“Do you think Cardona will find him?”
“No. Not unless he bobs up again. That would be a big mistake. Slugs ought to keep under cover.”
“What do they say about him in the underworld?”
“They knew he had dug out somewhere. He knows plenty of men who have dough. Working around the speaks, you know. That gave him the acquaintances. The boys in the bad lands all figured that Slugs had gone in for some gilt-edged work — nice dough and a chance to lay low. Say—”
“What is it?” questioned Mullrick anxiously.
“If Cardona had found out anything about that Luis Santo business, he’d see a hook-up quick enough. Slugs would have been just the guy to hide out on a boat for a while. With some of his outfit, too. Those birds that must have chucked Santo overboard—”
“Confine yourself to known facts,” suggested Mullrick suavely. “Keep to this affair of last night. What chance does Cardona have of finding Slugs Raffney?”
“None,” decided Jerry. “Slugs has taken to cover. His mob is wiped out — if there’s any of them left, they were under cover all the while, and Slugs is probably with them now.”
“All right,” said Mullrick. “Well, if he can’t get Slugs, what will Cardona do?”
“He’ll look for the guy in the gray fedora,” asserted Jerry Herston, in an emphatic tone.
“Why?” asked Mullrick.
“Because,” said Herston, “he’s got a good theory. The guy with the hat hasn’t shown up, has he?” Herston pointed to the columns in the late newspaper. “All right; that’s given Cardona the hunch that the whole lay was a set-up. Selbrig groggy in the taxi. The other guy gets out; as soon as he’s in the apartment house, up comes the mob and gives Selbrig the works. Made to look like a mob killing.
“It would have been O.K. if the cops hadn’t butted in. When they found that Slugs Raffney was in on the game, the job looked different.”
“I guess you’re right, Jerry,” mused Mullrick.
“It was a pretty neat job at that,” asserted Herston, in an approving tone. “Things went wrong — that’s all. Just the same, it looked better than this finesse stuff you were talking about. A bunch of gats work better than tricks.”
“At times,” agreed Mullrick. “In Mexico, however, I have seen some murders that were intriguing, to say the least.”
A pause. Finally, Mullrick arose. He went to the clothes closet, put on his coat, and took out his gray soft hat. He smiled as he adjusted it jauntily on his head.
“Don’t mind being seen with me, do you, Jerry?” he questioned, with a laugh.
“Me?” Jerry snorted. “I’ve got a gray hat, too. Besides that, I’m the best alibi maker in New York. Don’t forget that.”
As the two neared the door, Mullrick noted that Pascual had come into the living room. He drew an envelope from his pocket. He handed it to the servant.
“Be sure and mail this, Pascual,” he said. “Put a stamp on it; send it later. Senor Herston and I are going out. We shall have dinner together. Back by midnight.”
The words were a jargon of English mixed with Spanish terms. Pascual nodded to show that he understood. When the two men had gone, the servant affixed a stamp to the letter and laid the envelope on the telephone table.
SOME minutes afterward, the door of the apartment opened softly. The tall form of The Shadow entered the room. Pascual was absent.
Peering from the entry, The Shadow spied the letter. With swift, stealthy stride, he covered the space between entry and table. He picked up the envelop.
The Shadow stared. The letter was addressed to Harland Mullrick, at this address! Suspecting trickery, The Shadow deftly opened the flap, which was insecurely sealed. A folded sheet of paper came forth. It was blank!
Without delay, The Shadow resealed the envelope. He replaced it on the table. He glided from the living room.
Pascual entered. He stared about suspiciously; he failed to see The Shadow’s form. The secret visitant had stepped behind the projecting side of the archway. Pascual went over to the letter. Momentarily, his view of the entry was obscured. The outer door opened, and The Shadow glided forth.
The next token of The Shadow’s presence came when a light clicked in his sanctum. The Shadow’s hands appeared beneath the light. The girasol sparkled as the hands spread clippings that had come from Rutledge Mann.
Then came stenographic reports of Burbank’s. These included all that had been said in Mullrick’s apartment. The Shadow considered the brief talk between Mullrick and Pascual. He viewed the detailed conversation that Mullrick had held with Herston.
Through Mullrick’s conversation, The Shadow was reading the man’s thoughts. He traced the fact that Mullrick, unquestionably a diplomat, frequently veiled the ideas that passed through his brain. He could see how Mullrick had sounded Herston out.
The Shadow also gave close attention to the words of Pascual and Mullrick’s reception of them. A laugh crept through the sanctum. Upon a sheet of paper, The Shadow traced these conclusions:
Pascual talks of vampires.
Mullrick knows he has seen something.
He fears hidden intruders.
The letter he gave Pascual is a hoax.
A pause. The Shadow’s hand lingered long above the paper. The words that were written began to disappear. They vanished, one by one, as though wiped out by an unseen hand. When only blankness remained, The Shadow wrote this statement:
Mullrick is mailing the second letter himself.
This was the final conclusion. It was written slowly in even script. The words were watched by unseen eyes. When they began to fade, the drying ink disappeared with the same precision as the making of the inscription itself. Letter by letter, The Shadow’s statement passed into oblivion — save in the mind of the master investigator.
The light clicked off. The Shadow’s laugh reverberated through the thick darkness. Another test was coming. It would arrive when Harland Mullrick heard from the recipient of the second letter.
Roy Selbrig had died. What would be the fate of the next man? The hidden knowledge of The Shadow would be needed in the approaching crisis. If the second man of four arrived to keep a rendezvous, it would behoove The Shadow to be there.
Danger loomed; The Shadow knew it. He was one who relished danger, this phantom who fought with crime. The Shadow’s laugh, as it died grotesquely, seemed to show his scorn for the plotter whose plans confronted him.
The death of Roy Selbrig was but the stimulus for new efforts on The Shadow’s part. The fading laugh in the sanctum dwindled to a final mockery. The Shadow was gone.
CHAPTER X
ONE THREE SEVEN EIGHT
THREE days after the startling events which had marked the death of Roy Selbrig, a short, rotund man entered the lobby of the Hotel Goliath, in New York. He signed the register, marking his name as H. J. Pelley, of Columbus, Ohio. He was assigned Room 1378.
There was something furtive in the bearing of this man who called himself Pelley. The characteristic displayed itself as soon as he was alone in his room on the thirteenth floor. He sat at a writing table in the corner, and stared out into the growing dusk that formed a cloudy haze above Manhattan. Then, with a slight show of nervousness, he picked up the telephone and called a number.
“Mullrick?” he inquired, when he heard a voice over the wire. “Good. This is Burton Blissip, of Buffalo… Received your letter…”
A pause while Blissip listened to Mullrick talk in a matter-of-fact tone. Then the rotund man took up the conversation.
“Followed your advice,” he said. “Nobody knows I’ve come to New York. My name here is — well, never mind that… I’ll tell you where I am… Room 1378… Hotel Goliath, yes…”