RICK broke off. His face became tense as he held up his hand for silence. Carning strained forward in his chair. The lull of outside blackness seemed a gripping force about this room.
Carning was looking beyond Parrin, toward a door that opened into a side corridor. Rick swung in his swivel chair, to stare at the same spot.
Both had heard a strange sound. The noise was coming from the hall. It signified the approach of some one; yet neither listener could have made a guess as to the appearance of the person whose footfalls they so dimly heard. The sound was a creeping; slow, yet unhesitating. It was like an audible mask, a mode of progress that made its author unrecognizable.
Moreover, the exact location of the sound was a mystery. It might have been coming from far down the corridor; it might almost have been outside the door. Though it continued, indicating steady motion, its intensity remained the same. It was not until the scuffled sound suddenly ceased that Rick and Carning realized that The Creeper had reached his goal.
Instinctively, the two rogues knew that their expected visitor was directly outside the glass-paneled door that led from this office into the side corridor. They waited tensely, listening for some new token. Then a white hand appeared against the darkness of the panel.
Carning repressed a gasp as he saw a tight fist, doubled like a claw. A hand that held the fate of henchmen in the balance, it remained there through long moments. Then fingers moved; like a thing detached, the claw crept up the panel; its clicking nails reproduced in miniature that same creeping sound that had been heard before.
Rick Parrin leaned back. He placed his own fist upon the glass top of his mahogany desk. As the hand on the door stopped its motion, Rick performed a crawling action with his own fingers. His scratching was an answer to “The Creeper’s” signal. The white fist moved from view beyond the glass panel.
The flap of a brass letter chute clicked inward. An envelope swished through the air and slid along the floor, to wind up with a lazy flutter at Rick Parrin’s feet.
The hook-nosed man did not pick it up at once; instead, he sat listening, and Carning copied his example.
From outside the door they heard new sounds of disguised footsteps. The Creeper was departing.
Oddly, the sound again retained its same intensity. When close, The Creeper moved more softly; when far away, he made his motion create a louder noise. The illusion was perfect; Rick and Carning could not even guess which direction The Creeper had taken. Suddenly the baffling sound faded.
Had The Creeper gone? Or had he faked a departure, to remain outside the door of this private office?
Two minds asked the same question as Rick turned about and met Carning’s puzzled stare. The insidious influence of The Creeper seemed strangely present. Neither man dared speak.
Mechanically, Rick picked up the envelope. He opened it and withdrew a typewritten message. He scanned the lines; then tore the paper into shreds. He burned the pieces in an ash tray; then picked up an evening newspaper that was lying on the desk.
Carning watched him turn to a page. Rick read; then spoke in a harsh whisper.
“THE job is for you, Carning,” he informed. “To-night, at eight o’clock. Call at the home of Tobias Clavelock, the lawyer.” Rick paused to write an address. “Tell him you’ve come in place of Richard Batesly.”
“Who is Richard Batesly?” inquired Carning.
“A court stenographer,” replied Rick. “Fellow who does work for old Clavelock. Batesly likes the races; he went there to-day and won’t be back. You’re to tell Clavelock that he was taken ill and that you came in his place.”
“What about afterward? When Batesly sees Clavelock?”
“Don’t worry. Batesly will have the same excuse for himself. Clavelock would fire him if he knew the fellow played the ponies. I guess Batesly picked some winners to-day; and he’s met some friends who have detained him. Celebrating — that’s something else Clavelock wouldn’t like.”
Rick chuckled. His tone was significant. Carning recognized that other agents of The Creeper must have been at work — men whom even Rick did not know. Their job had been to see that Batesly forgot his appointment to work for Clavelock this evening. Then Carning ceased speculation as Rick handed the newspaper to him.
“Read that, Carning.”
“Say!” The pasty-faced man’s eyes popped. “Clavelock’s the lawyer for the Doyd heirs! The bunch that’s supposed to be coming into millions when the estate is settled!”
“That’s right,” nodded Rick. “The get-together is to-night; that’s when the lucky relations learn the news about the dough. Clavelock will have a lot to say. Some one will have to take it down in shorthand.”
“Meaning me, Rick?”
“Meaning you, Carning.”
Rick chuckled as he rose. He led Carning to the door into the side hall. He opened the barrier almost gingerly and peered out. No one was there.
Rick turned off the light switch; the room darkened, save for a mellow glow at the window. Night had gained its grip; Manhattan’s lights were at last a sparkling galaxy.
“Scram, Carning,” whispered Rick. “I’ll follow later. Remember: bring your notes along with you. You’re good enough at shorthand to pinch hit for this fellow Batesly. Don’t slip on a detail.”
Carning nodded and departed. Rick Parrin returned and sat in the darkened office, to wait five minutes before making his own departure. The window chair was the post that Rick had taken. Surveying the brilliance of the city, the fake sales executive chuckled.
Millions of lights — millions of dollars. Such was the connection of Rick Parrin’s thoughts. For he knew the game that lay at stake. Lucky heirs were to share a vast fortune, as legatees of Bigelow Doyd, the soap king, recently deceased.
They would be lucky if they held the wealth that would be their gain. For some one else was planning to gain his share of the spoils. The goal would be a big one, for it was sought by a man of supercrime: the evil chief whom Rick Parrin knew only as The Creeper.
CHAPTER II. THE SHADOW OBSERVES
EVENING had deepened. It was eight o’clock, the time when Carning, as Rick Parrin’s tool, was due at the home of Tobias Clavelock. In obedience to The Creeper’s order, Carning would soon be engaged in his temporary task as secretary to the old lawyer who represented the estate of Bigelow Doyd.
Traffic-thronged streets were blaring with the sounds of raucous horns. The approach of the theater hour had brought jammed confusion to Manhattan. There were spots, however, that the noise of tumult did not reach. One such place was the reading room of the exclusive Cobalt Club.
Within that room, sour-faced old gentlemen were reading copies of Punch and the London Graphic, amid silence that was tomblike. Noise was forbidden in the reading room of the Cobalt Club. None defied that order; not even the one individual who seemed out of place with such elderly companions. He was a hawk-nosed personage, whose age — though difficult to guess — must have been many years less than that of the fossil-faced habitues about him.
This member of the Cobalt Club was known as Lamont Cranston; he was a millionaire globe-trotter who frequented the Cobalt Club whenever he was in New York.
To-night, Cranston was seated beneath the glare of a reading lamp. The rays of the light showed his countenance to be chiseled and inflexible of expression — almost masklike. A curious study, that firmly molded visage, had any chosen to observe it. But the members of the Cobalt Club were too concerned with their own reading to pay attention to the presence of others.
Keen eyes peered from the visage of Lamont Cranston. They were centered upon a newspaper, held between long-fingered hands. Those eyes were reading a brief news report; a statement that a meeting would be held this very evening, at the home of Bigelow Doyd, deceased. The heirs of the Doyd estate were to learn of the various legacies which the dead millionaire had left.