The instrument thus introduced was the microphone of a dictograph. While apparently doing no more than make a choice of tools, the radio installer had completed his secret work. He swung back to the radio, gave it a final test, then picked up his tools and walked across the living room.
“All installed,” he remarked, as he passed Mullrick. “Your guarantee card is on the cabinet.”
Mullrick looked up from his newspaper, in time, only, to catch another glimpse of the fellow’s back. He saw the installer walk out through the door. Then the soft tones of the radio attracted his attention. He went to the cabinet and busied himself with the dials.
The big man who had helped carry the radio set had gone out while the installer was at work. Harland Mullrick thought no more of the matter. The fact that he had not caught a single glimpse of the radio installer’s face seemed a very trivial matter indeed.
THE man who had left the apartment, however, performed certain actions which would have interested Harland Mullrick. Carrying his tool kit, he went to the elevator, but he took the car up instead of down. On the corridor above, he chose the door marked 5H; the apartment directly above Mullrick’s. Here he went to an inner room. He sat at a table and worked with an apparatus that lay before him. The tones of the radio in Mullrick’s apartment became plainly audible.
The wire that went under the window ledge connected here! Cleverly attached to the brick surface of the outer wall, it formed a direct hook-up with this apartment above!
Only one person could have so neatly completed such an arrangement — The Shadow! It was he that Pascual had heard leaving the window. Silent though The Shadow was, the act of drilling had been slightly apparent to the keen Mexican servant!
Who was the man who had made the final attachment? The answer came when the false radio installer turned off the dictograph connection and picked up a set of ear phones. As a light glimmered on a panel, he announced his identity by telephone.
“Burbank speaking.”
From the ear phones came a sinister whisper:
“Report.”
“Delivered set which Vincent placed on approval,” announced Burbank. “Dictograph connection completed.”
“Report received,” came the answer. “New instructions.”
“Ready.”
“Vincent to watch front of apartment. Trail Mullrick when he comes out.”
“Instructions received,” responded Burbank, in quiet answer to The Shadow’s amazing whisper.
Burbank, contact agent for The Shadow, was on the job. With dictograph handy, with a line established to The Shadow’s sanctum, with his telephone number given to The Shadow’s agents, he represented the hidden center of the network which The Shadow had created to cover Harland Mullrick.
IN the hour that followed, Burbank, listening at the dictophone, gained one piece of information which he forwarded to The Shadow. Harland Mullrick had gone out to dinner. Before he had left, he had told Pascual that he expected to be back at eight o’clock; that if anyone called by telephone to tell them to make another call at that hour.
An odd feature of Burbank’s report was that Mullrick’s brief conversation with Pascual, held in mingled Spanish and English, had not been fully understood by Burbank. Nevertheless, the quiet contact agent had repeated every syllable exactly as he had heard it. The Shadow comprehended.
Shortly after eight o’clock, Burbank forwarded two new reports. One was Harry Vincent’s; the other was Burbank’s own. Harry had watched Mullrick at dinner in a restaurant near the Belisarius Arms; he had followed the man back to the apartment building.
Burbank, at the dictograph, had heard Mullrick reenter his apartment and question Pascual regarding telephone calls. None had been received. It was obvious that Mullrick intended to wait until such a call came through.
Fifteen minutes later, Burbank, listening at the dictograph, heard the telephone bell ring in Mullrick’s apartment. A moment afterward, Burbank sensed that someone was standing close behind him. He knew that The Shadow had arrived. Raising one hand, the capable contact man spoke quietly.
“The call is coming through,” he said. “I am getting it.”
Something swished in the darkness. The Shadow had gone. Burbank, as he listened, felt a sudden gust of breeze. He knew where The Shadow had gone. The master of darkness had raised a window of this upper apartment. He was going down the wall to peer into Mullrick’s place. He would see what happened there while Burbank heard!
IN his apartment, Mullrick was at the telephone in the living room. Pascual, knowing that this call was important, was standing stolidly by the entry door. The servant suspected that someone might be listening there. Had The Shadow come by that route tonight, he would have encountered the watchful Mexican. The Shadow, however, was watching from without.
He could see Mullrick’s form. He could not, however, observe the tall man’s face, for Mullrick, as he telephoned, had his back turned toward the window.
“Hello?” Mullrick’s tone was anxious. “Ah, yes… This is Mr. Mullrick… You received my letter?… Good… I would not give the details by letter… You will see me, you say… Tonight… Yes, I can come to meet you… Yes…”
Mullrick wrote some words upon the surface of a telephone pad. He nodded as he did so. He was listening to the arrangement which the other was proposing.
“I shall meet you there,” he said. “Nine o’clock… I shall be waiting… You are coming in a cab… Yes, I can join you when the driver signals with the horn… Then to your apartment to discuss matters…”
Mechanically, Mullrick inscribed another notation. He listened a few moments longer, then added a final remark.
“If something should prevent me from being at the meeting place, do not wait more than four or five minutes. You can call me here again, tomorrow, in case we should miss connections… Yes; I shall surely see you… Tonight, if possible…”
Mullrick arose from the telephone. He tore the slip of paper from the pad.
He held it close before his eyes, and slowly read its contents. He tore it to tiny fragments, then opened the window by the telephone table and tossed the particles of paper into the breeze.
“Adios, papel blanco,” he said. “Goodby, white paper with lost information. Pascual” — Mullrick turned to the Mexican and broke loose in Spanish — “you know the story of the spider and the fly? How the fly walks into the spider’s parlor — and remains?”
Pascual nodded.
“Sometimes,” added Mullrick, “it is the fly himself who provides the parlor. Funny, eh, Pascual? Then the spider must be wise. Because, Pascual, the fly may be wise, also.”
Mullrick spent a few minutes in thought. Then, a wily gleam on his face, he again went to the telephone. He called a number and recognized the voice of Jerry Herston.
“Hello, Jerry,” he said. “I want to see you tonight… No, not there… Suppose I meet you… Yes, that’s a good place… About nine o’clock… Listen, Jerry; make it ten minutes before nine… If I’m not there right on the minute, wait — as long as necessary… Yes… But let your watch stop with you. Understand? Ten minutes of nine is when we meet…”
Hanging up the receiver, Harland Mullrick swung to Pascual. He called for his hat and coat. Donning the garments, he strode from the apartment.
No hidden eyes were watching Harland Mullrick now. The Shadow had departed from his place of observation at the window. Only one person remained to pick up Harland Mullrick’s trail. That was Harry Vincent, out in front of the apartment house
As Harland Mullrick came into Harry’s view, he threw rapid glances in both directions. He seemed to be suspicious of observant eyes, even though he did not see the man who was watching him.