Tobold’s killer was bound on a swift escape. Moe Shrevnitz, coming dazedly to an upright position, was unable to start in pursuit. He heard footsteps pounding on the sidewalk. Cliff Marsland came dashing up — also too late to prevent the killer’s flight.
A few moments later, The Shadow arrived from the rear door of the pawn shop. The taxi had rounded the next corner; but the sight of Cliff lifting Moe to his feet told The Shadow what had happened.
Halting in the blackness of the doorway, The Shadow heard wailing sirens. Then came the clatter of nightsticks on distant pavement.
Scurrying mobsters had fled. Patrolmen were coming toward this vicinity. Patrol cars had heard the firing.
Soon the police would be on the job. A quick-moving, hunch-shouldered man was coming up from the corner. It was Hawkeye, looking for Cliff.
Moe had been detailed to pick up Cliff and Hawkeye. His cab gone, Moe was unable to perform this duty. It was up to the other agents to take him along with them. Mobsters defeated, there was no cause to linger.
Moe was on his feet, steady enough to travel. Cliff pointed across the street. Hawkeye nodded, agreeing that that was the proper direction to take.
A hiss from the doorway. The Shadow’s agents turned. They heard a commanding whisper, brief instructions from their darkness-shrouded chief.
Acting in response, they changed direction. The trio headed into a little passageway behind the pawnshop. The Shadow had pointed them to the course that Homer Hothan had taken, through to the courtyard by the shed.
For The Shadow knew that Hothan must have found an open path. The same way would give his agents opportunity to depart before the police arrived. As the three men ducked through the passage to the courtyard, The Shadow wheeled and returned into the pawnshop.
He reached the upstairs room. His flashlight glimmered upon old Tobold’s prostrate form. The pawnbroker was almost gone. His breathing was forced and wheezy. Glassy-eyed, he blinked into The Shadow’s light.
“The — the skull,” gasped Tobold. “They — they took the jewels — with the skull. They wanted — the silver skull. I–I don’t know why. The silver — the silver skull—”
Wearily, the old man closed his eyelids. His voice ended with a sigh. Muscles relaxed; the withered form rolled upon the floor. Channing Tobold was dead, murdered like Hildrew Parchell.
BUT the aged pawnbroker was no victim of Homer Hothan. The sallow-faced killer had failed tonight.
His wild flight had been genuine. The Shadow knew that Hothan would have lacked the nerve required to return.
Channing Tobold had been slain by a more potent murderer. A new killer had entered the picture. The big-shot who was after wealth had taken a hand in the game. The evil worker had backed Hothan with a squad of mobsters, in case a raid should prove necessary at Tobold’s.
Hothan had fled. The Shadow had dispelled the mobster crew. The fight had been carried to the front of the old building. All the while, the big crook of the lot had been in readiness. He had lurked somewhere in reserve; then had stepped in to act when others had failed.
That this unknown killer had nerve was an apparent fact. Gunfire must have told him that his plans had gone awry; nevertheless, he had moved straight into the danger zone. In some fashion, he had persuaded Channing Tobold to unbolt the door. This was added proof of the killer’s cold-blooded ability.
As The Shadow had divined, Homer Hothan was no more than a tool. The one-time secretary was a weakling, inspired to action by a chief who dominated him. The elimination of Hothan, should The Shadow find new opportunity for it, would still leave the big-shot at large.
Whistles sounded outside of the building. Pounding footsteps echoed on both stairways of the pawnshop.
The police were here, closing in on this room where death had struck.
The Shadow’s flashlight clicked out. A swish sounded by the window.
The Shadow had chosen Hothan’s route: Through the window, to the shed below. Reaching the courtyard, he had time to pick his way through darkened spaces toward a street a block away.
FLASHLIGHTS came on in the room where Tobold’s body lay. A patrolman noted the gas jet; he heard its hiss. Striking a match, the uniformed man lighted the gas.
The flickering flame showed four bluecoats. Two had entered from one doorway; two from the other.
These were the vanguard of the law.
Among the sprawled mobsters, only one showed any signs of life. Dying, this gorilla opened his eyes and stared at the police. He snarled at sight of the harness bulls; then coughed his last.
Patrol cars were coming up a block away. Hastening to the scene of strife, the occupants failed to see the blackened figure that was gliding across a deserted street. Others, foes and friends, had left before The Shadow.
He, too, was departing from the area where crime had struck.
A whispered laugh echoed in darkness. The Shadow’s mirth could well have been interpreted as a grim warning to the enemies of crime who had escaped him. Theft and murder had been accomplished tonight, despite The Shadow. A trail had been broken.
But, to The Shadow, this was just a new beginning. He had gained steps along the needed track. This master of vengeance was determined to trace men of evil to their lairs.
CHAPTER IX. THE HEIR ARRIVES
IT was the next evening. Weldon Wingate was seated at the big desk in the office of his penthouse.
Opposite him was Selwood Royce. The young millionaire was reading an evening newspaper.
“Very odd circumstances,” remarked Royce, as Wingate watched him. “Even if there is no connection between this robbery at the pawnshop and—”
Royce broke off. The door had opened from the anteroom. Braddock stood there with an announcement.
“Roger Parchell has arrived?” inquired Wingate. “Show him in, Braddock.”
“It is not Roger Parchell, sir,” returned Braddock. “It is the gentleman who was here yesterday. Mr. Lamont Cranston, sir; and he wants to see you.”
“Show him in,” ordered Wingate, in an irritated tone.
The Shadow entered. Calm in his guise of Lamont Cranston, he noted a certain hostility on the part of Weldon Wingate. Selwood Royce, however, was affable. The young millionaire seemed highly pleased by Lamont Cranston’s arrival.
“We thought you were Roger Parchell,” remarked Royce. “He is due here tonight.”
“Already?” questioned The Shadow, with a trace of surprise: “I thought Roger Parchell was in San Francisco yesterday.”
“He was,” declared Wingate. “I told you that I had wired him there and received a reply that he was coming East at once. This afternoon, Roger called me by long distance from Cincinnati. He had taken a plane from California and had traveled that far east. He is coming in to New York on another fast ship.”
“Excellent,” remarked The Shadow. “I shall be pleased to meet Roger Parchell. Perhaps he will know something about his uncle’s scarab collection.”
Wingate was about to make a caustic remark when the door opened. It was Braddock again; this time to announce that Roger Parchell had arrived. A few moments later, the heir himself entered.
ROGER PARCHELL was a man in his early thirties. Broad-shouldered, with a tanned, square-jawed face, he possessed a ruggedness that smacked of the West. His manner, however, was that of a New Yorker. He shook hands with Wingate; then with the others as the lawyer introduced him.
“Sorry to hear about my uncle’s death,” stated Roger. “He and I were quite remote. Very little in common between us. Except for our occasional correspondence, he was no more than a name to me. But” — the young man paused in a sober manner — “he was my only living relative on my father’s side of the family. That always meant something to me, even if it did not to Uncle Hildrew.”