“How does that happen?”
“Because,” declared Tyrell, “everything has been arranged. I merely wanted to be at Gault’s to watch for any trouble. I also wanted to be there to keep my eye on a certain person who was present at Brockthorpe’s. I refer to a man named Lamont Cranston.”
“I remember him,” nodded Harry.
“Doris Munson,” continued Tyrell, “has become quite friendly with Lamont Cranston. He is a wise bird, Cranston; I have found Miss Munson quite useful in diverting his attention. She has unwittingly worked with my game. To-night, she will be at her best.”
“How so?”
“Doris is anxious to make me jealous. So instead of going to Gault’s to-night, she has managed to make a date with Cranston. They are going to the theater.”
“Which eliminates Cranston.”
“Exactly. It also obviates the necessity of my being at Gault’s. Nevertheless, I need a representative. I want a full report on what happens. You, Vincent, are appointed.”
Tyrell arose as he spoke. He conducted Harry to the living room. Wellington brought Harry’s cape and silk hat. He also produced Tyrell’s overcoat and derby.
“I am going to my club,” remarked Tyrell. “We can travel that far together, Vincent.”
When the two men reached the street, they took a taxi. Tyrell left the cab at his club. Harry ordered the driver to take him to Seventy-second Street and Columbus Avenue, which was the neighborhood of Ferrell Gault’s apartment. When he reached his destination, Harry alighted and entered a drug store. He stepped toward a telephone booth.
IT was Harry’s intention to put through a call to Burbank, The Shadow’s contact agent. The fact that robbery was due at Gault’s was sufficient in itself; Harry, however, had other information. Tyrell’s reference to Lamont Cranston was something that Burbank should know.
Harry Vincent had reasons to believe that The Shadow sometimes guised himself as the globetrotting millionaire. Tyrell evidently suspected Cranston as an enemy. If Burbank could reach The Shadow before the supposed Lamont Cranston kept his appointment with Doris Munson, matters might take a different turn to-night.
The telephone booths were by the window. The lights of the drug store threw radiance to the sidewalk. It was through that glow that Harry Vincent made a chance discovery. He saw a man outside the window by the booths. He recognized the ugly features of Pug Halfin.
Harry decided not to make his call to Burbank. He realized that Pug might be here to watch his actions. Ignoring the telephone booth, Harry went to the cigar counter and purchased a pack of cigarettes. He strolled from the store.
As he headed in the direction of Gault’s apartment house, Harry gained the distinct impression that he was being followed. This persisted until he reached the apartment building itself. Harry knew that Pug, versed in the tricks of the underworld, could well have trailed him. So he made no attempt to use a telephone in the lobby. He rode directly to the fourth floor, where Ferrell Gault’s apartment was located.
Harry was right in his assumption that Pug was on his trail. The ugly-faced mobleader had followed Harry’s pace all the way from the drug store. But the trailing ceased when Harry reached the apartment house. Taking a dark alleyway at the side of the building, Pug gained an obscure entrance and took a flight of steps down to the basement.
Here he grinned as he discovered the entrance to a freight elevator. The lift was used only for carrying furniture and other bulky loads. Its entrance was obscure; no operator was on duty. Pug entered the elevator and ran it up to the fourth floor.
Here, again, he found an obscure entrance. He moved around a corner of a passage and tapped softly at the first door on the left. The door opened. Pug stepped into a room that had only a single light, covered by a handkerchief. He nodded in greeting to two rowdies who were standing in the empty living room.
“Is he in there?” questioned Pug, nudging his thumb toward an inner door.
“Yeah,” grunted a mobster.
Pug kept on and entered the empty bedroom of the little suite. The door, as he opened it, revealed a crouched figure near a closet door. Pug caught a glimpse of a yellow face and beady eyes. He closed the door from the living room. He was in total darkness; his companion was the same distorted creature that Chopper Hoban had released from the chair at Rudolph Brockthorpe’s!
“Hello, Foon Koo,” whispered Pug. “Everything all ready?”
“Not yet,” hissed the bent Chinaman. “Foon Koo, he listen. Foon Koo will hear.”
“The wall’s too thick,” insisted Pug, in a cautious tone.
“Not for Foon Koo,” replied the voice of the Chinaman. “When workmen fixee room for Mr. Gault, they bring in Foon Koo to makee the panel.”
“I know,” whispered Pug. “Those workmen were phonies that Slug Bracken and I put on the job. They smuggled you in an’ out in a box.”
“So Foon Koo could makee good trick,” agreed the Chinaman. “Goodee job I do. The panel, he will workee once. Not workee twice. Poof! No goodee after the one time.”
“But you can hear through it?”
“Yes. Foon Koo hear much. Foon Koo know when Buddha be where he wants it. Foon Koo know when peoples go. Foon Koo hear lightee go clickee.”
“It’s your job, Foon Koo. I’m here to help you. Where do we wait — in the closet?”
“Yes.”
WHILE the whispered conversation was passing between the ugly-faced mobleader and the dwarfish Chinaman, other events were occurring on the opposite side of the very wall where the evil workers lingered. A group was assembled in a paneled room. The guests of Ferrell Gault were being entertained in the sumptuous apartment of a millionaire collector.
Among those present were Sebastian Dutton and Rudolph Brockthorpe. The two — gloomy since their respective robberies — formed a contrast to Ferrell Gault. A fat man of forty-five, Gault was a jolly individual who spoke with a tendency toward English accent.
“Glad to see you here to-night,” Gault was saying. “Jove! It’s a gala occasion. Well, here you see the shrine room for the jeweled Buddha. That niche with the gold fresco work is a duplicate of the spot the statue used to occupy in a Japanese temple.
“I had this room fitted up while I was out of town. I intended to keep Gautama Siddhartha — that was Buddha’s real name, you know — on regular display. But my friends” — he paused to indicate Dutton and Brockthorpe — “have advised me against it. So you’ll see my Buddha for about half an hour; then back he goes, into the vault.”
Two persons had entered the room. One was Harry Vincent; the other, Joe Cardona. Rudolph Brockthorpe stepped forward to introduce the arrivals to Ferrell Gault. The millionaire shook hands with Harry; then turned to Cardona.
“We’ve been waiting for you, old chap,” said Gault, to the detective. “The Buddha’s under lock and key. Brockthorpe told me you would he here.”
“You intend to show the statue in this roost?” inquired Cardona.
“Yes,” responded Gault. “In that niche on the other side of the room. There are no windows in this place—”
“There were none in my tapestry room,” interposed Dutton.
“Keep the Buddha in your vault,” advised Brockthorpe. “Show it; put it back again.”
“All right,” agreed Gault. “Jove! You chaps are squeamish. But I suppose you have a right to be. Come along, Mr. Cardona. The vault is in my study.”
The two men departed. Harry Vincent, standing alone, heard Brockthorpe speak to Dutton.
“Gault’s vault is a modern one,” said the dark-browed than. “As good as Hubert Bexler’s.”