Nevertheless, Harry had something to report. He went to a telephone and called Burbank. He gave the information: that he had trailed Harland Mullrick to the Hotel Goliath.
Seated at his table, Burbank spoke in quiet tones, that The Shadow might hear. There was no response. Burbank swung about. He realized that he was alone. The Shadow had already gone. He was not here to receive Harry Vincent’s report.
A strange caprice of fate had manifested itself. The Shadow, with the list of four possible hotels, had gone to make a quick tour of investigation. There was only one chance in four that he would choose the Goliath first, in preference to the other hotels.
Meanwhile, Harry Vincent, though unsuccessful in his trailing of Harland Mullrick, had at least gained information which would have gone well with The Shadow’s list. Harry had seen the man from Mexico entering the lobby of the Goliath; that fact, taken at face value, eliminated the other three hotels.
Would The Shadow fail tonight? Would death strike without the intervention of his hand? These were questions that the coming minutes would answer. The key to grim events once more rested in the realm of chance.
Burbank, at his table, sensed an importance to Harry Vincent’s report. He signaled The Shadow’s sanctum. There was no response. He knew that The Shadow was abroad upon an important mission. He could only hope that he would soon hear from his mysterious chief.
There was no use in instructing Harry Vincent to remain at the Goliath. The Shadow’s agent could do nothing. Somehow, Burbank realized that The Shadow’s destination would eventually be that same hotel. How soon The Shadow would reach there was a matter of speculation.
Such was the situation. Death threatened. The Shadow sought the spot. Meanwhile, the game of doom was in its making!
CHAPTER XI
THE POISONED PIN
IT was exactly eight o’clock when Harry Vincent left the lobby of the Hotel Goliath after his futile effort to follow the trail of Harland Mullrick. At fifteen minutes past the hour, a telephone operator, answering a call registered on the hotel switchboard, was startled to hear the gasping of a man’s voice.
“Merk — Merk” — this was the inarticulate cry that reached the girl’s ears. “Merk—”
The gasp ended in a choke. There was the sound of the telephone tumbling to the floor. Hastily, the girl called the desk.
“Something has happened in thirteen seventy-eight,” she informed. “It sounds — it sounds like a man was dying!”
The nervous clerk looked about the lobby. He grabbed a bell boy by the arm, and sent him after the house detective, who was at the other side of the floor. The sleuth arrived; he heard the clerk’s statement. He hurried up to the thirteenth floor, the bell boy with him.
The door of Room 1378 had a spring lock. The house detective opened it with a pass key. He and the bellhop stood aghast after they had entered. In the corner, by the telephone table, a man was lying on the floor, the telephone beside him. His face was twisted in a hideous expression
The man was dead.
The house dick called detective headquarters. The response was prompt. Ten minutes later, Detective Joe Cardona and a police surgeon were in the room where death had struck. Cardona was gazing at the full, fat face of a short, rotund man, who appeared to be the victim of a murderer’s hand.
“He’s registered as H. J. Pelley, Columbus, Ohio,” informed the house detective. “I don’t think that’s his real name, though.”
“Why not?” questioned Cardona.
“Look in his suitcase,” said the house dick. “It was open; I didn’t touch anything in it, but I saw the top letter on a stack. It’s addressed, to Burton Blissip, Buffalo, New York.”
Cardona looked in the suitcase. He found a small stack of letters. Each was addressed to Burton Blissip. Cardona ran through them hastily. They consisted of bills and notices; mail which Blissip had evidently brought with him at the last minute before leaving Buffalo.
The swarthy sleuth went back to the corner of the room. The police surgeon was making his examination. He looked up as Cardona approached.
“The man has been poisoned,” he announced.
“How?”
“Evidently by an injection. Some virulent poison. I shall try to find the exact means.”
Cardona nodded. He looked at the table where the telephone had been. He noted a map spread out. It rested upon a big blotting pad, and it was studded with white-headed pins. The map showed the country of Mexico.
THE detective noticed that the pins were chiefly at the left of the map, indicating spots near the Pacific Ocean. Looking more closely, he observed that they ran along the range of the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Some of the pins were tilted at an angle. It was obvious that someone had been touching them with finger tips, moving the pins from point to point. Tiny holes punched in the surface of the map were proof of the latter fact.
Metatitos — Papasquiaro — Chavarria — Xoconostle — Huejuquilla — Cardona read these unfamiliar names of towns that were indicated, going southward from a spot in a state called Durango. Then his eye moved farther south, to the large city of Guadalajara. Here Cardona stopped
The head of the pin that marked Guadalajara was different from the others. It was white; but it was pressed flat. It was evidently formed of a soft clay, a putty used instead of harder substance. Someone had pressed that pin head. The gleam of metal showed through the white.
“Any signs of an injection mark?” questioned Cardona, turning to the police surgeon.
“None,” was the reply.
“Look on the victim’s right forefinger, doctor,” suggested the detective.
A moment later an exclamation came from the surgeon. He had discovered the mark.
“A puncture!” he declared. “On the tip of the right forefinger! Quite plain. It appears to be the cause of death.”
Cardona turned to the house detective.
“Go down to the lobby,” he ordered. “I expect Inspector Klein at any moment. Tell him where I am. Also warn the operators to intercept any telephone calls for this room.”
When the house detective reached the lobby, he saw a red-faced man standing near the desk. With him was a quietly dressed man of medium height. The house man decided that the first was Inspector Timothy Klein; the second another detective from headquarters. He was right. When he spoke to Klein, the inspector introduced him to Detective Jim Clausey.
“We’ll go up,” announced Klein.
As Klein and Clausey stalked away, the house dick watched them. Neither he nor the headquarters men saw another person who was interested in their actions. A stranger, tall and dignified, had entered through the revolving door while they were talking. His keen eyes sparkled as he watched the headquarters men go toward the elevators.
As the house dick turned away, the tall stranger followed after Klein and Clausey. To all appearances, he was merely a guest at the Goliath. But there was something in his manner and appearance that marked him as unusual.
DRESSED in black, wearing a dark soft hat, he made a somber figure as he strode easily but rapidly toward the elevators. His face was a masklike countenance. From it peered two vivid eyes. The principal feature of his visage was an aquiline nose that gave him a hawklike look.
This personage stepped aboard the same car with the inspector and the detective. He was holding what appeared to be a coat over his arm. Closer inspection would have shown it to be a black cloak. No one in the car, however, gave particular note to the stranger. He stood quietly in a corner, behind the other passengers.