IN the meantime, a squad of men suddenly burst into the lighted room where the two dead bodies lay.
Detective Joe Cardona, his swarthy face grim and his sharp eyes moving quickly, surveyed the inert forms of Thomas Jocelyn and the pretended servant, Grewson. Cardona saw that they were dead.
“Try that door over there,” he ordered.
Two detectives followed the direction that The Shadow had taken. They reported that the next room was empty. Cardona ordered a thorough search.
While his men were busy, he studied the bodies more carefully. Swift, silent death had struck here tonight.
While Cardona was awaiting the arrival of the police surgeon, another officer suddenly appeared at the door of the room. It was Detective Sergeant Mayhew. Cardona saw that the man was bringing important news.
“Gawky Tyson has been killed!” announced Mayhew. “They ganged him down at Red Mike’s!”
“Yes?” questioned Cardona. “Why?”
“Some one passed the tip that he was a stool pigeon. That was the end of him. The killers made a get-away. Not much chance of trailing them. But listen, Joe — I found out something important. Larry Ricordo was there tonight.”
“At Red Mike’s?”
“Yes. Red Mike admitted it. Says that Ricordo talked over the telephone and—”
“That proves it!” interposed Cardona. “It proves my hunch, Mayhew. When word came down to headquarters that there was trouble here, I came up to this place myself. I figured Larry Ricordo might be in it.
“Gawky probably got the lay and was going to tip us off, like he did the other night, when he watched Slips Harbeck. Larry Ricordo is in back of this, Mayhew. It’s murder this time; double murder!”
Cardona picked up the telephone and called Inspector Timothy Klein. The detective was anxious to release all possible mechanisms that would aid the law in a widespread effort to capture Larry Ricordo.
Through radio patrol, the order would go out to arrest all suspects who might prove to be the wanted gang leader.
THE arrival of the police surgeon brought new food for thought. The appearance of the dead men was perplexing to the physician. He pointed to the bodies as he gave the detective a temporary explanation.
“This one” — the surgeon indicated Grewson — “appears to have succumbed quickly to the effects of some poison fumes. The other” — the doctor motioned toward Jocelyn — “was given poison in a liquid state. His death was prolonged. He must have been alive up to the time you entered.”
Joe Cardona stared at the pitiful form of Thomas Jocelyn. He noted the sealed lips thin and drawn in death.
What could those lips have said? What could Jocelyn have known?
Cardona regretted that he had not arrived in time to question the dying man. Little did the ace detective realize that had he been there to make such a quiz, it would have meant his own demise!
The glassy eyes of the dead financier were toward the ceiling. Their vacant stare was eloquent. They showed the traces of a fury that made Cardona continue to wish that he could have heard Jocelyn’s last words. That was impossible now. No one had heard them, Cardona decided.
The detective was correct in his assumption; but as he studied Jocelyn’s lips again, he forgot the dead man’s eyes. Cardona did not realize that where lips had been futile, eyes had managed. Cardona would have been amazed had he known that Jocelyn’s eyes had aided in the delivery of a final message.
Larry Ricordo! The gang leader was the man that Joe Cardona wanted. The detective’s thought did not go beyond; Cardona had not yet reached the stage of searching for a supermind higher than Ricordo.
Such consideration had been undertaken only by The Shadow. He was the one who had looked beyond Larry Ricordo. The Shadow, ignoring Jocelyn’s dying words, incoherently gasped amid exhalations of deadly fumes, had gained the name he sought.
The Shadow was gone, with no trace of his mysterious presence behind him. The Shadow had seen both Grewson and Jocelyn die. The Shadow had learned of Professor Folcroft Urlich, through the single name which he had gleaned from Thomas Jocelyn.
The master of darkness had departed, to wage combat with the master of silent death.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE LABORATORY
Two men lay huddled at the side of Professor Urlich’s laboratory. Propped against the wall, their hands bound behind them, Cliff Marsland and Clyde Burke stared wearily at the scientist and the gang leader who stood beside him.
Both of The Shadow’s agents had taken hard bumps in their encounter with Larry Ricordo’s gorillas.
Clyde Burke, in particular, showed signs of genuine grogginess. Cliff had been overpowered by a swift attack; Clyde had gone down from a single sharp blow.
It was Clyde’s condition that gave Cliff Marsland a cue. Knowing that his companion was actually in a state of inertia, Cliff feigned the same condition. Thus both were able to avoid some of the questions that Larry Ricordo was pumping at them: questions which pertained to the activities of The Shadow.
Clyde Burke’s presence at the spot where Cliff Marsland had been taken was not merely coincidence.
The Shadow had foreseen the possibility of some one following Cliff when he left Red Mike’s. Through Rutledge Mann, Clyde had been instructed to remain in the vicinity of the place where Cliff put in his regular phone calls.
As a reporter who handled crime news, Clyde Burke made frequent excursions into the bad lands. His duty had been a simple one; failure had occurred partly through his own lack of vigilance and partly through a surprising display of stealth on the side of Ricordo’s mobsters.
Now was no time for regret. The present objective — Cliff was the one who saw it clearly — was to avoid all troublesome questions. Thus Larry Ricordo’s ugly threats and his imprecations, directed chiefly at Cliff, brought nothing more than indifference and evasion.
“So you’re The Shadow’s stool, eh?” queried Ricordo. “What about this other mug — your buddy who carries a reporter’s card. What was he doing when we grabbed you?”
Cliff Marsland half opened his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. No reply was the best way to deal with Ricordo’s questions. The gang leader spat a series of oaths, and swung to face Professor Urlich.
“See what you can get out of him!” growled Ricordo. “You wanted me to bring him here. Maybe you can make him squawk!”
“There is no need for haste,” returned the scientist, with a calm, evil smile. “As a matter of fact, Ricordo, questioning is hardly necessary.”
“Why not?”
“We may consider two assumptions,” remarked the professor, in tones that came coldly to Cliff Marsland’s ears. “One: that these men can give us no information of consequence. Two: that if either of them does know facts, they will give them voluntarily, under proper treatment.
“If they know nothing, they are useless. Therefore, it would be best to destroy them. If they know something, they will cry it forth as the only hope of life when they see the fate that is planned for them.”
Professor Urlich’s gleaming smile widened in wicked proportions.
HIS statements worried Cliff Marsland. The Shadow’s agent realized that he and his fellow prisoner were being classified as biological specimens suitable for some experiment. Cliff sensed a terrible menace ahead.
“Furthermore,” added Professor Urlich, “I am confident that there has been no failure in the plan which I devised for tonight. At this present minute, Thomas Jocelyn is probably dead; and The Shadow with him.
“In fact, I am so positive of my success that I see no reason why I should not destroy these trouble-makers without further delay. Nevertheless, I enjoy experimental killing. The time may come when I shall choose to make dying men talk. If I can produce such result with these victims, I shall add another page to my book of scientific research.”