Half an hour passed. The first shafts of dawn, appearing over the horizon, brought a brilliant glint to the silvery surface of the mighty German airship. Those first rays of daylight did not reach the windowless central corridor. That passage was dependent upon the lights that glowed along its low ceiling. They were the lights that showed the panel of the secret room reopening.
The form of The Shadow appeared in the corridor. The panel closed. The spectral shape was ghostly as it made its rapid, silent way to the door of Cabin 28. The door of the cabin opened. The Shadow merged with the gray dawn of the room within.
Tonight, within the last hour of darkness, a murderer had left the Munchen to gain the safety of the ground below. The dirigible had hours ahead before it reached Chicago. A thousand miles between the Atlantic seaboard and the great metropolis of the Middle West! Somewhere, in that tremendous range, the escaping man had dropped by parachute!
Well could that unknown man suppose that his flight would never be detected. No one could suspect the time and place that he had chosen by random. Yet the fleeing man of crime had not reckoned with The Shadow.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER III
MYSTERY SUPPRESSED
ANOTHER night had come. Moored to a gigantic mast at the Chicago airport, the dirigible Munchen proudly flaunted itself as the newest conqueror of air and ocean.
The big Zeppelin had been here for hours. Passengers were gone; all formalities were ended. Captain Heinrich von Werndorff, after a tremendous welcome, had returned to his quarters aboard the mighty airship.
A tap at the door. Lieutenant von Salzburg entered. Captain Werndorff greeted him with a care-worn smile. The lieutenant bore a message that was chiefly a reminder.
“Half an hour yet, Herr Captain,” he said. “The banquet in your honor — they will be here to take you—”
Von Werndorff nodded. He arose from his desk and gripped the lieutenant’s arm.
“Fritz” — Von Werndorff’s tone was serious — “the corridor is empty?”
“Yes, Herr Captain.”
“Remain here. I shall need you.”
The dirigible commander left the cabin and went along the corridor to the secret door in the bulkhead. He tapped softly, using the pick which he had brought from his pocket. There was no response. Von Werndorff smiled. The baron would wait, of course, accepting this tapping merely as a warning of a visit.
Von Werndorff opened the secret panel. He found the room in darkness. Strange, he thought. Could Baron von Tollsburg be sleeping? With impatient alarm, the captain found the switch and illuminated the room.
He stared about him in amazement. The cabin was empty!
The closet door was closed; so was the berth at the side of the room. There was but one inference — that Hugo von Tollsburg had decided to leave the dirigible of his own accord. Yet Von Werndorff could scarcely accept that fact without the formality of an investigation.
He opened the berth, and it dropped down. Like the room, the berth was empty. It would have been quite possible for a man to have been within that berth — to have closed it behind him — to have remained there in hiding. For the berth connected with the ventilator shaft, and thus received air.
Von Werndorff closed the berth. He clicked the catch in the closet door, and opened the barrier.
It was then that Captain von Werndorff stepped back with a gasp of agony. As the little door swung outward, a huddled form toppled with it.
Flattening itself grotesquely on the floor, the dead body of Baron Hugo von Tollsburg came into view! It fell back upward; its livid face and bulging eyes stared, sightless, into the countenance of Captain Heinrich von Werndorff. Murder!
A FIERCE cry came from Von Werndorff’s throat. Here was the man he respected and obeyed, slain within a secret hiding place, where safety had been guaranteed to him!
For long, miserable minutes, Von Werndorff stared into that dead face. At length the misery of the tragedy dulled. Consternation seized the commander.
A man who gave the utmost attention to detail, Von Werndorff scarcely knew how to act. He had made careful plans for Baron von Tollsburg to leave the airship with the lieutenant; now that these arrangements were rendered useless by the baron’s death, the captain was stunned.
Only the growing thirst for vengeance conquered other emotions. Gradually, Von Werndorff found himself reviewing the events that might have brought death to the aristocratic stowaway.
Friedrichshafen. Von Werndorff was sure that no one had followed the baron aboard there. Who knew of the secret compartment aboard the ship? Only the trusted workmen who had aided in its completion, and their knowledge was not complete. Fritz von Salzburg, whom the commander knew could be trusted. Otherwise, only Baron von Tollsburg and Von Werndorff himself.
Unless some one had come aboard beforehand, the entrance to this secret room must have taken place while the dirigible was in flight between Germany and America. Only one man could be suspected. The commander thought of Henry Arnaud.
Why had he not apprehended Arnaud when the man had spoken of stowaways? Van Werndorff cursed his mistake. Yes, it must be Arnaud who had killed.
With a dull feeling of futility, the commander began a hopeless search for evidence. Stooping over the body of his dead friend, he found that Von Tollsburg’s pockets had been rifled of all their contents, except a few coins, a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. The killer had been a thief as well as a murderer.
In the berth, Von Werndorff continued his hopeless search. There, however, he discovered two objects; but neither meant anything to his mind. One was the cork-tipped butt of a cigarette; the other was a fragment of torn paper.
The cigarette emanated an Egyptian aroma, and Von Werndorff noted that it bore the name “Pharos.” It was evidently an imported brand that was very little known. The piece of paper carried a scrawled signature — the name of Hugo von Tollsburg, written twice.
Further search revealed nothing.
Von Werndorff folded the cigarette butt within the slip of paper, and placed the latter in his pocket. He studied the body of the baron with an unhappy gaze, and his mind reverted to the conversation which he had held with Von Tollsburg in this very room.
“No one must ever know — my mission — must be preserved a secret — whatever may occur — not one bit of evidence must remain—”
Whatever the case might be, Von Werndorff could see but one duty; that was to keep the news of this strange death from the world. In forming his decision, the Zeppelin commander was governed by a double motive. First, his promise to the baron; second, his own interests.
It would fare badly with Von Werndorff should the authorities, in either Germany or America, learn that he had intended to land a stowaway in Chicago. An unexplained murder would add to the difficulties of the situation. Silence was paramount. Von Werndorff’s duty now lay to himself.
THE fact that time was passing became very pressing to the stupefied commander. It forced his immediate decision. He cautiously opened the panel of the cabin, went into the corridor, and reached his own quarters, where he beckoned to Lieutenant von Salzburg. The subordinate followed him back along the long corridor and stood serenely by while Von Werndorff reopened the secret door.
When he entered the room at the commander’s bidding, Von Salzburg stood agape at the sight of the murdered man. The young lieutenant did not know Baron von Tollsburg. He had no idea who the dead man might be. He heard the click as the panel closed; then turned to meet his superior’s eyes.
“Fritz,” said Von Werndorff in a serious tone, “this man was a friend of mine. You brought him aboard the Munchen; he remained, and I intended to smuggle him into the United States. He is dead now; and the matter must never be known. You understand?”