“That dumb dick is here,” he said to an unknown listener, “parked in the living room. Thinks he’s wise to some plot. Guarding me.”
Jasper laughed. Then, in conclusion, he added a final statement that was derogatory to Terwiliger.
“Sure… I’ll forget all about him… I’ll keep my eye on him tomorrow… Just a joke; that’s all he is.”
Hanging up the receiver, Jasper prepared to conclude his work in the study. He went through several desk drawers; then arose and stretched himself.
IN the living room, Terwiliger, with one eye open, was looking toward the gloomy hallway. The detective was indulging in theory.
Perhaps it was the occupation of his mind that prevented him from noticing a splotch of blackness that slowly crept from the direction of the great reception hall; perhaps it was the silent slowness with which the dark patch moved.
Whatever the case might have been, Terwiliger did not observe that the sliding door was opening. He did not see the tall form that emerged from the reception hall. A strange figure stood within the hallway. The sliding door was moving shut behind it.
The phantom form became motionless, while burning eyes gazed toward Terwiliger. A being garbed in black waited and watched. Terwiliger closed his eyes. Then the strange shape glided toward the front door.
A few moments later, that door had opened and shut. The same stealthy form was invisible in the outer night. The soft, scarcely audible tones of a sibilant laugh, joined with the creaking of the tree branches above the lawn.
Once again, The Shadow had been at Delthern Manor. It was he who had provided the great reception hall with a ghostly presence. His strange laugh proved that he had learned the events that had taken place within that mansion on this night.
Terwiliger had boasted that he would bring incriminating evidence against a murderer. Jasper Delthern had laughed secretly in derision. That was the status of affairs at Delthern Manor.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER XVIII
TERWILIGER TALKS TOO MUCH
DETECTIVE TERWILIGER’S eyes had closed as if in sleep. They remained so for fully four minutes. Suddenly, they reopened. The sleuth stared grimly toward the hallway. Another minute passed. The detective rolled from the couch and came to his feet.
Walking to the hallway, Terwiliger stared up the stairs. He turned and looked toward the closed doors of the reception hall. He hesitated; then, swinging back to the stairs, he started upward two steps at a time, and did not stop until he reached the closed door of Jasper Delthern’s study.
Without knocking, the detective opened the door and entered. Jasper Delthern was standing, startled, by the desk. He was apparently about to leave the room.
“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Terwiliger excitedly. “I’ve got it!”
Jasper gazed at the detective with a puzzled air. Terwiliger grasped his arm. He drew Jasper out into the hall, and pointed toward the top of the stairway.
“I figured it out while I was half asleep,” declared the sleuth, in a whisper. “I’ve got an idea of how your brother Winstead was murdered. Come along!”
Jasper followed the detective. Terwiliger stopped at the head of the stairs. He pointed down the precipitous flight of steps, then waved his hands to indicate the peculiar sort of alcove in which they were standing.
“Kind of an odd place, isn’t it?” he queried.
“Yes,” admitted Jasper. “But what has that to do with it?”
Terwiliger dropped to his hands and knees, and made a measurement of the uppermost step. He walked to the bottom of the stairs, counting as he went. He made a peculiar series of calculations upon his finger tips; then beckoned to Jasper to join him in the lower hallway.
When Jasper had complied, Terwiliger went mysteriously toward the portals of the reception hall. He pushed one door aside, and entered the huge, silent room. Jasper followed into the musty atmosphere.
This place had not been to Jasper’s liking a short while ago; now, as Terwiliger flashed the rays of an electric torch, the dark woodwork of the reception hall seemed to lose much of its somberness. Somehow, the eerie presence was lacking.
JASPER regained his composure and watched Terwiliger’s beam flicker upon the balcony at the far end of the room. An exultant ejaculation came from the detective.
“What is it?” queried Jasper.
“As near as I can make it out,” declared Terwiliger, “that gallery is on a level with the stairway landing. Not only that — it’s just about on a line with it. Do you get what I mean, Mr. Delthern? Maybe the gallery could be an extension of the landing!”
“There’s a wall beside the stairway,” objected Jasper.
“I know that,” persisted Terwiliger, “but it’s oak paneling, too — just like the finishing in here. Say — how do I get up to that gallery—”
He began to swing the light about the room. It finally lodged upon the circular stairway in the corner. Terwiliger was about to start in that direction when Jasper stopped him.
“It’s rather foolish to go up there,” suggested Jasper. “Why not try the landing? It’s easier to get to — and its lighted.”
“You’re right,” agreed Terwiliger. “You’re getting my idea now. Come along, and we’ll go up the stairway.”
They reached the landing. Terwiliger chuckled as he tapped the paneling. He fancied that he heard a hollow sound. He suggested that fact. Jasper responded that all of the panels would probably sound the same, being set a trifle out from the interior wall.
“Maybe so,” declared the detective. “I know what you figure — solid wall all the way down the stairs. But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be an archway at this spot. Look here.”
The detective faced Jasper with a grim face. He went into his favorite role. Terwiliger loved to demonstrate the way that criminals might work.
“Here’s your brother Winstead,” explained the sleuth. “He’s looking down the stairs” — Terwiliger hunched his shoulders — “and he doesn’t notice what’s going on behind him. All of a sudden—”
The detective shifted his position. He backed himself against the panel, and assumed a murderous attitude. He scowled and glared as he looked toward the head of the stairs.
“This panel opens,” continued Terwiliger, playing the second part in his theme of death. “A man comes out” — Terwiliger’s arms extended — “and grabs your brother Winstead. Sort of weak and sickly, wasn’t he? Winstead, I mean.
“Well, this bird grabs him and gives him a big heave down those steps. Say” — the detective backed away from the precipitous descent — “it was a hundred-to-one shot that Winstead would never pick himself up after that bump!”
“Yet the panel is solid,” observed Jasper. “A man not only would have to walk through it; he would have to see through it to do the things you say. Forget it, Terwiliger. You’ve been dreaming!”
“Dreaming?” snorted the sleuth. “Listen — when I talk, I mean what I say. This panel has got a couple of divisions. Maybe one of them is a fake, if the whole thing isn’t.”
He began to work upon the smooth wood, but to no avail. Jasper Delthern expressed impatience as he turned to walk back to his study. Terwiliger looked up and raised his right forefinger impressively.
“Remember what I said?” he questioned. “I’ll bring in the evidence on the man behind these murders? You’ll be there — the chief will be there — in your office — when I hand it in with this fist?”
Terwiliger clenched his right hand, and laughed. He rapped the panel with his fist, and chuckled at a new idea.
“I’m on the right trail,” the sleuth insisted. “Leave it to me, Mr. Delthern. Go back there in your study. Wait until I call you. You’ll see me walking through this solid wall yet.