“What’s the idea?” he quizzed. “No one is supposed to be in this room. What are you doing here?”
“I–I - I have discovered something,” stammered Carmody. “Something very important. Yes — it may be very important.”
“What is it?”
Carmody hesitated. He did not care to discuss this matter with the detective alone. He preferred to talk to Dobson Pringle.
There was a peculiar challenge in Hembroke’s gaze; and Carmody suddenly repented of his action in dabbing these plans with red blotches. What would a police detective know about building diagrams? Carmody became suddenly reliant.
“I must talk to Mr. Pringle,” he asserted. “It is very important that I should do so.”
“Mr. Pringle has gone home,” returned Hembroke. “I was just looking around here to see that the place was empty. I saw you come into this room.”
“I can call Mr. Pringle,” pleaded Carmody. “Really — I must discuss a most important matter with him. Very important.”
“I’ll call him,” said Hembroke shortly.
The detective picked up a telephone. He found that it was not connected.
“I’ll have to go out to the switchboard,” he decided. “Come along. I’ll call Pringle.”
Clutching his precious plans, Carmody preceded the suspicious detective. As he saw Hembroke pick up the telephone, the architect supplied him with Pringle’s number.
“It’s unlisted,” he explained. “Call Mr. Pringle right away. It’s very important.”
Hembroke put in the call. Within a few minutes, he was talking with the president of the Amalgamated Builders.
“This is Detective Hembroke,” explained the sleuth. “I’m in the office in the Amalgamated Building… Just ready to leave… One of your men here — Carmody, the architect… I found him in the conference room… Wants to talk with you about some plans…”
“Tell him I must see him before the meeting!” exclaimed Carmody, in a tense voice. “I want to see him in the conference room!”
“Wants to see you personally,” resumed Hembroke. “Says he wants to see you in the conference room — before tonight’s meeting… No, he hasn’t told me what it’s about. He’s all excited, and he’s got a whole stack of diagrams with him… Say — maybe I ought to take this bird down to headquarters… What’s that? No… Yes, I understand… All right, Mr. Pringle… ”
Hembroke hung up the telephone and turned toward Carmody with a disgruntled air.
“This is a poor time to start acting loony,” observed the detective, “but your boss gives you an O.K. Says he knows you’re all right. He’s coming down here as soon as he finishes dinner. Says for you to wait for him in the conference room.”
“Good!” exclaimed Carmody, in a breathless tone.
“I’m leaving here,” observed Hembroke. “I’m supposed to be out by seven. I don’t like the idea of you staying — but it’s on Pringle’s say-so. Come on.”
Hembroke conducted the architect back to the conference room. He pointed to a chair by the table. Carmody seated himself; Hembroke stalked about the room, and stared suspiciously at every corner. Satisfied that all was well, he went out and closed the door of the little anteroom behind him.
The detective paused to listen for a few minutes; then shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way. He left the offices of the Amalgamated Builders’ Association, and took an elevator to the ground floor.
In the conference room, Carlton Carmody waited until he was sure that the detective was really gone. Then, with an eager smile, the architect spread the plans on the table before him. His eyes were agog as he surveyed those charts — each of which now bore a crimson spot.
Minutes dragged by. Carlton Carmody was like a man in a trance as he noted the features of the plans. He was unconscious of the passage of time, concentrated solely upon the diagrams before him. Forty minutes passed. It was nearly half past seven, and he was still immersed in his work.
Suddenly, the lights of the conference room went out. After that event, Carlton Carmody knew no more.
This was the prelude to crime that was to follow, elsewhere as well as in this very room.
CHAPTER XVIII
ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
IT was precisely nine o’clock when Lamont Cranston appeared within the portals of the Club Janeiro. There was something mysterious about the millionaire’s arrival. The head waiter, watching the usual entrances, did not see him until after he was seated at a table far from the screened archway that led to the offices.
There was a reason for this phenomenon. Cranston had come in by one of the side corridors — a route which the police had searched in the belief that Socks Mallory had escaped by such an exit on the eventful evening when Tony Loretti had been slain.
In fact, Cranston had done more than simply enter. He had paid a brief visit to the center of the three offices; there, he had deposited a bundle in an inconspicuous spot beneath a desk.
The millionaire had not lingered long, however. The voice of Juanita Pasquales, speaking over the telephone in an adjacent office, had caused him to stroll away before the call was completed.
When he noted Cranston, the head water immediately started toward the screened archway. He must have met Senorita Pasquales before he reached the office, for the man returned quite promptly; and the proprietress of the Club Janeiro appeared a few minutes later.
Five minutes went by; then the events of a slowly unfolding drama began their occurrence. The head waiter, stopping at a table where four men were seated, passed a card to one of them. This fellow, a heavy, full-faced man, who looked like an old-line political boss, nodded his head. He spoke in a low tone to his three companions.
Lamont Cranston, calmly puffing at a cigarette, observed the happening with an eagle gaze. Impassive, betraying no interest whatever, the hawk-visaged millionaire understood what was transpiring as clearly as if he had been one of the distant group.
The bluff-faced man was “Dynamite” Hoskins, a former denizen of New York’s underworld, whose persistent use of fuse and bomb had caused him to depart for places unknown. Back in Manhattan, Dynamite was making his first reappearance at the Club Janeiro.
At the end of the interval which followed the head waiter’s message, Dynamite Hoskins arose and strolled past the fringe of tables that surrounded the dance floor of the night club. The spotlight was on the floor; couples were dancing there; and the passage of this one man was unnoticed — with one exception.
Lamont Cranston, his keen eye watching through the semi-gloom, saw Dynamite pass behind the screen that led to the office archway. A few moments later, Juanita Pasquales left in the same direction.
More minutes passed; then Cranston himself arose. Quietly, he strolled to the edge of the screen, paused, and stepped out of sight.
THE action brought an immediate response from the three men whom Dynamite Hoskins had left. They arose together, slunk toward the side of the big room, and sneaked in file toward the spot where they had last seen the departing millionaire.
Short, crouching forms; tight, tough fists that gripped stub-nosed revolvers; these were the three that took up Cranston’s trail. Smooth and shaven faces had given a very flimsy gloss to these thugs. A stalking trio, they were now displaying themselves as hardened gorillas — paid assassins of the bad lands.
Meanwhile, Lamont Cranston had passed the crossing of the corridors. In fact, he had paused there a moment. Eyes from one hallway had seen his standing form. As Cranston went on toward the central office, Juanita Pasquales slipped into an empty dressing room and pushed back a cloak that hung in a corner of the wall.
Hesitating — almost fearful of the deed she was now to perform — the woman pressed the button and let the cloak fall back in place. Hastening to the door of the dressing room, Juanita was just in time to see the three stalking gorillas pass the crossing of the corridors.