Two hands appeared beneath the bluish glow. They were long hands, with tapering fingers that combined smoothness with strength. There was no mistaking the hands of The Shadow, for upon a finger of the left hand rested the identifying token of the master.
This was a gleaming gem that shone with a changing hue that symbolized mystery. The Shadow’s girasol — a fire opal unmatched in all the world — glistened like a sparkling eye in ever-changing hues.
From azure, the girasol took on the shades of a rich purple. Its glowing depths became a brilliant crimson, only to change to a deep maroon that gave the stone an appearance of unlimited depths. All the while, the illusion of sparks persisted. Flashes of flames seemed to leap upward toward the light.
The white hands produced an envelope and removed its contents. Rutledge Mann’s clippings lay in view.
The right hand brought forward a pen and a sheet of blank paper. While hidden eyes studied the reports, the hand began to write.
Brief, pointed facts appeared like thoughts. As the hand rested, eyes from the dark visualized those statements. Bluish ink dried, then disappeared. The memory of the vanished words remained, locked in the brain.
Could Joe Cardona have seen those inscriptions, he would have been amazed. For The Shadow, step by step, was shattering the detective’s theory! He was tracing a very definite connection between the big shot and the murders in the Red Room!
Where Cardona had pictured Goldy as a man who had escaped a menace. The Shadow saw the big shot as one who had known of a designed murder. Goldy Tancred — threatened — was the last person whom the police could suspect of complicity. But The Shadow deduced otherwise.
The change of the Mohawks’ meeting from Red Room to Blue Room — the holding of the affair on the same night as the meeting of the electrical engineers — those had been accepted as mere coincidence. To The Shadow, however, such an obvious conclusion was not to be accepted.
Cold-blooded mobsmen who attacked beneath a barrage of blackness were not the ones to make so clumsy an error. The Shadow, versed in knowledge of underworld tactics, was quick to reject Cardona’s theory.
Richard Reardon and Roland Furness: one — perhaps both — had been marked for death.
Why?
They were not men of crime. Yet the explanation must exist. From a study of the past, and an observation of the future, the reason could be discovered.
CRIME was impending — crime that bore the mark of genius. The secret of mighty schemes was unrevealed, yet there were ways to reach it. Where the police were content to look for unknown murderers, The Shadow intended to follow other courses.
The Shadow wrote:
Goldy Tancred.
A soft laugh came through the gloom of the room. Its whispered tones awoke pulsating echoes. The hand inscribed terse comments beneath the name that it had written. Goldy Tancred must be watched. There was a way to do it. The Shadow was making his plans.
Two other names appeared upon the paper. Side by side, The Shadow considered them.
Richard Reardon — Roland Furness.
Again, the hand began its comments. The careers of these men must be traced. Somewhere in the events of their lives might lie an item of evidence.
Earphones slid across the table as the hands reached beyond to obtain them. The Shadow spoke into a mouthpiece. His low tones were passing over a private wire to a listener as secretive as himself.
“Burbank speaking.”
The quiet voice over the wire was that of The Shadow’s hidden contact man. Always ready for the Shadow’s bidding, Burbank dwelt in obscurity and kept up a telephonic communication with The Shadow’s agents. Words that came to Burbank were relayed back and forth between The Shadow and his men.
“Clyde Burke on duty,” responded The Shadow, in an even monotone. “Commence observation on the activities of Goldy Tancred—”
The voice continued. Burbank listened. While The Shadow spoke, his hand was writing. Every word that he gave to Burbank was inscribed in blue upon a blank sheet of paper. The statements, however, were in code.
The Shadow concluded his orders. As he told Burbank to stand by, he folded the paper before the writing had reached the vanishing stage, and placed it in an envelope. This was to go to Rutledge Mann.
The writing would not disappear until after the investment broker had learned its import.
“Harry Vincent on duty,” The Shadow went on. “To cooperate with Rutledge Mann in uncovering facts regarding Richard Reardon and Roland Furness—”
The voice continued; the hand wrote and closed its message. The earphones slid across the table.
Instructions to Burbank were ended. The orders to Rutledge Mann, sealed in separate envelopes, were carried away by The Shadow’s hands.
The light clicked out. Invisible within the walls of his windowless sanctum, The Shadow laughed again.
Weird echoes of a mocking cry reverberated from the hollow space. The Shadow’s work had begun.
During the future, his eyes would watch the activities of Goldy Tancred, the man who had escaped.
Meanwhile, delving into the past, his investigating forces would discover facts regarding Richard Reardon and Roland Furness, the men who had encountered death.
Somewhere, between the affairs of the big shot and the dead engineers, lay crime of an insidious nature.
Goldy Tancred, feigning a connection with small-fry politicians, was seeking to cover up the game.
Clearly, The Shadow saw that Goldy’s pretensions were a bluff; that he was using the unsuspecting Mohawks as an alibi. Just as plainly, The Shadow knew that there had been a definite purpose in the killings of Reardon and Furness.
The echoes of The Shadow’s laugh persisted. At last, like dying whispers from invisible ghosts, they faded into nothingness. Only impenetrable darkness remained within the sanctum.
Strange darkness! Like a shroud it had veiled the presence of the master mind. From that darkness, The Shadow had gone into light. He would find darkness again — for The Shadow struck best from Stygian gloom.
This time, however, a curious analogy remained. Out of darkness had The Shadow gone. Into darkness he must come to deal with the hidden foe.
For The Shadow, now, was dealing with strange fighters who also had used blackness to mask their crimes!
It was darkness that The Shadow sought. It was darkness that he would find. That strange black hush that had fallen over the Olympia Hotel would spread its blanketing depths again.
Its sinister folds would envelop The Shadow along with fiends of crime. The Shadow had begun his campaign against the menace of the black hush!
CHAPTER IV. FROM THE TOWER
IN contrast to the impenetrable gloom that always pervaded The Shadow’s sanctum, the light of day still shone above the island of Manhattan. It was waning afternoon and the city streets were darkening, but the sun gave sparkling brilliance to the offices of great skyscrapers.
Glinting rays of light were reflected by the polished walls of futuristic buildings. Most conspicuous of these was the new Judruth Tower, which lifted its jutting shaft ninety-five stories toward the sky. A pinnacle that formed a tribute to modern engineering, this structure added a new spectacle to Manhattan’s sky line.
The highest office floor was the ninety-third. There, in a private office, a bespectacled stout man was studying the afternoon edition of a New York daily. Behind his flat-topped mahogany desk, he was reading rewritten accounts of the tragedy at the Olympia Hotel.
A knock at the door. The stout man laid the paper aside, ordered the person to come in. A stenographer entered; the man at the desk peered toward her through his gold-rimmed glasses.
“It is after five o’clock, Mr. Fawcett,” said the girl. “The office force has left. I am going now, unless you have some additional letters that must be mailed.”