All anguish had been feigned by Tom Rodan. His secretly concealed emotion was one of gloating triumph. His plans had reached their culmination. Cuthbert Davenport was dead. Sonia was dead. The family wealth was scheduled to reach Tom Rodan, the son-in-law.
The only living person who might have fought to break the wills was Perry Davenport — and he was blackened as the murderer of his father and his sister!
Yet Perry Davenport was not a murderer. Tom Rodan knew that. He held the secret which none could possibly suspect. He knew why Perry had accused him. He was triumphant because well-laid plans had succeeded. With Fitzroy and Seaton to support him, no one could possibly implicate him with these murders.
Like other men of evil, Tom Rodan possessed a perfect alibi. The law would take its course. Perry Davenport would pay the penalty for the murders he did not commit. In the meantime, the Davenport wealth would come to Tom Rodan — through a simpler process of the law itself.
Who could prevent it? Rodan’s mind went back to a night when he and others had been riding northward across a mesquite-studded plain. That night had brought the inspiration from which this plan had developed.
A name had been mentioned on that night. Somehow, the name had stuck in the mind of the man who had come to Daltona as Tom Rodan. He could hear the name whispered now — as the leader of a band of six had pronounced it.
The Shadow!
Who was he? What could he do? Nothing! No one in all the world could divine the secret which Tom Rodan shared with other silent men. Evil was due to triumph over right.
The Shadow!
Tom Rodan still held his twisted smile as he thought of that empty name. Where hard-headed men had been deceived, shadows could not prevail. Tom Rodan was one of six, headed by a leader who had evolved a perfect regime of crime. All were free to act as they had individually planned. All were immune from danger. Why worry about an unknown person called The Shadow? He — The Shadow — could not even begin to suspect this chain of supercrime!
Had Rodan known more, the smile of evil would have faded from his crooked lips. Already had The Shadow suspected crime like this; another link was all The Shadow sought. The wild accusations made by Perry Davenport might reach unlistening ears; but there was one whom destiny had provided to fathom their true meaning.
That one was The Shadow!
CHAPTER IX
THE SHADOW FINDS
WITHIN his sanctum, The Shadow was at work. The girasol glimmered beneath the strange blue light. White hands were moving across the polished table.
Beneath the supple fingers were report sheets from The Shadow’s agents. Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke had reached their destinations. From Tilson and Barmouth, these two capable men had sent their findings.
The written reports were negative. They had served only to substantiate opinions that existed in the towns where Vincent and Burke had gone.
In Tilson, Illinois, no one held any doubt regarding the high reputation of Earl Northrup. The man had been vindicated by his alibi. Carl Walton was to be prosecuted for the murder of Mosier, the servant, and he was also charged with theft of bonds belonging to his employer, Anthony Hanscom.
The same situation existed in Barmouth, Maryland. There, the status of Harold Thurber, chairman of the Civic Relief Committee, was higher than ever. His friends had laughed at the ridiculous charge that he was responsible for the disappearance of the relief funds.
All were positive that Sherman Brooks was the real culprit. The cashier had been caught in flight. He had made a wild accusation that had only served to prove his guilt. His case was being scheduled for court, and there could be no doubt as to the outcome. Sherman Brooks was unanimously classed as guilty.
An identity between the reports of The Shadow’s agents was apparent. Since the Tilson and Barmouth crimes, both Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber had led serene, unruffled lives. They had gone about their usual affairs with no thought of the past. Neither one had moved from his own town. They were free from suspicion.
There was nothing to show that either Northrup or Thurber could have had contact with each other. In fact, all evidence pointed the other way. These men seemed content to remain within the sphere of their own localities.
One coincidence was manifest, however. Vincent’s report of Northrup, when compared with Burke’s account of Thurber, showed that each man had come to his respective town on approximately the same date, nearly one year ago.
IN preparing their reports, both Vincent and Burke had encountered a certain difficulty. When Vincent had sought for a photograph of Northrup, he had been unable to locate one. In the same way, Burke, looking for a picture of Thurber, had had no luck.
Both agents had persisted. Vincent had visited a local photographer, and had, through artifice, gained access to a batch of photographs taken in different parts of the town of Tilson. Among these was the picture of a group gathered in front of Anthony Hanscom’s home. One of the men in the group was Earl Northrup.
Burke, visiting the local newspaper in Barmouth, had presented himself as a New York newspaperman interested in the Civic Relief Committee and its work. The newspaper had no photograph of the committee; but they referred Burke to a printer who had prepared a pamphlet, outlining the purpose of the relief fund.
Obtaining a copy of the little pamphlet, Burke had discovered that it contained a picture of the Relief Committee in a group, with Harold Thurber as the central figure.
On The Shadow’s table rested the two pictures. Vincent had indicated Northrup; Burke had marked an arrow pointing to Thurber. A pair of tiny scissors gleamed as The Shadow cut out the separate photographs and placed the pictures of Northrup and Thurber side by side upon a sheet of white paper.
Now the hands of The Shadow held a magnifying glass. Beneath its powerful lens, the photographs were enlarged so that eyes from the dark could compare them. A short laugh came from the gloom beyond the blue light.
The features of Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber were identical! From flat nose to sloping chin, cheeks and forehead, each was a counterpart of the other! It was remarkable that two such men should look exactly alike; it was more remarkable that each should be a man who could boast a perfect alibi!
Here was an answer to crime. Was it possible that Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber had worked together, each one serving as an alibi-maker for the other?
A skilled sleuth, with this evidence before him, would have leaped easily to such a conclusion. Yet The Shadow paused.
His keen mind was considering the time element. Between the bond robbery and the bank theft, there had been sufficient time for two such men to have traveled from Illinois to Maryland. Yet there was a reason why such action could not have been taken.
That reason lay in the report from Harry Vincent. It stated clearly that Earl Northrup had made no move from Tilson since Hanscom’s bonds had been stolen and Mosier slain.
It was true that Vincent had not arrived in Tilson until after crime had struck in Barmouth; yet Vincent’s inquiry had been a careful one, and he would surely have learned if Northrup had taken a sudden trip immediately after the affair at Hanscom’s.
It was obvious that Northrup had stayed close to base — a sure protection for his alibi. So far as these two men were involved, the only point against them was their identity of appearance. That could not suffice as conclusive evidence of collusion between them.
The Shadow’s hands pushed the photographs aside. They remained motionless, as though the brain that controlled them was perplexed. Then the hands produced a large envelope, opened it, and dropped out a bundle of clippings. These were new items from Rutledge Mann.