To Zelva, the double cross was the simplest method of procedure. Now, his purpose was to convince Desmond that there would be no cause for worry.
“What Legira has intended is good,” remarked Zelva. “Good because it is a way to take much money safely. So I shall do the same, but better. I shall tell you how much money Legira has taken. Would you like to know?”
Desmond was agog.
“Ten million dollars,” said Zelva, quietly. “He was offered one half if he would give it up. He would not do so. On that account, I shall give one half to the man who has done so. That will be your share, my friend.”
The calm mention of such vast wealth staggered Desmond. He had been thinking in terms of a hundred thousand dollars or more. Now, he was bewildered. Zelva had calculated upon that.
“Do not worry for one minute,” said the South American, assuringly. “You will hear from me, positively. You will hear a wonderful plan that will make everything easy for you. Without you, I would not have managed to take this money as I intend to do now. So you shall have the half of it. I do not make mistakes as does Legira. He left you, here, with unfair payment. You were right not to stay by him. I shall be different.”
He extended his hand; Desmond accepted it. Then the South American motioned the traitor to the door. Desmond, treading on air, left and strode along the corridor.
“Good-by,” he heard Zelva say.
He did not know that the remark was a signal. Scarcely had Zelva stepped back into his room; hardly had Desmond made the turn in the corridor before a door opened and a stoop-shouldered, sallow-faced man took up the trail. It was Pesano, one of Zelva’s watchdogs.
Having thus made precaution regarding Desmond’s actions, Rodriguez Zelva forgot the matter. He had important matters to which he must attend.
THE master schemer had already evolved his plan — a fact which he had mentioned to Frank Desmond. Sitting at a writing desk, he carefully prepared a wireless message, in code. Going to the telephone, he called his other faithful watcher, Ellsdorff, who replied in a guttural voice. Zelva gave him the message.
Minutes went by. They became hours. It was late afternoon when the telephone rang in Zelva’s room. Ellsdorff spoke and Zelva wrote down the words that the man gave.
Looking at what he had written, the ingenious South American laughed cruelly. By simple artifice and quick, decisive action, he had accomplished all that was necessary. Only one slight point remained, now, to complete the action he had planned.
Zelva went to the telephone. He called and was connected with Pete Ballou at the Hotel Oriental.
“Do not wait until midnight,” he said. “Strike before nine o’clock. Shortly after eight will be best. It must be a surprise. You understand? Wait for the dark.”
Zelva smiled with satisfaction as he completed the call. Now, if Alvarez Legira should mistrust Frank Desmond, it would make no difference. A telephone call from Legira to Lopez could do no good. Ballou would act before Lopez.
Perry Wallace and Lopez were but pawns in this game. Yet to Zelva, who could move men like chess pieces, pawns were important and dangerous. He intended to leave none on the board.
Master schemer though he was, Rodriguez Zelva did not know that The Shadow had a hand in this strange complication of events. But what could hidden hands do now?
The treachery of Frank Desmond — something which even The Shadow had not anticipated — had completely changed the tide. Alvarez Legira no longer held the edge in his crafty battle with Zelva. All was in Zelva’s favor.
The Shadow remained only as an unknown quantity. For some reason he was playing a passive game. Yet only his hand, thrust from the dark, could possibly alter the cross purposes that were at work.
The Shadow was watching Legira; but he had eliminated Zelva as a factor. Ten million dollars at stake and lives to be lost in the gaining of it.
For once The Shadow was faced by a problem of which he had no inkling!
CHAPTER XXII
BEFORE NINE
“BURBANK speaking.”
The man who made this announcement was seated before a table in the corner of a darkened room. He had earphones on his head; the table was littered with sheets of paper. Here, almost in the shadow of Legira’s home, a man was keeping watch.
A voice clicked through the earphones. Burbank uttered a reply. He disconnected a wire in a small switchboard. Upon a sheet of paper he wrote the report that he had just received from Harry Vincent.
It was after eight o’clock. Darkness had settled outside. Burbank, oblivious to day and night, was proceeding with his affairs in the quiet, methodical manner that had made him useful as The Shadow’s contact man.
“Burbank.”
A whispered voice spoke the name. It came from the darkness itself. Burbank never moved. He recognized the voice of The Shadow. The strange master of the night had entered here without Burbank’s cognizance.
“Yes,” said Burbank quietly.
“Vincent’s report,” said the voice.
“Legira still waiting,” responded Burbank. “All quiet. The three will be ready.”
“No wireless dispatches from the Cordova?”
“None but the original which I forwarded this morning. Here are numerous codes that I have overheard from other sources. This one that came in at five o’clock—”
Burbank picked up a few odd sheets and held them at arm’s length. They left his hand as though swallowed by the darkness. A tiny light glimmered. Eyes in the dark were studying the code as though it were written in ordinary words.
The papers rustled as black-gloved hands went through the other sheets, seeking some dispatch that might give a clew to this one. The search ended. The earlier paper rested in the glimmer of the light. The papers dropped back on Burbank’s table.
“From what ship?”
The whispered question sounded in Burbank’s ear. It referred to the message which the man had picked up at five o’clock.
“The message was interrupted,” said Burbank. “It’s source was not given.”
“Stand by,” said The Shadow, in a foreboding voice. “Watch the street. Call Legira’s home in emergency.”
“Understood,” said Burbank.
The room became silent. The Shadow was gone. Burbank extinguished the light and lifted the bottom of a window shade. He peered out into the street. His scanning eye watched for vague shapes, lingering in the darkness.
Burbank was staring from a corner window. Looking in the opposite direction, he sought to distinguish objects between the two houses — the one where he was located and the residence of Alvarez Legira. He saw nothing.
YET there was a person moving in that blackness — a strange being whose ways were as dark as the night itself. A living figure was approaching the side window on the second floor of Legira’s house — not from below, but from above.
Suspended momentarily from a thin, almost invisible line that stretched from one building to the other, this creature of the gloom left his perch and began a precipitous descent of the brownstone wall.
Invisible from every angle, he clung like a huge bat to the projecting surface. Foot by foot he edged his way to the heavy shutter that barred the window of the second-story room.
There The Shadow rested, listening for every sound. At length, his figure moved. Hands, working in the dark, unfastened the bars that held the shutter. The barrier opened without a creak.
Despite that opening, none of the glow from the room within appeared upon the wall of the opposite building. The Shadow’s form blocked the path of the light.
The agile form moved inward. The shutter closed behind it. The Shadow stood within the room. Tall, amazing and weird, he surveyed the only occupant of the chamber.