“We must be leaving, Cranston,” he remarked to his friend. “Good afternoon, gentlemen” — Barth had turned to Warlock and Darring. “I hope that you will find some solution to the affairs of Centralized Power Corporation.”
“Suppose I go along with you,” suggested Darring. “I am due at my hotel. Mr. Warlock can study the reports without my assistance.”
TWENTY minutes later, Marryat Darring alighted from Lamont Cranston’s limousine at the entrance of a hotel near Times Square. The car continued on to the Cobalt Club. There, Commissioner Barth stepped forth. The limousine pulled away. Lamont Cranston, presumably, was going to his New Jersey home.
An order through the speaking tube changed that plan. Stanley veered left. He traveled east; then north.
He parked on a secluded street not far from the deserted home of Professor Melrose Lessep. The rear door of the car opened. A blackened shape glided into darkness.
Garbed in hat and cloak, produced from a bag in the limousine, Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow. His course was untraceable. The next manifestation of The Shadow’s presence came when the rear door of Lessep’s laboratory opened under the action of a probing, picklike instrument.
A tiny flashlight glimmered. The motor with the missing part was absent. Also the glass cabinet. These had been removed for tests. But the second motor — the one that had played no part in the devisualization of Miles Crofton — was still standing by the wall. The experts had left it here.
The flashlight glimmered on a cord with special, long-pronged plugs that The Shadow produced from beneath his cloak. Then the light went out. With a soft laugh, The Shadow approached the motor. The light glimmered while he made a wall connection. Then the flashlight went out to stay.
LATER, Stanley, drowsing behind the wheel of the limousine, heard the voice of Lamont Cranston through the speaking tube. His master had returned to the car. The limousine pulled out and rolled to a new destination. Again, The Shadow emerged.
Soon afterward, a light glimmered in The Shadow’s sanctum. Gloved hands reached for the earphones.
New orders went across the wire to Burbank. After that, blackness; then the departing laugh of The Shadow.
The quest for Miles Crofton was still on. To it The Shadow had added another task for his searching agents. There was another to be sought within the underworld. “Crazy” Lagran, the missing stool pigeon.
CHAPTER IX. DEATH DELIVERED
CULBERLY COURT was considered an exclusive residential district of Manhattan. There, a row of old-fashioned houses fronted on a quiet street. Quaint structures, like homes in a small town, they looked out of place, even in this low-built portion of the metropolis. That was why these houses commanded high prices. They were different.
At a distance, the Culberly Court houses looked alike. Close at hand, they differed. Each house had an areaway on both sides. Bay-windows, odd-shaped gables, little roofs above side porches; these were the individualities that gave distinction.
It was easy to pick out one particular house after having seen it before. Nevertheless, at night, that process required a careful inspection as one went by the row of residences. Hence people who came here by automobile often moved along very slowly, house to house.
On the night following The Shadow’s secret trip to Lessep’s abandoned laboratory, a car appeared at the near corner of Culberly Court and began to perform the slow-motion routine. The chauffeur was trying to pick out a certain house. He knew that he could find it, because the house just beyond it was closed and boarded up.
Furthermore, the house that the chauffeur wanted had a green-glass transom just above the doorway. If the hall light happened to be on, the driver knew that he could spot the house very easily. The house that the chauffeur wanted was the home of Nathaniel Hildon.
While the car — a limousine — moved at its snail’s pace, two impatient men were talking in the back seat.
The glare of a street lamp showed their faces. Neither man was more than forty years old; both were keen-faced.
One, sallow and with bristling mustache, was Peters Amboy. The other, square-jawed and with bulldog countenance, was Wallace Norgan. They were talking in low voices and their tones were troubled. They did not want the chauffeur to hear their words. The partly closed glass partition aided their purpose.
“You called Hildon at eight?” Amboy was asking. “Are you sure, Norgan, that it was not later?”
“Exactly eight o’clock,” replied Norgan. “Then again at nine. There was no answer.”
“Yet he said that he intended to stay at home. He said that when we lunched with him.”
“Yes. That is why I decided to come in from Long Island. After I reached town, I called your apartment, Amboy. I was glad to hear your voice.”
“I don’t blame you, Norgan. By the way, you brought your note?”
“Yes. That’s why I asked you to have yours with you. We can not tell when the—”
The car had stopped. The chauffeur had alighted. As the man opened the door, a clock began to strike the hour of eleven. Norgan looked anxiously at Amboy. His friend whispered something. Norgan nodded.
“You had better come in with us, Jedrey,” said Norgan, to the chauffeur. “I do not know how long we will be here.”
“Very well, sir.”
The chauffeur opened an iron gate and ascended steps to ring the bell. Light was shining through the green transom. Jedrey wondered, however, why this visit was so late. He had brought Mr. Norgan here often; but never so late as eleven o’clock.
Amboy and Norgan had joined the chauffeur and Jedrey had repeated his ring at the doorbell before there was any sign of an answer. Then locks turned; a woman’s face peered past the edge of the door.
Suspicious eyes recognized the visitors; the door opened to show a fat woman who looked like a servant.
Both Amboy and Norgan recognized Katy, the cook of the Hildon household. The woman was prompt with an apology for her delay in answering the door.
“SURE, it’s you, Mr. Amboy,” she declared. “And Mr. Norgan. I couldn’t think who might be here at this late hour. With the butler away for the night, and me not thinking who might want to see Mr. Hildon.”
“Mr. Hildon is at home?” quizzed Norgan, promptly.
“Indeed, yes,” returned Katy. “Ever since he ate the big dinner that I cooked for him, he has been upstairs reading in his own room. It’s a wonder he didn’t hear the doorbell before I did, sir. The light was shining under his door.”
“He is awake then?” queried Amboy.
“I’m thinking he is asleep, sir,” answered Katy. “But I’ll go up to rap and find if he will wake up.”
The woman waddled toward the stairs. Amboy and Norgan exchanged anxious looks. They drew in closer to the stairway, where Amboy made a remark:
“The telephone is located in Hildon’s room—”
“Yes” — Norgan’s tone was anxious — “but even if it didn’t wake him, the woman should have heard the call from the third floor.”
“Maybe her door was closed—”
“Wait here, Jedrey.” Norgan turned nervously toward the chauffeur. “After we see Mr. Hildon, we will tell you how soon we intend to leave.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Norgan!” The call came from the top of the stairs. It was Katy, the cook. “Mr. Amboy!”
“Yes?” responded Amboy.
“The light is on, sir,” called Katy, “under Mr. Hildon’s door. But answer he does not. I’ve been pounding—”
Amboy started toward the stairs. Halfway up, he looked back. Norgan followed; then motioned to Jedrey to come along. The three men reached a door at the side of the house. They could see the light beneath. Amboy pounded. There was no response.