There was a narrow stone balcony outside each window. Not more than three feet of space separated each one of those stone projections.
Clyde counted the room windows. Before he had left the hallway inside the hotel he had made sure that 829 was the sixth window from the end. He made the dangerous leap across space to the first balcony without difficulty.
He swung across four of the stone balconies, protected from discovery by the drawn window shades.
Suddenly, he stiffened.
There was a tinkling crash from the window of Room 829. A heavy object flew through the window and fell to the stone projection outside. It was a glass inkwell.
Clyde gave the missile itself only a brief glance. He was watching the shattered hole in the window. Gray fumes were curling outward and ascending lazily through the glare of the sunshine.
WITH swift, monkeylike heaves of his body, Clyde crossed the remaining balconies. He tried the window of 829. It lifted easily under his tug.
Choking clouds of smoke blew outward into his face. He smelled the strange
reek of sulphur. It made him gasp and cough and he drew backward with tears welling from inflamed eyes. Luckily, there was not much concentration of the deadly vapor and the brisk wind sweeping through the sunny courtyard dissipated
it into thin, vanishing streamers.
Clyde peered over the open sill and saw Snaper and Hooley. Both crooks lay
flat on the floor. They were bound and gagged. Unconscious. It was Hooley who had managed to reach the desk and hurl the inkwell with an awkward heave of his
trussed wrists, before he passed out. The evidence lay in the trail of ink on the desk and the black stain on Hooley's hand and sleeve.
Beyond the two limp victims was the cause of the smoke and their unconsciousness. An exterminator's yellow sulphur candle was burning steadily in a corner of the room, sending a steady reek of poisonous smoke into the air.
With a jump, Clyde reached the candle and snuffed out the flame. He threw the deadly little purveyor of death out the window to the courtyard. Then he whirled toward the two men.
He slashed the bonds from their wrists and ankles, but he made no move toward restoring them to consciousness. Fate had given him a golden opportunity
and he took immediate advantage of it.
The camera appeared swiftly from his coat pocket. He removed the gloves from the hands of both crooks. Focusing the camera, he dropped on one knee. He took a perfect reproduction of the palms and fingers of Hooley and of Snaper.
Magnified, examined by experts, those pictures would tell exactly who these crooks really were and why they had served a long prison term somewhere.
Clyde had barely returned the bulky shape of the camera to his pocket when
he heard a groan from Snaper. He saw Hooley's eyes flutter open. The fresh air was reviving the crooks. For an instant, they stared dully upward at the face of the young reporter who had saved them; then fear swam into their blank faces.
With a bound, Hooley was on his feet. Snaper's gun menaced Clyde.
CLYDE lifted his empty hands above his head. His voice remained calm. He explained what had happened, told how he had managed to get to their room. The only falsehood he told was that he had come to the hotel to meet a friend; had seen smoke filtering into the corridor from the cracks of the door of 829 and had gone immediately to their help by way of the stone balconies.
Snaper lowered his gun, after a sharp glance from his partner.
"You didn't see anything of a man in a brown beard, did you, pal?" he asked in a curious, hesitant tone.
"No. Was he the man who did all this?"
"Yeah. He was the man, all right. Keep your mouth shut about this. We'll take care of the guy in the brown beard, eh, Bert?"
"Right!" Hooley growled. He was watching Clyde suspiciously. Suddenly, his
glance dropped toward his own hands and he swore with shrill excitement. He took
a swift step toward the reporter and the muzzle of his gun dug into Clyde's stomach.
"What the hell did you do before we woke up?" he demanded. "A wise guy, huh?"
"I don't know what you mean. I did nothing except to throw the sulphur candle out the window."
"You lie! You took the gloves off our hands, you rat!"
"There weren't any gloves on your hands, when I came in," Clyde said, steadily. "You're mistaken. And, anyway, what difference does it make?"
"It makes a hell of a lot of difference! What's that thing in your coat pocket? Stand still or I'll blow your belly apart!"
To his dismay, Clyde saw the camera emerge in the beefy paw of Bert Hooley.
"I thought so! A wise guy! Trying to take pictures of our hands, eh? A finger-print camera, huh?"
He ground the camera to a flat ruin under his foot.
"Kill the louse!" Snaper whispered, his teeth flashing in a murderous grimace.
"Nix! We gotta get outta here. Too much trouble already. A shot would cook
our goose."
"Who said anything about shootin' him?" Snaper whispered. He leaped with a
tigerish motion to the flat-topped desk near the wall. He scooped up a paper knife and moved back toward the trapped agent of The Shadow. The weapon was poised like a dagger in his hairy fist. The point was sharp and it pricked the skin at the back of Clyde's neck like the touch of a needle.
"Open his coat," Snaper snarled. "One jab of this in his heart and he'll go out like a light - and no noise to bring the bulls snoopin' around!"
Hooley nodded. He caught at the front of Clyde's vest and ripped it open with a jerk that sent buttons flying.
"Hold him tight!" Snaper breathed. "Keep your hand over his mouth, in case
he yells."
CLYDE didn't yell. With a sudden twist he tore himself loose from the shifting grip of Bert Hooley. The twist not only freed him, it sent him staggering backward toward the open window. He whirled and went out over the sill like a flash.
Snaper and Hooley darted after him.
But Clyde was too agile to be caught. With one wild leap, he cleared the end of the stone balcony and caught hold of the next He saw Snaper's gun aim at
him and the crook's finger begin to tighten.
Then Hooley struck the weapon upward. He shouted an order to his pal.
Both
crooks disappeared inside the room.
Clyde made his way as swiftly as he could to the fire escape. He did not try to reenter through the stained-grass window. He knew that Snaper would be waiting inside to grab him. Clyde had heard Hooley's grim order and it gave wings to the scared reporter's feet.
He raced down the fire escape. He had reached the courtyard below and was streaking toward a high board fence when he heard a faint yell above. Snaper's head was peering out the stained-glass corridor window. This time, Snaper fired.
The bullet missed Clyde's head by a scant inch and tunneled a round hole through the board fence. But Clyde was already atop the barrier and dropping to
the other side.
He crossed a narrow back yard, opened a gate in a grilled railing and reached the street. He was a block away from the hotel. He began to run toward the corner, oblivious of the stares of pedestrians.
He still had a chance to reach the hotel side exit before Snaper and Hooley came rushing out to make their getaway. He didn't want to intercept them; what he wanted was to watch the cab they grabbed and make a note of the license number.
Clyde figured that the noise of Snapper's gunfire had already alarmed the hotel. The crooks would be afraid to take a chance on a get-away through the main lobby. They'd rush down the stairs and dash away through the short corridor that led to the side street.
Clyde's guess was correct.
Screened by the bulk of a parked delivery truck, he saw the two crooks emerge from the side portal of the Brentwood. A taxi was standing at the curb.