hat and his gray overcoat.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Barth. “He was wearing a gray overcoat?”
“Yes. A light gray. Well, commissioner, when Mr. Frieth came in, I had forgotten about this fellow. It wasn’t until Mr. Frieth had gone to the elevator that I remembered the man in the gray overcoat. I looked for him; he was gone.”
“He went out before Frieth came in?”
“I don’t know. It seems like I saw him only a minute or two before. I thought that maybe he had spoken to Frieth and had gone upstairs with him.”
“What about that, Kelly?” questioned Lewis, the house dick, turning to a uniformed elevator operator.
“Nobody went up with Mr. Frieth,” replied Kelly. “He was alone when I took him up to the third.”
Barth stalked over to look at the chair in which the gray-coated stranger had been seated. Cardona did the same; The Shadow followed in the leisurely fashion that characterized Lamont Cranston.
“It links, Cardona,” confided Barth. “Our man again — the killer in gray. He must have waited here to make sure that Frieth came in.”
“And then slid out,” added Joe. “Around to the fire exit. To pick the locks and walk in on Frieth. That’s when he dropped the cheroot and stepped on it. it shows us something else, too, commissioner.”
“What is that?”
“Why Frieth was in the bedroom. He must have heard the killer working at the lock and decided to come in and investigate it.”
“A tall man in gray. Smokes cheroots and wears shoes with Apex rubber heels. Uses an old muzzle-loading pistol. Good lock picker. Hm-m-m. We should trace him promptly, Cardona, especially with those finger impressions to aid us. The ones we found at Lentz’s.”
“And maybe the spectacle case will help, commissioner. This fellow may have been the bird who dropped it in the elevator at the Belgaria.”
HIRAM CAFFLEY had approached. The millionaire’s face was troubled as he spoke to Wainwright Barth.
“This is not only murder, commissioner,” asserted Caffley, seriously. “Robbery must have been the motive in back of it. Those Duro Metal documents are obviously not in Frieth’s suite.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Barth. “Jove, Cardona! That was the killer’s motive! He was after the papers. Come! Let us make a thorough search of Frieth’s room. There is still a chance that they might be there.”
“Lentz first,” remarked Cardona. “Yeah; that fits. He was the inventor. Then came Morath, the lawyer. Frieth last of all. Only one thing, though: none of these places were rifled. The killer didn’t make a search.”
“Perhaps he knew that Frieth already had the papers,” suggested Caffley. “Or he might have demanded them from those other men, to find out that they did not have them.”
“Then why did he kill them?” growled Cardona.
“Tut — tut,” responded Barth. “Put on your thinking cap, Cardona. The murderer needed to conceal his identity. He had no other choice. Another point” — Barth’s eyes were gleaming — “is the fact that Lentz and Morath would have known facts concerning Duro Metal. Am I right, Caffley?”
“I think you are, commissioner,” returned the manufacturer. “Even with the papers stolen, Lentz or Frieth could have supplied the data. But with all three slain, nothing can be learned pertaining to the alloy that I had purchased. I have been robbed of a commercial product which I considered to be worth more than the two million dollars that I had agreed to pay for it.”
“Come,” adjured Barth, impatiently. “Even though our search will probably prove fruitless, we must take up the task. Let us go to Frieth’s suite.”