Harry’s thoughts did not dwell upon his own plight, however. The throbs that passed through his frenzied brain repeated the knowledge that he now possessed — the details of the contemplated crime which Goldy Tancred had so openly disclosed.
If The Shadow only knew! But The Shadow could not learn. Harry Vincent, the one who could tell The Shadow all, was buried in a stone-walled prison!
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SHADOW LAUGHS
WHITE hands beneath a bluish light; a gleaming gem that flashed amazing sparks from its color-changing depths — The Shadow was in his sanctum! Upon his table lay clippings and other sheets of paper.
Beneath them was a map of Manhattan that overspread the entire surface of the table top.
This windowless room knew neither night nor day. Amid blackness that was broken only by the blue light in the corner, the Shadow worked in perfect seclusion. His sanctum was a spot which no one other than he had ever visited.
Night had passed outside the sanctum. The light of a new day had arrived. But The Shadow made no accounting for the passage of time. He was engaged in a tremendous task. Three times, heinous crime had followed in the wake of the black hush. After the first occurrence, The Shadow had been able to beat back the crooks who had advanced.
But now, The Shadow was seeking greater results. Indifferent to what plans the enemy might hold, the master of darkness was striving to reach the source itself. Well did The Shadow know that Ping Slatterly had been no more than a tool in the hands of master schemers.
The Shadow had been piecing important facts. Before him lay the assembled reports that told things which Detective Joe Cardona had failed to even suspect.
The secret of the black hush!
The Shadow was upon its trail!
A hand moved across the desk. It swept the clippings aside. Brilliant eyes from the dark were focused upon the huge map of Manhattan. Deft fingers produced white-beaded pins. One by one, The Shadow placed these markers on important spots.
First, a pin touched the location of the Olympia Hotel. The second pin marked the apartment building which was topped by Thaddeus Harmon’s penthouse. The third pin rested upon the exact position of the New City Bank. The fourth entered the street intersection where traffic had been halted to allow the escape of fleeing criminals.
After a pause, the fingers put another pin upon a line that indicated the elevated. The keen eyes of The Shadow surveyed the studded surface of the map.
Those pins indicated an important fact. They showed that the strange blackness of the black hush could easily have been projected from a single point.
Significantly, the forefinger of The Shadow’s right hand moved from one pin to another. The markers thus touched were the ones which showed the elevated and the street intersection.
These were the two places that gave the important clue. At the hotel, the apartment, the bank — all three meant nothing more than the manipulation of electrical equipment within the building themselves.
But the elevated line and street intersection! These spots, where blackness had fallen, were sure indications of a pall that had descended from the night itself!
With a pencil, the hand of The Shadow traced dotted lines on the face of the map. From the Olympia Hotel, alone, the indicating line might have gone in any direction. With the penthouse as a starting point, there were logical places where its line and the line from the hotel should cross.
The line from the New City Bank produced a further limitation. The line from the street intersection meant another narrowing of the search. Yet The Shadow’s problem of survey work had not yet been completed.
One more pin might have solved the calculation. The Shadow’s finger lingered upon the elevated-line pin.
That one was useless; identified with the New City Bank, it gave no additional aid to him.
The Shadow waited. His keen brain had been wrestling with this problem for hours. The light snapped off. Within a darkness as total as that of the black hush, The Shadow dwelt in solemn thought. A hand moved forward in the blackness. It found a set of earphones. A tiny light glimmered on the wall beyond the table.
“Burbank speaking,” came a voice over the line.
“Report on Vincent,” were The Shadow’s quiet words.
“No further report,” Burbank replied.
“Check through Mann,” ordered The Shadow.
The light went out. When it returned, Burbank opened the conversation:
“No report received by Mann.”
Silence. Then came the whispered voice of The Shadow. It came as a sudden thought of inspiration.
“Call Burke,” ordered The Shadow. “Tell him to call the apartment house where Chalvers lives. Call from the Classic office, requesting information on lighting service interrupted there last night.”
The tiny bulb went out. On came the blue light above The Shadow’s table.
There, in total darkness, The Shadow had gained a new connection. There was no report from Harry Vincent. The agent might have met with unexpected enemies. If so, the meeting had possibly occurred in the apartment of Don Chalvers.
The enemies whom The Shadow now combated were men who acted under cover of the black hush.
Perhaps that strange phenomenon had occurred last night at the place where Harry Vincent had been stationed!
Anticipating this chance, The Shadow placed a pin upon the location of the apartment where Chalvers lived. He began a new tracing of dotted lines.
This was the one he needed. It indicated a central point in Manhattan where all the lines showed perfect convergence.
The little bulb was gleaming. The hand of The Shadow lifted the earphones from the table. Burbank was ready, with a prompt report.
“Call from Burke,” came Burbank’s quiet tones. “Report from apartment house. Lighting service was interrupted there for a few minutes last night. Regarded as dynamo failure.”
The bulb went out. The earphones moved across the table. The hand of The Shadow produced a black-headed pin. Carefully, the fingers placed it at the focal point of the dotted lines.
That pin, with its jet-black top, marked the location which The Shadow had been seeking. It showed the spot in Manhattan from which the black ray had been projected.
It was resting exactly upon the building site occupied by the new Judruth Tower!
A full minute passed while the eyes of The Shadow gazed upon the map. The blue light cast its eerie flicker. The girasol upon The Shadow’s finger seemed to flash triumphant sparks from its glimmering depths.
Blackness followed as the hand of The Shadow extinguished the light. A long, reechoing burst of hollow laughter pealed through the confines of the sanctum. Quivering reverberations sent their persistent shudders through the space of that black-walled room. When those sinister echoes had ended, the sanctum was empty.
CHAPTER XXIV. UPON THE TOWER
NIGHT was falling upon Manhattan. The outlines of buildings were still visible; twinkling lights in windows appeared like sparkling jewels in futuristic settings. From the windy, open observation circle atop the Judruth Tower, a few late visitors were viewing the splendid vista that lay below.
Among them was a silent watcher whose keen eyes were moving from spot to spot in the scene that stretched beneath. The Shadow, in the guise of a curious visitor to the observation post, was viewing each place where the black hush of crime had fallen.
The Olympia Hotel was plain with its glimmering windows. Thaddeus Harmon’s penthouse was a conspicuous structure upon its apartment roof. The white face of the New City Bank looked like a tiny slab beyond the blackened structure of the elevated line.