Watching men saw Roger Parchell slump completely, his dead face pressed against the silvered mirror.
A swish. The witnesses turned to see The Shadow wheeling toward the gallery. His cloaked form swung past the corner of the entry. The Shadow was heading toward the north wing.
A strange laugh came in parting. Rising to a weird crescendo, it quivered, then burst into shuddering reverberations. Echoes answered from the length of the gallery.
Eerie, ghoulish tongues had responded to The Shadow’s mockery. Walls seemed loath to lose that shivering strain. Long-lingering, the echoes finally died; only the muffled sound of rainfall disturbed the heavy hush that followed.
Yet standing men, delivered men, were motionless. They could fancy that they still heard ghostly laughter from afar. The memory of those parting echoes was difficult to lose.
They had heard the triumph laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SHADOW REVIEWS
“IT’S easy enough to figure it, now that it’s all finished. But it had me guessing.”
It was Joe Cardona who made this admission. The ace detective was standing in Selwood Royce’s living room. He had arrived there in response to a telephone call; and he had brought Doctor Deseurre along, after hearing that Homer Hothan had confessed to the murder of Hildrew Parchell.
Upon Royce’s gun cabinet rested a metal coffer. Its top was open. Compartments showed an assortment of wealth. Stacks of currency; piles of gold coin; an array of glittering jewels. Clyde, Royce and Wingate had found the treasure chest set in the floor of the secret chamber behind the Moorish picture.
This was the wealth that had been with the skull. Wingate was holding a document that they had found in with the treasure. The paper was inscribed in old Hildrew Parchell’s scrawl. It told how the wealth should be divided.
Sums for Channing Tobold and Professor Morth, old friends of Hildrew Parchell. Another amount, smaller, to Selwood Royce, whose father had been the miser’s friend and keeper of the treasure. An amount for Weldon Wingate and Doctor Deseurre; also a provision, larger than any other, for Tristram, the faithful servant. The rest — the bulk of this wealth — was to go to charities named in the list. Roger Parchell was not mentioned.
“YOUNG Roger was a fox,” declared Joe Cardona. “He knew that he didn’t rate too high with his uncle.
Those letters in the correspondence file are proof of it. Homer Hothan was smart, too. He had access to the old man’s papers. He knew, while still working as secretary, that there must be plenty more than the fifty thousand that Hildrew Parchell intended to leave to his nephew.”
“Do you think,” inquired Wingate, “that Roger deliberately sent Hothan to get the job with his uncle?”
“I doubt it,” replied Cardona. “Either Roger made a trip East, to look over the lay, and bribed Hothan; or Hothan may have opened correspondence with Roger himself. Anyway, they got together; and old Hildrew Parchell was on the spot.
“The old man must have known Roger was a bad egg. I’ve a hunch we’ll find out a few things about him when we look up his Frisco record. Anyway, Hildrew Parchell found out that Hothan was a bad egg, too.”
“And fired him,” put in Clyde Burke.
“Yeah,” agreed Cardona. “And this” — he reached to a table and picked up the half-burned message; it had been found in Hothan’s pocket — “this is what started that fire at the old house. Hildrew Parchell must have written this to hand it to you, Royce, with Wingate and Doctor Deseurre present. It’s a cinch the old man tried to burn it when Hothan blew in. Then Hothan killed him. It was murder, after all, doctor.”
Cardona turned to Deseurre as he spoke. The physician smiled dryly.
“Murder, yes,” he agreed. “But murder of a deceptive sort. It was the violence of the struggle that brought on Hildrew Parchell’s death. His heart could not stand the strain.”
“A break for Hothan,” decided Cardona. “He would have had to kill the old man, anyway. Well, Hothan got away with this” — he gestured with the half-burned document — “and he and Roger must have had a heavy confab about it.”
“But Roger was in San Francisco,” put in Wingate. “He answered my telegram and fled East.”
“A stall,” retorted Cardona. “An old one of the simplest kind. Roger knew that his uncle was going to pass out soon. He must have come East to meet up with Hothan a good while before the real work started.
“That’s why he closed his office. He knew what kind of a wire he was due to get when his uncle kicked in. He had an answer ready for it; and he had some friend fixed to receive your telegram when it came in. Also to send the answer.”
“But he called me later from Cincinnati—”
“Because he beat it there after he bumped Tobold. Made a sleeper jump that night and phoned you the next day, saying he’d come East by air. That helped the telegram bluff.”
“I believe you’re right—”
“I am right; and I can tell you more… now that the works has busted wide. Roger and Hothan got together. They had half a note; and the worst part of it was this. It didn’t tell just who had the swag.”
CARDONA pointed to the charred edge of the half-burned paper. He nicked the ninth line; then the tenth; finally the eleventh. Three in a row.
“Here’s where they were out of luck,” chuckled Joe. “The other lines could be doped out; but these three couldn’t. First off, a name was missing. In the ninth line; in the tenth, too. Then there was an important word gone in the eleventh.
“Who was the old friend that had the treasure? Channing Tobold? Tyson Morth? Or Thatcher Royce, already dead? Any one of those names might have been there. What was it they were to ask to see?
“Their first guess was jewelry; because Hothan knew Tobold had some that belonged to old Hildrew Parchell. So they hit the hockshop and they spotted the skull ring before they asked for it. They thought they had what they wanted; but they were wrong. They got a bunch of junk jewelry.
“Roger Parchell must have hired Flick Sherrad in Frisco. Flick was on the lam and probably out there. It would have been a cinch to sign up a bird like Flick and ship him East to have a mob ready. Frisco’s a good spot for making contact like that. Anyway, Flick was on hand to help at Tobold’s. After the jewelry turned out to be junk, Roger had Flick unload it with Koko Gluss, to make it look like a bunch of small-fry had pulled the job.”
“I gave him the idea,” mused Wingate. “Inadvertently, when I was talking about the robbery at Tobold’s. I mentioned that we thought apprentices had done the work; and that if the jewelry appeared with some fence, we would have proof of it.”
“Well, he took it up,” asserted Cardona. “And the next bet was Morth’s. When Hothan went there, he saw that lot of skulls. There was something he didn’t have to ask to see. Skulls! Boy — I’ll bet he thought he was in luck!
“He thought he knew which skull was right. He hadn’t asked to see them; they were looking at him. And he recognized one that looked swell. It was different from the lot. The mechanical skull on the cabinet.”
“The mesaticephalic, mesognathous skull,” began Selwood Royce. “The one with the ensnaring mandible—”
Royce was chuckling. Cardona grinned.
“The tin skull with the trick jaw,” interrupted the detective. “Anyway, Hothan shoved his fist in it. We know the rest. Hothan got away; Flick was still loose; and Roger Parchell knew he had picked another bum bet.
“All that he had left was this place here. Thatcher Royce might have been the ‘old friend’ mentioned in the document. But what was to be asked for? Where was the skull? Roger decided to find out.”
“By having his crowd look through the north wing!” exclaimed Royce. “Roger told Hothan to come out here, with the rest of them. I know how Hothan got into the house. Through that veranda door. Roger must have unbolted it.”