When Rodan went back to the room that he had left, the unseen figure had entered there before him.
Rodan paced nervously back and forth. At times, he stopped to listen, fancying that he had heard an echo of that mysterious voice.
A single word from unseen lips. Could that be the explanation?
Rodan shook his head and shut his eyes. He saw, mentally, the image of Cranston’s face. Then, to Rodan’s ears came a repetition of the sound he had heard before.
“Murderer!”
Rodan leaped madly to his feet. He caught himself and uttered a mumbled growl. Never before had imagination affected him this way. Rodan steadied himself and tried to laugh.
Why should he fear this voice? He was not a murderer! He smiled maliciously as he gazed at the floor where he had seen three dead bodies a few nights before.
Some one else was the murderer. But the secret was Rodan’s. That was the cause of his worries, he felt sure. The secret was the factor that made him weaken. The presence of an unknown man, Lamont Cranston, had started a chain of hectic thoughts.
This condition could be counteracted. Rodan began to see the way. He walked to the telephone, and called the Southern Hotel. He asked to speak to Lamont Cranston. He was informed that the man had checked out.
Rodan wondered.
Had Cranston returned to New York, or was he still here in Daltona? Whichever the case might be, one course was advisable. The present situation constituted an emergency. There was someone whom Rodan must inform.
Walking steadily across the room, Rodan reached a writing table and drew forth pen, ink, and paper. He sat in momentary speculation, and as he rested there, he was forgetful of the room behind him.
Something was taking place — something that Rodan did not see. From the darkness of the wall, a tall figure came into view.
Silently, and with gliding tread, The Shadow moved directly toward the seated man. Like a phantom of vengeance, he approached until he was but a few feet away. He stood there, his burning eyes focused upon Rodan. Then, from unseen lips came a softly whispered word.
“Beware!”
The sound was scarcely audible; but it reached Rodan’s ears. The seated man did not move. His eyes were bulging, staring at the table before him. The Shadow glided into a fringe of darkness formed by a tiny alcove.
Rodan swung around in his chair. He stared toward the hall, believing that the sound had come from there. Then, with a grim laugh, he turned back to the writing table.
Upon a sheet of paper, he inscribed a mysterious symbol. It consisted of a circle, with two crosslines in its center. Above it, Rodan marked a crescent, with the points turned downward. Below, he made the same symbol, pointing the same way.
While the paper lay beside him, Rodan addressed an envelope. The name that he wrote was Eastern Specialty Company; the address a street number in New York City.
WHILE Rodan was thus engaged, a silent motion took place behind him. The Shadow emerged from his hiding spot. His tall form glided forward. His brilliant eyes peered over Rodan’s shoulder. They saw all that the man had written.
Rodan stared suddenly at the envelope. He rubbed his eyes.
A splotch of blackness was upon the writing desk; the envelope was covered by a strange shadow. Then the hallucination ended.
Rodan picked up the envelope; he folded the paper and thrust it into the wrapper. Holding the envelope half hidden in his hand, Rodan turned again and gazed across the room.
His eyes passed over a shadowy projection that extended from the alcove close beside him. He did not see the silent silhouette that lay almost at his feet.
With a gruff laugh, Rodan stamped the envelope and thrust it in his pocket. He went to the telephone. He called Sheriff George Seaton.
“Hello, George,” said Rodan. “Busy tonight?… No? That’s good… Think I’ll drop over to say hello.”
Rodan felt some relief as he left the house and posted the air-mail letter in a box at the nearest corner. His car was standing before the house. He entered it and drove away.
A low laugh from the darkness of the lawn followed Rodan’s departure. A tall, silent shape came into view; then faded quickly in the darkness.
The Shadow had won the game. He had found a way to cope with the plans of an unknown supercrook to whom Northrup, Thurber, and Rodan were underlings.
The Shadow knew that three crimes had been timed; that each had required a secret communication to the chief. With crimes completed, the local malefactors in Tilson, Barmouth, and Daltona had no need for further communication with their leader — so far as crime was concerned.
But The Shadow had divined that a superplotter would have arranged for contact afterward, provided that any of his underlings might suspect the presence of danger. As Lamont Cranston, The Shadow had deliberately aroused the suspicions of Thomas Rodan. Then, a phantom in the darkness, The Shadow had stimulated Rodan’s fears.
The result had been a secret message of warning, posted to the place of contact in New York.
The Shadow was through with Rodan for the present. He had bigger game — the tracing of the master mind.
Three crimes already. Would there be a fourth? A fifth? Or more? That was the problem which confronted The Shadow. He had taken measures to meet it. He was off to find the source of crime.
A fast airplane speeding northward through the night now bore The Shadow on his mission. A letter had been sent; its destination was known to The Shadow. He would be there to intercept the man who would receive it!
The cryptic symbol, dispatched as a warning to the master mind of crime, was the clew which The Shadow had forced from Thomas Rodan. Upon that clew, The Shadow was to form the campaign that might doom the schemes devised by men of evil!
CHAPTER XI
THE MESSAGE DELIVERED
EARLY the next evening, a stoop-shouldered man was sidling along a squalid street of Manhattan. There was something shifty in his gait, and his furtive footsteps seemed aimless in direction. At times, the man paused momentarily, as though suspecting that someone might be watching him.
One of these stops was near the entrance of an alleyway. Here, the man’s face came into the light of a street lamp. It was a whitened, wizened face, from which a cigarette drooped listlessly. The man paused to remove the cigarette from his mouth. He noted that the stump was unlighted. He drew a match from his pocket.
During the act of lighting the remains of his cigarette, the wizened-faced man glanced shrewdly back along the street which he had followed. Seeing no one, he threw the match away, turned suddenly, and entered the alley. So artfully did he duck out of sight that only the most careful observer would have noted the action.
Silence continued in the gloomy street; then, a few seconds after the stoop-shouldered man had disappeared, a new figure arrived in the glow of the lamplight. A tall, sinister form was momentarily revealed. Then, it, too, vanished in the darkness of the alleyway.
The Shadow was stalking his prey. Here, in New York’s bad lands, he was on the trail of a lesser gangster. Despite the care which the stoop-shouldered man had displayed, The Shadow had followed him totally unobserved.
A door opened at the side of the alley. A faint light showed as the gangster entered. The door closed and the wizened man stood in a hall that was lighted only by a turned-down gas jet. Ahead of him lay a rickety flight of steps. The gangster ascended, confident that he was free from observation. He did not see the front door slowly open before he had reached the top of the stairs.