Sauntering along the street, Mullrick leisurely entered a drug store. He went into an alcove. Harry, entering behind him, noted that Mullrick did not emerge. The Shadow’s agent sauntered by the spot where Mullrick had gone. An exclamation of ire came from Harry’s lips.
The alcove had a side door which opened on a little alley. Harland Mullrick had chosen it for a quick exit. The man whom Harry had been set to watch had cleverly eluded the agent who had taken up his trail!
CHAPTER VII
THE MEETING
IN the apartment above Mullrick’s, Burbank was carefully arranging shorthand reports which he had made of the conversations which he had heard. He placed the first notations at the left of the table.
A gloved hand came through the gloom. It plucked the notes from the table. While Burbank sat stolidly in his chair, The Shadow read the full discourse which Harland Mullrick had held with an unknown speaker.
A soft laugh sounded in the semidarkness. The Shadow knew the motive of the telephone call. The man who had communicated with Harland Mullrick was the first of the four who had been named on the list given Mullrick by Luis Santo.
The list existed now in Mullrick’s memory alone. Last night, Mullrick had dispatched a letter, which Pascual had mailed. The recipient had responded. Had Mullrick mentioned the name, The Shadow would have gained a clew.
All that The Shadow knew was this: somewhere in New York, a man would be in a taxicab, awaiting Mullrick’s appearance. The signal of a horn would be the token by which Mullrick could recognize the stranger whom he had planned to meet. Together, in the cab, the pair would be free to ride to the stranger’s apartment. There a discussion could be held.
The Shadow plucked the second report from the table. This was the account of Mullrick’s conversation with Herston. Its purpose was obvious. Mullrick, after his first call, had decided that an alibi might prove useful after tonight; and he had arranged for that alibi to begin prior to nine o’clock.
The Shadow laughed. Even Burbank, accustomed to the occasional presence of The Shadow, felt the chill of that sinister taunt. The Shadow was studying Harland Mullrick’s game. Keenly, he could shape the intentions of the man who had come from Mexico. But without a clew to the place of the nine-o’clock meeting, or the destination to which the taxicab would go, The Shadow was powerless.
Burbank sensed the situation. As he answered a low buzz which indicated a telephone call, he hoped that this would be news of value. Burbank’s monotonous voice conducted a short conversation. When the call was ended, the tones remained the same. They did not show the disappointment which Burbank felt.
“Report from Vincent,” he announced, in his quiet way. “Mullrick slipped away from him. Went out through a side entrance of a drug store. Next corner down the street.”
The swish of a cloak. Again, Burbank felt a gust of wind. He knew that The Shadow had made another exit by the window.
Had the report of Vincent’s failure inspired The Shadow to drastic action? Burbank did not know. He had not seen into the apartment below while Mullrick had been talking on the telephone.
A LONG black shape was pressed against the wall of the apartment house. Steadily, The Shadow was descending. A smudgy sound gave evidence of the method which he used to move along the precipitous wall. With rubber cups affixed to hands and feet, The Shadow was moving downward in flylike fashion.
Burning eyes peered through the window of Mullrick’s apartment; not the window opposite the door, but the window at the side, near the telephone table. Mullrick had left the sash unlocked. Slowly, The Shadow raised it.
Pascual was standing by the window opposite the door. He did not see the long, black-garbed arm that came in from the side. The Shadow’s left hand was no longer gloved. It had been released from its rubber cup. The girasol glimmered with fantastic rays as stealthy fingers noiselessly tore away the sheet of paper that now topped the telephone pad.
Hand and arm disappeared. The window sash closed. But Pascual, like Burbank, noted a gust of wind. Swinging, the servant stared toward the window which had glided shut.
With a spring, Pascual reached the spot and raised the sash. He stared out into the night. His gaze went upward.
With a horrified exclamation, the stolid Mexican staggered back. Superstitiously, he cowered. For in that instant of upward staring, he had seen a weird apparition, a creature that appeared to be a mammoth bat, spreading its mighty wings.
Burning eyes! Pascual had seen them. The monster had met his gaze. After his momentary spell of terror, Pascual leaped again to the window. His eyes glittered as his hand drew forth a long machete, the knife which Pascual well could wield. With the weapon in his grasp, the Mexican shot his head from the window and peered upward. There was no sign of the creature which he had seen before.
Pascual sank back in relief. He muttered to himself as he closed the window. He trembled as he gripped the machete. His mumbled words were audible.
“Vampiros! Vampiros!”
Unafraid of human foe, Pascual had quailed at sight of what he believed must be the supernatural. Nothing human could have clung to that perpendicular wall.
Pascual locked the window. His breath came in long hisses as he watched for the return of the weird monster. He hoped only that the giant bat had flown.
The Shadow had returned to the apartment above. He stopped at a table in a darkened room. The rays of his tiny flashlight cast a vivid focus upon the sheet of paper which he had taken from Mullrick’s apartment.
With the fingers of his right hand, The Shadow sprinkled a powder that resembled graphite. It formed a grayish-black coating on the slip of paper. With easy, rubbing motion, the fingers smudged the powder. A wave of the hand dispelled loose particles.
Where Harland Mullrick’s pencil had made indentations through the top sheet of the pad — the sheet which Mullrick had destroyed — marks of black revealed the notations on the second sheet. In a faint inscription, like a carbon tracing, The Shadow read the statements:
Club Galaxy.
Nine o’clock.
Taxi signals.
To Commander Apartments.
The hand of The Shadow crumpled the piece of paper. The light went out. The luminous dial of a watch appeared in the darkness. Its hands indicated fourteen minutes before nine. Moments of silence in the darkness; the light returned.
The Shadow’s hand, now gloved, stretched toward the table. Its long forefinger traced a triangle in a film of dust. The points represented three places. The long side showed the space between the Club Galaxy — well known in Manhattan — and the uptown apartments known as the Commander.
The third point of the triangle was The Shadow’s present location. It lay closer to each of the other points than they did to one another. Strategically, it offered opportunity. The Shadow, if he could not reach the Club Galaxy before nine o’clock, could certainly arrive at the Commander Apartments and be waiting there when the taxicab appeared.
The Shadow’s choice lay purely in his study of the situation. Would the menace of murder arise before the cab reached the apartments? Or would it exist only when the riders had gained their destination?
The Shadow’s laugh gave the answer. The light clicked off. The Shadow moved through darkness.
NINE o’clock. The strident gong of a huge advertising clock near Times Square was blasting forth the hour, following a medley of discordant chimes. A hard-faced man with military stride stepped up to a taxicab.
“Club Galaxy,” he ordered. “Make it in a hurry.”
“It’s only down this side street,” protested the cab driver. “Half a block is all—”